Dear Editor:

Word has just reached us here in Madison — from more than one of your residents and nonresidents — about what took place at the Three Lakes Town Board meeting a week or so ago concerning all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) in Three Lakes.

Our organization tracks about 9,000 households in Vilas/Oneida counties owned by nonresident landowners, i.e. seasonal residents, aka out-of-state landowners. A good bunch of them are in the town of Three Lakes. It would seem prudent for the town to have waited until the summer and brought them into the discussion given that they are property taxpayers and deserve a voice — albeit not a vote.

We agree with the Vilas County editorial that the vote looks like a “railroad” job to some opponent and we add this sort of bullying by the board not only insults residents but more so the nonresidents — who were not even considered. Our experience shows that the seasonal residents’ only weapon against this sort of prejudice is economic.

Many of your readers are former Minnesota and Illinois residents and can vote in local and statewide elections. They have experienced this sort of treatment in the past and just perhaps, they will join the rest with closing their pocketbooks to local retailers in 2013 — in a show of support against this sort of behavior. Readers should reflect on the fact that nonresident landowners are not “tourists.”

They pay Wisconsin’s outlandish property taxes, support local K-12 and UW system education, and fund local and county government programs. To compound these expenditures, they are denied reasonable recreational fees which they still pay. But for the rest of their discretionary spending in 2013? Perhaps the “tourist” will carry the day without the nonresident property owner.

Nick Kaufman

Executive Director

Wisconsin Seasonal Residents Association

Madison