Town of Port has border agreement card to play

The Port Washington Town Board on Monday was faced with one of the most significant decisions members will likely face in the coming years — how to respond to a request by the City of Port to amend the border agreement between the two communities to allow a proposed data center to proceed immediately.

Much of the land for the proposed data center is in a no-annexation area defined by the border agreement, which was approved in 2004.

Board members, who met in closed session for about an hour following the regular board meeting, could decide to seek concessions from the city in return for ending the border agreement before its Dec. 31 expiration date or to do nothing.

Those concessions could run the gamut, including money to offset the town taxes, providing sewer and water to the Knellsville area, and ensuring the city will renegotiate the border agreement — something Town Chairman Mike Didier said the city has been reluctant to do.

Doing nothing, Didier told the standing-room-only crowd, would not stop the proposed project.

“They told us they don’t need us to amend it. They can wait (until the agreement expires),” he said, adding that amending the agreement “would facilitate things quicker.”

Didier said Town Attorney Michael Herbrand was approached by the city’s special counsel, attorney Chris Smith of von Briesen and Roper, before Christmas to discuss the matter.

Didier, who also met with Smith, said the city asked what concessions will be needed to amend the agreement.

“They didn’t expect us to agree to amend it without (concessions),” he said.

Didier said he saw a map of the land that would be used for the sprawling data center complex, which stretches from the city’s north border north to Dixie Road and is west of I-43 and east of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail.

That area, Didier said, has about 30 houses and generates about $17,000 annually in town taxes.

Rick and Jane Fellenz, who live on Highland Drive, asked if their land could be annexed even though they have not agreed to sell their property for the data center complex, and what impact it would have on them.

“We may not be able to hunt on our land. We may not be able to use our well,” she said. “We’ve got to get rid of our chickens?”

That is a possibility, Didier and Herbrand said, depending on the process used for annexation.

Towns, Didier told the crowd, have little to say about annexations and little power to fight them.

“We lose land to annexation every year,” he said, adding the state requires cities to compensate for annexations by reimbursing towns for the taxes they lose for five years.

Didier said he, like many residents, had questions but few answers about the proposed project.

Residents raised questions about the amount of power and water that the proposed complex would use and the impact on their properties and the area in general.

“All these things need to be discussed as a community prior to the Town Board giving an answer to the city,” one woman said.

As the board prepared to go into closed session, one woman told the members, “It seems like you’re going into closed session prematurely. You don’t know what the public wants the conditions (to amend the border agreement) to be.”

But when Didier asked those attending what they would seek, no one responded.

Didier said after the closed session that it’s “very possible” the board will schedule a meeting on the data center proposal before its next regular meeting on Feb. 3.