Oconomowoc appeals Aurora hospital rulings

City lawyer hopes for ruling in 60 days

Waukesha Freeman, July 26, 2006

By ERIK BROOKS
Freeman Staff

OCONOMOWOC - The city has asked an appeals court to overturn a series of rulings favoring Aurora Health Care in Aurora's ongoing lawsuit against the city about failed plans to build a Pabst Farms hospital.

The city filed its "petition for leave" with the District II Wisconsin State Court of Appeals on July 11 - six weeks after Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge James R. Kieffer overturned the city council's efforts from 2001 to rezone 43.5 acres northeast of Interstate 94 and Highway 67 and block construction of the hospital. Aurora is expected to file a response to the appeal by the end of the week, spokesman Jeff Squire said Tuesday, declining further comment.

Attorney Lisle Blackbourn, who is representing Oconomowoc in the case, said he expects to receive a ruling from the appeals court within 60 days, should the court even agree to consider the case.

Appeals are typically sought after a final trial verdict, not merely over rulings made during a case that remains active in circuit court, Blackbourn said. A pre-trial hearing in the Aurora lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 9, and Blackbourn said the city would like to have the appeals court weigh in on the rulings before that date.

"It would streamline the trial if they heard it now," Blackbourn said.

The city is seeking to overturn a number of rulings Kieffer made May 25 - many of which overturned decisions by previous judges on the five-year-old case. The ruling against the rezoning effort - in which the Oconomowoc Common Council voted to change the zoning of the Pabst Farms land from "suburban commercial," which allows for construction of a hospital, to "suburban industrial," which does not - was the most significant. Armed with that ruling, Aurora later that day resubmitted plans for a $166 million, 465,000-square-foot hospital and medical office building in the city. Those building plans remain before city officials, who have since pledged to seek to rezone the property anew and once again block the hospital's construction.

In an interview this week, Oconomowoc Mayor Maury Sullivan said city attorneys are crafting the new rezoning language, and he expects the common council to begin the formal rezoning process in August. Settlement talks between city and Aurora officials also continue, Sullivan said. In addition, the Oconomowoc Common Council met in closed session July 18 to discuss its boundary agreement with the town of Summit, an action precipitated by the Aurora case, Sullivan said. He declined further comment.

The city's boundary agreement with the town, finalized in 2000, divided Pabst Farms land between the two communities and defined other parcels that will eventually leave the town and enter the city, town of Summit Chairman Leonard Susa said.

Aurora's plans to build a hospital on a separate, 53-acre parcel of Pabst Farms land in the town fell through in 2005, as the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors voted against zoning and master plan changes necessary for construction. Aurora and the town later sued the county over its decision. City, town and Aurora officials have said the town is still the preferred site for the hospital.

Sullivan said he has met with Susa in recent weeks regarding the boundary agreement.

"I want to know if we're going to dance, if we're going to be players or if we're going to sit and watch," Susa said. "So far, we're just watching."