Blowing through a fourway stop with clearly posted brake check signals during your first driver’s test will result in earning you an automatic test fail and the need to reschedule licensing for another date. Test taking jitters aren’t an accepted excuse, even if the tough as nails (and perhaps retired) volunteer DMV grader riding with you in the passenger seat keeps their silence until you’re already back at the HQ. But if you’re wondering why such an atypical personal anecdote from 17 years back is being shared right now, it’s not vanity. Rather, it has to do with a recent happening along Sunset Drive in the Town of Taft. Someone just decided to cost the taxpayers there $25.75 plus installation fees—a bargain considering the potential consequences for the said individual’s chosen object of theft, an octagon sign with crucial signaling function. “And we had to replace a stop sign, which somebody stole from us,” Taft Board Chairman Darrel Thompson said at the June board meeting held this past Tuesday June 16 after being called to order at 7:43 p.m., the wall clock correct when checked by smartphone. The current town hall’s repurposed church pews from across the way were all but empty for the June 2020 Taft board meeting, as the wood paneling on the walls of the one-time schoolroom complemented an on-site notetaking table of similar baby blue complexion, with varnished wooden flooring below. At the same time and posted up high on the old slate chalkboard in the upper left corner, a soon to be updated pre-census figure of 435 township inhabitants announced the number of Taft residents currently accounted for by the State, while social distancing protocols meant that Chairman Thompson directed the June meeting from a table in the southeast corner of the town hall, complete with protective gear. Taylor County, which had previously seemed immune to the spreading coronavirus, is immune no more, nor is any other county in the State of Wisconsin this summer, as test results posted to the State Department of Public Health (DPH) website confirm. Meanwhile, back to the town board meeting.

“Please call as to your preference,” Thompson read from a letter sent to the town board by the outside recycling authority on tire collection, then, “What is your preference?” Supervisor Jerry Czubakowski shared his opinion that as there were currently tires that needed to be picked up, it would be good to have the annual tire collection this summer rather than waiting until 2021. Also included in the letter of notice to Taft was the news that the outside recycling authority had cancelled its meeting for June, while the Cleansweep for Taylor County had been scheduled for early September. There was also the Fourth of July to consider, falling as it did on the first Saturday, otherwise one of two dates each month—these being the first and third Saturdays— when township residents can bring their recyclables to the town garage at the corner of County Trunk F at Meridean Drive. The Fourth of July being Independence Day, the sentiment was voiced that it would be nice to do other things beside government duties. In short “no one should have to sit on the Fourth.” Accordingly, the date for recycling was moved forward this Fourth of July, Friday July 3rd from four to eight p.m. Then it was on to liquor and tobacco control in the area.

In the annual ritual demanded of all such businesses since the 21st Amendment relegalized booze, The Foxx Den and Little Gills had applied for a renewal of their alcohol related licenses, a process which requires 15 days to pass between the license application being made and the granting thereof, while there are no new operator licenses to consider and the board would consider approval for an extension of the old ones. Meanwhile, Supervisor Del Kroeplin (who also handles non-representative town duties) had reportedly put a sign that said “Slow: Children at Play,” within the Town of Taft boundaries, a sign that Chairman Thompson approved of while also mentioning “the one that people stole” in reference to a stop sign at the T-intersection of Fernwall Avenue and Sunset Drive. Per the Town Clerk Lori Czubakowski there were no driveway or culvert permits to report for June, although the town had notified one resident of an issue to be fixed and was waiting to hear back from them as of the June 16th meeting. Once a town or other municipality gives someone notice, the noticed party generally has 30 days to respond and make things right if they want to avoid the charge being put on their tax bill—as a general rule. From notices meanwhile it was into road maintenance, with blue granite and gravel the roadmaking options of choice this season. Thompson again spoke up.

“I’ll need a motion to purchase blue granite,” he said of the reported 860 cubic yards needed, alongside a need for gravel in the 960-yard range. The cost for maintenance gravel was reported as $9,500 per mile, while the town budget’s “top number” for allowable road expenditures in the current cycle is $83,817, with $10,474 being spent the previous month. Supervisor Kroeplin speaks up.

“There’s still a lot of work on that county line,” he said of the slightly bumpy road to the south. “Why not finish it and be done?” The township board in the previous few years had done a partial section repair on the thoroughfare. With a motion by Kroeplin, seconded by Czubakowski, the blue granite purchase got approved. Then it was on the Tropical Storm report.

“We survived the rain better than a lot of neighboring townships,” one member shared, Supervisor Jerry Czubakowski shared his observation that Otter had flooded out “on both ends.” Thompson said that some town road culverts might need rock to shore up any undermining with the recent rain, and that he would check with the waters having receded from the high mark. He also had one other comment on the change of recycling date.

“I’m glad you noticed that Del or we’d have gone right up to the Fourth and said ‘uhoh,’” he told the Supervisor. The meeting later adjourned with a motion by Kroeplin that was seconded by Czubakowski.

“We’re adjourned,” Treasurer Lana Knox confirmed of the meeting’s closure in response to inquiry. The next monthly meeting for the Town of Taft is on July 21st at 7:30 p.m. Stop by the town hall at the corner of County Trunk F and Meridean Drive, reached from the west by a right hook at the Otter Lake Bait turn off, from the east by a left turn from Bellinger or just straight from Lublin, and by turning north onto Koser Avenue from Thorp to the south, Koser changing to Meridean at the county line.