A longtime La Crosse County snowplow driver and West Salem resident urged the West Salem Village Board to spend a little time communicating, instead of spending additional funds, to resolve the snow removal issue along Highway 16 sidewalks.

Tom Niemeier, who’s been plowing La Crosse County roads for 37 years, addressed the board at its regular meeting last week. He suggested the board reconsider possible action on purchasing additional snow-removal equipment.

“Money is tight,” Niemeier said. “Why are we going to spend another $5,000?”

Words were exchanged and tempers flared during the December blizzard when village public works employees put snow from the Highway 16 sidewalk back onto the roadway.

Niemeier did not acknowledge whether he was the plow truck driver who had heated words with the village employee.

“Snow was put where it shouldn’t have been,” Niemeier said. “And the county too, I’m sure, got complaints for doing things that weren’t quite right.”

He did say that his supervisor contacted West Salem Public Works Director Scott Halbrucker with an offer to occasionally help clear off sidewalks off.

The problem, as Halbrucker has previously stated, is that the village doesn’t have the necessary equipment to clear the sidewalks during snowfalls of three inches or more. The problem is compounded when the county pushes snow from the highway back up onto the sidewalks.

Niemeier said he has been personally involved in cleaning off the sidewalks on Highway 16 at least five times over the years, implying that village-county cooperation on the matter has occurred in the past. Halbrucker verified that the county did help clear the sidewalks on Highway 16 during the next snowfall.

When the county plows Highway 16, Halbrucker said, its trucks push ice and snow back up onto the sidewalks — which are also designated bicycle and pedestrian trail route — and the combination of salt, ice and encrusted snow is too much for the village’s equipment to handle.

Niemeier said the county does a number of sidewalks in the city of La Crosse and state of Wisconsin clears enough of sidewalks along state highways in the areas when complaints — and snow — pile up.

“As a taxpayer, a little bit of communication, which we all are supposed to be doing, would save us some money,” Niemeier said.

However, communication and cooperation aren’t always the same.

Village Administrator Teresa Schnitzler told the board she had spoken with La Crosse County Highway Commissioner Dennis Osgood, who told her that the county “has no budget” for clearing municipal sidewalks.

The county would only agree to help clear the sidewalk under extraordinary circumstances, Schnitzler said.

In the meantime, the village is wrestling with whether to purchase a $5,100 snow throwing attachment to expedite the process. Village workers currently use a skid steer for the task, which Halbrucker said can take one employee an entire day to complete and can cause damage.

The village street committee voted on Dec. 23 to recommend purchasing the equipment.

Board members sought a firmer commitment from the county on when it would help and agreed to take the matter up at its next meeting, instructing Schnitzler to call the county for further assurances.

Fire fee

The board finalized a move made prior to the 2010 budgeting process to move all fire protection fees from the general fund onto taxpayer utility bills by 2011.

In 2009, the village moved $112,000 for fire protection out of the general fund. The total amount of fire protection fees is $172,000, which will be directly billed quarterly beginning in 2011.

The resolution allowing the switch, states that $62,000 of the total fire protection costs will remain on the tax roll for 2010.

“I’m going to vote against it because it’s not a fair way to do it,” Trustee J. Terry Hanson said. “We’re not moving $172,000 off of the levy. We’re just charging people out of their pocket which is an unfair way to charge them.”

Hanson cast the lone dissenting vote.

In the past, officials have said placing fire protection onto utility bills forces previously exempt nonprofits such as schools and churches to pay a share of the costs.

Hanson said West Salem has never handled fire protection that way before.

“But the fact that we are charging entities that don’t pay into our general fund levy (offsets the difference),” Schnitzler said.

“That doesn’t make up for the mismatch though,” Hanson said.

The change in fire protection fee billing also requires approval by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, which held a public hearing on the issue Wednesday morning (after the Coulee News deadline).