Paddock Lake joins FEMA flood insurance program

 

By Gail Peckler-Dziki~Correspondent

Paddock Lake gets with the program, the FEMA flood insurance program that is.

The planning commission voted to enroll in the National Flood Plain Insurance Program, to adopt the Federal

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood rate insurance maps and adopted the village flood plain ordinance chapter 41.

The ordinance will regulate development and redevelopment in village areas prone to flooding. All were voted on at the Aug, 6 planning commission/ design review meeting.

Members present were Marlene Goodson, Gil Lauritsen, Cheryl Basinger, John Sauter, Jake Hansen, Robert Leick and Barbara Fischer-Galley.

These three votes ended the village dubious reputation of being the only municipality in Kenosha, Walworth and Racine counties not enrolled in the program.

The public was able to review the maps and talk to village engineer John Tierney at 6 p.m., half an hour prior to the meeting. The meeting was scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m., but village president, also chairman of the planning commission Marlene Godson

entertained questions from residents from 6:30 to 7 p.m.

Plan commission member Barbara Fischer-Galley abstained from all votes regarding the issue, because her home is in an affected area. Goodson asked Fischer-Galley to share her frustrations of living in an area that floods without a FEMA map in place.

“We moved to Paddock Lake in 2006 and were told our home was not in the floodplain. In 2007, there was a flood that left six feet of water in our basement,” she explained.

“We endured two more floods and had to replace our water heater three times in two years. Without flood insurance, we bore that cost ourselves,” she said.

Fischer-Galley said they have done a lot of work to their home, including landscaping to help reduce the possibility of future floods. “Our home should have been labeled as being in the floodplain, but that wasn’t done in Paddock Lake at the time.”

“We love our home and like living in the village, but with increasing government restrictions on who can request grants and loans for homes, we would have had to stay forever,” she said.

Recently the village received a letter from an area bank that explained banks using Fannie Mae could no longer loan money to homes in municipalities that were not part of the FEMA program.

Village administrator also told the commission and the ten residents who attended the meeting that without participation in the program, the village would no longer be eligible for certain disaster grant programs.

“Two year ago when we had that huge blizzard,” Popanda said, “we applied for a grant to help pay for snow removal. We received a grant that paid for 50 percent of our cost. If we have another blizzard this winter and are not enrolled in the program, we would not be eligible for such a grant.”


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