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A decade after Ozaukee County acquired a Town of Fredonia property through foreclosure, officials remain divided over whether to sell the 62-acre parcel or add it to the park system and open it to the public at long last.
But supervisors, who toured what has become known as the Shady Lane property last week and are expected to start debating its future next month, seem resolved to settle a question that has haunted the county since it assumed ownership of the parcel in 2001.
“To tell you the truth, the whole issue is just really distasteful to a lot of supervisors, including me,” County Board Chairman Robert Brooks said. “I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do with it. There are no good scenarios.”
What troubles Brooks is that the county foreclosed on a valuable piece of property to recover about $30,000 in property taxes owed by its former owner, Steven Magritz. Although the county’s actions were legal, profiting from the foreclosure at the expense of a man who lost his home and his family’s land is troubling, he said.
“There are a lot of conservatives on the (county) board who consider property rights to be sacred,” Brooks said. “To just take someone’s property for a fraction of what it was worth doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.”
Brooks said he favored selling the property and giving the proceeds to Magritz minus the unpaid taxes and foreclosure expenses until he found out that the deadline for Magritz to file a claim for excess proceeds has long since lapsed.
“Now I’ve been told we can’t give the owner the proceeds if we wanted to,” he said. “I’ve even asked if we can somehow give him another chance to claim the proceeds, but that appears to be impossible.”
Brooks said perhaps the best thing for the county to do is keep the land. He pointed out that the county’s parks caretaker lives in the house on the property, an arrangement that constitutes a significant portion of his compensation, and other buildings on the land are used by the Parks Department.
“We’re using the land now and nothing is stopping us from developing some trails and opening it to the public,” he said. “Selling it now at a bad time to sell anything after holding on to it for 10 years just doesn’t make any sense.”
Complicating the issue is the fact that Magritz is hardly a sympathetic character in this saga.
After failing to pay his property taxes and losing his property during a court hearing he did not attend, Magritz launched a campaign of harassment against county officials — one that included filing bogus liens against them and involuntary bankruptcy in their names — that ultimately landed him in prison.
Magritz served his time, but last summer resumed filing what officials said were bogus documents in an apparent attempt to reclaim his property. That resulted in the filing of a felony charge against him last month and a warrant for his arrest.
The land has become a topic of debate again because the county’s Parks and Open Spaces Plan, which was approved last year, calls for the property to be incorporated into the county park system and opened to the public.
“I’m the one who brought this to us because I don’t think we should approve a plan and put it on the shelf,” said Supr. Glenn Stumpf of the Town of Cedarburg, a member of the Natural Resources Committee. That committee is expected to make a recommendation regarding the property to the County Board.
“The plan approved by the County Board calls for several additions to the park system, and the Shady Lane property has been identified as the top priority, so we should make a decision,” Stumpf said.
One option seen by some officials as an acceptable compromise is subdividing the property so the house and the minimum amount of acreage required by Town of Fredonia zoning laws can be sold. The county would retain the rest of the land and incorporate it into its park system.
Supr. Rose Hass Leider of the Town of Fredonia, also a member of the Natural Resources Committee, said she is opposed to keeping the entire parcel for use as a park but could live with a compromise.
“This is a valuable piece of property that is important to the Town of Fredonia tax rolls,” she said. “If you keep taking all this land off the tax rolls, what’s going to happen to our towns?
“They (towns) need property value more than the county needs another park.”
Leider said selling the house and a reasonably sized lot would help the town and give county park supporters what they want.
“I think I could live with that,” Leider said. “There would be plenty of land left for the Parks Department to develop all the trails they want on the property.”
County Administrator Tom Meaux said the county is currently having the property appraised.
Stumpf, a proponent of retaining the property for use as a nature area open to the public, said he, too, could accept a compromise provided most of the land is preserved.
“This is a gorgeous piece of land,” he said. “If we decide to take seven or 10 acres off and sell it, fine, but there is absolutely no question that the rest of the land should be part of the park system.”
Stumpf said too much emphasis is being placed on the importance of returning the land to the tax rolls.
“I know this is a big issue for some supervisors, but studies have shown that the value of surrounding properties increase when land is preserved,” he said. “Preserving the land may be more valuable for the town than selling it.”
Proponents of adding the property to the park system point out that the land, with its hardwood forests and river frontage, is an environmental gem the county shouldn’t let slip away. They envision a nature preserve with minimal improvements similar to Lion’s Den Gorge Nature Preserve in the Town of Grafton, which the county also owns and maintains.
Meaux said supervisors will be briefed on their options next month. The Natural Resources Board will then be asked to make a recommendation to be considered by the board in March.
