City of Dodgeville takes ownership of Army Reserve Center

By John Dalton 

At its regular meeting Tuesday night, the city of Dodgeville was notified this week that the US Government is officially handing over the former Armory Reserve Center on Leffler Street to the city. The reserve center has been vacant since 2021. The city owns the property and entered into a 50-year lease with the US military in 1971.

The six-acre property consists of a, a 14,269 square foot building and machine shed, with a majority of the property fenced off.  Mayor Todd Novak said when the lease expired, the government invoked a two-year extension of the lease so they could do an environmental assessment of the property. He noted the army has spent about $1.2 million on the building within the last 10 years to update the HVAC system.

Mayor Novak reminded the council they have discussed the property a few times at meetings in the past two years and had already approved taking the property over when the government was ready.

“We had to let the government know what we were going to use the property for as part of the process to get it back. At the time the council agreed to tell them the city would be keeping it, however that doesn’t tie us into anything.  It was only what we said the plan for the property is,” said Novak.

He said the city has to do something with the street department property as it needs a lot of updates and also there is also a space issue at the library city hall building.  “I know one idea we talked about over the past couple years is putting city hall and the street department on the property, but that was just discussion.  We also could sell the property for development,” said Novak.

He said that the only person the government has allowed to inspect the property is Public Works Director Greg Lee, who said he was impressed with how well the building has been maintained. Lee noted there is a lot of room, and it would be easy to have a community area in part of the building because of the open space and commercial kitchen.

Novak said the council needs to tour the property yet this December and suggested maybe have a public open house to follow.  “I really want the public to be involved in whatever we decide to do with the property. Maybe we can form a committee of citizens and council members and go from there.  The city has absolutely no money in the property as it’s always been city property.  I’ve heard we are buying the property which isn’t true and that needs to made clear,” said Novak.”

In other council news, Police Chief Shannon Jasica reported that the new police body and vehicle cameras have arrived and it will take about two months before they are installed and updated with all the necessary software installed and tested.

City Clerk Lauree Aulik reported that city property taxes have been mailed out and that most home owners will see a decrease in their tax bill this year primarily from state aid.

The council approved the Clerk’s office to purchase two additional handicap accessible voting machines and to apply for a WI Elections Commission Subgrant to assist with a portion of the cost.  

Also approved was Resolution 2023-21: Appointment of Election Officials for the 2024-2025 Election Cycle, as was the approval to grant permission to fill a Streets Department vacancy for the position of mechanic.

Approved also was the consent agenda minutes from November 21, 2023 and the claims as follows:

-General $337,622.57

-Water $20,075.96

-Sewer $ 20.395.22

-Total of $378,093.75