Hartford resident wants town to cut off Second Street access on Pike Lake

By Grayson Sewell

[email protected] 262-306-5043

TOWN OF HARTFORD — The town held a public hearing on Monday night for a discontinuance of a portion of public way, and nearly 100 town residents attended the meeting to voice their opposition or support for the proposal.

According to the agenda, the proposal is to discontinue the prescriptive easement for a portion of public way, known as Second Street, which leads up to a public access point and boat launch on Pike Lake, located between two properties owned by Tamara Jung.

A prescriptive easement, under Wisconsin Statute 893.28(1), happens when the public uses a property over and over, over the course of 20 years, it becomes open to the public to use.

According to Jung and her attorney, the land is not public land but private land that the public has been allowed to use under a prescriptive easement, and should be reverted back to being private property only, as allowed under Wisconsin Statute 66.1003.

According to Peranteau, the two properties owned by Jung are included on two separate subdivision plats (with the second plat being for the Kopmeier subdivision on land that was owned by the Wisconsin Lakes Ice Company, which had been started by John Kopmeier in 1849, and the Kopmeier brothers), which is what has lead to confusion over Second Street.

"The legal description of what was platted … begins at the southeast corner of the Wisconsin Lakes Ice Company property, which is the southeast corner of this road you can see on the plat," said Peranteau. "So, the legal description does not include that road, even though the road is on the plat, the road belonged to the Kopmeiers and the ice company."

She added that access points to Pike Lake were marked on the plat as an "alley," which the lake access point between Jung’s two properties was never platted as an "alley," unlike the lake access point 200 feet to the south that is still a lake access point and boat launch, today.

See EASEMENT, PAGE 8A

Grayson Sewell/Daily News staff From Page 1A

According to Jung, she became curious about the piece of land between her two properties when she heard it could become a walk-in access point, and after her attorney’s research, she was surprised to hear it was never platted as public property.

Jung added that over time there has become a perception that the land belongs to the town, but as the plat shows, it does not.

Because of this, she has requested that the town discontinue the prescriptive easement, allowing her to do with the land as she wishes, which would include removing the asphalt and concrete that currently leads up and into Pike Lake.

"There are 10 reasons that I think that this makes sense for our town," said Jung. "The first is, the truth is, it’s rarely used. I didn’t say never used, there are a couple of people that will walk in with their kayaks and there’s one boater from the city that’s used it, too. But it’s rarely used."

Other reasons included that there are other lake access points, the path is becoming dangerous and a discontinuance would shed both cost and liabilities for the town.

"Most do not use it and the change will not affect them," said Jung. "I believe the majority of your constituents support this, either actively or passively."

Included in the 13 people speaking in support of discontinuing the prescriptive easement between Jung’s two properties was State Sen. Dan Knodl, who said that doing so would "right a wrong" that was done by government years ago.

"I think what people have enjoyed there for a lot of years have been due to the benevolence of the property owners that were there," said Knodl. "It appears to me that this property, at least this portion of this property, has been used for public right-of-way in a prescriptive easement, I understand, that the government, whether that be the town in the past ... assumed or took some rights over this property in the form of an easement and made that available to the public. I think that was wrongly done."

Speakers for keeping public access

However, 38 of the residents spoke out against the town discontinuing the prescriptive easement, as they say the launch is not only regularly used, by all of them and other residents and family members, it’s better than the other public boat launch located 200 feet away.

"We use it," said resident Shaun Scheer. "The one 200 feet down, a lot of people do use that, but you try pulling a 3,000-pound boat over an 8inch drop-off, because it’s not built right, it’s hard. So, [Jung’s] launch is actually easier, what she calls her launch."

"Like a lot of people, we use it," said resident Scott Tyler. "We use it for kayaking, I use it for access for ice fishing. As board members, I hope you guys are really paying attention, becaase there is only one person who has anything to gain by you abandoning it.

"All these other residents are using it."

In addition to speaking during the meeting, resident Todd Gruszynski brought along documentation, including a photo and route data from Google Maps, proving that he and his family use the Second Street lake access point to launch their boat.

Another resident who lives near Second Street, Mary Musinsky, said that the town needs to keep the prescriptive easement, as discontinuing it will affect her homeowners insurance costs.

"The Pike Lake neighborhood does not have a water distribution system for fighting fires," sad Musinsky. "Two things were necessary for my husband, Steve, and I to obtain a homeowners policy with good coverage at an affordable rate. One, the fire station must be within three miles of the property; two, there must be a fire water source within 1,000 feet of our property, and that source is both boat launches to the north of our property.

"The underwriter considered the two boat launches as a source, because one firetruck can be starting to pump while the other is leaving the other launch, thus giving a quicker turnaround time for water."

Others who spoke and asked questions brought up that the town has already spent taxpayer money on maintaining the Second Street access point, despite less attention being paid to it by the town in recent years, and that giving it to Jung for free was unfair to the taxpayers.

The Hartford Town Board will now consider all testimony from residents, both spoken and written, that was submitted before and during Monday night’s meeting. They are expected to vote on whether to discontinue the prescriptive easement for Second Street during their meeting on Feb. 12 meeting at 7 p.m. at Hartford Town Hall, 3360 County Highway K, Hartford.

If the town board approves the discontinuance, the matter will then head to the Department of Natural Resources for a final decision.