Lisbon, Sussex plan joint meeting
Town Board members have agreed to a face-to-face meeting with the Sussex Village Board to discuss potential shared and consolidated services.
Town Board members have agreed to a face-to-face meeting with the Sussex Village Board to discuss potential shared and consolidated services.
A date for the meeting has not been set, but town officials are hoping it might be sometime in March.
Without a formal vote and relatively little discussion, the supervisors agreed to discuss topics outlined in a letter from Sussex Village Administrator Evan Teich.
The subjects included possible consolidated police service contracts and sharing fire and emergency medical services.
The list also included the possibility of sharing parks, recreation, and public works programs and equipment.
The two governing bodies are likely to discuss the values shared by the two communities and how local government, commercial, retail, and recreational services can contribute to those values.
They will also examine the existing boundaries of the two communities and the potential sharing of tax revenues as well as utilities.
Town Attorney Kathryn Gutenkunst warned that the village might be seeking to reopen negotiations of a border agreement between the two communities.
She suggested that the municipalities might want to begin discussion with less-controversial issues such as sharing of some services.
The two communities have separate police service contracts with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.
The village and town each have the capability of delivering paramedic emergency medical services, and their volunteer fire departments frequently train together.
Public Works Director Mike Mueller has said that the two communities’ public works departments will also sometimes share equipment.
Town Chairman Michael Reed said the list of subjects outlined in Teich’s letter was developed through a series of luncheon meetings between Reed and Sussex Village President Tony Lapcinski.
Reed said the talks might also lead to an agreement with the village to provide water to Lisbon homeowners on Maple Avenue whose wells were damaged or contaminated by quarry blasts in 2003 and 2004.