New Glarus Village Board
Incumbent Greg Thoemke and newcomer Petra Smith are the only candidates for three seats on the New Glarus village board.
Name: Greg Thoemke
Position sought: Village of New Glarus trustee
Age: 47
City/town of residence: Village of New Glarus
Family: daughter Madeline, 9
Education: University of Wisconsin, Economics, 1989
Occupation: Financial advisor
Previous elected positions held: Trustee, Village of New Glarus
What are the top issues facing this district/board and how would you work to resolve them?
The village of New Glarus faces an ongoing budgetary "crunch," which has become very apparent (and uncomfortable) over the past two years. Overcoming this challenge should focus on growing the pie, not haggling over how we'll divvy up the resources currently at our disposal.
We need to grow our "tax base" (the overall pool of real property subject to property tax). I believe our best option for doing so is to create opportunities for business growth in the village, both by redeveloping current under-utilized/vacant properties in the village and by securing property for a new business park. The growth we seek needs to be of appropriate scale for our community, well-planned and in keeping with the Swiss heritage of New Glarus.
As a village trustee and a member of New Glarus' Community Development Authority ("CDA"), I will continue to seek out and promote responsible business growth opportunities for our community, to compliment the numerous recent successes of our local businesses. The CDA has recently put new tools in place to help both new and existing businesses grow and thrive in New Glarus, and I will continue working both to promote existing tools and to add more resources to our toolbox. I believe a future is possible for New Glarus in which we catch up on deferred maintenance projects (such as our streets), improve our public infrastructure and do so without heaping an additional property tax burden on New Glarus residents and businesses.
What are other key issues facing the district/board, and how would you work to resolve them?
Of course, the hot topic in New Glarus over the past few years has been the future of a new library facility. The Library Board has put a proposal on the table that I believe is wrong for New Glarus - the wrong size, the wrong location and at the wrong cost.
Even though I believe New Glarus would benefit from a new and improved library facility, that doesn't mean we can throw caution to the wind. Borrowing money in the name of our residents without their permission and using it to build the proposed massive facility - complete with underground parking and another under-utilized community room - is not a solution. In fact, I believe that such a course of action has the real potential to be the beginning of a brand new set of problems. I am particularly alarmed by the fact that no viable plan has been presented to the village board to afford the ongoing operation of the proposed facility. What good is a huge, beautiful new building, if we can't afford to keep its doors open?
I believe the time is right to ask a larger question. Rather than focusing solely on the future of the library, we should begin exploring the facility needs of all village services: library, administration, police department, etc. Before we break ground on any new facility, I call for the development of a comprehensive plan that will result in the development of adequate facilities for all village services. We have one chance to get this right and, if we do, I believe we can meet our overall facility needs for the next quarter century or more, and do so for little or no more expense than that currently proposed for a new library.
Even though I firmly support this comprehensive approach, I also understand that we have referendum questions on the spring ballot, which focus on the single issue of the library facility. If it is the will of the majority of New Glarus voters that we move forward with borrowed money to build a new library, and if the Library Board can develop a realistic operating budget for that facility which does not call for additional Village funding (which we cannot currently afford), I will support moving forward on the construction of a new library.
Position sought: Village of New Glarus trustee
Age: 47
City/town of residence: Village of New Glarus
Family: daughter Madeline, 9
Education: University of Wisconsin, Economics, 1989
Occupation: Financial advisor
Previous elected positions held: Trustee, Village of New Glarus
What are the top issues facing this district/board and how would you work to resolve them?
The village of New Glarus faces an ongoing budgetary "crunch," which has become very apparent (and uncomfortable) over the past two years. Overcoming this challenge should focus on growing the pie, not haggling over how we'll divvy up the resources currently at our disposal.
We need to grow our "tax base" (the overall pool of real property subject to property tax). I believe our best option for doing so is to create opportunities for business growth in the village, both by redeveloping current under-utilized/vacant properties in the village and by securing property for a new business park. The growth we seek needs to be of appropriate scale for our community, well-planned and in keeping with the Swiss heritage of New Glarus.
As a village trustee and a member of New Glarus' Community Development Authority ("CDA"), I will continue to seek out and promote responsible business growth opportunities for our community, to compliment the numerous recent successes of our local businesses. The CDA has recently put new tools in place to help both new and existing businesses grow and thrive in New Glarus, and I will continue working both to promote existing tools and to add more resources to our toolbox. I believe a future is possible for New Glarus in which we catch up on deferred maintenance projects (such as our streets), improve our public infrastructure and do so without heaping an additional property tax burden on New Glarus residents and businesses.
What are other key issues facing the district/board, and how would you work to resolve them?
Of course, the hot topic in New Glarus over the past few years has been the future of a new library facility. The Library Board has put a proposal on the table that I believe is wrong for New Glarus - the wrong size, the wrong location and at the wrong cost.
Even though I believe New Glarus would benefit from a new and improved library facility, that doesn't mean we can throw caution to the wind. Borrowing money in the name of our residents without their permission and using it to build the proposed massive facility - complete with underground parking and another under-utilized community room - is not a solution. In fact, I believe that such a course of action has the real potential to be the beginning of a brand new set of problems. I am particularly alarmed by the fact that no viable plan has been presented to the village board to afford the ongoing operation of the proposed facility. What good is a huge, beautiful new building, if we can't afford to keep its doors open?
I believe the time is right to ask a larger question. Rather than focusing solely on the future of the library, we should begin exploring the facility needs of all village services: library, administration, police department, etc. Before we break ground on any new facility, I call for the development of a comprehensive plan that will result in the development of adequate facilities for all village services. We have one chance to get this right and, if we do, I believe we can meet our overall facility needs for the next quarter century or more, and do so for little or no more expense than that currently proposed for a new library.
Even though I firmly support this comprehensive approach, I also understand that we have referendum questions on the spring ballot, which focus on the single issue of the library facility. If it is the will of the majority of New Glarus voters that we move forward with borrowed money to build a new library, and if the Library Board can develop a realistic operating budget for that facility which does not call for additional Village funding (which we cannot currently afford), I will support moving forward on the construction of a new library.