Langlade County has a strong economic development force

Antigo may be in the driver’s seat as the economic engine revs up across the northwoods.

A rare three-agency shuffle has placed Langlade County residents—all women—in charge of public entities guiding development efforts at the local and regional level. Angie Close is now the director of the Langlade County Economic Development Board while her old boss, Chris Berry, has assumed duties as regional account manager for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. And Angi Schreiber, who has worked with Berry and Close on a variety of projects, has been named executive director of the Grow North Regional Economic Development Board.

Full story: Antigo Daily Journal

Comments

This is a true load crap. Or in other words BS. Many small businesses that I know of through out the past 5 years have tried to get economic loans through Chris Berry and the business group members and have FAILED because of any insignificant things that could be found on them. Many of these businesses would of actually hired people and Chris Berry and the members knew this first hand. But the money always went to people with pull in this town and also tavern owners. If no one believes this, check out where this money/loans are going. It is info open to the public. This town is frozen in time 1800's. And it will never change. One business I spoke to said that one of the board members "" Chad Matuezewski from the credit union at the time"" did everything possible to make sure they did not get an economic loan. And Chad is the one who got FIRED from Co Vantage for moving money around and messing with accounts. This guy was on the board,, REALLY. And he also never got jailed for his doings at co vantage. That says a lot for the economic development committee and all its people including Chris Berry. What an embarrassment and dam shame what these people have done to this county and good businesses trying to start up and hire people. All you people should be ashamed. And all the businesses that tried to get a loan when Chad and Chris was on the board should have their loans REVIEWED and given the money to actually make a change in this dump of a city. To bad all these people trying to get loans were treated like a common criminal by the people on the economic board. Especially when people like Chad was a criminal himself.

Are you speaking from fact or from hear say, because it sounds like a lot of of hear say.

I would agree this city is stuck way back in the past. They have cash to build parks or make improvements for the covantage block. Yet a sizeable portion of the town has to run their water on trickle from January to March so their pipes don't freeze. How about fixing infrastructure instead of trying to polish a turd?

This is just sickening that these things are still going on in Antigo.
I think spreading the word about issues like this is a good idea, the more it's put out there, the more likely things will change!

Wow, I never heard anything about Chad being fired, let alone the rest of that crap! crazy

I heard he got canned, but did not know why. Does not reaslly surpirse me, though.

Not sure on the Chad issue, with the City issue the infrastructure thing is so costly that some of you think that the City can just wave a magic wand and poof it's fixed, if 20 years ago the City fathers would have planned ahead which we know they didn't they would have done something, then the City would not be so far behind, however I don't believe Antigo is as far behind as some other Cities are, and I'm sure some one will contradict me on that one but before you do please do your home work because there definitely ones that are in worse shape. Read the annual budget, based upon a City this size, see where the Cities debt is at compared to others before you slam me

What the hell were we paying the former "leaders" for? Was it not their job to know the projected time when improvements were needed? Didn't they pass the rainwater runoff tax because whichever people were sucking pay and benefits in the position that would have overseen upgrades to the storm sewer system did nothing. The city used to have around 10k for population now that is down by almost 2k. So it is not increased demand that is the issue that is for certain. It seems at least in Antigos case the people throughout the years that took up those positions just wanted the pay and bennies and did nothing to actually earn them. We aren't talking about trying to project a huge population boom to our area where it could then be argued that it wasn't foreseen and the system is now under sized. As for your statement that Antigo is in better shape than other cities it's size. It damn well had better be if you are just going to keep making up some other tax every time some incompetent fool downtown forgets to do their job.

What people don't realize is that if the run off tax raises say 100,000 a year and I'm just using that as a number and it cost 250,000 to completely replace sewer and water for 4 or 5 blocks how do u ever catch up not to mention continue with what you to maintain just saying, that was my point about along term planning that wasn't done I believe

One way to catch up is to stop spending money on Ice rinks and pavillions and stupid feel good projects until the infrastructure is up to date. Then repeal the totally bogus rainwater runoff tax and get rid of any clowns left on the council that approved it including the Mayor. That would be a great start. Direct your TIF district dollars towards these projects as well until it is handled even if you need to rewrite how those dollars can be earmarked.

Also on another article someone mentioned that the city put in the sidewalks by the High School because they cared about our youth. To that I would say Bullsh&t!!! My neighbor called and threatened the city with a lawsuit if any of his grandchildren were ever hit walking home from school. Since the kids were being forced to walk in the road. The city didn't care about anything but a potential lawsuit. Those running the show around here are a joke and really piss poor at managing available resources.

There have been many businesses that wanted to move into town and or checked this town out to start a business. For example. Around 1990 on the Front page of the Daily Journal there was a huge write up and picture of 2 caterpillars sitting along side a huge pile of dirt and people from Fabco and this town in the picture. I believe the headlines where, groundbreaking for new Fabco plant. Now Fabco is huge and would of brought jobs and more businesses to this town. All of a sudden the city "certain people" had many issues with them coming in to town. They basically got railroaded out of town by all these certain surprise issues that came up,, HUH.. And Fabco is only one of about 2 dozen large companies that wanted to locate here in the past 20 years. So yes,, make some more sidewalks,, build an ice skating park, paint fire hydrant, and make sure you keep businesses from coming here and by all means, DO NOT help any existing businesses in this town either.. force them out. So Yes,, There is plenty of existing info showing what certain cliques "people" have done to ruin this town

antigo is a dead end bath salt town.

Bath salt hasn't been a big thing for a while now. Most people seem to have realized that it's retarded.

well said Remember. Totally agree.

Antigoian,, You idiot,,, We have two major highways 64 and 45 And tons of space " potato fields" being used where these businesses wanted to build in this town over the past 20 years... If this towns so called fathers/idiots would of let and helped 3 or 4 business like fabco into town,, they would not of had to worry about water run off tax and every other kind of tax that we are already paying taxes for. There is nothing here,, look around or are you that blind??? The ones that are here are crap holes to work in and will not pay or provide decent benefits,, period. Now this is what you have,,, A few cliques that have always ran this town and will never except change to make it better,,, except for sidewalk, ice rings , bars, drugs and ect.

I'm not disagreeing with you and name calling doesn't help I wish larger corp would have came here and forced locals to pay more and because with out competition your right there's no reason to to pay more which is why the population has declined

Amron a division of Amtec is still here and as far as we no they work hand and hand with the city, it would be nice to see a Fabco come in to bring good paying jobs but the potato farmers around the area are the ones stopping such plants from locating here on account that they don't want to pay there employees $18-29 a hr. Cheap pricks are all Jewish,

In regards to your comment " cheap pricks are all Jewish" I would say jump in a wood chipper and do the world a favor.

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