EDITORIAL: Confront mega industrial annexation in the open

Within weeks, elected officials of the City of Port Washington could face a decision bearing consequences so profound that it would abruptly change the character and rewrite the future of the city and nearby areas of northern Ozaukee County.

The decision would have such a significant impact on the affected communities that it could only be responsibly made with the broad involvement of the public—public hearings, listening sessions and, most important, perfect transparency in all considerations and actions by the city government.

The process leading up to that potential decision got off to an unfortunate start on June 15 when the Common Council and mayor met in a closed meeting with a vague notice and misleading description of the purpose of meeting.

After a request for public documents was filed by Ozaukee Press under the Wisconsin Open Records Law it become clear that the purpose of the meeting was to prepare for a possible annexation of more than 1,000 acres of land for a massive semiconductor manufacturing facility.

Port Washington is said to be one of only three places in the country being considered as a site for the facility’s buildings and infrastructure.     

Like the city’s hush-hush meeting, the prospect of what could be the largest real estate development in the history of Ozaukee County is being treated as something the public shouldn’t know about until it’s dropped like a bomb from some corporate tower. There has been no official announcement, no details revealed by the company, not even its identity.

What is known and has been reported in this newspaper—that it is a semiconductor manufacturer bent on acquiring a huge amount of land—has come mainly from land owners who have been offered far above market prices to sign contracts for the sale of their property. Real estate agents representing the company have told the potential land sellers that a decision on the location of the manufacturing complex will be announced in September.

The total amount of land is expected to be between 1,000 and 2,000 acres. All of it is in the Town of Port Washington.

The semiconductor manufacturing complex could only be built if the city annexes the land. A proposal to do that can be expected soon if the Port site is chosen, and the purpose of the July 15 City Hall meeting was to prepare for that possibility. It resulted in the council members voting to retain two law firms and a financial adviser to represent the city in negotiations with the manufacturer.

Though it was done in a sneaky way, that was a prudent move. Port’s part-time municipal representatives will need all the help they can get if they have to face a corporate giant’s squad of lawyers.

The stakes are high because whatever impact the industrial development has would be magnified by its incredible size.

The annexation of the land, located north of the city between Highway LL and the Ozaukee Interurban Trail, could increase the city’s land area by nearly 50%. The town would lose a substantial share of its farmland. Erecting manufacturing, office and storage buildings and providing infrastructure to meet the massive manufacturing operation’s needs for electric power, water, sewers and highways would be enormous construction projects that could go on for years.

A vast area of the countryside, now farmland and homesteads near small residential neighborhoods east of Highway LL, would become a sprawling industrial campus with its attendant traffic, noise and aesthetic disruption. Its presence would change a way of living that now strikes a comfortable balance of small-town and rural ambience with development at an adequate pace to keep the area prosperous.

If Port Washington is chosen for this fate, city officials deciding on the annexation will,  of course, weigh its possible benefits, including a large increase in assessed valuation. But the negative consequences of this mega industrial development would be a steep price to pay for an inflated tax base.

If the microchip producer wants the Port Washington site, the only thing that could stand in its way is the Port Washington Common Council with its power to agree or refuse to annex the land.

Should it come to that, the council must exercise that power in full view public and in a way that honors the will of the people.