Supervisors commend Olson, elect highway committee members
The Crawford County Board of Supervisors convened on April 16 for an eclectic agenda filled with presentations, committee reports and resolutions.
The supervisors also assembled for the first time since the April 2 elections. Sara Nelson joined the board for her first meeting as a supervisor, representing district 17 after Dave Olson did not run for re-election.
Nelson, a former school teacher and licensed pharmacist, said she looked forward to representing her district.
Elections and appointments
Tom Cornford and Brad Steiner retained their respective positions as chair and vice chair of the Board of Supervisors after unanimous votes from their colleagues.
The board nominated five supervisors for the highway committee. Between the 18 supervisors, 90 votes were cast, with Mark Gilberts, Gerald Krachey, Carl Orr, Derek Flansberg and Bruce Strnad assuming positions on the committee. Wayne Jerrett was nominated but did not receive enough supporting votes.
Votes were counted by supervisors Mary Kuhn, Linda Munson and Nelson.
The board approved two appointments, Roger Standorf and Jenny Coleman, to the board of adjustments and Tucker Trefz, a physician’s assistant at Mayo Clinic, to the Health and Human Services Department Board.
“We are supposed to have a doctor on the board,” Dan McWilliams, director of Crawford County Health and Human Services, said. “We tried to recruit another one, and nobody was interested.”
He clarified that the board’s previous physician representative had left the area, and after a good-faith effort to replace him with another doctor did not work, a physician’s assistant was a viable option.
Resolutions
The board approved three resolutions during the meeting.
The first resolution established salaries for the 2025–28 terms of office for constitutional officers. The resolution provided a pay increase for the county clerk, the register of deeds and the county treasurer. All three positions’ compensation rose to $77,429.66 per year.
The second resolution adopted a new multi-hazard mitigation plan for 2023–2028.
In 2023, the county held two public hearings for the mitigation plan at the Highway Department Building in Seneca.
“This is a plan done through the Mississippi River Regional Planning Commission,” said Jim Hackett, Crawford County’s director of emergency management. “This is the plan every village and town in the county will adopt and will allow you to get Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding.”
The final resolution was a commendation for former Crawford County Supervisor Olson, who served on the board from 2010–2024.
The commendation said Olson served with distinction on the zoning, planning, highway and fair committees during his tenure. He became the chair of the land conservation committee in 2020.
When asked if he wanted to address the board, Olson said, “I didn’t think I did so much.”
ADRC overview
Roby Fuller gave a presentation to the board about the Aging and Disability Resource Center’s progress in Crawford County.
Fuller, the county’s ADRC director, said the senior population was the fastest-growing population in Wisconsin. By 2035, the University of Wisconsin Extension estimated 40 percent of Crawford County’s population would be 60 or older.
“Three years ago, it was 2040, so you can see that the senior population continues to rapidly increase,” said Fuller.
She said the county continues to grapple with a low number of care options for seniors, including home and community based care-providers.
In 2019, the ADRC regional office added four dementia care specialists to the select counties in southwest Wisconsin. Three years later, every county in the state received a half-time specialist. The increased resources have contributed to more community education, support group resources, and other public opportunities, according to Fuller.
The ADRC increased their volunteers from one to 20 over the past four years, opened the ADRC kitchen and assisted 124 individuals to access the medical equipment they needed through the loan closet.
Fuller said the agency’s transportation program has grown exponentially. “If you haven’t seen one of our vehicles in the community, I don’t know where you’ve been.”
Since 2018, ADRC has added reduced taxi vouchers, find your own driver and volunteer driver programs to their transportation services and increased their fleet of vehicles to eight, with plans to add more vehicles during the year.
Other business
• The ad hoc committee for the potential administrative coordinator/administrator position had its first meeting in April. Hackett said the committee would meet again in May. The committee plans to send out surveys to departments.
• Steiner said negotiations with the Sheriff’s Union were underway and were expected to go into May. “It’s going to be a tough year.”
• Molly Bohn, a field representative for Congressman Derrick Van Orden, appeared before the board for a legislative update. She summarized Van Orden’s term, including a vote in favor of the 2024 appropriations bill, which brought $26 million to the Third Congressional District and co-sponsoring grants for local agencies to assist fire and police departments.
