”Over the last five years, it’s been pretty depressed in southern Wisconsin” said John Westphal, President of Westphal & Co. He continued, “I’ve been talking with the city (about) this for a year, and I still don’t have an answer. They told me it would take a long time to make up their minds.”The City Council spends two years and $41,000 knocking down a little barn while they let Westphal slip through their fingers. Go figure.
The other thing I don’t understand about Janesville's masterplan is the strategy of buying up riverfront properties and removing them from the tax rolls. One would think they would instead buy up the small dilapidated houses and undersized lots in some of the older areas (low assessed values) on the west side of the river. Raze the homes and consolidate the properties to entice developers with existing infrastructure, large lots and buildable land. I guess that doesn't make sense.
3 comments:
You are forgetting that another part of Janesvilles master plan is to dig tunnels under roads for bikers that can't seem to stop at intersections. I loved this quote, "The problem is, the city has a different speed than business". They have discussed it for over a year and still have not come to a decision? The speed of indecision has cost them a company that has been here for over 75 years.
Yeah, Westphal really laid it out in the open. I'm very curious to see what the response from the city will be .......... and so is Westphal albeit too late.
Ya can't blame Westphal for setting up shop in Madison. That town is booming. Much more work to be done there instead of Janesville. Scheifer dropped the ball on this one for sure.
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