City pushes for Borden’s cleanup

PLYMOUTH — The city is keeping its court date, just in case.

With a court-imposed cleanup deadline looming at midnight, the City Council voted to go ahead with a Sept. 10 court date on the former Borden warehouse building at 423 E. Stafford St.

The vacant building was destroyed in an early-morning fire Apr. 22. The city obtained a raze order for the property in Sheboygan County Circuit Court with an Aug. 16 deadline. That was extended to Aug. 31 at the request of property owner David LeBouton.

“As much as we want to be conciliatory, until last week nothing was done,” Mayor Donald Pohlman stated. “It’s a public nuisance, and we can’t allow a public nuisance. I’m just thankful we haven’t had an accident there and now that school is starting, we don’t need our phones ringing (with people) asking why isn’t the city doing something.”

LeBouton attended Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting and explained that he is in the process of trying to obtain a loan to finance the cleanup.

City Building Inspector Pete Scheuerman told the council that some scrap metal has been removed from the property, but nothing more has been done.

In anticipation of a possible cleanup of the property by the city, Scheuerman said he had obtained bids from three contractors for that work.

Those estimates ranged from around $40,000 to more than $50,000, but the building inspector cautioned that the cost could be higher, as the bidders had not been able to inspect the site to determine what hazardous materials might be there.

LeBouton had an estimate from another contractor, who had examined the material, for almost $80,000.

City Attorney Crystal Fieber told the council that the city could go ahead with the scheduled court hearing Sept. 10 while allowing LeBouton to continue his effort to clean up the property.

LeBouton has also been working with Cardinal Environmental to determine what hazardous materials are on site and have to be removed, Fieber indicated.

LeBouton said Cardinal has indicated it will take two weeks to get the needed test results to determine if the debris can be landfilled or must be disposed of by other methods.

Pohlman noted that three acres of the parcel are scheduled to be purchased by the state Department of Transportation as part of the rehabilitation project for the Plymouth-Kohler rail line.

Fieber said the city could remove the debris itself and put the cost on the property’s tax bill, but she cautioned that the city might not recover all of its costs that way.

She advised going ahead with the next court date, with the hope that LeBouton would allow the other contractors who submitted estimates to go on the property in order to make more accurate estimates of the cost.

“I think that’s the safe route and won’t add much delay to the process,” she told the council.