No action taken by Oneida County Board

BY KEVIN BONESKE
REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER
After meeting in closed session for more than an hour and a half Tuesday, the Oneida County Board took no action on a possible Northeast Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation loan.

In addition to members of the County Board and county Economic Development Corporation executive director Roger Luce being present, the meeting also included several Rhinelander City Council members, city administrator Kristina Aschenbrenner and Expera Specialty Solutions’ Rhinelander mill manager, Jeff Verdoorn.

Though those involved in the closed session didn’t have much to say afterwards, other than no action was taken, county board chairman Dave Hintz said he expects the matter will be looked at by the board in the future.

Expera this summer received city approval for a conditional use permit to increase the height of the roof and stack of the vacant Printpack building at 114 W. Kemp St., where Expera would have to purchase the property to use the permit.

The written description of Expera’s permit application for the Kemp Street location states the company is seeking to purchase the facility where a process line would be installed. Though that activity would be similar to what Printpack had conducted there, some physical changes to be building would be necessary for the new process equipment, for which an increase in the roof height was sought.

Verdoorn told the city Planning Commission that Expera is out of space at its existing Rhinelander facility to be able to do “more of the same” with the process equipment it currently has in place.

The process line would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the project description, and employ approximately 20 full-time personnel with the existing parking areas, egress and shipping docks being utilized by Expera for a new process line in the vacated Printpack building.