When it comes to local government relations, one of the most valuable lessons Lori Severson and her team at the Wisconsin Association of Campground Owners (WACO) have learned is this: You have to actually serve on city, town and county boards to educate them about the economic value that private parks bring to communities.
Severson said she decided to run for a seat on the Trempealeau County Board of Supervisors four years ago — and won — out of desperation.
“I did it because we could get nowhere with our counties,” she said, adding that county officials in many areas of Wisconsin were not allowing campgrounds to grow. “County boards did not understand our business at all. So many people thought campgrounds or trailer parks were places for the homeless.”
Severson previously tried to educate and develop relationships with county officials by attending county meetings, speaking at the podium during public comment periods, and attending their conventions. She found that wasn’t enough.
“Attempting to get a booth at their conference, WACO couldn’t get a booth no matter what,” Severson recalled. “They were always ‘full.’ You couldn’t get on for the next year, either. The only way to get in to talk to all the county supervisors was to be one of them. So, I got elected.”
Severson’s biggest shock came during her first year as a county supervisor when she walked into an educational session at a convention for county supervisors.
“The speaker was saying campgrounds could sell electricity. At a state convention, they had speakers giving bad information!” Severson exclaimed.
Over time, Severson learned that county supervisors in Wisconsin were not only uninformed but misinformed, which is a troublesome scenario when these folks are making decisions involving the campground business.
“It’s not that they want to make bad decisions. It’s that they don’t know,” Severson said.
Now serving her fifth year as a Trempealeau County supervisor, Severson said she’s become the campground expert on the county board and that she has been able to educate her peers on many topics involving campgrounds. Every county supervisor, she’s learned, has expertise in something, usually a topic relating to their personal business experience, which in Wisconsin could involve everything from campgrounds to farming.
“We finally used our former Packer Connections and provided entertainment and lemonade — loaded and unloaded — with food to entice all county supervisors to attend our event to open their convention,” Severson said.
Despite entering her fifth year as a county supervisor, Severson said her work as a county official is not particularly fun because she spends most of her time listening to complaints from her constituents.
“No one ever said, ‘I think I’ll be a county supervisor. It will be fun — at least not in my world!’” Severson said. “Politics isn’t fun. But it has truly helped educate our state. Can you imagine if a campground owner were on every county board in Wisconsin? It started with one. We just need 71 more!”
