359 Degrees

At the Council meeting of May 6, I submitted the following legislative referral to study the preservation of historic structures in the City of Brookfield, possibly leading to a new protective ordinance.  Brookfield has been my home for over 20 years and I understand just how fragile our link is to the city's roots. 

In response to this referral, the planning office has given me several documents concerning previous unsuccessful efforts for preservation.  One was the historic building inventory of 1993.  There were also minutes of Plan Commission meetings in 1995-96 and results from a special citizen task force.  No action was taken then because, in the Commissioner's opinion, there was insufficient public support and fierce opposition from owners who feared such an ordinance would unduly limit their ability to  manage their own property with no proportionate compensation.  Planning is often about balancing the rights of property owners against the desires of the larger community. I'll keep you posted as this develops during the coming months.

The complete referral:

This is a service request / legislative referral I will make at the May 6, 2008 Council meeting.

I request that the city consider a historic building preservation ordinance.  There are still many fine examples of late 19th and early 20th century buildings that remind Brookfield residents of their roots and of how much life has changed in a relatively short time.  Besides, Brookfield will never have 300 year old farmhouses if they are all torn down when they are “only” 100 years old!

This complex task was attempted in (I believe) the early 1990’s and the records from that effort may provide a better definition of the task. Some concepts include:

1. Update the inventory of historic buildings created by the planning department in the earlier effort.  I believe some of the buildings have been razed or renovated beyond recognition.

2. Outline what other communities have done in this area.  I am especially interested in Cedarburg (often cited during the Village Neighborhood Plan meetings),Waukesha (nearby and its downtown has many significant buildings), Town of Brookfield (neighboring community with many historic and demographic connections) and major historical sites such as Boston.

3. Give special attention to the Ruby Farm property, the Dousman-Dunkel-Behling House and the Village Railroad Station, which are probably the largest and most prominent structures.

4. Solicit public comment.  I believe the heart of the issue will be whether the burden of new, severe restrictions on historic structure property owners is outweighed by a greater public good of preservation.

5. Suggest ordinances, creation of historic building district(s), historic building review boards and other planning tools as may be needed to achieve the desired results.

In Brookfield city government, the first detailed debate on an issue happens in a committee.  That allows a few alderman to focus on a topic and make the first judgment on what is reasonable. 

Here are the committees appointed on Tuesday, May 6.

The Finance committee sets policy on the entire city budget.  One major task is debating the annual budget proposed by the Mayor and staff every October for the following year.  Continuing duties include approving purchases over $50,000, dealing with claims from residents (e.g. snowplow hit my mailbox), selecting the bank for city funds, etc.

One common debate is whether the Finance Committee can effectively nullify some other committee's decision by removing all funding for it.  That's common at the state and federal level.  The reverse is to fund a program that was rejected by the "correct" committee, which is the heart of the federal earmark spending actions.  That doesn't really work at the city level since the budget is relatively simple and transparent.  Besides, the entire Council, including the originating committee members, have to approve such a decision.  Continuing issues for finance include funding services while keeping taxes in check, despite declining federal and state aid, little new construction (new tax base) increasing employee insurance costs, etc.

A central activity is reviewing the past budgets and setting the next one:

• May - Set broad budget parameters.  e.g. property tax rate can go up 2%
• Summer months - Mayor and department heads discuss what to spend for the next year, balancing new services against the limits set
• September - Mayor submits the Executive Budget to the aldermen
• October - A series of marathon meetings reviewing the Executive Budget and amending as desired
• November - Public hearing on budget.  I've seen as many as two (2) residents at this meeting. 
• December - Final adjustments to the budget based on state aid, etc.  Tax bills get mailed out and paid.

The Human Resources and Public Safety (HRPS) committee (I'm the only alderman to have opposed that unfortunate name) sets policy for city employees, including salaries, benefits, harassment lawsuit claims, behavior standards, etc.

The Legislative and Licensing (L&L) committee grants liquor and bartender licenses and, more significantly, originates most city ordinances.

