Granton Village Board addresses Dollar General rumors, discusses hazardous triangle intersection
For the past few months, residents in the village of Granton have heard rumors concerning the new Dollar General being constructed at the southeast end of the village. At its meeting on Sept. 20, the village board took a moment during its proceedings to address those rumors and let the public know that everything is going as planned with the Dollar General construction project.
Village Clerk Joye Eichten said there were two specific rumors she had been questioned about by residents in the past few weeks regarding the status of Dollar General, and she wanted to officially confirm to residents that neither was true. The first rumor was that Dollar General was not to be completed and had been sold to a different entity, while the other rumor stated the village and Dollar General had a disagreement about water and sewer hookups, and it would not be connected to the village.
“We just wanted to get it out there and say that these rumors are not true,” said Eichten. “There have been a whole bunch of rumors of Dollar General not opening, but they are not true. The store is still set to open on Oct. 25. There is a company that builds buildings for Dollar General, and when it is completed, they sell it back to Dollar General. That has already happened. There was another rumor about Dollar General being at war with the village over water and sewer, but that was never an issue. They were hooked up to the water and sewer system near the beginning of the project. There are no issues there.”
The board also held discussion on traffic at the intersection of Granton Road, Romadka Avenue and County Highway K/Main Street near the site of the new Dollar General. Village employees had recently added a “Speed Limit 25” sign on Granton Road for drivers heading east out of the village. The board wanted to add a sign facing the opposite direction coming into the village, along with a “Reduced Speed Ahead” sign, but would need permission from the Town of Grant to do so, as the township owns that side of the roadway.
Discussion about Granton Road transitioned into discussion about the nearby intersection and what the flow of traffic should be in the area. Eichten said she had contacted the county highway department to see if it would be possible for them to remove the stop sign where traffic from Granton Road and Romadka Avenue merged onto County Highway K/Main Street, since the county owns that particular stop sign. The department responded with a recommendation to keep the stop sign where it was and instead remove the stop sign at the corner of Granton Road and Romadka Avenue, with traffic coming from the east only stopping at the sign where traffi c merges with with Highway K/Main Street. Because removal of that stop sign could potentially cause traffic from Romadka Avenue to be blocked and pose a larger safety hazard to drivers going through the intersection, the board rejected the recommendation and decided to look for other ways to try to improve safety there. The board considered reaching out to the city of Neillsville to see if paint could be added to the road near the stop signs in the intersection for added visibility.
The board also discussed the division of maintenance on Romadka Avenue. For decades, an agreement between the Village of Granton and the Town of Grant divided maintenance of the road in quarter-mile chunks, rather than down the middle of the road, which is the norm. To clear up confusion for residents on who maintains which portion of the road, the village wanted to meet with the board for the Town of Grant to see if the agreement could be changed. No date was set for a meeting.
The board also listened to presentations from the Granton Park Committee and the Granton Library Board. Dana Klein, a representative of the committee, presented the park’s income and expenses for the past year, stating the park was able to break even this year and have $2,000 to start up next spring. She also stated the committee was putting together plans to start fundraising for larger projects in the park, such as the purchase of new playground equipment or repaving of the tennis and basketball courts.
In other action taken by the board at its Sept. 20 meeting, the board listened to a request to open the area near the wastewater treatment plant as a gun range. The board had previously voted against reopening the site due to safety concerns, but agreed to reach out to the village’s insurance agent to see what sort of liability protections were in place before making a final decision on the matter next month. The board also approved an application for the Clean Water Grant for $3,500.
