Even Shawano Lost Their Own, Bass Pro Shop

From the Shawano Leader

Wetlands issue hits home

City officials are waiting to see what the leadership change in Madison might mean for development in Shawano, particularly in light of an exemption from Department of Natural Resources permitting rules passed last week for a Green Bay developer.

A bill designed to lure Bass Pro Shops to Green Bay was signed Friday by Gov. Scott Walker. It allows Neenah-based car dealer John Bergstrom to fill in about an acre-and-a-half of wetland between U.S. Highway 41 and the Green Bay Packers’ stadium without a permit.

The exception to the DNR rule caught the attention of Shawano officials still upset over the loss last year of a major development project scuttled by an impasse over wetlands.

“It’s very disturbing that here we had an opportunity to attract a business that was going to create approximately 100 jobs over time at (pay) rates that are probably above the average rate in Shawano,” City Administrator Jim Stadler said. “All of sudden you have a change in governor and now it appears the state is open for business.”

Team Industries Inc. of Kaukauna — a manufacturer of high quality fabricated piping and vessels — expressed interest in August 2009 in purchasing the former Komatsu property, if additional acreage adjacent to the facility could be secured to create an outside storage area.

The additional acreage included 5.5 acres of wetlands, which the city was offering to replace elsewhere. But the DNR expressed serious concerns about the project and declined to give Team any indication of what its chances would be for approval.

Months of intensive effort, significant investment of municipal resources and pleas for help all the way to then-Gov. Jim Doyle’s office, failed to resolve the issue. Then, in February of last year, Team announced it was no longer pursuing the Komatsu facility.

Stadler said Team and the city were never able to get past the first step in the DNR process.

You can read the rest at the above link. 


Makes you wonder why the democrat party of Shawano County even exists? People of Shawano, with friends like them, who needs  enemies.Democrats, Jim Doyle and the WDNR has screwed the people of Shawano and they still get voted into office.