A Price County committee heard a revised offer from the Higgins family to buy roughly 10 acres of county forest land along a river , and effectively said no, at least for now.
TLDR: The Higgins family raised their offer to $75,000 for ~10 acres of county forest riverfront, added a 25-year deed restriction and a $10,000 conservation contribution. The Forestry and Parks Committee left the request as a discussion item with no vote, citing difficulty proving public benefit , a requirement of the state withdrawal process. A land swap remains possible.
The offer
Christy Spear, representing the Higgins family, presented the revised offer at the July 7, 2026 Forestry and Parks Committee meeting. The family had initially offered $65,000. After concerns raised at the previous meeting, they came back with:
- $75,000 purchase price (up from $65,000), covering all survey and administrative costs
- Boundary moved back from the middle of the river to the ordinary high watermark, reducing total acreage to just under 10 and pushing the price above $7,500 per acre
- 25-year deed restriction prohibiting commercial or recreational development
- $10,000 conservation contribution to the DNR Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program
- Openness to a land swap if the county can identify an attractive parcel
- Openness to Managed Forest Law (MFL) enrollment based on county preference
Ryan Higgins, one of the family members, told the committee the motivation is mostly emotional. “It just completes the parcel.” He cited a safety aspect , young children in the family walk along the river, and having the land under family ownership would reduce the risk of encountering hunters crossing from the other side.
The withdrawal process
Joe, the county’s forestry administrator, walked the committee through the DNR’s county forest withdrawal process. It is not simple.
The committee must approve or reject the request. Then the full county board passes a resolution requiring a two-thirds vote. The County Forest Administrator fills out the withdrawal application and submits it to the DNR. The DNR investigates. The application goes to the chief state forester for final approval or denial.
The key standard: the county must show that the withdrawal puts the land to a “better or higher use” and that the benefits of withdrawal to the people of the state as a whole outweigh the benefits of continued county forest entry.
That is a high bar. It is not enough for the county to want the money. The state has to see a public benefit that justifies removing land from the county forest system.
The committee’s concerns
Michelle Drobnick, the committee chair, made her position clear. “I’m really struggling to see the benefit that the county would actually gain from it.”
She raised the MFL concern specifically. If the withdrawn land goes into Managed Forest Law, the county gets “pennies on the dollar” compared to standard property tax revenue. MFL is designed to keep land in timber production, not to generate local tax revenue.
One supervisor noted that putting land on the tax rolls does not actually increase county revenue. “It redistributes the current levy. Say you put a hundred-thousand-dollar parcel out there that collects two thousand dollars , that takes a penny off the other two thousand parcels. It doesn’t mean we suddenly get two thousand dollars more.”
Another supervisor was blunter about the precedent risk: “If we do this, there’s gonna be at least one or two [requests] a year that come through.”
The waterfront problem
Joe explained that in his experience with DNR staff, waterfront withdrawals face a higher bar. The state places a premium on river corridors, even landlocked ones. According to Joe, DNR staff he has dealt with want to see the public come out ahead by a factor of two to three times the appraised value.
“Waterfrontage is very valuable in their mind,” Joe told the committee, referring to DNR staff. “No matter if it’s landlocked or not.”
This means the county would need to demonstrate that the $75,000 purchase price , plus the $10,000 conservation contribution and the deed restriction , delivers two to three times that value in public benefit. Is a difficult argument to make for a private sale to a single family, no matter how well-intentioned.
The land swap alternative
The committee did not kill the request. They left it as a discussion item, which means the Higgins family can come back , but only with something materially different.
Joe suggested the most promising path is a land swap. He cited a previous example: the county bought 20 acres from a property owner named Ram on Highway W roughly 8-10 years ago. Purchase gave the county road access to 1,500 acres of previously landlocked county forest. The public benefit was obvious and substantial.
“For a swap to work, there would have to be a pretty decent one,” Joe said. “You’re taking several forties that are already on [county forest], and you’re adding riverfrontage that could be split into a lot of parcels that are very valuable. The public has to come out ahead.”
Spear asked the committee to enable someone to discuss potential swap parcels with the family, so they would not be “coming back in three or four months with the best guess.” The committee agreed that Joe would be the point of contact. If a promising parcel surfaces, Joe would bring it back to the committee for discussion.
What happens next
The Higgins family’s offer is effectively on hold. The committee did not vote to reject it, but they also did not vote to advance it. The path forward, if there is one, runs through a land swap that delivers clear public value , not through a cash sale that the DNR is unlikely to approve for waterfront property.
Price County manages roughly 92,000 acres of county forest. The withdrawal process exists for situations where removing a parcel serves the public interest. The Ram property swap 8-10 years ago is the most recent example the committee could recall. One worked because the public got access to 1,500 acres. This one does not have an equivalent public benefit , at least not yet.
“We just leave it as a discussion item and move on from it,” a committee member said, rather than formally postponing. “Maybe there’s a discussion down the road.”
Sources: Price County Forestry & Parks / Buildings & Grounds Committee meeting, July 7, 2026; Wisconsin DNR County Forest Withdrawal Application process (dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/countyforests/forms); Wisconsin Statutes ch. 77.88 (Managed Forest Land withdrawal)
This article is part of an ongoing story. Read the full timeline and all coverage: County Forest Land Withdrawal: Higgins Family Offer: Full Coverage & Timeline.
See also: our guide to free camping in Wisconsin
See also: our guide to Price County public records
See also: our Price County Board 2026 roster and meeting tracker