BLOG | CURRENT NEWS 5-1-2025: WORCESTER BLACKTOP ROADS IN NEED OF RECONSTRUCTION Worcester has 115.54 miles of roads, of which 57.40 miles are blacktop. Blacktop roads have an average life of 25 years. The road review meetings of 9-25- 2024 and 4-8-2025 resulted in this list of blacktop roads that are in need of reconstruction at this time. • Old 13 Road from salt shed for 1.0 mile north • East Solberg boat landing road has scrape marks on center hump - 0.06 miles • Crosscut Road and Highland Acres Road - 0.9 miles • South Worcester Road from corner east to Alfalfa Lane - 0.4 miles • Springs Drive from Hwy 13 to Worcester Road plus paved portion east of Worcester Road - 2.7 miles • Hillcrest Road paved portion - 0.71 miles • Little Elk Road from bridge to Little Chicago Road - 1.5 miles • Liberty Lane paved portion - 0.4 miles This is a total of 7.67 miles of blacktop road in need of reconstruction at this time. Blacktop roads need reconstruction when one or more of the following conditions are present: 1) The blacktop itself has lost its resilience and is breaking up. 2) The gravel base under the blacktop has failed, causing rutting and cracking. 3) Boulders and stumps are working their way up through the blacktop and breaking through. The scope of reconstruction varies according to the specific road conditions. A typical blacktop reconstruction may include replacing culverts, digging out stumps and rocks, grinding up the old blacktop, adding gravel, compacting, placing new blacktop, and shoulder work. The cost to reconstruct depends on exactly what work is done, but the typical cost will be $200,000 to $250,000 per mile of road. It would cost $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 to reconstruct the roads in this list. Future blog posts will discuss what causes roads to fail, road maintenance, and what we can do to make roads last longer. There will be additional discussion of available grant programs and the town budget. 4-11-2025: WORCESTER HAS A NEW CLERK- TREASURER Regina Damjanovic was appointed Worcester clerk- treasurer by the town board at a special town board meeting on 4-8-2025. She was appointed for a term ending 12-31-2025. Regina then appointed Alli Mathys as deputy clerk-treasurer with the approval of the town board. Alli had resigned as clerk- treasurer effective 4-1-2025. Regina has been Worcester’s deputy clerk-treasurer since 2-11-2025. She has been working with Alli to learn Worcester’s systems and procedures in order to have a seamless transition. 3-12-2025: WORCESTER 2025 REASSESSMENT The Town of Worcester will be completely reassessed in 2025. More correctly, the Town of Worcester will be going through a complete Revaluation for Assessments. How does it affect us? Reassessment does not change the amount of property tax collected. When property values increase, the assessments increase, and the mill rate decreases. The mill rate changes as needed to keep the total taxes the same. However, some properties increased more than others. Those people will see their tax increase, while everybody else will see their tax decrease. The reassessment will not change the total property taxes collected from the Town of Worcester. Why is this being done? Property values change with time. When the assessed values differ too much from actual market values, state law requires that all properties in the town be reassessed. Worcester was last reassessed in 2006, and a market adjustment made in 2013. Property sale prices, and the assessed values of those properties, are reported to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR). When the difference between sale prices and assessed valuations become too large, the DOR requires the town to revalue all town properties. Your property tax bill shows both the Assessed Value and the Estimated Fair Market Value. Your property taxes are calculated from the Assessed Value. For those who want to know more, the 2025 Guide for Property Owners, by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, is the first place to look. It is a 41-page document that covers basic aspects of property taxes, property owner rights, and the assessment process. For those who want to know even more, the 2025 Guide has a link to the Wisconsin Property Assessment Manual. That manual has 966 pages covering the qualifications of an assessor and tells exactly how to assess property. Other links in the 2025 Guide connect to the state laws on property assessment. Mike Schnautz, WI Certified Assessor, and assessor for the Town of Worcester, helped write this post. 2-25-2025: WORCESTER RECEIVES $1,830,786 GRANT The Town of Worcester has received an Agricultural Road Improvement Program (ARIP) Grant for a total project cost of $2,087,555.40, of which the State of Wisconsin will reimburse the Town of Worcester 87.7% of the actual cost up to a maximum reimbursement of $1,830,786.09. The town portion of the total cost will be $256,769.31. Little Chicago Road from Highway 13 to the railroad tracks will be reconstructed and upgraded. Cranberry Lake Lane from Little Chicago Road to the culvert will be reconstructed and upgraded. Those two stretches of road total 3.5 miles long. The ARIP is a new State of Wisconsin grant program created in 2023. This program provides grant money to towns to improve certain roads, culverts, and bridges. The roads to be improved must be used to transport agricultural and forest products and be currently subject to load limits. The improved roads will last longer and not have load limits. As with all government-funded projects, there are specific requirements for engineering, bidding, construction, reimbursable costs, and documentation. 