Neighbors rail against training course proposal

They say Gateway facility doesn’t belong near homes

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Editor

When Gateway Technical College representatives came to Burlington Nov. 14 to hear comments from area residents on a proposed emergency vehicle training, those representatives said they were in town to listen.

“We’re going to do everything we can to hear and listen to your concerns,” said GTC President Brian Albrecht, who was joined by GTC Vice President Bill Whyte and Public Safety Instructor Joe Whiten.

Members of the ChocolateFest committee attended, as did city staff and representatives from The Scherrer Group, which has helped pull the initial plans for the project together.

The message that panel got, loud and clear from almost everyone in attendance at the meeting, was simple: we don’t want this in our backyard.

With Gateway proposing an Emergency Vehicle Operations Course – or EVOC – for the current ChocolateFest grounds and leasing the former Kmart building for a public safety training center, the 25-30 residents in attendance at last week’s meeting didn’t like what they saw, or what they heard.

Sounding off

“We take a lot of crap in that neighborhood,” said Jon Hunsbusher. “You don’t want to admit it, but you know it.

“I just think that it’s time the City of Burlington looks somewhere else to dump on.”

The meeting lasted for close to two hours, as many residents of the small subdivision next to the ChocolateFest grounds spoke out against the EVOC track.

What remains to be seen is how Gateway reacts. According to Albrecht, the two pieces of the puzzle – the EVOC track and the training center – must be located within relatively close proximity.

The EVOC track has operated out of several locations in the past, most recently in the parking lot of the old Dairyland Greyhound Track in Kenosha.

However, when Gateway sat down to look at where it could actually build a track, staff at the college found they didn’t own enough land to make it feasible on any of the current sites.

Albrecht said state law prevents Gateway from purchasing land without going to referendum – which failed spectacularly in the spring elections.

Burlington is central to the Elkhorn, Racine and Kenosha campuses, and leasing both the ChocolateFest land and the former Kmart would work perfectly in terms of the two structures being close to each other – another requirement.

However, Albrecht also said that the process was just beginning, and that it was critical that everything is done “in an open and honest process.”

“We are trying to find out what your concerns are,” Albrecht said. “This was the best option, because it had two pieces of the puzzle.”

Track is the concern

So while there were virtually no complaints about the training center being located in Burlington, everything from the location of the EVOC track – and the problems it would cause there – to its likely hours were called into question.

Jeff and Yelena Dunn, whose home rests right next to the ChocolateFest grounds, were unified in the idea that the EVOC track at that location would be a bad idea.

Jeff Dunn had organized residents from the first announcement last month, but Yelena Dunn made several impassioned pleas.

“I’m asking you, please, let’s not think residential area,” she said. “I’m sure there’s someplace you can find.”

The consensus from residents in that area was that because of ChocolateFest – which residents said results in everything from people urinating on their lawns to sleeping on them – that adding the EVOC track and its perceived noise level would be adding insult to injury.

Gateway officials were quick to say that the noise level wouldn’t be as bad as residents seemed to think it would be. However, a video shown at the meeting had no sound, raising even more doubts that the sound could be dealt with.

What’s the impact?

With possible improvements planned for the ChocolateFest grounds, City Administrator Kevin Lahner said the impact on property value is “unknown.” Ed Knapp then asked, “Are you telling me this is going to improve property values?”

When Lahner said that was a possibility, there was laughter.

The overriding emotion of the evening, though, was frustration that the subdivision could be subjected to year-round noise in addition to the week of problems with ChocolateFest.

And while that emotion ran high, Gateway officials tried to respond with logic – in the form of proposed sound barriers and buildings as screening to the noise.

There were also questions raised about another possible site for the EVOC track, perhaps in empty city-owned land across from the Department of Public Works building.

While all possibilities were being kicked around, though, the two sides appeared to be looking at the situation from different viewpoints.

“I wanted to come here tonight open-minded,” said Paul Mueller, who owns the ReMax office on Milwaukee Avenue that abuts the ChocolateFest grounds.

“My main concern is noise pollution,” he said. He also added that, while Gateway would fill the empty former Kmart, the economy (which he considered the main factor in the building being empty) was improving and other options could exist.

Gateway officials, though, like the options that coming to Burlington would give them.

“We want to be the training center for southeast Wisconsin,” Albrecht said.