Advertisement West Salem Village President Dennis Manthei said everything is under control because infrastructure is already in place in the areas seeing population growth.
With a slow but steady pace, West Salem grew 1 percent between 2007 and 2008 and 6 percent since 2000.
“The development plans we have include Neshonoc Lake, and the infrastructure is in place,” Manthei said. Infrastructure is in place at the north end of Wagon Drive as well as near I-90 where twindo construction is occurring. Infrastructure is in place for the industrial park and additional business will be handled by existing infrastructure and financing from the tax increment financing in place.
Population growth has created the need for a new water tower currently under construction. But it isn’t a burden for the village, according to Manthei. “All that is financed through a loan approved through the state. As the year progresses we’ll see that tower completed,” Manthei said. “That funding is squared away through the Safe Drinking Water Act and increases in water utility rates.”
Manthei didn’t see any concerns with village administration needs. “We should be able to handle it,” he said. “I don’t see anything extraordinary.”
In the village of Holmen, which saw a 5 percent increase in population between 2007 and 2008 and a 37 percent increase since 2000, it also means more government administration.
“We’re doing a facility study because of the growth,” Village President Nancy Proctor said. “We need to look at space. Some departments are blowing their walls out while other departments are under-utilized.”
On the other hand, the population growth also provides some revenue growth. “It’s to our advantage,” Proctor said. “We have a little more money coming in than other municipalities.”
The population in the town of Holland is growing steadily, with a 2 percent increase between 2007 and 2008 and a 10 percent increase from 2000. George Hammes, the town chairman, said the town is just coping. “We’re trying to keep up with all the mandates the state keeps giving us and with the amount of property taxes we’re allowed to assess. We try to stay in the guidelines and do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
The city of Onalaska is on pace to grow faster than expected. Mayor Mike Giese is comfortable with a gradual 10 percent growth rate over 10 years, but the city’s population grew 2 percent between 2007 and 2008 and 13 percent since 2000. While city planners set their development sights on the waterfront area, that development focuses on tourism and business growth. With population growth, infrastructure costs come into focus, especially with things like unfunded mandates that might cause the city to implement a new stormwater utility.
“We’re looking at the population growth,” Giese said. “Our assessed values have gone up by more. We’re best served by reasonable growth that doesn’t peak and valley so we can keep things efficient in managing that growth so there is not an unusual expense in one year and not another.”
Giese said state budget reductions mean the city has to reduce general expenditures from the general fund by 2 percent in the 2010 budget year.
“That’ll be a challenge because we have things going up like tipping fees,” Giese said. “We’re anticipating increases in electric and other utilities. And revenue from interest income is down and maybe other sources of revenues such as building permits will be down for the year.”
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colspan="3" align="center" bgcolor="#000000">2008 population estimates
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align="center" bgcolor="#999999">July 2008
align="center" bgcolor="#999999">July 2007
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