How many of you on the county board are property owners?

How many of you have a snowmobile trail running through your property?

How many of you are firm believers in property rights?

I just might add that I was pleased to note that the County Administrator, in an appearance before members of the Department of Natural Resources in Madison during Superior Days last week, expressed a similar belief relative to sustaining snowmobile trails in northwest Wisconsin.

He was making the following request: "The citizens of northwest Wisconsin request that the Natural Resource Board and the Department of Natural Resources recognize the importance of property owner concerns as it relates to future trail development and maintaining the present trails in northern Wisconsin."

He said and this was in printed matter accompanying his comments, "Public access is through consent of private property owners. It is important to be sensitive to private land owner concerns."

He went on to point out in his presentation, "Law and regulation making entities must be sensitive to property owner issues if we are to maintain trails."

He was identified in the printed material by his official title as Bayfield County Administrator.

Please note two very important words, consent and sensitive. I think that this is at the heart of this entire issue. Do these comments represent the policy and attitudes of the County Board?

First of all, are you as County Board members sensitive to property owner issues and what about the matter of consent, or is this a case of seizing without consent?

I would rather be of the opinion that you, as elected members of this board represent all citizens of this county who have placed you in office because of your sensitivity to the concern of property owners.

If that sensitivity is lacking, there may well be hundreds of property owners who in their generosity provide access, by easements, for snowmobile trails through their properties, that might be concerned about further relationships with the county.

Your attitude and policy relative to this issue could seriously raise concerns about how these people might be treated in the future.

It might also raise concerns and serious questions over the impact on property values for these public-minded citizens.

The more serious question is, with over 22,000 miles of trails in Wisconsin and over 500 miles in Bayfield County alone, why do we need more snowmobile trails in Bayfield County.

It isn’t a matter of public need.

It is just a matter of providing more convenient access to a group of recreationists.

A lot of us pursue various forms of recreation and put up with some kind of inconvenience.

Maybe we can’t find a boat launch just where we would like it, maybe we can’t hunt on all the lands we would like to.

More importantly, what are the cost both socially as well as financially?

You as our representatives and I might add, our neighbors, are in essence pitting the county, that is us, against ourselves.

Does that make any sense?

You are using our tax dollars to fill the pockets of lawyers in Madison and Seattle to fight with us your neighbors.

These lawyers could care less for us here in Bayfield County as long as the clocks keeps on ticking for them. It is just another ego trip for them.

I have personally witnessed the pain and anguish resulting from local conflicts such as this in another community.

Such wound can take generations to heal. Can we afford the social costs of pursuing this further?

Then there is the cost of taking.

In other words, what is the economic impact resulting from reduced property values?

A national study found that properties located adjacent to trails were losing up to 65 percent of their values.

Considering 200 properties located adjacent to the abandoned ROW, with gross property taxes on those parcels approximating $1.2 million, the result of this action by the County Board, the County as a whole could suffer a reduction of over $600,000 per year in tax revenues.

This is a shortfall that will be shouldered by all Bayfield County taxpayers.

So you see this is not just a concern to the property owners directly involved, but should be of concern to all taxpayers in the County.

The question to you is, are you willing to personally pay these costs to disrupt the social and financial capital of Bayfield County?

I should think this would weigh heavily on the shoulders of each of you.

Just one more observation. I had a brief conversation with the County Administrator in Madison, in which I suggested that he and the County Board walk the ROW between Washburn and Bayfield to see the many obstacles to having snowmobiles on that stretch.

His answer to me it that you can’t walk it.

If you can’t walk it then how in the heck can you persist in thinking that you can take it over for a snowmobile trail?

He made the remark that the property owners have created the problem and they are just asking too much. Whatever that means.