By Greg Ambrosius
This last week has seen a lot of interesting developments in our appeal of the Faulks Bros’ sand mine permit in the Township of Scandinavia.
On Tuesday, March 12, the lawyers for Waupaca County and the Planning and Zoning Committee filed a Motion to Dismiss our appeal. The motion went to Waupaca County Judge Troy Nielsen and an April 22 2:30 p.m. hearing was set up.
Then on Wednesday, Judge Nielsen was no longer on the case. As an employee of Waupaca County, it’s possible that this motion needed to be transferred outside of his jurisdiction.
And sure enough, on Friday the Motion to Dismiss was assigned to Outagamie County Judge Carrie Schneider. No hearing date has been assigned as of today (March 16).
The Stadler Sacks LLC lawyers for the Committee are claiming that the appeal should be dismissed at the Circuit Court level because the next step in this process should be an appeal to the Waupaca County Board of Adjustment (BOA). On Feb. 19, we filed an appeal to the Board of Adjustment and also an appeal in Circuit Court so that we were covered either way.
It’s interesting that the Motion to Dismiss says the next step should be to the Waupaca County Board of Adjustment, but on Feb. 22 Director Ryan Brown already talked to the board members about the appeal process. Brown spent 17 minutes talking about the BOA’s role in this appeal and how even if the board decides against their decision it would just go back to the Planning and Zoning Committee and be in “a loop.”
One board member even said it looks like they have “no teeth” in this matter because it likely would go to circuit court anyway. Scandinavia Town Chairman Gary Marx is on the Board of Adjustment and he said he needed to recuse himself from the discussion, but other board members said he could stay and they continued to talk about the appeal process.
It’s amazing to think that these board members weren’t influenced by this 17-minute discussion with Director Brown. If the Committee’s lawyers want this to go to the Board of Adjustment, then shouldn’t all of these board members recuse themselves due to this discussion with Brown? How can they not be compromised by his advice to them on Feb. 22? It’s amazing that he would even talk with the BOA members on this subject three days after getting the appeal handed to him from us.
Stay tuned for the next step in this process and when the Motion to Dismiss will be heard by Judge Schneider. It’s very likely she will hear the comments Brown made to the Board of Adjustment members on Feb. 22.