FREEBURG — At their meeting on Thursday, Freeburg trustees decided to wait until the January meeting to approve a new ordinance that would make regulations on the use of recreational vehicles (RV) and manufactured homes in the village.

Village Attorney Nathan Nickolaus wrote and presented the new ordinance to replace the existing Ordinance #189. That decision came after a lengthy discussion with residents Tori and Lori Stoebe about the RV parked on their property, where their daughter and son-in-law are currently living after selling their house. The issue was first brought up at the November meeting when trustees looked over the existing ordinance and decided to ask for legal counsel to address the issue.

“According to this, (Ordinance #189) this was drafted on the 10th day of March 2014,” Tori Stoebe said. “This said, it was approved and made active. Was this made active on this date? That is the main question I have before this board.”

Nickolaus replied that Ordinance #189 had been active and in effect since March 10, 2014.

“It was not, sir,” Tori Stoebe said loudly. “Can anyone tell me the actual date this was enforced? When was the first day?”

Nickolaus asked Tori Stoebe to clarify if he was asking when the ordinance was activated or when it was enforced.

“I’m going to assume my daughter and son-in-law were the first enforcement,” Tori Stoebe said.

He went on to point out several properties within the village limits that had trailers and that he and his wife had been given permission to live in an RV while he was remodeling his house several years ago.

“My property still has all the attachments for the fifth-wheel (RV) because I was given permission to put it in there at the time; I should be grandfathered in because this trailer has my name all over it,” Tori Stoebe said. “It’s my trailer. Why did the board not come to me prior to all of this being brought up and let me know it was an issue? All the years, from 2014 to the present, this ordinance hasn’t been enforced. Why are you enforcing it now?”

Tori Stoebe then addressed Trustee Darryl Haller directly. “You were the one that has been behind all of this because I came directly to you and asked if I could park my fifth-wheel (RV) there,” he said. “You said there is an ordinance in place but that the ordinance was not being enforced.”

“You said, ‘Can I park my RV there?’” Haller replied. “You didn’t say you were going to live there.”

Tori Stoebe said that he had made it clear he was going to live there temporarily.

“The whole enforcement argument is crap,” Nickolaus said. “I represent a lot of cities, and here is what I tell everyone. You have to follow the rules. If we had a speeding ordinance and you’re the first one to get a ticket, it doesn’t matter if no one else got a ticket for it. The question is, did you break the law?”

“I do not believe I broke the law because I was given permission to put that trailer (there) and to live in that trailer while my upstairs was being renovated,” Tori Stoebe answered, reiterating he believed he should be grandfathered in.

Resident Bradley Wieberg, also at the meeting, thought this was a ridiculous statement.

“How is this your issue?” Tori Stoebe asked Wieberg.

“Because I’ve got lots in Freeburg, and if you can park a camper beside your business, then why can’t I put a couple of campers on my empty lots?” Wieberg asked.

Tori Stoebe dismissed Wieberg’s comment, saying that he believed he had a personal reason for being at the meeting and thought that the Board of Trustees also had a problem with his son-in-law, which is why the ordinance was being enforced.

“We knew nothing about it and did not get any notice,” Lori Stoebe said.

“We should have gotten some notice, or at least someone should have come to us and brought up the issue and talked to us,” Tori Stoebe said. “This could have been really simple.”

“It could have been simple if you guys had come to a meeting and said that you would like to do this,” Haller said. “We want to put a water line in. We want to put a sewer line in. We want to put an electric line in, but you didn’t do that.”

Stoebe said everything had been put in previously.

“I’ve never seen it there before,” Haller said, referring to the sewer line. “Bradley came up to me and said here is what I have a problem with; did they come and ask per the ordinance if this could be done, and I said no, they didn’t.”

“Because every time I asked before …,” Tori Stoebe said, interrupting Haller.

“I’m still talking,” Haller returned. “He said if that’s the way it is, I’m going to go ahead and put two or three or four campers in myself, and I was like, time-out.”

“If you can have campers, and I have empty lots, why not?” Wieberg asked.

“And that’s why it was brought up last month, and we decided to talk to our lawyer and see if we could enforce our ordinance,” Haller explained. “We got a letter from your lawyer before we got an answer back from our attorney. It was kinda like we put the cart before the horse, in my opinion.”

“We are very approachable people,” Lori Stoebe said. “If someone had just come and spoken to us. We had no idea this was going to be brought up in a meeting. They (Nikki and Matt Johnson) just sold their house, and the camper was just sitting there temporarily.”

“It’s not a long-term thing,” Tori Stoebe said. “It’s just until they find out what direction they are going.”

“I didn’t realize we were doing anything wrong because we had approached you about it before when we were remodeling our upstairs, and we didn’t realize we were doing anything wrong to upset anyone,” Lori Stoebe said.

