Rochester residents overwhelmingly approve consolidation

By Pete Wicklund
Journal Times

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 9:18 AM CST

ROCHESTER — Racine County has one fewer municipality now that voters in the village and town of Rochester have agreed to consolidate their governments.

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s binding referendum show that Village of Rochester voters Tuesday voted 375 to 104 in favor of consolidation; Town voters voted 884 to 376 for consolidation.

It took more than eight years and special legislation from the state for proponents of consolidation to see their efforts come to fruition.

“I’m really pleased the people of the Town of Rochester knew what the cause was and stayed with us through the different steps,” said Rochester Town Chairman Gary Beck. “We really are a community now. We’ve been talking that way a lot of years now and now we are that.”

“We’re looking forward to our new village and a new era,” said Village President Chris Denman. “We are a born-again village.”

Denman said he was getting concerned the last couple of weeks when he ran into several residents who seemed a little confused about the consolidation proposal, despite numerous steps the governments took to educate residents.

The reasons given for consolidation included the fact that the two governments have long shared municipal services such as a clerk, fire protection and a library. Consolidation will also protect land that had been in the former Town of Rochester from potential annexations from the neighboring City of Burlington and Village of Waterford.

The current village and town boards will now sit jointly in overseeing the consolidated village. Beck and Denman said the current seven members of the Village Board will preside over matters related to the former village government, while the three-member Town Board will do likewise with matters specifically related to the former town government. Members of both boards will vote together on matters related to the new consolidated village until elections take place in April to elect a new seven-member village board.

Beck said Rochester residents owed much thanks to State Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, who helped get legislation attached to the state 2008-2009 budget bill that allowed for the referendum to go forward.

Both Denman and Beck said they will run for the Village Board in April. Denman said he wants to run for president, while Beck said he will seek a trustee position.

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