By Greg Ambrosius

On Wednesday, Oct. 1, we filed our response brief to Kewaunee County Judge Jeffrey Wisnicky, the final brief in this three-year battle over the Faulks Bros. sand mine permit for the Iola Car Show grounds.

Our brief starts out this way:

“The Waupaca County Board of Adjustment (the “Board”) granted the conditional use permit (“CUP”) application of Faulks Bros. Construction, Inc. (“Faulks”) for a nonmetallic mine in an area zoned for Farmland Preservation, despite the fact that the mine did not and could not comply with several standards required by ordinance and by statute. Plaintiffs Laura and Ronald Scott, Greg and Chris Ambrosius, and Ken and Joanne Mentzel (“Plaintiffs”) explained these defects in their opening brief. (Doc. 139.) 

“In their briefs in response, the Board and Faulks provide conflicting arguments that manage to get the law wrong in different ways. The Board relies on case law that was superseded by 2017 Wis. Act 67 to claim it could rely on promises and speculation of the applicant to find applicable standards necessary to obtain a CUP were satisfied, despite the fact that Faulks never met its burden to demonstrate that it could meet all of the standards. By contrast, Faulks relies on an extreme view of Act 67 that is unsupported by statute or any court decision to claim it need not meet standards at all, as long as it agrees to satisfy conditions proposed for a CUP. Along the way, both the Board and Faulks misinterpret the law on comprehensive planning and Farmland Preservation. The Court should reject the Defendants’ erroneous interpretations of the law and the arguments that flow from them. 

“Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court grant their certiorari petition and reverse the Board’s decision to approve the conditional use permit.”

You can read the entire brief here:

Waupaca County and Faulks Bros. sent separate briefs to Judge Wisnicky on Sept. 1. We sent our initial brief to the judge on July 1.

Judge Wisnicky now has all the testimony he needs in front of him. There is nothing else that needs to be done. He will likely take a few weeks before rendering his decision. Stay tuned here for that all important decision.