Thoughts about the extra Department of Transportation land along 57
This is from a February 27, 2024 article in the Green Bay Press-Gazette:
Assembly leaders passed a bill Tuesday that would move unhoused people illegally camping on the streets to structured, sanctioned areas of public land, far removed from dense commercial and residential areas.
The vote count in the Assembly, linked to from https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/proposals/ab689, shows it passed 60-39. The identical bill in the Senate, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/proposals/sb669, has not been voted on yet. I think it will also pass the Senate, but am uncertain if it will be vetoed.
The testimony packet for the Senate bill, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lc/hearing_testimony_and_materials/2023/sb669/sb0669_2023_12_06.pdf, doesn’t mention immigration or the media attention given to Whitewater. Much of the packet discusses Milwaukee and places from out-of-state. The last page has a short email written by an Advocacy Council member from the Brown County United Way, advocating against the measure.
The testimony packet for the Assembly bill, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lc/hearing_testimony_and_materials/2023/ab689/ab0689_2024_01_09.pdf, likewise does not mention immigration. It includes a submission from an organization in Dane County, also against it.
The wording is vague enough that the measure could be used for temporarily placing immigrants.
State legislators could be anticipating an influx of immigrants, and they want to prevent what is currently happening in Chicago from happening in Wisconsin. Having the camps in rural areas will reduce the opportunities for crime.
How could this bill affect Door County?
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation owns 197.67 acres of land near the Brussels Park and Ride lot; both the parcel with the lot itself, https://gis.co.door.wi.us/gismap/index.html?call=search_pin&fieldname0=PIN&value0=0040020262422A, and parcels along both sides of the highway going west.
Most of the DOT’s holdings in this area are not considered wetland. Some of it is right-of-way. Beyond the right-of-way there is about 150 acres of extra DOT land.
There are clauses in the bill which restrict the ability of the Department of Administration to create new homeless camps. However, the threshold for lifting the requirement that the local political subdivision first approve a proposed camp is low. The bill describes a process where at least one person in a political subdivision petitions that a camp be created, and for the current local degree of homelessness to be greater than the statewide average.
There would surely be at least one person in Door County who would petition for a camp. In the past there was a drive to create a homeless shelter in what is now the Union Community Center & Town Hall.
Several articles about it:
Southern Door Community Church Seeks to Build a Homeless Shelter
https://doorcountypulse.com/southern-door-community-church-seeks-to-build-a-homeless-shelter/
Union Vetoes Southern Door Homeless Shelter
https://doorcountypulse.com/union-vetoes-southern-door-homeless-shelter/
In the first of these two articles, the church’s pastor was quoted as saying:
We began asking the question – what can we do with the resources we have, the facility that we have, and be able to meet some needs that aren’t being met?
It makes sense that a church would want to run a homeless shelter. Caring for homeless people relates to multiple Bible verses, including Proverbs 29:7, Isaiah 58:7, and the Sheep and the Goats.
Using the 2023 population of the county, and the average figure for homelessness in Wisconsin from the figures in https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2023-AHAR-Part-1.pdf#page=116, it seems that if there were more than 25 homeless people in the county that would be enough to lift the requirement for local approval. However, this is a federal figure for Wisconsin’s homelessness rate, and the state may have a different figure. The bill describes how the local number of homeless people is determined; two counts must be made.
Another factor is that the text of the bill uses the term “political subdivision” rather than “municipality”. Both counties and municipalities are included as types of political subdivisions. Because of how it is worded, it appears that if the county board were to grant approval to the state, the Brussels’ town board would not be able to deny the construction of a homeless camp.
Such a situation could arise if there were property owners who are concerned about their real estate investments in the northern part of the county. They might be pleased to have the camp located far away.
The bill neither stipulates nor forbids transporting homeless people to the camps from distant areas. Would it be fair to send homeless people out of Brown County and into Door?
In the 2020 election, Brown County voted for Trump, 52.8% to 45.6%, while Door County voted for Biden, 50% to 48.6%. At the time it was known that Trump and Biden differed about immigration. Because of this, it is fair that Door County should accept any homeless immigrants removed from Brown County.
On the other hand, the table at https://doorcountypulse.com/breaking-down-the-vote-in-door-county/ shows that the town of Brussels voted 32.3% for Biden, and 66.1% for Trump. So relocating homeless immigrants would be unfair to the town. Shouldn’t a new camp be located in a municipality which voted for Biden?
Yet the 150 acres is well-situated because workers could be taken from the camp to large employers along the highway. Also, Brussels has an estimated 2023 ACS population of 1,244 people. With a smaller population, there would be a smaller amount of NIMBY-type political opposition than there would be in a more populated place. It is harder for a less-populated area to accumulate enough signatures for a recall election against a state legislator than for a more-populated area to do it.
Would it be unsightly? If it were, the bill does not require the camps to look nice from the outside. State officials could respond that, going north, there are many billboards, and that the advertisements are more of an eyesore than a homeless camp.
