Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — Iron County hunters will be able to continue disposing their deer carcasses in special dumpsters designed to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease after the Iron County Board of Supervisors’ Finance Committee recently approved funding three dumpsters for the upcoming hunting season.
Last year, there were dumpsters located in the towns of Oma, Mercer and Saxon.
“It sounded like Oma and the Mercer ones were pretty well used,” Iron County Clerk Mike Saari said. “It sounded like those two were pretty well used, it didn’t sound like Saxon was.”
Tom Podlesny, who is a member of the county’s chronic wasting committee, told the Daily Globe the plan is to place a dumpster at the Saxon Pub in Saxon in an effort to have it used more. The other two dumpsters are expected to be placed at the Mercer Ranger Station and the Oma Town Hall, according to Podlesny.
Chronic wasting disease is a fatal brain disease affecting deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer and moose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no known cure once animals are infected, and symptoms include weight loss, stumbling, drooling and aggression. There are no reported cases of humans being infected with CWD.
Wisconsin’s first CWD-positive deer was tested in 2002, according to the Department of Natural Resources, after being killed in the November 2001 hunting season.
There are at least 55 CWD-affected counties in the state, according to the WDNR, meaning they either have had a deer test positive within their borders or are within 10 miles of a positive deer.
Iron County is one of the counties in the state without a confirmed case of CWD.
It’s hard to tell the exact number of carcasses put in the dumpsters last hunting season as some hunters just disposed of the heads or other parts, according to DNR wildlife biologist Jenna Malinowski, while others dropped off whole carcasses.
The cost of dumpsters is expected to be roughly the same as last year — approximately $1,300, officials said.
In other action, the committee:
—Agreed to forward a resolution to the full county board that would move children in need of protection and services, and termination of parental rights proceedings from the district attorney’s office to the responsibility of the county’s corporation counsel, Tim Dean.
“We are focused, as Human Services, on safety and permanence for kiddos. That’s our major concern. Secondary is also the budget concerns of having kids in placement, it’s a very costly expense,” Human Services Director Cally Kilger told the committee. “We have had some differences of opinion with the DA’s office in getting some cases to move forward, so we are asking for corp. counsel to now do all of … those children in need of protection and services cases and (termination of parental rights) cases so we can hopefully push some of these things forward.”
She said some cases have been dragging on for years and she feels like the cases would proceed faster if someone else was handling the cases.
Kilger acknowledged there would be an additional upfront cost to the county by having someone other than the DA’s office handle the cases, especially initially as Dean gets trained and handles any outstanding cases.
Iron County DA Matt Tingstad pushed back on the idea his office was mishandling the cases. He said his duty is to “represent the interests of the public,” and he and the DHS personnel may disagree on what best represents the public’s interests. He also said his office has proceeded with three terminations of parental rights cases since he took over the filings in 2017, and he feels they are proceeding as fast as allowed in the legal system.
“This office has not asked for any adjournments in any cases and all the cases are going according to timelines,” Tingstad told the Daily Globe Thursday. He added the process can sometime continue at the appellate level after his office handles cases, further delaying a final resolution, but that stage is beyond his control.
The county’s human services board already approved sending the resolution to the full county board.
—Opted to follow the relevant statutes and not waive the late penalty for a delinquent tax bill on a property in the towns of Mercer to avoid setting a precedent.
—Voted to hire Donald Packmayer as a part-time contracted maintenance employee.
