VILLAGE OF MAINE, WI (WSAU) — The number of municipalities in Wisconsin decreased by one on October 1st.
That’s when the Village of Brokaw was officially taken over by the neighboring Village of Maine.
“It’s the first time it’s really ever happened in this type of process- where three communities created a cooperative boundary agreement to kind of work through the issues that Brokaw was facing,” said Maine Village Administrator Keith Rusch.
“Part of the attachment agreement states that we get all of their assets and all of their liabilities,” he added. “Whatever Brokaw has; contracts, buildings, land, debts. All of those things the Village of Main inherits upon attachment.”
Brokaw was left with some $4.5 million in debts after Wausau Paper closed their mill, taking away the biggest tax generator for the Village and leaving hundreds of workers without a job.
Since then the village has explored several options to manage their debts, with many of those discussions involving the nearby Town of Texas and Village of Maine. County leaders were even involved in some of the talks to help save the village. In 2017 the State also intervened, giving Texas and Maine $2.5 million to help manage the debt.
RELATED: Maine and Texas get state help with Brokaw debt
Main was able to leverage additional state and federal funding in subsequent years due to the debts of Brokaw, which proved to be one of the reasons that the dissolving of the village didn’t happen sooner according to Village of Maine Attorney Randy Frokjer in 2016.
RELATED: Brokaw, Maine, Texas agree on financial plan
Rusch says citizens won’t notice any major changes, as all of their voting records have already been updated behind the scenes. “Basically they have all the rights and responsibilities of any other Maine resident. The only difference being now their representative government now resides in the Village of Maine hall and not in Brokaw.”
Public Service leaders have also given the approval for the dissolving of the Village of Brokaw’s water utility to a brand-new Maine utility which was created through the process. Rusch called it a big step towards continuing the behind the scenes work to get the new water utility online in the near future.
RELATED: Brokaw water to shift to Village of Maine
Until Maine can secure another water source, residents in Brokaw will continue to get their water from Wausau Water Works. “It’ll kind of be business as usual as we move forward. We will keep [residents] informed as we reach other milestones in the process.” Rusch says the main goal remains to create positive opportunities for former Brokaw residents that they would not have had if they would have remained their own municipality.
