Letter: Why are city property owners losing square footage?

To the Editor-

While America’s Dairyland may be known for its beautiful forests and enthusiasm for all things cheese, sadly, more and more people are moving out of Wisconsin.

In fact, one study showed that almost 10,000 more residents left the state than moved into the state in 2010, which has only increased in subsequent years. This can be an alarming fact for residents, as it has a direct impact on the amount of tax revenue that’s used to pay for state services.

Wisconsin ranks fifth in the nation regarding taxes, placing a staggering 11 percent tax on its residents. Because this extra cost burdens the daily lives of those living in the state, more and more people are choosing to leave Wisconsin for lower tax rates and higher salaries. In some cases, a single factor can pull residents out of Wisconsin, such as climate, job market, and tax rate. It’s easy to see why multiple factors are driving people out of the state.

We do not need a city government planning all sorts of “trendy” sounding ADUs and ACUs which will stand empty given the climate of this community. “Afternoons with Captain Jack” lists Stevens Point as one of the 20 worst places to live in Wisconsin, listing such things as high unemployment rates, income for residents, high housing vacancy rate, and crime rate.

I keep repeating myself, yet the city planning office seems unable to understand that the city population has been going down and the university has had many years of decreasing enrollment. When will they listen? What part of these facts do they not understand? Perhaps they should be using all their time and energy trying to bring businesses here, to change the direction of the population that has been decreasing.

An interesting program about the Menomonie River Valley project told of the work to improve a large “broken” area near Milwaukee. Some parks were created, but the greatest improvement was to have in place, a provision that each acre of buildable land had to provide 22 jobs, a daunting task, but one directed at improvement, not finding more land/acres to build more units for people that don’t live here.

Now, to get to another questionable event that was discovered this past week. One of the property owners in my neighborhood discovered that his property was short by 3,000 square feet as recorded on his tax bill. After some searches in the open records, it indicated that 18 homes in this immediate area are affected. Most lost land; three property owners gained. Now, I ask, where did this land go? To the north, south, east, west? Did it go to the city right-of-way, or did it just disappear? Where, oh where is our land? Poof! Just gone.

When we decide to sell our property, how can a title company make the numbers work? How can people know their property lines? This isn’t an “oops.” These numbers were developed by the city, whether the treasurer’s office, assessor’s office, city planner’s office, mayor’s office, or, perhaps the street department. Nevertheless, it is a HUGE PROBLEM.

This city is showing its true colors. No one knows what is going on today, yesterday, or tomorrow. When will this come to an end? I’d suggest that if this happened in our area, then it’s likely to have happened, or will happen, in other areas of our city.

Check your records to see if you still own the land that you thought you owned. Demand that all of these numbers be verified with a survey. Not just an unknown someone writing numbers on a sheet to send to you at property tax time.

Ruth Pfiffner
Stevens Point

Send your open letters to [email protected]