Wausau Daily Herald from Wausau, Wisconsin • 27

The Daily Herald. Wausau-Merrill. Wis. Wednesday, September 3, Tax burden moves from farm to city in this corner Jean Gilbert ready to fight phone giants i mi I I i i 1 i .1 7- a v': i A t3 dropped lit percent in Marathon County and 6.8 percent in Lincoln County. When the farm buildings and homes are added in, the decline was 14.6 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively.

That doesn't necessarily mean farmers will pay less property tax. Tax payments are based on assessed values. Most towns' percentage contribution to county and school taxes drop. But if assessors don't lower their values of agricultural land, farmers won't benefit from the land value drop as much as they otherwise would in the form of lower taxes, according to Vandenbusch. Even if values drop, local levies might increase enough to cause a net increase in taxes, Kowalski said.

Indications are levies will be up this year. Lincoln County is a good example. County Clerk Elizabeth: McHenry said the county will likely lose nearly a half-million dollars of federal revenue sharing. "Over the past three-year the federal government cut us $244,0000," she said. Schools also play a big role in; determining how much you fork out for property taxes.

The Wausau! School District faces at least a million budget increase next year for salaries alone. Equalized value figures are used; by the county and school districts to; divide taxes fairly. In Lincoln County, the towns of; Bradley, Harding, Pine River, Rock-Falls, Russell, Schley, Somo, and Tomahawk will pay larger share of county taxes next year. Every town in Marathon County will pay a smaller share next year, except Bergen, Hewitt, Kronenwetter, Norrie, Rib Mountain, Ringle, Stettin and Weston. Among villages, Athens, Rothschild, Spencer, Stratford and Unity will see increases and all others but Birnamwood will drop.

Birnam-wood the two houses and 35 acres of it in Marathon County is unchanged. Equalized values are based on real estate transfer reports filed when property is sold, field surveys and reports from assessors, Kowalski said. By Don Oakland and Tom Berger Wausau Daily Herald Falling farmland prices have helped cut the equalized value of Marathon County by $110.8 million and Lincoln County by 113.5 million. That will shift some of the property tax burden from rural to urban areas. Two trends are at work.

One is a reversal of what happened in the 1970s, when good agricultural land rose in value much faster than city homes. And that was when house values some years were going up at a double digit rate. The other trend is a decrease in total taxable property, led by falling farm prices. "For the first time in almost 50 years, we've had a drop in total taxable property value in the state of Wisconsin," Thomas Vandenbusch, property assessment specialist with the Bureau of Property Tax, told Marathon County municipal officials last week. In our area, the overall taxable property value drop is at least the first in memory, he said.

The trends become evident when you look at who rural or urban areas will pay what in county taxes next year. In Marathon County, towns will pay $8.97 less of every $1,000 of county taxes, but villages will pay 29 cents more and cities a whopping $8.68 more. Wausau people will be asked to dig deepest into their pockets. They will pay $314.60 of every $1,000 the county raises, up $9.52 from a year ago. Urbanized towns share the cities' fate.

For every $1,000 of county tax levied, Weston people will pay $83.44 next year, up by $3.59. Rib Mountain, Stettin and Kronenwet-ter, also largely bedroom communities, will pay for a larger chunk of the county budget, too. Overall, taxable property values dropped 4.1 percent in Marathon County and 2.4 percent in Lincoln County, Dave Kowalski, property assessment specialist, said. But farm prices took the biggest hit. Agricultural land values ness.

It was a big investment. But I thought, 'Go for it. If you fall on your face, you fall on your face. Then you can go back to I'll always have that to fall back on. So why not? "It was an adventure," she says.

And she decided to have it in Wausau. To be successful, Gilbert figured she had to start her company in a sizeable city with a lot of businesses and no competition from the big boys. And it had to be in Wisconsin because she wanted to stay near her family. When she was in college, Gilbert passed Wausau every other weekend as she drove between Manitowoc and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She liked the looks of the area.

It met her criteria. So she began Wausau L.D.S. At first, with the help of one sales representative, Gilbert had 46 customers. Now, with two more office workers, the company has a customer list approaching 400. "We had no idea," she says.

"The growth potential in the past year-and-a-half has been phenomenal. I couldn't believe it." Three weeks ago, Gilbert replaced her original equipment with technology that can handle double the workload. "It's not the size equipment that you would imagine," she says, referring to electronic gadgetry requiring less space than another office worker. "Equipment is becoming very sophisticated, and the more sophisticated, the smaller it gets. "It kind of blows people's minds," she says, "and probably if a lot of the big businesses that we have on the service knew what their calls were going through, with the volumes of calls they make, they would be shocked." But Gilbert isn't relying on the size of her equipment to impress prospective customers.

She says with low overhead expenses, Wausau L.D.S. can afford to offer long distance rates com- fey Joel Dresang Wausau Dally Herald In the next couple of months, Jean Gilbert, a 26-year-old former school teacher, plans to go toe to toe with "the big boys." That's how she refers to such telecommunications heavyweights as MCI and Green Bay-based Schneider Communications. She'll be sparring with them for 36,000 Wausau area customers between now and Oct. 15. I Gilbert, who lives in Schofield, owns Wausau L.D.S., a long distance telephone company she founded in January 1985.

She hopes her early start will enable her to beat some of her competitors to the punch. "I figured the big boys wouldn't be coming for a while," she says. The big boys are here. At the end of the month, General Telephone of Wisconsin will be mailing ballots and information to its customers in the Wausau area. They'll be asked to choose which company they want to connect their calls when they dial "1" for long distance.

