TOWN OF FARMINGTON, Wis. — The Town of Farmington Plan Commission voted to approve a new zoning update and tabled a fence issue, with the board set to hear from the public next week.
The plan commission meeting was packed with people who mostly if not all supported Shalom Wildlife Zoo.
The commission tackled two issues — one being a zoning code update the town's attorney Michael Bauer said could overrule a lawsuit filed against the town and the zoo earlier this year, plus another issue about fencing.
"It's an important place and it has been since 1979," Lin Fonder said. “We all support each other.” She works at the zoo.
Neighbor Andrew Willetts lives directly next to the zoo. He and another neighbor filed a lawsuit against the zoo and the village. Zoo owner David Fechter filed a counterclaim lawsuit in September.
Watch: Shalom Wildlife supporters show up for zoo as plan commission tries to overrule lawsuit
"What's going on is just very puzzling, confusing, and frustrating that it even came to surface," Jill Recore said. "It's something that never should've even happened. Why do you move some place if there is something there that's going to bother you in the long run?"
Recore attended the meeting to show support for the zoo.
On November 4th, Willetts sent the town a letter saying a fence put up by zoo owners between their property isn't up to code.
In the letter, Willetts writes that his family feels unsafe with the current fence, citing wild animals and zoo goers who might wish them ill will.
His letter said the Fechters have publicly doxed his family by posting their names and address on social media.
Willetts' attorneys sent TMJ4 News the letter along with photos of the fence in question.
Over the past five weeks, my family has endured severe online harassment and public hostility after the Fechters published my wife’s personal information, including her pen and legal names, alongside false and defamatory statements designed to make themselves appear as victims.
Their actions have incited harassment, threats of violence, and even death threats directed at us. We’ve been threatened to have our home burned down, my wife to be killed so my son can have a better mother, to be made to disappear, pulled from our homes and beaten. As well as told that if we appeared in public we would be met with violence, spitting in our faces, and screaming at us. We have been made to feel unsafe in our own community.
It appeared that most of the people at Thursday's meeting supported the Fechters, not the Willetts' lawsuit.
"I'm here to support him, his family, and how passionate they are for their business and the animals," Katie Laverenz said. "The community loves them and we're all rooting for it to stay open and be an asset for us."
Laverenz is Fechter's niece.
"Everybody knows everybody," she said. "Everybody has been there, if not multiple times, grandkids, generations, and all that. Everybody sticks together in Farmington."
Previously, other extended family members of the Fechters have gone on record saying it's more than about a fence or zoo expansion — they belive the lawsuit's goal is to shut the zoo down.
Previously, the Willetts' attorney had disputed the claims of a zoo shutdown and said the neighbors are only trying to prevent the zoo's expansion into adding a wedding venue to the property.
Both the Fechters and Willetts declined to comment.
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