The Board of Public Works (BPW) manages the streets, stormwater and city buildings.  Continuing issues include building the fire stations and continuing the Calhoun Road expansion.  Yard waste disposal (leaf burning) will be discussed here.  This committee is unusual in that the Mayor is a full member but can appoint an alderman to serve in his place.  In practice, the alternate almost always serves.  In addition, if one of the other aldermen is absent there is an aldermanic alternate to serve in his place.  In other communities it is common to have citizen members or to have a staff member (usually the City Engineer or Director of Public Works) to be a voting member.

The Water & Sewer Board (two separate committees until 2006) sets policy for the water utility and sewer utility.  Continuing issues include building out the water system, finding a safe and plentiful water supply (Lake Michigan water?) and dealing with the endless lawsuits from the Town of Brookfield over sewers.  This committee deals with a lot of public hearings for installing water mains.  I recall very clearly when, in the course of one minute, a resident called the committee members *** and Communists.  It's not a ho-hum committee when people's basements fill up with sewage!  Up until 2006, the mayor was a committee member and appointed an alderman as his alternate.

The Forestation committee sets policy for planting trees in city parks, roadsides, building yards, etc.  Many cities merge this function with the Board of Public Works.  However, since the BPW is always tempted to keep the roadside right of way clear of all plantings, there is always a conflict of goals.  Having a separate committee was the compromise to plant a reasonable number of trees along roadsides.

A few comments:

Almost every week, each alderman receives a packet of information regarding the city.  It is delivered to their house, usually on Saturday morning, by a Brookfield Police Reserve officer.  This ensures delivery in a timely manner, especially for those aldermen who have full time jobs, who travel often, etc. and thus would otherwise have difficulty getting the pacet.  The old joke is that once someone is elected aldermen, "the cops are always over at their place."

The packets range in length from a dozen pages to hundreds of pages.  They include the agenda and supporting information for each committee meeting that alderman must attend during the coming week.  Also included are minutes of past meetings, letters from residents sent to city hall, special reports, the library newsletter, and the occasional miscellaneous item.

At the council meeting of April 15, 2008, I requested a study be done to:

• convert the packet information (supporting information for committee meetings) to electronic form for delivery to the aldermen
• place the electronic packets on the city web site where they would be available to anyone at anytime for free
• convert all past city records into electronic form and stored in a searchable database. 

Click here to see my referral on electronic packets.

It's all about making the city's business as open and available as possible.  Round the clock for free seems pretty available to me, and would be a natural outgrowth of modernizing the current paper bound system.  Of course, it won't be free since a new database tool would have to be acquired, old documents would have to be located and imported into the system, etc.  Brookfield already has agendas, minutes, some reports and planning documents available in this way, but I want to expand it greatly.  The city clerk's office has long used a special database product designed for city clerks.  My point is that it doesn't include everything and is not available to the general public or even the aldermen.

To help you understand what this information is, I have scanned every packet I received since January, 2008 into a PDF file and stored it on my web site.  Here are a couple of examples:

So, what do you think?  Would allowing everyone full access to exactly the information the aldermen see, at the same time it is delivered to the aldermen, be worth a few bucks?  Do you think it would create better public policy, debate and decisions?  Do you think it would address the accusation that the city is always hiding something?

I want to share with you some photos of recent vandalism activity in Brookfield.  An important part of the city's job is ensuring the safety of its residents and protection of private property.  I would like your opinions on whether this stuff is harmless or dangerous.   

• How many of your tax dollars do you want spent on police patrols looking for this sort of midnight hijinks? 
• Do you think it's fair to the property owner and his neighbors who have to clean this stuff up?
• What would you do if your kid (!) was caught doing this?  Boys will be boys?

First, here are some photos of a "TP-ing" that was probably the result of high school "Junior - Senior Wars".  Two trees in the front yard were covered in toilet paper, the front yard had dozens of plastic forks inserted and landscape rocks (75 lb+) were moved out of position.

Here are a few photos from a back yard.  The rear lot line abuts one of the walking/biking paths being installed throughout the city.  Kids turn off the path to take a shortcut through the backyard, leaving tire marks.  This time, one of those kids threw a bottle bomb.  The chemicals killed the grass and debris was thrown over seven (7) feet.  Do you want your kid biking around with caustic and volatile chemicals to throw in someone's back yard?  And so much for privacy!  By the way, you can get the recipe for this in about two minutes with a Google or YouTube search.  Even the local TV news has covered it a few times.  The yellow arrows point out the impact point and shrapnel.

