La Crosse, Shelby fighting over boundary agreements

A second meeting this morning to try and come to a consensus

Could be slightly awkward this morning when leaders from La Crosse and the town of Shelby get together to talk about boundary agreements.

But, perhaps only because the city has blocked a new, high-end development in Shelby over an apparent attempt to get concessions from the town on the boundary talks.

Shelby town board chair Tim Candahl is miffed but not giving up on the talks.

“Obviously, we’re not going to throw everything out the window just because of the council’s actions they took at the city council meeting,” Candahl said.

The city council denied an application for the new development earlier this month. 

Candahl says he’s still trying to figure out exactly why that move was made. He says the move seemed a little shortsighted.

“The development on the south side of La Crosse is not happening, and it hasn’t happened in 25-30 years,” Candahl said. “So Shelby is taking this as, ‘How can we help these areas get developments on the south side of La Crosse?'”

At least part of the move by the council was meant to squeeze more money out of Shelby for services the city provides. Candahl says he’s already agreed in principal to that. He just wants the revenue sharing to be fair. 

“We’ve had these discussions before about the revenue sharing,” he said. “We’re totally for revenue sharing in areas where we feel that we may need city services.

“We’ve never come to the table and said we are not in favor of revenue sharing.”

Candahl is clearly unhappy with the council’s actions this month, but he says he’s not going to give up on boundary agreement talks because of those actions. The goal of the two sides is to have an agreement in place by April, 2017.