Residents petition to secede

The Journal staff

New Berlin Petitions will be circulated this week in northwest New Berlin, where citizens are attempting to detach from the municipality and become a part of the Town of Brookfield.

Unable to get city sanitary sewer service to their area, and facing a breakdown of their septic systems, homeowners are hoping they can get sewer service from Brookfield.

The petition drive, led by retired attorney A. Vernon Jensen, must get signatures from a majority of those in the area. There are 57 homes there, 12 vacant lots and four businesses. Jensen said he hopes to get 75 signatures.

The area is bounded by Highway 59 on the south, Springdale Road on the west, Barker Road on the east and the city-town boundary on the north.

Jensen said he expected the petition effort to be successful, despite the high, upfront cost of connection to municipal sewer service. He said most homeowners realize that sewer service is inevitable.

Some homeowners, including Jensen, have had to deal with failed septic systems. They had hoped to connect to the City of Brookfield's Fox River Wastewater Treatment Plant, but New Berlin officials decided early this year that it would sell its capacity in that plant and forgo any connection.

The decision by city officials was made reluctantly, based on surveys to homeowners in the northwest area indicating that they didn't want to pay $12,000 or more for the Brookfield hookup.

"If they sell off the capacity, there's little likelihood of getting sewer service," Jensen said. "It looks pretty hopeless as far as we're concerned."

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