When the Mower County Board of Adjustment meets Wednesday, it could be a showdown of sorts.

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

When the Mower County Board of Adjustment meets Wednesday, it could be a showdown of sorts.

That’s when Amelia Forcelle and Anjanette Wells will ask the adjustment board for a variance from the county zoning ordinance.

Forcelle and Wells, daughter and mother, are seeking the variance to construct a sewage treatment system in Section 10, Lansing Township. They have a mobile home and accessory building on a lot in the village of Lansing that was the impetus for a village resident to call for the removal of an adjustment board member.

Sharon Cordes and her husband Craig own property next to the Forcelle-Wells lot in Lansing. She accused Harold Boverhuis, who also lives in the village, of wrong-doing and a conflict of interest.

Boverhuis is a member of the adjustment board and also a Mower County Planning Commission member.

He is also a contractor who moves buildings, such as the Forcelle-Wells mobile home and accessory building.

Cordes went to the Mower County Board of Commissioners on Dec. 28 and asked that Boverhuis be removed from the two appointed positions.

She accused Boverhuis of intervening with a court case involving Forcelle (her mother, Wells, was not mentioned in the court case).

Boverhuis and William Buckley, Mower County environmental health director, did contact District Judge Michael Seibel after the Dec. 6 hearing on the matter. Forcelle appeared in court without counsel.

After hearing testimony and reviewing files, records and proceedings on the matter, the judge ruled a variance granted to Forcelle on July 15 was void because the mobile home was illegally hooked up to water and sewer.

The court order said Forcelle would have to reapply for a new variance with the Board of Adjustment.

Furthermore, the order said if Forcelle wanted to keep the mobile home located on the lot in the village of Lansing, she would have to apply for a variance within 14 days of the court’s order.

That’s what caught Cordes’ attention.

The court order was made and dated Dec. 7.

However, two days passed before it was filed.

Taking the judge’s order literally, the 14 days would have ended Dec. 21.

Forcelle and Wells applied for the variance two days later and after Boverhuis visited the Mower County Planning and Zoning Department offices to discuss the situation and view the file, including the court order.

Boverhuis has been leading efforts to obtain funding for a municipal water and sewer system to serve the village of Lansing plus other residential developments nearby.

Now, those same places have individual septic treatment systems and water wells.

Ten years ago, the water wells became contaminated when a chemical spill attributed to then-Huntting Elevator Co. was discovered. The shallow, sand-point wells are considered vulnerable to such dangers.

After on-and-off efforts through the years to obtain funding for a new water and sewer system, Boverhuis is confident it can be obtained today.

Other citizens, including Dennis Wehrhan, are not.

Wehrhan is the father of Sharon Cordes.

After Cordes asked the county commissioners to remove Boverhuis from the adjustment board and planning commission positions, the county board turned the matter over to the Mower County attorney for review.

Richard P. Cummings, First District county commissioner and whose district includes Lansing Township, said the county board would take Cordes’ allegations "seriously."

The pair, Cordes and Boverhuis, have engaged in a war of words through the Austin Daily Herald’s letters to the editor columns.

Boverhuis calls what Cordes has said publicly "gossip" and said he will not voluntarily step down from the appointed positions. He has also challenged Cordes to produce "legal charges" and "settle this before judge and jury and not in the paper."

In Cordes’ latest letter to the editor, she said, "It is my argument that when a person holds a position on a public board, whether it be an elected or appointed position, that person should do their part to make sure the laws are being followed and to follow them themselves."

Cordes said she stands behind the charges she has made publicly.

When the adjustment board meets Wednesday, they will conduct site visits at the Forcelle-Wells property in the village of Lansing at 1:15 p.m. before going to the Terry and Theresa Miller residence in Section 23, also in Lansing Township. The Millers are seeking a variance from the counting zoning ordinance to construct a 16-foot-high accessory building in a rural residential zone. The adjustment board will visit the site at 1:25 p.m. Wednesday.

Then, the board members will convene in the county commissioners’ meeting room in the lower level of the government center in Austin. Hearings on the two requests begin at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.

Gary Braaten is the chair of the adjustment board. Members include Mary Kenyon, Joan Roe (alternate) and Boverhuis.

As of today, the county board has not announced the results into the investigation into the charges against Boverhuis.