Fredonia official takes a bow for work on rewording statute

Call it Mr. Haas goes to Madison.

That’s what happened last year when Fredonia Village Trustee Joshua Haas became frustrated with the language in a state law regulating the filling of vacant seats on municipal boards.

Haas said he discovered the law was confusing when the Village Board was looking at replacing former trustee Neil Wagner, who resigned in 2018.

“When we were going through the process of replacing him, I looked at the state statute and after reading it, I was very confused on what the statute actually said,” Haas said at the time.

So Haas took it to Capitol Hill.

In the process, he wrote letters, made phone calls, testified before legislative commissions and worked with staff in state Sen. Duey Strobel’s and Rep. Rob Brooks’ offices to draft the legislation.

There were a couple amendments along the way, mostly having to do with the way the City of Milwaukee wanted it done, Haas said.

In the end, the rewritten statute SB 108 passed both house of the Legislature unanimously and Gov. Tony Evers signed it into law March 3.

The new legislation clarifies the dates governing when special elections can be held to fill board vacancies.