Now the final question:  Do you think these kids flew in from St. Louis for the day to vandalize Brookfield?  I mean, your kids would never do this stuff, right?  At least, they were never caught doing it!

Stem cell research has become a very hot topic, both scientifically and morally.  I ran across this item on stem cells that has an unexpected Brookfield  connection.

A standard method for growing clusters of stem cells (embroid bodies) is called the hanging body technique.  You place a few cells into a tiny chamber, let them float in a nourishing fluid (mmm, yummy!)  and bump into each other.  The start to grow and differentiate, e.g. generic stem cells start changing into specific purpose cells, such as organs.  Every day you must change the fluid, a tedious manual task.

Professor Michelle Khine of the University of California - Merced specializes in microfludics.  That's a new engineering field that attempts to create extremely small mechanical devices to perform some remarkable tasks.  Dr. Khine decided to construct a tiny growth chamber for hanging cells that was shaped to make it easy to exchange the fluid.  Normally constructing such tiny devices requires an elaborate photo-lithography machine, but the young professor had no research grant money.  So, she improvised based on a childhood memory - Shrinky Dinks.  She printed a pattern of the machine she wanted on the plastic sheet, warmed it up and the 3-D growth chamber (a biaxially pre-stressed thermoplastic sheet) formed up .

For those of you who don't know the story, Shrinky Dinks were invented by two Brookfield cub scout den mothers in 1973.  Their names?  Betty Morris and Kate Bloomberg.  Yes, THAT Kate Bloomberg.  They commercialized the product, selling the first boxes at the Brookfield Mall.  Click here for the official Shrinky Dink web site.

I don't think this method will ever actually be used directly to create stem cell growth chambers, but it is a creative bit of research showing how simple materials can be adapted for life changing experiments.  For more details, including a 7 minute video, see: "Shrinky-Dink Hanging Drops: A Simple Way to Form and Culture Embroid Bodies", Journal of Visualized Experiments,

I was talking to one of my hundreds of readers (see below) and he suggested that I solicit ideas for future blog entries.  After all, my main focus for starting this blog was to get some discussion going on topics of interest regarding the City of Brookfield government.  I have a long list of things that I want to write about, but part of my job as alderman is to listen to (well, in this case, read from) residents.  So go ahead.  Post your ideas and I'll see what I can do.

Scott

One of the most significant changes to Brookfield government that I have been a part of is televising the meetings of the Council, Plan Commission and annual budget meetings.  It was a highly controversial topic at the time, but I think it turned out well. 

Televising was approved in concept on October 7, 2003.  The first video recorded meeting was June 15, 2004.  Televising was expanded to include the Plan Commission and annual finance meetings on October 5, 2004. (By the way, those are links to my aldermanic web site where searchable copies of almost all council minutes from April, 2000 to the present are publically available.  Due to the volume and size of the pages, a link is the easiest way to make it available to you.)  There was always opposition to televising from some aldermen due to fears of excessive cost, the potential of grandstanding, etc.  As with all legislative acts, it took a lot of work to build a majority and every vote counted, not just mine.

The meetings may be viewed on cable channel 25 for several days following the meeting.  On request, you may view a past meeting at the City Clerk's office in City Hall.  For a small fee, you can get a DVD copy of the meeting.

At the April 15, 2008 council meeting, I made a referral to expand the televising of meetings.  That means the city staff and the appropriate committee (in this case it will start in Finance) will study the idea and decide what to do about it.  The referral was:

To: Mayor Jeff Speaker

Date: April 10, 2008

Re: Meeting Audio / Video Streaming

This is a service request / legislative referral I will make at the April 15, 2008 Council meeting.

I request the City study expanding televising of city meetings.

• Expand the televising program to all official meetings. This may be a phased implementation, but a specific program should be outlined, funded and scheduled.

