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June 16, 2026 Board meeting recap

·993 words·5 mins
Prescott Balch
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Prescott Balch
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in these posts are my own and are not to be construed as official opinions of the village. Please see https://caledonia-wi.gov/ for official communications.

Board meeting recap
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I wasn’t wrong when I predicted this in the agenda review: “this will be long.” We snuck in under the 4 hour mark.

Bad meeting

And remember when I said before my election that I would explain every important vote? Well now’s the time.

We started by rearranging the agenda to bring the Water’s Edge presentation/discussion to the beginning of the meeting. Thanks to everyone interested in that topic that showed up to listen and give public comment. The village, however, was unprepared and had nothing to present or discuss in open session. That was embarrassing, inexcusable, and rude to the people who came solely because of that topic. As I said last night, we have to do better. We’ll try again in a couple of weeks.

The hottest topic of the evening was the F Street proposal and that’s where I need to spend some time explaining what was proposed and why I voted no.

F Street
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The board voted 4-3 to reject the proposal. Fran Martin, Nancy Pierce, and Lee Wishau joined me in the No vote. I’m going to start at the end and work backwards because something weird is going to happen that needs to be addressed first. All the people who support the current system of tax incentives are going to proclaim us anti-development and backwards-thinking. But here are some indisputable facts:

  • We approved the rezoning of the parcel to support apartments.
  • We approved the site plan despite deviations from our standards.
  • We approved the traffic study despite objection from some that it wasn’t enough.
  • They can build tomorrow if they want to.

What we rejected was the price tag of $2.4M in tax reimbursement. How did we get to a place in this state, and yes, it is a statewide problem, that failing to subsidize private development with millions of future tax dollars is considered anti-development? There’s no blight. There’s no toxic cleanup. There’s just an open field ready to build with everything approved. The argument for approving the subsidy is “everyone’s doing it and if we don’t approve it, no one will build here.” Ok, but it’s still $2.4M. If the village isn’t getting enough from the deal to justify the expense, we shouldn’t do it.

At what point does the side that likes this project say No? Is there a limit to what we should pay? How about permanent tax abatement? 50 years? 25 years? 100% instead of 95%. I kept getting asked “what’s your number?” with the implication that my number was $0. My number wasn’t $0. So here’s an open question to the critics: what’s your number? How much is too much? It’s easy to spend other people’s money.

Here are the terms that were revealed in open session last night before the vote:

  • Developer commits to building $20M in apartments, so we get tax revenue even if they walk away.
  • Village gets the first $1M in new taxes, which we can use for expenses in the TID.
  • From 2032 to 2045, F Street gets 95% of their tax revenue reimbursed. That’s $4.3M total, or $2.35M present value.
  • $2.35M is 10% of the project’s construction budget.
  • Total new tax revenue produced in the TID from now until 2045 is $5.6M. Over the life of the TID, F Street retains $4.3M, village gets $1.3M.
  • There are lookback provisions that allow the village to reduce the 95% reimbursement if the developer makes more money than they predict.

The argument from the developer and the municipal finance experts is that the developer’s pro forma shows that without public assistance the developer cannot make enough profit to attract investors to their project. Aside: the term ‘public assistance’ was used repeatedly last night and it struck me as probably not the best term to garner sympathy for the proposal.

I asked how a pristine piece of land ready to build on tomorrow needing minimal public infrastructure could need so much financial assistance to generate sufficient financial returns. Answer: construction costs have risen faster than rents and it could be years before the business conditions change to reduce or eliminate that need for assistance. An emotional, if not perfectly reasonable, reaction to that might be “not our problem” but I’d rather take the emotion out of it and make it a business decision:

If we want this development to happen now, is the price tag worth it? Should we make a 20 year commitment to get it built now at this price, or should we risk waiting for those conditions to improve, allowing building with less tax reimbursement? The arguments for the trade-off are all vibes: more foot traffic in Douglas Ave area, potential for attracting more businesses to that area, incentive for existing businesses to improve. I like numbers and hard benefits. The $1M in early tax revenue, even if stuck in the TID, is good, but it’s just half the revenue that this development would generate for the village if it was outside of a TID. If I’m going to give away half your future village tax revenue and 75% of the total tax revenue, I need hard benefits.

Also note, I would have voted no on TID 6 originally. The board approved it in 2024, narrowly, and now we’re stuck with it. I’m not of the mind that we should veto every proposal on it. I want to make it work as best we can. We did it with the intention of improving the Douglas Ave area. If we’re going to approve additional projects in the TID, we should ensure that the village is getting sufficient value from the proposal to support our goals. The development is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

So yes, elections have consequences as they say. I voted the way I said I would in the election. A good deal for Caledonia was my goal and I didn’t think this was a good deal.