In an article in the Baraboo News Republic on 9/4/04, Supervisor Virgil Hartje criticized the efforts of citizens to protect the Wisconsin Riverway from the tower.
| "Supervisor Virgil Hartje, a member of the County Communications Infrastructure Committee, said he doesn't believe a tower near the river will pose any significant problems. "These people (in opposition) are honest about thinking it's bad, but it ain't going to hurt them if they are canoeing down the river," Hartje said. "You have a few people that want to go back to the 1800s, but I don't see anyone taking the bridge out there. This is trying to stop progress." |
Supervisor Hartje's does not support preserving the Lower Wisconsin River and the 15 years of efforts by the State of Wisconsin, DNR and the residents of Spring Green. His comment about "a few people wanting to go back to the 1800s" is a reference to Mark Cupp's eloquent plea for the committee to reconsider building their tower next to the river and the bluffs. The picture below shows Cassel Prairie a few miles up river from the proposed tower site at Thuli and Jones Road. Supervisor Hartje is unconcerned about putting a 250 foot tower at the base of bluffs like those at Cassel Prairie.
It is sad that Supervisor Hartje is not concerned about the natural environment being destroyed by development. Contrast his sentiments with those expressed by Mark Cupp in his prepared remarks for the CIC.
| Unless you are a river user, you may not realize the tremendous natural beauty of the valley and you may not wonder at the site of an eagle soaring overhead with white head and tail gleaming against the background of a deep blue sky; you may not marvel at the primordial call of the sandhill crane somewhere out in the fog on a cool summer morning; you may not be amused at the incessant cries of the river’s sentinel, the kingfisher, alerting everything that will listen that you are paddling downstream; you may not appreciate the peace of sitting on a sandbar hearing nothing but the susurrus of wind in the trees, the gurgling of water flowing through a snag or the sounds of a myriad of birds all around you. Unless you are a river user, you may not recognize the value of looking at the undeveloped landscape on the shores and in the hills knowing that you are seeing what those countless generations of Native Americans saw before, as did the missionaries, fur traders, and early settlers. |
You can email your response directly to Supervisor Hartje at vhartje@mwt.net and to Scott De Laruelle, the reporter who wrote the article, at sdelaruelle@capitalnewspapers.com. You can also post a letter to the editor of the Baraboo News Republic at http://baraboo.scwn.com/forms/letter.html.