• Allow real time (live) internet based audio or video streaming of certain meetings. Council and Plan Commission meetings would be good candidates. The City of Waukesha telecasts the Council and Plan Commission meetings live. Waukesha County Supervisor meetings are audiocast.

• Allow video streaming on demand for past meetings. If YouTube can do it, so can we.

Here is a link to a PDF of the submitted referral:   Referrals_20080415_Televising.pdf

There has been a continuing problem with the sound for meeting.  This is mostly due to the fact that the aldermen do not speak directly into their microphones.  Due to the arrangement of the desks, aldermen in the front row tend to turn around to talk to their colleagues which means they are facing away from their microphones.  There has been some discussion of remodeling the council room to arrange the desks into a horseshoe so that everyone will naturally look toward the audience which will also be towards their microphone.  There is no specific plan to do that now, though it may be part of the study I requested.

By the way, the television equipment was paid for with fees from Time-Warner Cable Company.  The cost of room remodeling is always tax dollars.

Brookfield residents take great pride in their homes, including landscaping.  That means they produce piles of leaves, sticks, flowers and all sorts of other yard waste needing disposal.  A special task force met in 2003 and proposed several new restrictions on leaf burning.  They are summarized in this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel of August 17, 2003.  At the council meeting of December 2, 2003 the council accepted a slightly modified version of that task force recommendation, which placed new restrictions on leaf burning.  Note that I supported a total ban on burning. 

At the April 15, 2008 council meeting, I made a referral to study (again!) yard waste disposal, including leaf burning.  That means the city staff and the appropriate committee (BPW) will study the idea and decide what to do about it.  The referral was:

To: Mayor Jeff Speaker

Date: April 10, 2008

Re: Yard Waste

This is a service request / legislative referral I will make at the April 15, 2008 Council meeting.

I request the City study revising the yard waste disposal policy.

• Implement yard waste (leaves, grass, flowers, sticks, etc.) pickup at all residences on a seasonal basis.
• Once the collection system is in place, a phased reduction of leaf burning eventually leading to a total ban.
• Implementing this may have a substantial financial and operational impact, so the review may fall outside the normal committee workload.

Here is a link to a PDF of the submitted referral:  Referrals_20080415_YardWaste.pdf

The last point about "may fall outside the normal committee workload" hints at the possibility of handling this outside of the Board of Public Works committee meetings and instead holding public hearings or even using a special task force.  In any event, the BPW will be the starting point.

So, what do you think?

Well, the April 15 Council meeting held a few surprises after all.  Here are the highlights.

Mark Nelson and Dan Sutton ran for Council President and Mark Nelson won.  The first and second ballots were ties, 7 to 7. The mayor chose to abstain since he felt this vote was unique to the aldermen.  Besides, a tie breaker would have instantly alienated half the group.  After the  second vote, Dan Sutton asked for a recess.  When the meeting started again, Dan stated that his candidacy was about unification, not division, and he withdrew from the race.  The third ballot was 13 for Nelson, 1 for Sutton.

Electing a Council President is the only situation where state law allows a secret ballot.  It is clear that a close vote could create permanent tension in the group and poison the rest of the term.  That being said, this is my personal opinion of who voted how:

• For Sutton: Sutton, Carnell, Balzer, Blackburn, J. Mellone, L. Mellone, Lowerr
• For Nelson: Owen, Reddin, Garvens, Ponto, Nelson, Mahkorn, Berg

I have a pretty good idea of who the lone Sutton vote was on the third ballot, and it wasn't Dan (or me!).  The really sad thing is that lone alderman has repeatedly shown that he has no interest in the people's business.  He just wants to settle scores, real or imagined.

The proposed north side fire station was another big topic.  Director of Administration Dean Marquardt, Director of Parks Bill Kolstad and Interim Fire Chief Bill Selzer prepared the presentation and answered many questions from the Council.  In the end, the aldermen agreed to the following:

1. The Park and Recreation Commission should study the proposal for placing the station in Fairview Park.  A long list of concerns from aldermen and residents was created, including parking, playground equipment, stormwater management and landscaping.
2. The staff should prepare a report on the four alternative locations (all near Calhoun Road and Capitol Drive) comparing the sites for operational efficiency, cost and traffic impact, plus anything else that might come up.

