Residents could see fees for street light usage

MARSHFIELD, Wis. (WAOW) -- The city of Marshfield is considering adopting an ordinance that would take the responsibility of paying for street light power to property owners.

That proposed ordinance would have property owners paying a monthly fee for public street light usage. Currently street light costs for the year total about a quarter of a million dollars.

City officials said the purpose of the charge would be to comply with state tax levy limits.

They emphasized that residents wouldn't be paying anything more as the street light is already built into their current taxes.

"So what we want to do is take it off their taxes and make it a separate charge and again hopefully it'll be as fair as possible, we'll be very conscious as far as the residents compared to the businesses and make sure they're not paying more than their fair share," said Steve Barg, City Administrator.

Residential, industrial, and commercial properties will all be charged differently.

The city plans to contract a financial advisor to conduct a study on the city to determine how much to charge based on property type.

"They'll try to figure out a way to divide the benefit most fairly and have to determine how much would they raise, how much would we raise, if we imposed certain charges on certain types of customers," said Barg.

He said he welcomes input from the public and encourages people to call their district representatives.

The study is estimated to take four months, if approved it would likely be completed by the end of the year.

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