Gilbert hopes to get 35-40 percent of those votes. "The equipment is able to handle more than that," she says. "Forty percent is what I would like to do without having to get too big. I have this phobia about not being able to control it. I'd like to have it under control." So far, Gilbert has been in control.

Her career in the telephone industry began in her hometown, Manitowoc. As a college student, she installed phone systems during the summers. After she graduated and was teaching in Manitowoc, Gilbert stayed in the telephone business, spending her summer vacations as a sales representative for Manitowoc L.D.S. Two summers aeo. an executive coffered her a chance to buv some equipment and start a long dis tance company oi ner own.

"I wasn't reallv sure." she re- (Tcalls. "It would be my own busi- boys' cludes radio commercials that mock Cliff Robertson ads. Heading into her bout with the big boys, Gilbert figures Wausau L.D.S. will be able to hold its own. "I plan to take it slow," she says, "and make it a success as I go, and not go overboard as far as getting too much going for what I can handle." Beep-beep the dial phone's nearly dead Jean Gilbert Going toe to toe with 'the big petitive with larger companies.

Low profiles are another story. "The name has been out there, so it's pretty well known," Gilbert says. "So far among the business community, anybody who knows what's happening is aware of. Wausau L.D.S." For those prospective customers who aren't familiar with her company, Gilbert is escalating an advertising campaign which in and Solem figures it's just a matter of time before everyone has shelved their rotary dials. But rotary diehards can take heart.

One company that is whipping rotary telephones off the assembly line, faster than one can dial 999-9999, is Fisher-Price. Last year, the toymaker celebrated 25 years of producing Chatter Telephone, a rotary toy phone that has sold about 30 million units worldwide. With toys constantly coming and going, "This is somewhat of a benchmark," said spokeswoman Carol Blackley. She isn't saying, but with numbers like that, it is unlikely that the Chatter Telephone, which has no dial tone but has the capability to reach Martians on Mars with a child's imagination, will be abandoned for push-buttons. Says Black-ley: "The kids like the rotary action.

They like the way it goes around." Aunt Millie," Stinson says. Tom Mattausch, a spokesman at rival GTE, which makes just one style of rotary "Old-fashioned, antique French telephones that just don't look right with push-button automatic dialing on it" agrees. "The only thing you can do with a rotary dial is make a telephone call," he says, noting that they also cost more to produce and repair because of their moving parts. GTE executives figure a majority of phone customers in the Wausau area still have rotary phones, despite increasing sales of push-button models. "Some people are just used to them," Solem, of the Phone Mart, says.

"They don't feel that they ever want to change." Another reason people might be hanging onto their rotary phones is to save $1.25 extra per month in touch-tone line fees, Solem says. But touch-tone service provides increasing opportunities to make life more convenient for customers, hiif-vWMJi'it v-v vfi-4Y: i u-j f-- i VV' 11 1,1 ni.rnn.iinimii.ivi.- in, ferS-M Hones Alive9 V5upport MA SALE September 4 th 'Vl. yhrougtiW IxMM' Enjoy the great savings on 1 Vn''H4 Hanes Alive support Yj'lV'W pantyhose stockings! I rVtWP Experience the sensa- 1 3 tional sheerness and su- xHrft perb fit that will keep 1 your support a secret! 1 A Reg. 5.25-6.95, Sale 4.35-5.75. Hosiery I iii 'ii -v 'iV AHt Support VSVM pbakgeIs 1 I I ITS NOT YOURS UNTIL YOU LIKE IT! 1 A Special Note To The Ladies! By the Wausau Daily Herald $nd Gannett News Service Index fingers rejoice! The rotary telephone, which has fiad you spinning around and around fcpd around and around for local falls, and around four more times tor long distance calls, appears to be heading for the final roundup.

It's being beaten by the beep. According to those who know phones, including Craig Solem, manager of the GTE Phone Mart at the Wausau Center, the rotary telephone is being outsold by as much as 4-to-l by the push-button. The future of the rotary, in fact, is so bleak that companies such as American Telephone Telegraph are out of the rotary phone-making business altogether. General Elec-tric, which started manufacturing telephones a couple of years ago, fljakes only models with buttons that push. Solem says in a few years rotary pTtones might go the way of manual typewriters.

"It's convenient, faster and more accurate," Solem says of push-but-ion dialing. "It's like an electric ga-fage door opener, once you've got Qne, you can't live without it." "Push-button rather than twirling has become a given," says Burke Stinson, an spokesman, you'll find kids go to Grandma's house wondering, 'How do you The rotary phone's reign began in 306, Stinson says. But with the introduction of push-button dialing and later "touch-tone" dialing, rotary or "pulse" dialing is becoming Smithsonian. Stinson explains that all touch-tone phones are push-buttons, but all push-buttons are not touch-tones, as commonly believed. "Some push-buttons, he said, are actually rotary phones in disguise, their dial faces are push-button, 6ut they're good only for making a call.

Rotary users cannot, for example, hook up to a computer like touch-tone users. In addition, after Ma Bell broke up and long-distance companies popped up all over, some companies discovered the only way to enter access and authorization codes necessary to make a call was with a (ouch-tone. "The way to tell one push-button from another push-button: Touch-nes beep and non-touch-tones have pulses, or clicks. "Touch-tone has been the way tow, and will continue to be the way as people do more than call Today, more than ever, it is important that women establish financial creditability. You, like anyone else, work hard for your money and you want to make sure that you handle it properly.

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