Prescott City Council’s decision on Leo’s Landing lease sparks public outcry

Boaters rally to show their support

By Danielle Boos
Posted 6/8/23

Residents of Prescott are in an uproar over the Prescott City Council’s recent decision to not renew the lease of Leo’s Landing Marina after December of this year. Hearing of the city …

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Prescott City Council’s decision on Leo’s Landing lease sparks public outcry

Boaters rally to show their support

Posted

Residents of Prescott are in an uproar over the Prescott City Council’s recent decision to not renew the lease of Leo’s Landing Marina after December of this year. Hearing of the city council’s decision on social media, Bill Koller, a self-employed computer consultant residing in Minnesota and a longtime friend of the Anderson family, began a campaign to save Leo’s Landing Marina.

When asked why, Koller remarked, “As a boater I don’t want to see any marina go and as a person I don’t want any city to run out any business that’s been in business for 50-plus years. It irritated me. I’m not for local government being able to push out a business. I’m a self-employed business owner myself and if that happened to me, I don’t know what would happen.”

After watching the May 8 Prescott City Council meeting, Koller felt the Anderson family was treated unfairly, citing the short notice, the council’s lack of answers, and the attitude of the council.

“They didn’t really have a lot of answers for them and were somewhat standoffish,” he said.

Koller mentioned a shortage of slips on the river and if Leo’s Landing is closed, that will displace more boat owners with no place to keep their boats.

“Where are they going to go?” he questioned, adding that many owners keep their boats at Leo’s Landing and have for decades. “Prescott is a destination town for the boating community.”

He mentioned the loss of income for the city if they take the marina away and the risk of irritating a community of boaters in the process. Boaters, who he mentioned, “spend a lot of money in the town.”

When asked what he hopes the end result will be, Koller said, “I’d like to see the marinas stay. I don’t think it’s right for a city to force out a business without a valid reason.”

Leo’s Landing Marina has been owned and managed by the Anderson family since 1984 and is one of the oldest marinas in Prescott. After her husband Dick died in 2017, Jan Anderson took over functions of the marina along with her son, Colton, who runs the day-to-day operations. Nikki Anderson, wife of Colton Anderson, feels emotional seeing the outpouring of community support with the petition surpassing its initial goal of 2,500 signatures and closing in on 5,000.  “It’s amazing how much love and support we have in the community after all this. The boating community in general has been amazing,” she said.

They were not expecting the petition to garner this much attention. People who don’t even live in Prescott have signed the petition.

“It’s amazing the love and support. We can’t thank people enough,” she said.

 Colton Anderson agreed.

“It shows a lot of love and support with everybody wanting us to be around. It really makes you feel good that that many people want to support you and keep you around the town,” he said.

 “We really appreciate the responses people are giving us back. It makes us feel like we have some backing,” Jan Anderson said.

Nikki Anderson said people can sign the petition at the store during regular business hours if they don’t have access to social media.

When asked how their clients are responding to the news of their upcoming closure, Nikki Anderson didn’t mince words.

“They’re annoyed; 15, 28 years some people have had their boats with us,” she said.

Jan Anderson spoke about the emotions she felt when the City Council decided not to renew the lease for Leo’s Landing.

“I was shocked and very upset,” she said.

Colton Anderson was also disturbed.

“It was upsetting, especially when there’s nobody that wanted to talk or communicate or try to resolve,” Colton Anderson said. “Or even tried to work together to see how we could all make something work. Improvements are always good but if you’re going to do improvements, you have to be able to include everybody in your improvements. It’s a two-way street and you can’t just have the one-way street.”

Nikki Anderson added,” “I’m really disappointed in the city. My husband and I live here. We raise our kids here. I’m really disappointed with how everything is playing out.”

The council’s decision will impact the family, no matter what.

“How do you explain that to your kids?” Colton Anderson asked.

When asked what the future of Leo’s Landing Marina will hold if the council stands by its decision to end their lease, Colton Anderson was blunt.

“Kind of tough to relocate. This is where they (boaters) know it to be,” he said. “It’s been here forever. There’s no reason to move it somewhere else. You can’t move it somewhere else.”

“There really is no other place we can relocate to,” Jan Anderson commented.

Pat Knox, alderperson for Ward 5, gave his own opinion on the lease renewal issue. Knox brought up the riverfront redevelopment as he commented on the council’s decision to not renew the lease agreement for Leo’s Landing Marina.

“I don’t think the two of them go together, the marina there and the refurbishing of the waterfront. And sadly, not every positive benefits everybody. It’s a sad reality,” he stated.

When asked if other businesses on the riverfront will potentially find themselves in similar situations in the future, Knox said no.

“Right now, there are no plans to do anything like that there,” he said.

Matt Wolf, city administrator since 2021, said Point St. Croix’s lease agreement with the City of Prescott was renewed until 2030, while Leo’s Landing was only renewed until 2023.

