Early-morning riders, child care money get the attention of the La Crosse County Board

How early in the day is too early to ride an all-terrain vehicle?

The hours for operating an ATV in La Crosse County were debated by county board members on Thursday. A proposed ordinance would set hours for riding the noisy vehicles, between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m.

There was an attempt to prohibit ATV use until 7 o’clock in the morning. Supervisor Jack Pogreba was one of the board members arguing in favor of earlier hours.

“A lot of construction companies do use these just to get to their site” for work, said Pogreba. “Moving it from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. is going to hinder that a little bit.”

The board voted against the change to 7 a.m. The full resolution on ATV regulations will come back for another board vote next month.

In other business at Thursday’s meeting, the county board passed a resolution to use $500,000 in ARPA relief funds on projects to support child care businesses. A recent decision by the board proposed spending about $3 million of the federal money for child care purposes, and Supervisor David Hundt wondered why the amount had been reduced.

The county received a total of nearly $23 million in ARPA money, which must be spent by the end of 2026.