Dear Editor:

For almost 30 years, it has been my pleasure to serve the Village of Weston on its various committees, commissions, and boards, in addition to having been a member of the Board of Trustees and the Village’s 2nd President.  I am proud to have played a role in the community we have built here. Weston has been a great place to raise my kids and for them to raise theirs.

I consider myself fortunate to have had a front-row seat to many of our community’s major milestones. The incorporation of Weston into a Village government. The creation of the Weston Business & Technology Park. The addition of Ascension St. Claire hospital, as well as, the new developments south of Hwy 29. The creation of cooperative Police, Fire and EMS services with our neighbors. I believe the Village of Weston has helped set the bar higher for local governments here in the Wausau metro area with a culture for communication, innovation, and transparency. We accomplished a lot while maintaining a competitive property tax rate, which is the envy of many of our neighbors.

How has the Village of Weston been able to reach these and other achievements? We have had many highly-educated, talented, and professional Village employees. Weston has benefited from citizen committee members with a strong vocation or avocation in the areas of their assignments. Most importantly; however, Weston has enjoyed consistent leadership, objective perspectives, and elected officials without personal agendas distracting them from doing what is best for the community.

You learn a lot about running a local government after three decades of public service. It feels great to be able to celebrate the successes earned, but you are also informed enough to see the obstacles and challenges ahead. Some of these challenges includes maintaining the critical infrastructure throughout the village, including various buildings, streets, and parks. The growing drug epidemic and our region’s aging population will continue to place additional burdens on our emergency response services. In addition, Weston must constantly be identifying new ways to maintain funding and keep taxes low in spite of the continued reductions in state-shared revenues, with levy caps now in place for more than a decade.

In the face of these challenges, there are a lot of reasons to be excited about the Village’s future as a community. Current ongoing discussions about partnerships and financial collaborations have advanced conversations about building a new branch of the library and a new sports complex at some very reasonable costs. Weston will have all its general obligation debt paid off in 2020. The continued work with Forward Development Group to build the proposed Camp Phillips Centre is one of the largest and most exciting economic development initiatives in the history of our metro area.   

Facing these challenges and capitalizing on these opportunities will take informed, selfless, and experienced leadership from the elected Board of Trustees. Luckily, Weston has strong incumbents who have these qualities running for the Board of Trustees. For these reasons, I ask you to support current incumbents Loren White and Scott Berger on April 3 for Village Trustees.

Sincerely,

Fred Schuster, former village president