By Gail Peckler-Dziki~Correspondent
The Silver Lake Village Board tabled a direct legislation petition at the Feb. 5 regular village board meeting. The petition contains a resolution that seeks to forbid the board from contracting with Salem for fire protection and EMS service.
If the board adopts the resolution, it would lose the ability to contract with Salem indefinitely. If the board does not adopt the resolution, it goes to referendum. If that referendum passes, then the board could not contract with Salem for two years.
Silver Lake residents Walter Ellis and Colleen Dykstra filed the petition, which stipulates that the signers request the proposed resolution, without alteration, either be adopted by the Village Board or be referred to a vote of the electors.
The resolution states, “Be it resolved the Silver Lake Village Board will not enter into any agreement with the town of Salem for any sharing of fire department or rescue services, other than the usual MABAS (mutual aid) agreement.”
Trustee Pat Dunn raised questions about the petition, stating that he had not seen the petition until that night at the meeting. “That petition wasn’t even in our packets,” he said.
Statue statues 9.20 (3) reads, “When the original or amended petition is found to be sufficient and the original or amended ordinance or resolution is in proper form, the clerk shall so state on the attached certificate and forward it to the common council or village board immediately.”
Dunn spoke with some residents who had questions about the petition signatures. “I think that those petitions contain fraudulent signatures,” he said.
Clerk Terry Faber said that she and the other office workers reviewed the signatures and that several were dropped. There were 220 signatures on the petition and only 181 were needed to trigger the resolution.
“The board needs time to review the signatures on this petition. None of us have seen this until tonight in the meeting. We haven’t even read the resolution. You are asking us to vote on something without letting us look at it.”
After Dunn made the motion to table and it was seconded, the motion stayed on the floor for a while before Gerber called for the vote. During that time, Faber shouted at Dunn, saying, “Are you calling me a liar?”
Dykstra shouted from the back of the meeting room, “Are you calling me a liar?’
She went on to shout how the board wasn’t listening to the people and other comments, never having asked to be recognized. Gerber did not restore order in the meeting. Dunn finally had to call for the question to get a vote.
The board, in a four to one vote, tabled it. Last Feb. the ethics commission scolded Gerber for voting on issues regarding the Silver Lake Rescue Squad since her son is part of that private organization. While Gerber did not vote on the tabling issue last night, she did solicit a vote from newly appointed board member Sabrina Moran who is a member of the SLRS.
After trustees Dunn, Soti Wilber, Paul Snellen and Mike Decker voted to table, Gerber asked Moran what she thought. Moran replied, “I don’t think it needs to be tabled.” Trustee Cyndy Schwebke was absent.
Gerber said she needed more than an opinion and Moran voted against tabling.
Gerber was pushing for a vote either up or down, claiming that the vote had to be made that night in order to get the item on the April 1 ballot. The actual deadline for the April ballot was January 22, 70 days prior to the election. The clerk didn’t receive the first installment of this petition until Jan. 24, two days after the deadline.
The Silver Lake and Salem boards discussed the proposed contract on Jan. 20. Dunn was ready to make a motion to accept, but the board decided to put the issue on the Feb. 5 agenda.
When Dunn left that January meeting, he discovered that someone had keyed his car. At the next Silver Lake board meeting held Jan. 22, Gerber commented that she is sorry the incident with Dunn’s truck took place and is ashamed that something like this could happen, according to the minutes.
Budgetary issues
In 2013, the board budgeted $109,000 for the Silver Lake fire department. That was knocked down this year to $54,000. Dunn said in a later telephone interview that is not enough to maintain a viable fire department.
“Some have mentioned that we could share with Randall or Wheatland,” he said. “Neither are interested and are in the same boat we are with money and volunteers and both would have to travel through Salem to reach Silver Lake.”
Late last year the board voted to purchase a building for the Silver Lake branch of the Community Library.
“We were given assurances by Mrs. Gerber that all the other communities were on board and would participate in the purchase,” he said in the interview. “Now we find out that there was nothing in writing and we approved the purchase on false information.”
Currently, only Salem has approval to participate in the purchase, leaving Silver Lake with $200,000 of the $250,000 loan unless other municipalities get on board.
And what Wilber wants to know is, how will Silver Lake pay for that loan, maintain a viable fire department, including keeping the equipment up to date and pay $27,000 a year to a private EMS organization without going bankrupt?