10-8-2025 Planning Commission Monthly Meeting
Meeting called to order at 4:03 PM. Present are Ken Roman, Mike Mondloch, Nancy Moye, and Ashley Huinker. Sean Presnail is absent.
Motion to accept the minutes of last meeting by Mike Mondloch. Motion seconded by Ken Roman.
Ken Roman reports no new correspondence. Moye informed the group that she had written a letter from a personal standpoint to Rep Tiffany to express concerns about his reintroduction of a bill to change the status of Apostle Island National Lakeshore to a National Park. This bill was introduced initially in 2024. It was not well received by the local communities for lack of details. Reintroduction of the bill does not change the unknowns for the local communities. Local PCs and town boards would need to be involved to deal with possible impacts on waste management, affordable housing, tourist housing, and infrastructure that pertained to roads etc.Moye does not seek any action from the Planning Commission at this time.
Work on the comprehensive plan continues. Most of today’s discussion regarding the comprehensive plan was regarding updating population charts and is summarized below.
On the list of things to do were updating charts for the population, school attendees, and the recent senior housing survey. Roman would like to send Presnail the numbers that we have and ask him to incorporate the current population numbers into the draft comprehensive plan. Old numbers and charts should be left in to show population growth. Mondloch suggests that these updates include a narrative about what this means for our township. He also points out that adding updated numbers and charts should be the responsibility of Northwest Planning. Roman points out that we’ve been tasked with doing as much as we can on our own to reduce the cost of putting together the new comprehensive plan. Discussion ended with an agreement to ask Presnail to look at the new population data and assess what we can do on our own to update the charts in the old comprehensive plan, before asking Northwest Planning to make changes. Mondloch will call Bayfield County for 2023 census data for Bell Township and the latest information for the population.
Roman states that an action item is that we need an accurate listing of seasonal housing – permanent residents vs. non-permanent residents.
Moye would like to get the minutes for these monthly meetings posted online. Roman will send minutes from January 2025 onward so that Moye can get them posted online.
November meeting is set for 5PM on Wednesday, November 5.
Mondloch makes a motion to adjourn. Moye seconds. Meeting adjourned at 5:09 PM.