A request to add a town road in one of Minocqua’s business districts for local ATV access was a bit too much for the Minocqua Town Board.
The board Tuesday turned down the request by the Lakeland Area ATV Club to add a portion of Blumenstein Road to the collection of town roads that ATV/UTV owners who live along them can use.
The portion of Blumenstein under consideration was from the curve just north of Walmart south through the stoplights and past the Northwoods Wildlife Center to where it dead-ends.
“This is, as you know, probably our second busiest business districts in town,” town chairman Mark Hartzheim said of that Highway 70 stretch. He opposed the addition. “We have to draw the line somewhere.”
Northwoods Wildlife Center representatives spoke against having ATVs travel past their rehabilitation center that takes care of injured and sick birds, reptiles and animals. The center is planning to expand its fenced-in area in the future, they said.
Over the past few years, the board has granted permission to the club to sign a number of town roads to allow local residents to drive their four-wheelers to designated ATV trail systems.
The roads don’t appear on the club’s official ATV/UTV map, according to club president Corky Sheppard. They are signed for “local access” only, and not for general public ATV travel. Riders will be cited if they use the roads for “joy riding,” said Hartzheim. ATV travel is posted at 25 mile per hour.
Noting Sheppard’s comment that riders could then be able to shop at Walmart and Trig’s, Hartzheim said that was not a suitable reason for adding the road.
Even through it would be signed for local access only, the mere presence of a machine in that area would result in non-locals thinking they could use the road, Hartzheim added. Despite a road being signed for local access only, anyone can legally ride an ATV on that road, a state Department of Natural Resources warden has said.
The board did grant local ATV access for North Bo-di-Lac Road to the town line, as well as the feeder roads of Maple Road and Forest Lane. Also added was Squirrel Lake Road from near Highway 70 West to Schroeder Road and the feeder roads of Nutter Road and Luke Court.
The board will also change summer/winter access roads to all-year routes, again for local ATV access only.
So far, according to a police department representative and the public works director, there have been no major or on-going problems with local residents driving ATVs on those access roads.
Hartzheim told the audience that the club is required to return each year to get reauthorization. Any recurring abuse by ATV riders and the town could pull the access authorization for that road, he said.
