Mayville Mayor Hoping To Resolve Contested Merger Case Out Of Court System

(Mayville) The mayor of Mayville says he is pleased that a Dodge County Judge has denied the state’s decision to allow two neighboring municipalities to merger. Earlier this month, Judge Joseph Sciascia sent back the Department of Administration’s ruling to allow the town of Williamstown to attach to the village of Kekoskee.

The state accepted the merger request last fall which Mayville quickly appealed with the Dodge County Circuit Court. Since the new entity would surround the city, officials say the move would stunt Mayville’s growth and affect other areas such as school district population and transportation. Mayor Rob Boelk says Sciascia did a great job reviewing the facts of the case and showed that it was an illegal attempt to become a village.

Sciascia determined that state law does not permit Williamstown to just vanish with a boundary agreement between the two municipalities and said that the matter needed to be straightened out by the Court of Appeals or Supreme Court. Boelk says he hopes that the issue can end without involving the court system. He says he has reached out to his neighbors to discuss the matter one-on-one so that all parties can have an equal say on how this merger ends rather than leaving it to a court’s decision.

Boelk says the city expects both Williamstown and the state to appeal the judge’s decision. He says if that happens the matter will go to an appellate court. The Mayville Common Council meet in closed session for a little over a half-hour last (Monday) night to discuss the contested merger however no action was taken.