BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – A lawsuit challenging Brown County’s half-percent sales tax has been dismissed.
In a 10-page ruling, Judge William Atkinson agreed with the county that the suit should be dismissed on procedural grounds.
The Brown County Taxpayers Association filed the suit, claiming the county implemented the tax unconstitutionally.
While the suit has been dismissed, the judge has given the Taxpayers Assocation until March 7 to file a notice of claim.
That claim has been filed Friday.
Brown County has issued the following statement, saying they won’t comment further at this time.
“While the Decision filed on 03-01-2018 to dismiss this case may be appealed and doesn’t put this matter entirely to rest, it does demonstrate that there is substance to Brown County’s argument that Plaintiffs, Brown County Taxpayers Association and Frank Bennett, and their attorneys, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, simply do not understand the law. The Decision finds that Plaintiffs failed to meet even the most basic legal requirement necessary before instituting suit against the County, as Plaintiffs failed to provide the County with proper notice pursuant to Wis. Stat. Sec. 893.80 prior to commencing suit, and it is clear to the County that Plaintiffs also fail to comprehend the law as it applies to bonding, levy limits and sales tax revenues. Brown County has already incurred over $40,000.00 in expense defending this meritless lawsuit, and anticipates that Plaintiffs will continue to take any and all actions possible to continue to frustrate the County’s plans to achieve property tax relief and debt reduction, while at the same time addressing critical needs of County residents. The County anticipates that Plaintiffs will now attempt to comply with the statutes by serving proper notice on or before March 7, 2018, and the County does not rule out an appeal of the Court’s Decision. Unfortunately, the County is likely to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its fiscally conservative actions against the meritless claims of the Plaintiffs.”
The Brown County Taxpayers Association’s Rich Heidl tells WTAQ “we have no comment at this time. We are assessing our options with our legal counsel. We’ll have some comments to make at some point in the near future.”
