Letter to the Editor: "The Loss of Local Control" by Doug Curler

While a recent writer was worried about the selling of federal lands but how about the selling of 10,000 areas of state land or how about the taking away of county shoreland zoning and giving it to the Madison career politicians like Scott Walker and 12^th State Senator Tom Tiffany?

That is right. At one time we had local or county control for shoreland zoning but not after Act 55 changes, as part of the 2015-2017 budget, to Shoreland Zoning and all with the help of Madison career politician Tom Tiffany.

Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst), stated "We are saying (shoreland zoning) has to be uniform across the state. We are returning property rights to people."

Where we all live in the northern portion of our state, more than 20 counties chose to protect our water ways and passed shoreland zoning which made sense for our area. But Tom Tiffany took away that option because he knows better.

What he lied about is that counties are no longer allowed to exceed state shoreland zoning standards. Before Tom Tiffany changed in law, counties were required to enact a shoreland zoning ordinance that at least met the minimum shoreland zoning standards (as set by DNR in NR115), but had the option of going beyond those standards. This option was used by a number of counties, including those that adopted a system of “lake classification”, in which lakes were assigned to different classes, each of which had a different set of shoreland zoning standards.

Tom Tiffany and his fellow Republicans only gave the finance panel an hour or so of advance warning before zoning was debated. This has been the normal practice since 2011 by limiting debate and input from the public.

As a resident of lake property I am upset that Tom Tiffany, once again has taken away local control vs he knows better with his other Madison career politicians. You should also be concerned as he represents the power of Madison and not that of the voters in the 12^th State Senate District.

Vote smart and vote for local control.

Thank you,

Doug Curler

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