Nothing about the stations was "decided" or "cast in stone".  This is one more step in evaluating many options.  With this dual track analysis, and under the best possible conditions, a decision might be made by the council in July. 

There were perhaps 10 residents in the gallery for the fire station issue which is about the same as the number who attended last week's joint Plan Commission / Park Commission meeting.  It was erroneously blogged that last week's meeting was packed.  In fact, almost half of the visitors were developers, architects, lawyers, etc. for the Plan Commission meeting, plus several aldermen not on those Commissions (I was one of them).

I also made four referrals for committee action.  Each has many details that I will describe in future blog entries as they are considered by committees.  To summarize:

• Review the yard waste disposal policy.  Ideally, this would lead to a comprehensive residential collection system and phase out leaf burning completely.  The real problem here will be money.
• Expand televising to all city meetings.  Start live broadcasts and internet audiocasts. 
• Provide aldermen with city managed email accounts.  Some new technology makes this much easier than in the past.
• Convert all city records to electronic form, accessible to anyone via the city web site.  The challenge here will be cost and a perception that such widespread accessibility would be useless.

The meeting started about 7:45 and ended about 10:15, which is average.

The first meeting of the 28th City of Brookfield Common Council will be held on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 starting at 7:45 p.m.  There are a few items of special interest.

The first order of business will be swearing in the 7 newly (re) elected alderman.  They are (in order by district) Dan Sutton, Rick Owen, Ron Balzer, Steve Ponto, Scott Berg, Chris Blackburn and Renee Lowerr.  Renee is the only new alderman. (I haven't had a chance to ask her if she prefers alderwoman.)  I remember my first inaugaration very well.  It's a moment of great satisfaction.  Then the real work begins!

Second will be the election of the Common Council President.  There are several duties for Council President, including:

• Appoint most of the committee members
• Chair Council meetings in the Mayor's absence
• Serve as acting mayor if the mayor is unable to serve
• Perform ceremonial duties such as ribbon cuttings

This year, there will be two candidates.  First is 1st District Alderman Dan Sutton.  Dan announced his intentions with personal phone calls to each of us.  There are tight limits on what he could say as outlined in a letter from the City Attorney, but his main point was that he wants to bridge the rift that has developed in the council in the last few years.  The second candidate is 4th District Alderman Mark Nelson who mailed each of us a letter (I got mine today) outlining his experience and his intentions to foster healthy debate yet unify the group.  The candidate who gets a simple majority (at least 8 of the 14 alderman) immediately takes office.  In the event of a tie, the Mayor is legally entitled to vote a tie breaker, but he is not required to.  For this issue, the Mayor is almost certain to abstain, letting the aldermen sort out who should have the job.

The other key item will be a presentation on the proposed location for the new north side fire station (Station #2).  The first public presentation was at a joint Plan Commission and Parks Commission meeting last week on April 7.  Many of the questions raised by the commissioners and residents will be answered at this presentation.  I will have lots more to say about the fire stations in future posts.

There are also lots of routine ("ministerial duties") items such as granting bartender's licenses which usually go pretty quickly.

If you can't attend the meeting, you can always catch it on the local cable channel during the next week.  I will share my insights on the meeting in a couple of days.

Welcome to BrookfieldNow's newest blog - "359 Degrees".  I chose that name because a full circle has 360 degrees, yet too many bloggers focus on the tiniest one degree segment that interests them.  My intent is to be thorough when discussing issues and show you the many angles that issues can be viewed from.  However, by the time I'm done I will often state which "degree" is the one I prefer.

As a City of Brookfield 5th District Alderman since April, 2000, I have been fortunate to have been involved in many important decisions for the city.  The next few years will bring even more challenges and decisions.  I encourage you to contact me on this blog or privately by email.  I plan to moderate the blog posts, at least until I have a chance to add any required responses.  Since I don't do this full time, it may take a while for me to catch up.  Also, I want to be clear that any opinions and interpretations are mine and will be marked as such.  I am not speaking for the Mayor, Council or staff, just myself.

So, get out and enjoy the spring weather!  When you're ready for that cup of coffee, check back and see what's new.

Scott