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Salem to ask residents their opinion on incorporation

BY DENEEN SMITH

dsmith@kenoshanews.com

The Salem Town Board hopes to get direction from residents on the future status of the community.

The board will hold an advisory referendum in September asking whether resdents would like the board to explore incorporating the community into a village. Board members held a special meeting Monday morning to discuss wording of the referendum.

“We’re not hear to discuss whether we are in favor of this or not,” Supervisor Diann Tesar said of the idea of incorporating the town. Instead, she said, the board is agreeing to move forward with the idea of gauging the opinion of residents.

If residents support the idea, Chairman Linda Valentine would like to return to the community with a second referedum in November seeking guidance on a timeline on the process.

Valentine does like the idea of incorporation.

She said incorporating the community would allow Salem to protect itself against annexation by neighboring villages, and would give it options on zoning and self-rule that are not open to towns.

“I would like to keep (Salem) as it is, and I think village status would allow us to do that,” Valentine said.

“It is long overdue,” she said. “We’re the third-largest town (in the state), we’re bigger than the two villages that have moved in on the town.”

At the same time, she acknowledged that the process of seeking incorporation is lengthy and potentially costly. She said she wants residents’ direction before proceeding.

Other supervisors, while supporting the idea of an advisory referendum appeared less certain that pursuing village status is the best option for Salem.

“If you look at the villages around us, their mill rates are much higher than ours,” Supervisor Patrick O’Connell said.

Supervisor Diann Tesar said she would not want to pursue incorporation unless they were able to incorporate the entire town of Salem, rather than just a portion of the town. The Wisconsin Department of Administration, which oversees the incorporation process, instructs communities to focus incorporation efforts on smaller, population-dense areas. “That’s why we didn’t pursue it years ago,” Tesar said. “We want it one (community). One or nothing, and that’s what held us back years ago.”

Town attorney Richard Scholze said the state is unlikely to approve incorporation of Salem’s more rural areas.

Bristol recently went through the incorporation process. The town received state approval for incorporation of a portion of the town last year. Once the village of Bristol was created, the remaining town held a referendum annexing the balance of the town to the village.