“I’d like to actually request a budget hearing,” Eslinger said of officer hiring solutions. “It’s that time of year.” A budget hearing would allow for consideration of potential full-time benefits for officers that are shared between the three municipality area of Boyd, Cadott, and Stanley, with benefits and full-time status—but especially benefits—considered key to retaining quality police help. With each revolving door hire at Boyd, meanwhile, Eslinger said that a hiring cost of between $5,000 to $8,000 was incurred, this to complete mandatory psychological and other assessments prior to investment with police powers. So what about ticketing?

Chief Eslinger said he wants to move away from highway speeding to in-town ordinance enforcement, something that full-timers deal with daily, whereas less invested part-timers can leave to go to seed.

“I want to deal more with the in-town issues,” Eslinger said of department priorities at Boyd. But if you think it’s all about bleeding the taxpayers, think again: citations can be cancelled, with clean streets the ultimate goal.

“What I have done, because not everyone has a lot of money, is I ‘ll write a citation, but then if they take care of the issue, I’ll cancel the citation,” Eslinger told the village board at Boyd. “The main goal is really to get compliance, it’s not to ticket everybody,” he said. Conditional citations may be the nudge that some need to act, but Chief Eslinger shared that, “just being on top of it and working with them is what the priority is.” Which leads into the next topic: derby cars on city streets and village perceptions.

“A lot of people bought these vehicles with the intention of crashing them,” Eslinger said of smashed and/or unlicensed automobiles seen on resident properties from events at Jim Falls and elsewhere in the area this summer. With derby season over, here’s fair notice: it’s time to get cleaned up. Speaking of which, the tennis courts at Lotz Park could being turned into a Little League t-ball field. The Little League at Boyd was reported from the September Village Board meeting to be willing and able to donate $3,000 to the project, along with manpower. First though, the tennis courts would need to go, which led to more concrete issue from Boyd Streets and Utilities angle: was there rebar in the court floors?

“It’s going to take quite a few truckloads to get that out,” village employee Bob LaMarche said of the courts, with rebar potentially causing issues with city equipment. As such, it was decided to take a small corner out for test sample and then fill in with gravel if necessary. Other issues for the potential t-ball field at Lotz Park include the non-ideal location near concessions, a requisite fence, and “Let’s get some numbers and see what the bank will do,” President Geist said of donations from Northwestern Bank to village improvement.

In the meantime, there’s a potential budget hearing to think about, lest more good officer candidates, be lost, for lack of benefits—that and Cleanup Days coming in October.

“We could post it on the village website and it would be gone in a day,” one village board member said of a fridge the village was seeking to get rid of. Ground rules and human nature, meanwhile, were also considered. “Make it $25,” they said. “Free won’t go.”