All of these things combined do not guarantee that the bill’s passage will result in a homeless camp in the town of Brussels. Rather, these details illustrate in a practical manner just how much additional power would be vested in the Department of Administration, should the bill become law.
What could town or county officials do presently to reduce the possibility that the 150 acres of DOT land will someday be used as a homeless camp?
They could advocate against the bill, or for changes to it. Another possibility would be for local officials to come up with another use for the site, and with the public’s help, persuade the DOT to go along with it. The push for a third roundabout is a model of the sort of effort it would take.
This graph shows a longstanding problem, and it suggests an option for the extra land owned by the DOT:
Welcome center traffic is down by more than half from its high in 2010.
Some notes about the figures:
2020 is affected by a closure due to the quarantine, and the figure from 2018 incorporates an estimate from historical averages, since the counter was broken during late winter and early spring.
I couldn’t find a table with 2023 figures from the Door County Tourism Zone website. Yet welcome center count data was mentioned in reports, so the figures must be kept somewhere.
These are several comments about 2023 visitor counts from the Destination Door County monthly reports:
We welcomed 3,780 visitors, 500 more than June 0f 2022.
July saw Welcome Center visititation very similar from July of 2022. Over 4,300 visitors came through.
These notes aren’t enough to say whether welcome center counts have recovered at all in 2023.
Factors affecting visitation could include the availability of print materials at other sites, a preference for online resources, and changes caused by covid.
Is this a national trend, or is it only a local thing?
I searched for count statistics from other welcome centers. These are some line graphs from Oregon: https://www.travelstats.com/welcome/oregon
The Oregon data is limited in duration, but comparing the January to January figures, there was a statewide downward trend from 2023 to 2024.
On the other hand, this graph of four of Iowa’s welcome centers shows a robust rebound for several years following 2020: https://industrypartners.traveliowa.com/UserDocs/IowaWelcomeCenterStudy_Report_Final_20230126.pdf#page=14
From photos on Google image searches, at least some of the Iowa welcome centers are museum-like in character, while the Oregon welcome centers are more simple. The design for Oregon’s centers focuses around brochure racks and an information desk.
Yet there are many other factors which could affect visitorship trends, and I can’t say for sure that the differences are because of their design.
A look at just two states is not enough to say whether there is a broader decline in people using welcome centers. However, in terms of changing visitorship, the Door County Welcome Center is trending worse than the Iowa welcome centers in the graph.
When looking for the visitor count graphs, I came across a pie chart which stated that 45% of people who stopped at a Missouri welcome center chose to visit an additional city as a result of the information at the center: https://mdt-visitmo-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/industry-files/annual-reports/MDT_Annual_Report_FY10.pdf#page=28
It seems that welcome centers advertise variety, encouraging people to make more varied choices. If welcome center usage could be increased, it could possibly change existing traffic patterns.
How could welcome center visitorship be increased?
Poll results indicate that a not-insignificant minority of the population reports feeling uncomfortable about certain advertisements. Some see a particular flag’s present meaning as more about woke elitism than anything else. So an inexpensive response would be to not discuss sexual-related topics when marketing the county.
An expensive way to counter the declining use of the welcome center is to build a fancy one like in Iowa or Green Bay. The construction in Green Bay was documented by the cameras on Google StreetView cars:
2023, when it was nearly done: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aqrypThyBaCEAY7EA
2022: https://maps.app.goo.gl/67Li6g6pdLFVHUhF7
2019, before they started: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZWGUpkX8M98ZrpWe8.
In 2021, Susan Kennedy suggested building a second visitor center in the northern part of the county, https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/door-co/2021/06/15/door-county-environmental-council-hosts-panel-tourism-impacts/7504737002/, but presently there isn’t any sign that this is going to be implemented.
Looking at the room tax receipts for 2023 from https://doorcountytourismzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Comp-Collections-Actual.pdf, it is feasible to pay to build a welcome center that looks like a museum; this is a question of political will. A decision to build one could be implemented either by Destination Door County or by a new entity created jointly for this purpose by the municipalities. The legal situation is described in several earlier posts, https://doorcounty.substack.com/p/another-response-to-linda-waits-question and https://doorcounty.substack.com/p/ephraim-door-county-tourism-zone-cif.
The current welcome center is affected by the recent turning restrictions. Visibility-wise, the welcome center competes with nearby businesses for drivers’ attention.
A new site closer to 42 would stand out more, but would also contribute to an undesirable strip-development pattern. Even if a better spot could be found a little further south, the DOT could still decide to restrict what cars can do later on.
Still another possibility could come about should the NERR visitor and education center be located in Sturgeon Bay. If the museum’s placement was suitable, a general tourist welcome center could be co-located with the federally-funded museum.
A new welcome center would not be completely incompatible with a homeless camp. Both could fit if the camp were placed along the southbound lanes, and the welcome center along the northbound lanes.
If local officials wanted to prevent a camp from being constructed across from the new welcome center, they would also need to do something with the land on the other side, and to place a pedestrian tunnel under the highway to connect both sides.
Articles about migrants
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/migrants
Posts relating to churches
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/churches