Debt limit puts road paving on ice for now

Three meetings of the Silver Beach Road Committee have brought a few things to light about the plight of the unpaved portion of the road that leads to Belgium’s industrial park.

The road regularly floods during rainstorms and a pond is required to alleviate the water issue. The best place for the pond is on private land the village would have to somehow acquire. Paving the road would be provide a boost to business. Grant funding would be available in some way, shape or form.

The latest revelation on March 4 stopped the committee’s work in its tracks.

The village is so close to its debt limit  that it would not be able to take on the project — even if a grant paid at least 50% of it — for at least another five years.

“It for sure won’t be less than five years and could be as many as 10 because of the project we are starting this year,” Village Treasurer Vickie Boehnlein said.

A nearly $5 million sewer, water, stormsewer and road project on portions of six different village streets is slated to start this year and go into 2022.

That would put the village within $1 million or $2 million of its $11 million debt limit, Boehnlein said in an interview. Paving Silver Beach is estimated to cost about $4.2 million.

The bulk of the village’s debt is the $4.6 million from the Main Street project completed a couple of years ago.

Belgium is expected to gain about $80,000 to its levy through the 2022 closure of its only tax incremental finance district, but officials may use that money toward the $5 million road project, which, depending on how it is calculated, would keep the tax rate level or lower it, Boehnlein said.

Given that scenario, committee member and former trustee Ron Weyker said, “There doesn’t appear to be much to do.”

“I agree with Ron,” committee chairman Tom Winker, an Ozaukee County Board member, said. “I think it was useful that we had this committee meeting. We had identified some  opportunities. But if the borrowing capacity isn’t there any time soon…”

The committee’s purpose was to look for grant funding for the project. It consulted with county and elected officials and found grants that could, if awarded, help pay for anywhere from 50% to 90% of the work.

Winker and fellow committee member Pete Anzia, the Belgium Village President, also met with Dan and Luke Gasser, who own the land on both sides of Silver Beach Road that is the prime spot for the retention pond.

“They’re willing to talk to us about it. They had ideas, we had ideas. Our next step is to wait until we get that far. But they are willing to talk to us about it, which has changed quite a bit,” Anzia said.

The committee plans to meet again in six months.