RACINE - For more than 45 years, Jordan Brewer has cut the grass and paid the taxes on a piece of land he and his wife, Judy, have owned near Wind Lake.

When they received the letter in July that said their property would be annexed into a nearby drainage district, they didn't know what it meant.

They were in the Racine County Courthouse Wednesday to find out. They learned that the Racine County Board of Drainage Commissioners will have to wait to move forward with their proposed annexation of more than 3,100 parcels of land, including the Brewers'.

Racine County Circuit Court Judge Richard Kreul put the brakes on the drainage board's proposal. Kreul ruled in favor of a request from officials in Racine County and the Town of Norway to stop the drainage board from meeting Wednesday and taking action on the proposal to annex properties into the Norway-Dover Drainage District and assess $1.4 million to property owners.

The Brewers traveled to Racine County on Monday from their home in Itasca, Ill. They were in the courtroom Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We really don't know that much about this area, but we're here because it's going to affect us and we need to know," Judy Brewer said outside the courtroom Wednesday. "We also felt that we did not have enough information at all. We didn't know what was going on."

Kreul said drainage board members did not follow the required state law and codes when commissioning a study and filing a petition to annex more than 14,000 acres of land into the drainage district. If the board had approved the proposed annexation at Wednesday's meeting, property owners would not have a satisfactory legal remedy to object, Kreul said, especially since the board did not provide specific details about the plan.

"If the citizen is not given the details, the information, the specifics, he is indeed deprived by his government of his right to be heard," Kreul said.

Drainage board members - Alan Jasperson, Alvin Wilks and Greg Foat - were extremely disappointed with Kreul's ruling, said Michael Piontek, the attorney who represents them. Piontek said the commissioners will live with the judge's decision and explore their options.

"The need for drainage repair remains. With this decision, of the approximately 5,000 property owners in the watershed who benefit from the drainage system, 1,800 will bear the cost," Piontek said. "The commissioners continue to believe that is not fair."

Jon Lehman, Racine County's corporation counsel, said Wednesday's decision could help prompt a discussion of the issues in western Racine County that concern the drainage board commissioners,

"I think that's been the difficult condition up to this point. There really have been actions taken just by one party and everybody else is in the passenger's seat," Lehman said. "Perhaps this gets us all on a level playing field and we can think about having a more meaningful and coherent discussion, about the issue of water in western Racine (County), in the future."