Haller said that Nickolaus was not at the meeting in November and that trustees needed time to consult with him on the issue.

“There is only one reason the issue is being addressed, and deep down (Bradley Wieberg) knows why he is bringing it to you,” Lori Stoebe said.

“I’ve got three lots in the village limits,” Wieberg said. “I don’t care what you think. I’ve got empty lots. If he can park a camper there, why can’t I park a camper there and rent it out? I’m in business.”

Haller explained that he thought that the Stoebes should have waited for the village to address the issue before they brought their lawyer into it.

“I didn’t have a choice at the rate of the fine,” Lori Stoebe said. “I had to jump on it quick at the rate of $250 per day. That adds up, and it was already a month out. I didn’t have a choice, and (the ordinance) clearly stated that we were going to be fined every day.”

“There was no easy way around this issue,” Haller said. “There truly wasn’t.”

Lori Stoebe asked if the RV needed to be moved or if her daughter and her son-in-law could live there for a couple more months.

Haller noted that sometimes, with legal matters, it takes 30 days for trustees to get answers.

“Maybe you should have waited and got that all figured out first instead of sending a letter to my daughter saying the fines were accumulating,” Lori Stoebe said.

“It is what it is,” Darryl Haller said. “The other part is no one came and asked us. You’re kinda flipping it around, but no one came to us either.”

“We didn’t know we were doing anything wrong,” Lori Stoebe shot back.

Lori and Tori Stoebe explained they felt they had come to the board and gotten approval on several different situations — including RVs and mobile homes — and that they were told that the ordinance was not being enforced and given approval.

The last time the Stoebes requested approval was in 2020, according to Tori Stoebe.

“Here’s the part I don’t understand; the last camper you did, you knew that you had to get approval from the board. If you knew then you had to get permission, when this happened again, why didn’t you contact the current mayor?” Nickolaus asked. “You knew you had to because you had to do it before.”

“Because we didn’t know it was being enforced,” Tori Stoebe said.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t follow the same process,” Nickolaus said.

Tori Stoebe went on to list all the trailers that were within Freeburg limits and asked if they had sought permission from the Board of Trustees.

Trustee Glenn Haller asserted that several of the properties being discussed were there before the ordinance.

Lori Stoebe noted that they had received approval to put in a trailer in 2018 or 2019.

“You keep telling these stories about going to get approval over and over and over, and you didn’t do it on this newest time,” Nickolaus said.

Lori and Tori continued to argue that they didn’t know they had done anything wrong.

“Did you talk to the village when you hooked up the sewer?” Nickolaus asked.

“It’s run through our business,” Lori Stoebe answered.

“Did you pay for the hookup?” Nickolaus asked.

“Exactly,” Wieberg said. “I have four mobile homes in the village, and I pay a sewer bill for each one. Do they pay a sewer bill for the camper?”

“No, it’s just a dump site,” Tori Stoebe said.

“Do you have a permit to operate a dump site?” Nickolaus asked.

“No,” Tori answered.

“You can’t just dump s**t on the ground,” Nickolaus said.

“I don’t,” Tori Stoebe said. “I’m hooked up to the sewer system.”

“Did you pay a connection fee?” Nickolaus asked.

“It’s not really connected to the sewer system; it just drops down into the sewer,” Tori Stoebe said. “It’s not connected to the sewer.”

Nickolaus argued that the lines were either connected to the sewer or spilling onto the ground.

“It doesn’t run under the ground,” Tori Stoebe explained. “It’s just a drain.”

“It’s illegal,” Nickolaus said.

Tori Stoebe said that Nickolaus would have to show him something that said that his RV connection was illegal.

“You can talk all you want about what has happened in the past; I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter,” Nickolaus explained. “What past boards did or didn’t do, who knows. I don’t know, and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve enforced the ordinances in the past. You can always start enforcing your ordinances.”

“As long as there is no agenda behind it,” Tori Stoebe said.

“That’s not true,” Nickolaus said. “You can always start enforcing your ordinances.”

“Do we need to move the camper?” Lori Stoebe asked.

“Yes,” Nickolaus said.

Lori Stoebe asked how long they had to move the RV, and Nickolaus replied that the decision was up to the trustees.

“Shoot me a date,” Lori Stoebe said. “Shoot me a number so we can go on and get this done because I don’t want no more problems with anyone else in this town. I just want to do it and get it done.”

Darryl Haller said he still wanted to hear from Nickolaus about the ordinance.

“I don’t want to hear anything else,” Lori Stoebe said.

“We have to hear this as a board,” Darryl Haller insisted.

Nickolaus began explaining that, in his opinion, Ordinance #189 was not very well written and could be read several different ways. Nickolaus agreed with the way that the Stoebes’ lawyer interpreted the ordinance and commented that their lawyer was a good attorney.

