Relieved to move after a decade of living there
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5/22/2019
Good points are it is small and easy to get around, and has all the basics right in the village -- banks, grocery store, churches, pharmacy, hardware store, a couple restaurants, and senior housing options. It has a lovely historic village square and an amazing historical society and museum. And of course, there's the East Troy trolley, and Alpine Valley and the Kettle Moraine nearby if you like that sort of thing. Bad points are many. Water and sewer bills are astronomically high due to poor infrastructure maintenance and very poor long term planning by elected officials . Property taxes are high and you get very little in return except snow removal. Village sidewalks are a disgrace. You can easily trip and fall and break a limb or crack your head open if you walk anywhere in the village. Sidewalks suddenly end randomly mid block and you will keep crisscrossing the street to find and stay on a sidewalk in the old village, while the town outskirts have no sidewalks at all. Good luck finding an entire block of property owners in winter who bother shoveling the sidewalk in front of their house, and the village does nothing about it. The library staff is incredibly nice and works hard, but the library is tiny and the villagers keep voting down referendums to support library improvements. Enrollment in the public schools continues to decline, including enrollment losses to far more wealthy neighboring suburban school districts with all the bricks and mortar bells and whistles that East Troy can't afford. You are likely to have a long commute to work, since there is very little employer base and most of what is there doesn't pay well. Long job commutes to Milwaukee, Waukesha and even Madison are likely for a job that pays a living wage. If you have a medical emergency the volunteer fire department is johnny on the spot, BUT the closest decent hospital is 25 miles away in Waukesha. If you like like living in an ultra conservative, politically intolerant, male dominated, virtually all white community, then this is the place for you. It wasn't for us. We moved out of state recently to a far more progressive community with more racial and political diversity, lower taxes, better services, more scenic beauty, and plethora of low cost entertainment options, and couldn't be happier.
Power | East Troy, WI