WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015
Serving Polk County’s St. t Croix C i Valley V ll since i 1897
VOL. 127 NO. 52 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
FAIR: Polk County Fair this weekend. PAGE 6
HUD holds ruling Stricter rules apply to funds, but RBF negotiating BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
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Car show and steak night
Paul Anderson cooks steak for attendees to the annual car show and steak night in Mill Pond Park July 23.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] released its decision July 21 to hold money tied to regional revolving loan funds to a federal set of lending standards. The funds, which had been loaned to small or independent businesses to improve local economies, were arwarded by a looser set of standards since 2008, when regional municipalities worked with the state to “defederalize” the funds. In April, HUD refederalized the money, but after groups and individ-
uals statewide balked, HUD agreed to review the ruling. Although the agency is sticking with its decision to hold regional funds to federal regulations, Beth Waldhart, a fund manager with west-central Wisconsin’s Regional Business Fund [RBF], said she and her colleagues are cautiously optimistic that problems with the defederalization process can be fixed. “HUD seems to have provided a window through which we can retroactively address their concerns,” she wrote in an email. According to William Johnson, chair of the Polk County Board, the program “helped a lot of the villages around here with downtown updates and upgrades.” Due to rule changes, RBF is not accepting loan applications.
Changes in store for shoreland zoning Budget on whole ‘fairly positive’ for county BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
In spite of opposition from counties and other Wisconsin municipalities, legislation inserted in the state budget weakening counties’ ability to create their own rules for shoreland zoning more stringent than the state’s passed with the budget. Before the budget was approved, representatives and residents of Polk County had voiced concern over the legislation itself and that it, which concerns neither income nor expenditure, was added to the budget late in the process and
without public input. In June, Polk County passed a resolution in opposition to the proposed language, which was authored by Rep. Adam Jarchow. At the board’s July meeting, chair William Johnson briefed the board on the legislation’s passage and noted that the county could request that the legislation be repealed, as St. Croix County has done. “There’s quite a bit of pressure on,” said Johnson. “I don’t think the story’s quite over with that one.” In spite of changes to shoreland zoning, said county administrator Dana Frey, the $72.7 billion budget was mostly positive for counties. SEE COUNTY, PAGE 2
SUZANNE LINDGREN |THE SUN
Fourteen members of Polk County’s first 15-member board. From left: Dean Johansen, John Bonneprise, William Johnson, Patricia Schmidt, Joseph Demulling, Russell Arcand, Josh Hallberg, Marvin Casperson, James Edgell, Warren Nelson, Larry Jepsen, Jay Luke, Kim O’Connell, Craig Moriak. Not pictured: Ken Sample.
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