SHAWANO COUNTY, WI – As requests for more ATV availability are being made, discussions are being held.
This week, no action was taken by the Shawano County Highway and Parks Committee in regards to ATV usage.
The committee had a discussion about options that included leaving the map the way it is, opening up all county roads or opening up some more roads in municipalities that requested it.
Chairman Tom Kautza said if a change was going to be made, it would be best to either approve opening roads for the municipality that already requested it, or do a full county road opening.
Commitee member John Ainsworth expressed concern about opening up highly traveled roads like Airport Drive, Lake Drive and County Road B.
In the end, the committee felt that the map that was created two years ago is still a good one and took no action, leaving things the way they are.
“The committees objective to this was to utilize ATV use and still have the safety aspect to it,” said Shawano County Highway Commissioner Grant Bystol.
He says a majority of the municipalities in Shawano County have their own roads open for ATV use, and in cases where the roads are split by county roads, most of those connecting roads have already been open by the county.
“If it comes to a segment of county road that needs to be open, we have allowed it, but we would rather have them traveling the town roads if possible.”
The current ordinance for ATV use has been in place for the last two years.
In the Village of Bonduel, a public meeting was held this week for people to discuss opening up Village Roads for ATV and UTV use.
The Public Safety Committee heard from a half dozen people on Monday, all who supported the idea of opening the Village roads.
Kay Zulliger, Committee Chairperson says that also means that it could bring in more money to local businesses.
“They are hoping this is going to bring more revenue to the Village by having more people riding.
She says locations surrounding the Village of Bonduel have roads open for use and clubs have been approaching the Village to ask for roads to open for connection purposes.
“We don’t want to not have our residents be able to ride.”
The Village Board is expected to take a vote on the issue during their February meeting.
