Why is Mr. King Hauling Away Truckloads of Compost from the Village Yard Waste Site?

 

The short answer to that question is this: The Village Board found little value in those many thousands of yards of compost on the Village Yard Waste Site property, and in 2021 they basically gave it all to Mr. King as part of a leaseback deal in which the Village needed to rent back from Mr. King part of the property that they just sold to him.

I argued that at a minimum, the mountains of compost there was worth $20,000. I also argued in favor of the residents' having compost available for their own free use, and managed to get this included in the 5 year least agreement.

Here is the longer story – Community Development Director Randy Fifrick, under Mr. Downey's supervision, advocated to the Board for the sale of the 38 acre yard waste site to Mr. King, who offered to buy the parcel in 2014.

Negotiations went back and forth from 2014 to 2018, when the Board voted to sell about 30 acres to King, and keep about 7-8 acres to use as the new village Yard Waste Site.

Very soon after the sale was complete, we found out that several critical facts that Mr. Fifrick neglected to inform the Board of before the sale.

Among that missing information was the fact that land that the Village Staff recommended the Village keep to use as a new yard waste site. was in fact designated as wetlands by the DNR. In fact, it turned out that the whole piece was unusable for the purpose of a yard waste site due to ponds of water in between some very rough terrain.

The Village at first got a 1 year extension before they would have to vacate the old Yard Waste Site property, while the issue of obtaining a new, realistically usable site could worked on.

After that first year passed and the Village had no usable waste site, another deal was made with King for the Village to use the old yard waste site for another year, renewable up to 5 years.

Part of this 5-year lease option agreement was that King got to keep many thousands of yards of compost that was at the old yard waste site, as neither the Board or staff seemed interested in the value of the compost, either to sell, or to promote to Village Residents' free use.

I argued on behalf of the village residents, and I guess I was lucky at the time to secure the free compost for them, as some Board members were opposed even to that idea. King was to maintain at all times at least 50 yards of compost to be available for free to the village residents.That access to compost only lasts as long as the Village is leasing that land from King.

After thousands of dollars in consulting fees, the off-limits wetland area of the new yard waste site got reduced in size, but it is still a sizable area right in the middle of the property.

The public works crew has worked on leveling the non-wetland area, and has made better-than-expected progress toward creating a functional yard waste site on the new spot. However, it is nowhere near as big as the old spot that was sold.

How did the Village get itself into such an embarrassingly unfavorable predicament? That answer is in the next post - “What a Waste of a Yard Waste Site”