The Town Board of Edson held its regular monthly meeting this past February 3rd at 7:00 p.m., and among the items touched on was a notice: If you have a septic tank in Chippewa County that isn’t quite up to code, don’t expect to be grandfathered in—it doesn’t exactly work that way. With all town board members reporting for duty and five members of the public present as well (besides press), the Edson township board covered various matters, from hiring a town attorney for legal advice all the way to roads and bridges. Chairman Don Schesel led out the discussion.

“Is there anybody here that feels one way or the other about hiring this attorney, to give some legal advice to us?” he asked about retaining Bonnie Wachsmuth for any legal questions the town might have in the future. Wachsmuth was recommended to the township by an insurance company and had the necessary experience for the post. Although the Towns’ Association (a state level advocacy group) can and has been consulted by the members of the Edson town board, their answers were reported to be broad and lacking in detail. Not so with Wachsmuth.

“She works for Taylor County, she works for Clark County, she works for Neillsville,” Clerk Marie Wilbur listed the resumé of Wachsmuth. Another person present said they didn’t have a problem. “You gotta have somebody,” he said. With a motion by Chairman Schesel and a second by George Wellner, followed with a unanimous voice vote, Bonnie Wachsmuth was hired to provide the Edson town board with legal advice, should that need arise. Then it was on to the next item of business.

“Discuss and act on any road issues,” Chairman Schesel read from the agenda. “Road issues have kinda calmed down in the last two weeks,” he reported, “before that they were pretty radical. Joe was out quite a bit, so was Gary,” Schesel said of two plow drivers.

Inspections were said to be going well, and then Supervisor George Wellner had a comment. The question was raised whether the town was going to cut some brush again, to which Schesel replied that he imagined the town would, but that not much could be done until the snow cleared, later specifying that the snow in Edson town ditches needed to go down. “If we have some other 40 degree days, we get that a little sooner,” an audience member replied, which brought an audible chuckle from some on the town board. With that, it was on to the town bridge report!

With pictures included with the evaluation sheets, the good news is that no bridges in Edson have been condemned or downgraded from their present weight limits. The bad news is that a bridge on 370th Avenue that broke a beam and required a four mile drive around by plow and school bus before repairs were made by the county is still waiting to see if it qualifies for a federal aid program to replace it. If successful in the application, 80 percent of the replacement cost would be paid by the federal government, ten percent by the township, and another ten percent by the county. The wait list to find out is eight years in total, with the township currently two years into the wait period, the county also being in on the application. No other bridges in the Town of Edson are eligible for the aid program. Before long it was time to pay the bills and adjourn, with the next town meeting set for after Supervisor Mike Sande is scheduled to mediate in a lawsuit the town is facing.

The next Edson town board meeting is set to be held at 7:00 p.m. on March 9th at the town hall, reached by a left turn at the intersection of Highways MM and D south of Boyd, with the town hall on the right side of the road.