Gluckstadt pursuing annexation

GLUCKSTADT —  Aldermen here voted unanimously last Tuesday to move forward with annexation, while at the same time opposing the city of Madison’s proposed annexation.

Madison’s plan would add about four square miles to the city. 

“At my suggestion, the Gluckstadt Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to oppose the City of Madison’s annexation efforts which would largely prevent the City of Gluckstadt’s growth to the south of its present boundaries,” Mayor Walter Morrison said in a press release. “We have the responsibility to act in the best interest of the City of Gluckstadt, its citizens, and its businesses, and this action serves those goals.”

Gluckstadt was incorporated in 2021 and recently celebrated its two-year anniversary. 

In May, the Madison Mayor and Board of Aldermen unanimously passed an annexation proposal for two sections of land — a small sliver near Gluckstadt and Mannsdale roads just outside of the northwest part of the city, and a large area of land west of U.S. 51 that includes the property south of the planned Reunion Parkway.

“This area has always been in the path of growth of Madison,” Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins-Butler said in May. “When we discussed the city lines for Gluckstadt with their representatives we in good faith agreed on Madison’s path of growth.”

Hawkins-Butler has been a proponent of Gluckstadt’s incorporation over the years.

Hawkins-Butler said the property in question was in the city’s original annexation plans that took effect in 2008, but at the time the judge said there was no growth in the area. Back then, the city nearly doubled in size when it grew by over 13 square miles.