A while back, I posted a blog entry that touched on some of my thoughts about shared services amongst the many communities that make up the Greater Wausau Area. What spurred this post was the recent headlines that one of the most successful experiments in shared services (the Everest Metro Police Department) may be nearing its end as the eternal concern of whether the various participants are fairly sharing the cost may tear the department apart.
The editorial coming up in this Sunday’s Wausau Daily Herald will discuss economic development efforts in our region. For those not familiar, I am the same John Fischer (town of Wausau) who will write commentary on Sunday editorials in the “Readers React” part of that section of the paper. My comments on that editorial roughly question our region’s ability to come up with a unified economic development plan when we can’t address anything else in a “unified” way.
The phrase “United We Stand, Divided We Fall” summarizes the situation as I see it in our local area and long term economic stability. To those not familiar with the Wausau area, they see this entire area as Wausau and either don’t realize (or don’t care) that what they think is Wausau is actually a larger metropolitan area of which Wausau is only the largest (in terms of population and equalized value) piece. There is also Schofield, Weston, Rothschild and Rib Mountain. As Wausau expands, the lines between it and the Towns of Wausau, Stettin and Texas also get blurred. One could also argue that Kronenwetter and Mosinee fall under this “metro” umbrella. I do not fault people not familiar with our area for thinking this. I am guilty of this thinking when it comes to areas like Chicago or Los Angeles. Although those areas are comprised of a number of communities, it’s all Chicago to me.
Wausau, with its nearly 40,000 population, is really not a heavy-hitter when it comes to attracting new business/industry into this region. Weston, at just over 10,000 also is only a speck on most radars. Now, a metro-area with a population of over 100,000 being at the crossroads of two major 4-lane highways… THAT metro-area is a PLAYER in the world of business recruitment.
But, we don’t recruit as a region. Don’t get me wrong, we try. We have a very active Chamber of Commerce that is regional in nature. Also, recently most communities have signed a “pact” agreeing not to fight with each other in luring economic development. However, agreeing to not compete with each other is really not the same as working together with a unified goal of what is best for the region is best for the individual communities within the region.
There are some examples of Wausau Area communities working together. The Everest Metro Police Department (a shared police department between the Village of Weston, the Town of Weston, and the City of Schofield) is probably the most prominent example. However other examples include the agreement between Weston and Wausau to share a single piece of fire fighting equipment and Schofield and Rothschild coming together to create a joint aquatic center.
I am not saying that all of the Wausau communities need to come together and form one municipal entity, or that they need to combine key services such as police, fire, or public works. (I am not saying that, but I do believe very strongly that our region, as a whole, could benefit from something like that).
However, I think that it would be worthwhile for our region to have our own “G-7” group. That leaders from Wausau, Schofield, Weston, Rothschild, Rib Mountain, Kronenwetter and even Mosinee get together on at least a quarterly basis (though to be taken seriously, monthly would be better). These leaders could then look at issues the region as a whole is facing and discuss how to best attack these issues as a region.
I think it would be worthwhile for these communities to at least look at simple things that wouldn’t involve losing their identities or sharing services, things like ordinance and zoning codes. If I want to locate a new business here, the regulations that cover a specific type of commercial zoning are different in each community. The building size and parking requirements are different, the permitted and conditional uses are different, everything is different. It would be nice, in trying to recruit a new employer to the area, that the entire area’s zoning code is consistent. Weston and Wausau may have agreed to not compete against each other, but by having different zoning requirements they are still doing just that.
Although I believe that combined police, fire and public works would also help this region to compete as a region, each community has a different level of service, and different levels of service cost different amounts (after all, you get what you pay for). For example, Wausau has fulltime fire and ambulance where Weston only has full time ambulance and Schofield and Rib Mountain are all volunteer departments. Wausau and Everest Metro are both large police departments with many extras such as motorcycle patrols, school liaison officers, K-9 units, and dedicated detectives, where Rib Mountain doesn’t even have its own police force and is served through the County Sheriff’s department. Because of these vast differences in levels of services (and costs associated with these services), combining them all is clearly an impossible dream.
However, for our Wausau region to truly be all it can be, we must have a unified vision at a minimum in economic development. And I truly believe that having the leaders of the various municipalities get together over a cup of coffee (or maybe even a beer) on a monthly basis would be a great first step in opening the lines of communication. For, to truly be able to work together, we must first fully understand our differences.
I don’t want this to be some prediction of doom and gloom by saying that failing to work together on a common goal will lead to failure. History clearly shows that is not the case. However, we (as a region) could be so much more than we (as a bunch of individual communities) can ever attain.