“We have to be clear; Point St Croix has an established lease until Dec. 31, 2030,” Wolf said. “Nobody is not renewing or renewing. They have an agreement. It goes to 2030.  If we are tying the two together, they shouldn’t be tied together. The only similarities between the two is that the city owns the land at this point as far as everything we know now. Leo’s Landing has said to us that they don’t agree. That they own the land and we have had discussions with them multiple times that said, if you do own this land and you have something to prove it to us, please do so. We completed an assessor’s plat back in 2019 that was officially approved in 2020 that showed ownership of all the land along the riverfront being to the City of Prescott in that area. And they have questioned that.”

Wolf said the city is asking for proof so they can review it and work together to correct the issues. As Leo’s Landing plans to complete its own survey, the city has asked for a completed copy of the survey so they can review it, see if there are any discrepancies and compare it to the city’s 2019 survey.

Wolf mentioned a title search done on the land in January 2022 further verified city ownership of old property up to the river. He remarked that the assessor’s plat was fully approved in 2020 and Leo’s Landing received a copy of it then.

When asked if he believes it is unfair for the city council to renew Point St. Croix’s lease and end the lease of Leo’s Landing, Wolf answered, “There really isn’t any sort of connection between Point St Croix and their lease agreements. There was no renewal of Point St Croix versus Leo’s Landing because Point St. Croix goes until Dec. 31, 2030.”

With almost 4,000 signatures, the Save Leo’s Landing campaign is quickly gaining momentum and the sympathy of the community. Wolf said whether or not the petition will affect the council’s decision will fall heavily on how many of the petitioners are residents of Prescott. The council looks at that information for community representation.

Knox added his thoughts on the campaign.

“Its folks rallying around something that they believe in and that’s great and that’s awesome. Hopefully we can get some of those folks to come to council and say what their thoughts and feelings are to help us make the decision,” Knox said. “Sadly, so many times we have council and it’s an empty room. We’ve explained the development of the riverfront for the last two years at council meetings, but nobody comes. And so, the fact that it’s a surprise to anybody surprises me”

When asked if the campaign could affect the council’s decision, Knox said, “I think the council will listen to them, absolutely. Does it guarantee that we’re going to do what they want? No, because we have to listen to everybody too.” 

Explaining that the waterfront redevelopment has been planned since 2015, Wolf said to his knowledge, no Prescott residents have brought up an issue with the Prescott waterfront redevelopment plans before this. Leo’s Landing’s lease agreements were previously renewed by the city in five-year increments, but in 2021 the council decided to only extend it for another two years as it was planning on riverfront projects.

 “We extended the lease agreement to the end of this year and then this past March, we met and ultimately the council decided to not extend the lease agreement beyond this year due to the fact that a lot of the things that we’re looking at in terms of the riverfront making updates, we want this to be a public amenity that sticks with what our comprehensive plans calls out; essentially the improvements that our comprehensive outdoor recreation plan calls out for and looking at what opportunities we could have to do with the piece of land that’s over there right now,” Wolf described.

 “When the lease agreement ran out at the end of 2021, we decided to solely extend it another two years as we were making plans for the area,” Wolf stated.

He said the Andersons wanted a longer lease agreement, but the council stayed with its initial decision as it was uncertain what the future held for that area. With Phase 1 of the development completed last year, Wolf said that Phase 2 is well underway as the council has already approved a new boat launch and a new fishing pier for installation this summer.

Hearing rumors that the city doesn’t support boaters or the downtown area, Wolf pointed out that the city installed an expensive courtesy dock, and they are putting in a brand-new boat launch and fishing pier because the city sees the economic benefits of the boaters. It wants to keep the river economics in the community alive and healthy.

The Anderson family hopes to work with the city and come to a mutual understanding.

“We’d like them to come to an agreement with us on the long-term lease and to be fair about it compared to (the) other marina next door to us that has a lease until 2030,” Jan Anderson said. “We bring a lot of people to this town all year round, not just the boating season.”

Colton Anderson added, “I’d just like to find a way that everybody can work together to still be able to be in business. Everybody be able to find some sort of happy medium.”

He hopes that communication and working together can find a favorable outcome for everyone involved. He adds that Leo’s Landing is absolutely an asset to the town as boaters come into the marina and then bring added revenue into the city.

“We would like to bring those people in the town. You want to support your town, you know.”

The city issued a statement via Facebook regarding the lease agreement for Leo’s Landing and its plans for the riverfront redevelopment.

The Journal contacted other Prescott City Council members for comment, but they were unavailable or said they didn’t have anything more to add at this time.

The Leo’s Landing lease renewal has not been scheduled on the city council’s agenda yet. Leo’s Landing has hired a surveyor to see who owns the land and the city wants time to review the report once it comes to the council.

Leo's Landing, Prescott City Council, riverfront, petition, Prescott, Wisconsin