Nickolaus said that he had written a new ordinance, and one crucial element was updating the definitions in the old ordinance.

“The new ordinance has language similar to what Meta’s and other towns ordinances are,” Nickolaus explained. “This has been a big issue in the last two years as more and more people are living in campers.”

Nickolaus explained the term “mobile home” doesn’t exist anymore.

“You now have manufactured homes, and that’s a state and federal definition,” Nickolaus said. “Anything manufactured after 1974 is a manufactured home. It’s what we used to call a mobile home, a single wide or a double wide.”

Mobile homes built before 1974 would be prohibited under the new ordinance.

“Recreational vehicles can be anything from a shell on the back of a pickup to a luxury tour bus,” Nickolaus explained. “All of them have problems, and that is why cities are regulating them. They can not be connected to village facilities properly.”

Nickolaus added that RV’s electrical, water, and sewer systems can not be hooked into the village’s infrastructure safely, and they can even become dangerous.

“This ordinance prohibits anyone from living in them,” Nickolaus continued. “But you can bring them in and stay in them for seven days out of a 90-day period. You can change that time to whatever you want, but you have to set some sort of limit because they can’t just make it their home. They are designated to be self-contained, and they should be.”

Nickolaus went on to explain that manufactured homes may be brought into the village as long as they have a seal; without a seal, the manufactured homes would need to be inspected. 

“The federal government regulates that, and once they put a seal on it, that says it meets their standards; once they do that, the village doesn’t have any jurisdiction,” Nickolaus explained.

“If someone wants to bring a double wide in, and it’s from the 1980s, is that okay?” Darryl Haller asked.

“That’s fine,” Nickolaus said. “The state and federal government have taken the board’s power away, so the village must allow them. You can zone them, but you don’t have zoning.”

Nickolaus noted the village could make stipulations that apply to manufactured homes. Nickolaus also said the Stoebes would not be grandfathered under the new ordinance.

“We can look at this and bring it back next month,” Darryl Haller said. “That gives (the Stoebes) time.”

Nickolaus noted that any threats the village of Freeburg made involving daily fines were only threats; no official papers have been filed or served up until now.

“So, if you guys could read between the lines,” Darryl Haller suggested.

Lori Stoebe said that she completely understood.

Darryl Haller said that he thought the Board of Trustees would need at least a month to look over the ordinance before they could make any amendments or approve it.

Tori and Lori Stoebe left the meeting.

“There are certain things I would like to add to this ordinance,” Mayor Scott Knoll said, describing exceptions to the ordinance for people who are remodeling their house.

“My grandma and grandpa’s house burnt in the wintertime, and they didn’t have any money,” Wieberg said. “My uncle bought them a trailer and put it where the house was. There’s a lot of people in this town who can’t afford $150,000 for a house, and a trailer can be just as nice as a house.”

“I’ve been in some that are nicer than some houses,” Utilities Supervisor Doug Hamacher agreed.

“We have 17 trailers in Belle,” Wieberg said. “We deal with the city, and they don’t have any complaints. We keep up with them. I was under the assumption I couldn’t bring a trailer into the village limits.”

“You don’t want to allow more than one residence per lot,” Nickolaus warned.

“I can put in stipulations,” Wieberg agreed. “I don’t think trailers should just be outlawed altogether.”

Nickolaus said he would want to write the ordinance to avoid gray areas as much as possible.

In related news, Trustee Shane Zimmer took issue with how the Unterrified Democrat published the article in November regarding Freeburg’s meeting on the front page with a headline that mentioned the Stoebes’ business name.

“Whenever there is an issue on the Board of Trustees, especially with a private citizen, can we please not bring business names into it?” Zimmer asked.

“Not if you discuss the business at the meeting,” Unterrified Democrat Reporter Theresa Brandt said.

“But their business was affected, and the issue was not with the business,” Zimmer said. “In the future, can we refrain from putting the business on the front page and in the headline?”

“What you all say in a meeting goes in the paper,” Brandt said. “If you talk about an RV being parked next to a business, which is what you guys discussed, I can’t, in good practice, not put that in the article.”

Brandt pointed out that the Stoebes weren’t at the November meeting, so the article, in part, explained to them what had happened at the meeting.

“If you don’t want it to be in the article, then you can’t talk about it in a meeting,” Brandt said. “My job is to report what you say without bias. If you are talking about something, it’s going in the article.”

Zimmer went on to say he doesn’t want to see any local businesses hurt by newspaper headlines.

Brandt said that she had no intent to hurt the business, nor did the UD.

“I don’t think the Board of Trustees had any intent to hurt the business when you guys were talking about it,” Brandt explained.