Readstown comes together to talk about the villages future

READSTOWN - Almost 50 residents of the Village of Readstown gathered at the Country Inn Event Hall and Motel to participate in visioning the future of the village on Tuesday, March 5. The community discussion was led by FEMA Recovery Planning Coordinator, Kehla West.

The framework for the discussion was a list of six questions that were posed to the group. West and another FEMA employee transcribed the group’s responses, and worked with Vernon County Community Development Director Diane McGinnis to schedule additional meetings for the community to continue the conversation.

“These meetings are essential in order for your community to identify what is most important for your recovery, and what you would like to see in your community in the future,” McGinnis said. “Legislators like Senator Jennifer Shilling and Representative Oldenburg are poised to go to the State of Wisconsin to ask for funds to support recovery in the Kickapoo Valley, but in order to do that, they have to know what you need and how much money to ask for.”

What do you like about Readstown?

· Small town atmosphere

· Library and librarian

· Events in the park

· Affordable real estate

· Businesses like Crazy Franks, the hair salon

· Post Office

· First Responders

· The river

· Community services such as police protection and snow removal

· Rural character of the community

· Trees – village not overdeveloped

· Creeks and the Driftless Area

· Neighborliness

· The rich history and family histories of the area

What do you want in Readstown, both tangible and intangible?

· Community celebrations and events - Labor Day celebration

· Grocery store

· More togetherness

· Businesses to draw people into the village

· Safe housing out of the floodplain

· Better planning

· Hiking trail in the park

· More full-time police protection

· More activities for kids

· Community building

· Community kitchen

· Another well

· Flood clean up

· Programming for older people

· Developable land

What might prevent Readstown from achieving its goals?

· Community services

· The village if it is not relocated

· Advancement Building

· Small town atmosphere

· Affordability of housing

· End up like Gays Mills with all the buildings looking the same

· Nature

· Fire protection

· Population and young families

· Library

· History of the town

· Tax and utility revenue

· Home will be rezoned into the floodplain

· Students to attend the local schools

What do planners need to know, and who needs to be involved?

· FEMA, State of Wisconsin, Vernon County, and the Village Board

· Contractors

· Neighboring community leaders

· Landowners adjacent to or in the village

· Engineers

· More community members

· People from conservation land use and flood mitigation agencies

· Corps of Engineers and USDA-NRCS

· Business owners

Next meeting

Participants were asked about what methods worked well to publicize the meeting, and what should be done to get more residents to attend the next meeting.

There was agreement that sending out the meeting announcement postcards had worked well, as well as sharing the announcement on Facebook. Residents were urged to conduct a ‘word-of-mouth’ campaign to talk to their neighbors and friends and urge them to attend a future meeting.

Other ideas seemed to center around reaching out to other communities in the valley that had in the past or were currently involved in flood recovery efforts.

“We can probably learn a lot from talking with folks from Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills about what worked for them, and what they wished they’d done differently,” one participant observed. “And we also need to be in conversation with Viola, LaFarge and Ontario about what they are doing now, and how we can work together. One thing we need to avoid is duplicating efforts and competing with each other.”

Another participant brought up the need for all of the communities to understand what had happened to produce the historic floods of August 2018, and what the likelihood was that it would reoccur.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty and fear right now, and we need the agencies that have the answers to help us understand what the situation really is,” the participant said.

There was also discussion of the potential redrawing of the floodplain maps in the Kickapoo Valley, and what impact that might come to have on decision-making.

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