2-11-2025: THE TOWN OF WORCESTER HAS A NEW DEPUTY CLERK/TREASURER The Town of Worcester has appointed Regina Damjanovic as deputy clerk/treasurer. This is in light of the resignation of Alli Mathys. Regina is a busy person; she is also the town clerk for the Town of Elk and owns the Hidden Cove Resort. The voters of the Town of Worcester approved a referendum April 2, 2024 to change the town clerk position from elected to appointed. That change takes effect April 1, 2025 because that is the date at which an elected clerk would run for reelection. When the position is elected, the clerk/treasurer must be from the same town. When the position becomes appointed after April 1, 2025, that residency requirement no longer holds. Regina lives in the Town of Elk, so the board voted to appoint her deputy clerk/treasurer at this time. The board will revisit filling the clerk/treasurer position after April 1, 2025. Alli Mathys has agreed to stay on as clerk/treasurer until April 1. 1-27-2025: OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS The Wisconsin Open Records Law states that any person can view or get a copy of any Town of Worcester public record. The requester does not need to provide a reason for requesting the record. The power to get records is not unlimited. The regular business of the town must continue. A typical request might be for a current list of town registered voters with delivery by email. Since the voter list is on a spreadsheet, such a request is easily delivered. Alternatively, a request for paper copies of all time cards for all road crew workers for a six year period requires advance preparation to locate those time cards and time to copy them. Such a request takes more time to fill. A person can request to view town records in person, which requires a meeting at a mutually acceptable time. The Town of Worcester has received a large number of open records requests starting some time before 2020. In order to properly deliver and track these requests, the town worked with the town attorney to develop a standard form for all open records requests. The situation is more difficult when a particular requester has a history of abusing and threatening the town clerk. Because of that abuse, the town worked with the town attorney to protect the town clerk. The town clerk now has the option of requiring that two town board members be present during requests to view or deliver records in person. Since the Town of Worcester has a three-member board, two members is a quorum. A board quorum requires a public meeting with at least 24 hours advance public notice. The Town of Worcester started tracking open records requests on 4-5-2022. The many requests before that date were not tracked. This link is the list of open records requests from that date and up to the date of this post. The town clerk has the current list that includes requests after that date. 1-14-2025: TOWN CLERK RESIGNS Alli Mathys, Worcester Town Clerk, announced her resignation Monday, 1-6-2025, at a special town board meeting. Her letter of resignation stated that she was subjected to threatening behavior from a few people in the area. That behavior was driven by Facebook posts by one person. Alli did a very good job during her time in office. She will be missed by all who worked with her. Alli is the fifth person to resign the Town of Worcester Clerk/Treasurer position in the last five years. The previous three clerks have all stated that their reason for leaving was harassment. The details are in their letters of resignation, which are linked here: Roberta Reese, Scott Revak, and Marcie Bogdanovic. Letters of resignation from public office are subject to the Wisconsin Open Records Law and so are public information. The position of Town Clerk/Treasurer is a public office with statutory duties. 1-7-2025: HILLS ROAD When the federal government renamed Squaw Creek to Aabajijiwani-ziibiinsing Creek, we believed that it was only a matter of time until Squaw Creek Road would also be renamed. Nobody in the area wanted the road name changed to Aabajijiwani- ziibiinsing Creek Road. This road has long been locally known as Rollercoaster Road, and there was initial support for renaming to that. The people living on that road, however, did not like that name. They have had experience with people driving that road at dangerously high speeds, and did not want a road name that would attract even more speeders. While the speed limit is 40 MPH, the maximum safe speed is as low as 25 MPH because of limited sight distance. The property owners on Squaw Creek Road asked the Worcester Town Board to rename it Hills Road instead of Rollercoaster Road. The board agreed,and passed an ordinance to rename it Hills Road effective January 1, 2025.