Marathon County committees approve offers to purchase three parcels, cite highway reserves as funding source

Marathon County’s Infrastructure and HR Finance committees voted to approve offers to purchase three parcels listed in agenda item 4A1 and identified the county’s highway reserves as the proposed funding source.

The actions were approved by committee votes and are to be forwarded to the full county board for final action. Vice Chair Dickinson made the initial motion in the Infrastructure Committee, saying, "I would make a motion to approve the offers to purchase, as listed in 4A1, all 3 items." Supervisor Hartinger seconded the motion in that committee.

The Infrastructure Committee voted in favor with no members opposing, and the matter was forwarded to HR Finance for consideration. At HR Finance, a member moved a similar motion to proceed with offers on the three parcels and added a clarification that the funding source would be the highway reserves. Vice Chair Dickinson noted that the ultimate funding decision rests with the county board, saying, "I think ultimately that's a decision that the board the county board will make. So I I think that's fine." That motion also carried unanimously in committee.

A participant who identified himself as Chris said he had intended to register an abstention during the HR Finance vote but "wasn't able to get off of mute in time," and the clerk noted that comment for the record.

No statutory citations or ordinance numbers were discussed on the record; committee members characterized the actions as approvals to move the offers to purchase forward for county-board consideration. The committees did not set a final county-board meeting date for the item during the recorded discussion.

Next steps: the two committee approvals will be included in a resolution or agenda item for the full Marathon County board to consider and to confirm the funding source, as the committees indicated they were recommending but not finalizing that decision.