LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE UPDATE

Trespass Bill: WAAO lobbyist Jolene Plautz , WAAO members Paul Klauk, Paul Koller, Mel Raatz, and Pete Weissenfluh met with several legislators on January 12, 2005. We were successful in getting sponsors in both houses for this proposal. Senator Carol Roessler of Oshkosh and Representative Al Ott of Forest Junction agreed to sponsor our bill. It has gone to drafting. The real work for WAAO has just begun. We need to assist these legislators in getting co-sponsors for the proposal. If this is an issue for you in your jurisdiction, please contact your legislators let them know we need to remove barriers from doing our statutory duties and ask them to sign on and help move the bill to law.

Repeal of Section 74.37: The same WAAO group met with an aide to Senator Glenn Grothman regarding the repeal of 74.37. We were told that this is a bill he may be interested in looking at but we need more data. This is where WAAO membership needs to help. If your clerk receives a 74.37 claim for an excessive assessment, the WAAO legislative committee wants to hear about it. We will be collecting information relative to the amount of these claims throughout the State, the magnitude of the claims, and estimates of the time and resources necessary to deal with the claim. We will be especially interested in the views of the city Mayors, town and village leaders, as well as attorneys that will have to defend the jurisdictions. We believe by showing the amount of time, money, and resources that go into this form of litigation, we will be able to garner support from legislators. Please contact legislative chair Pete Weissenfluh at pweiss@milwaukee.gov if you get 74.37 claims.

Bills Introduced for the 2005 – 2006 Legislature:

WAAO will be monitoring 2005 Senate Bill 3. http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/SB-3.pdf , a bill creating a property tax exemption for an Arts and Arts Education Center. This is a very narrow (single property) type of exemption. The property includes one or more buildings that are owned or leased by the entity and are located within, or are surrounded by, a municipal park; and the property includes one or more theaters for the performing arts that are operated by the entity and the seating capacity of the theater or theaters is not less than 600 persons.

2005 Assembly Bill 2

http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/AB-2.pdf , this bill seeks to eliminate the Joint Survey on Tax Exemptions.

Bills drafted and seeking sponsors

LRB-0948/1, would allow the submission to the assessor, no later than 30 days after the assessor’s request, physical evidence that accurately represents the appearance of the property and a written sworn statement that attests to the accuracy of the representation, in lieu of an actual interior inspect. This “physical evidence”, we presume could be a videotape and meet the requirements of 70.47 (7) (aa).

LRB-1032/1, relates to location of contiguous land for purposes of eligibility under the Managed Forest Land Program. Under the proposal, the parcel of contiguous acres may be located in more than one municipality.

The WAAO legislative committee will be continuing to work with our lobbyist in February. Our focus will be to work other groups to help with the repeal of 74.37.