Fredonia spending an issue in race to replace Dohrwardt

In a special election on April 7, two people are vying for the seat formerly held by Don Dohrwardt on the Fredonia Village Board.

Former trustee and current County Board member Bruce Paape is running against Eric Stowe, who ran a write-in campaign for village president last year.

Dohrwardt stepped down because of his health and the winner fills out the final year of his term.

Stowe attended a Mid-Moraine Municipal Association candidate forum on March 7 and Paape gave his answers via an interview with Ozaukee Press.

Paape, 61, is a master electrician who has run his own business since 1998. He went through the electrician’s program at Milwaukee Area Technical College and has EPA 1 and 2 inspectors’ licenses. He grew up in Belgium and lived in Waubeka for 23 years and in the village the last five. He is married with two adult children.

Stowe, 44, is a senior manager of demand planning for Spectrum Brands who has a master’s of business administration degree from the University of Iowa and a bachelor’s in psychology from Northern Iowa University. He said he is a “process guy” with a background in supply chain and continuous improvement who has lived in the village for 10 years, is married and has a 10-year-old son.

Paape wants the village to work to address infrastructure needs across the village and to rein in spending.

“We have no borrowing power in Fredonia. In case of an emergency, I don’t know what we would have to do,” he said.

“I just want to get a hold of the spending and be more fiscally responsible for the residents of Fredonia.”

One way to do that, he said, is to eliminate the marshal’s department, which he said costs about $120,000 per year.

“Anytime we have anything go on other than a traffic ticket, we have to contact the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Department,” he said, adding he’d like to develop an internal government agreement for that office to take over policing. “They’re there all the time anyway,” he said.

Stowe said his top priority is also cost control and suggests doing an “in-depth review of where our costs lie and really put on a hat of continuous improvement to determine what areas we can slash, what areas can we cut back on.”

He proposes developing realistic annual growth expectations as part of a five to 10-year cost plan for the village.

“I’m a firm believer that we continue to look at where our costs lie, what our potential options are and look at those additional options where we can save a dollar or two by line,” he said.

He also said he would like to create a mandated minimum number of options brought to the board to solve issues and control costs for items like the recent snow removal truck that developed problems.

The multi-million-dollar wastewater treatment upgrade significantly raised sewer rates, and Paape has an idea to try to keep that fiscal impact to a minimum.

“I want to see what we could do in-house,” he said.

While some of the plant’s upgrades are required by the state Department of Natural Resources, Paape said others are not and the village “kicked that all the way down the road too. It should have been saving years ago. At least prioritizing.”

Stowe said complying with the DNR is a non-negotiable but suggested long-term planning to avoid drastic rate increases.

“I think we take this as a lesson for future processes. Are there some kind of solutions we can put in place? Regular process audits, that kind of thing where we can identify a problem before it becomes a bigger issue?” he said.