Fremont board up for re-election in 2017
By Angie Landsverk
Fremont’s village president and three of its trustees will be up for re-election next spring.
Candidates for the April 4 election will be nominated next month during the village’s caucus.
The caucus will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, at the village hall.
It will precede the village’s regular monthly board meeting.
Up for re-election in 2017 will be Village President Dan Sambs and trustees Rick Coenen, John Kohl III and Bobbi Marks.
Sambs has served the village for almost 32 years, including 18 years as a village trustee and 13 years as the village president.
Coenen is serving his fourth term on the village board.
Kohl has been a village trustee for almost 20 years, and Marks is serving her third term on the board.
Sambs announced the date of the village caucus during the board’s Dec. 13 meeting.
During that meeting, Marks told the board two area municipalities approved subsidies for Neuschafer Community Library.
She approached the towns of Caledonia and Fremont to seek support for the library’s annual budget.
The town of Caledonia included $1,500 in its 2017 budget for the library, and the town of Fremont budgeted $5,000 for the library, she said.
Marks said this will alleviate some of the village’s burden.
In other business, the board extended the contract of Police Chief Gene Goode through December 2022.
The terms of the contract will remain the same.
If Goode retires from his full-time position with the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office prior to then, the village will have to discuss how to work out his pension, Sambs said.
The board also voted to allow any of this year’s unused police capital outlay budget to be carried over into 2017 for squad camera and homicide trial expenses.
Last week’s board meeting included an update from Coenen about the completed boat ramp project.
In 2015, the village applied for and received approval for a $42,500 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to go toward the estimated cost of $85,000 for the project.
Coenen completed the necessary paperwork and submitted it to the DNR. The village expects to receive the grant funds early next year.
Webfooters is committed to paying a total of $15,000 toward the project’s cost.
Boat ramp fees will cover the remaining part of it.
Coenen also told the board grants are available through Waupaca County’s road improvement program.
He said applications, due by June, would be for street projects in 2018.
Grants are not guaranteed, Coenen said.
“I think it’s worth going through all the paperwork,” he said. “Let’s make it a big project.”