Highlights from the Common Council
New parks, comprehensive plans, and pumping stations
Government Affairs, April 11
→ City Clerk Steven Bratz reported that the election on April 4, 2023 had a turnout of 63% with a total of 8,817 total absentee ballots cast in the two weeks before election. Twenty-six absentee ballots were rejected.
Ald. James Moldenhauer thanked the City Clerk and his staff for their fine work, suggested he conduct some surveys with voters during the next election on their feelings about the voting process, and also expressed his concern that one of the poll workers had asked to see his ballot so she could check that his ward number was recorded accurately:
When I got to where the signature gets applied, she says she needs to see my ballot. And frankly it’s none of her business how I voted, so I said, “I’m not going to show you my ballot.” […] I’m not real keen to have our people have to hand over their ballot.
This complaint was re-iterated by Ald. Amanda Fuerst who said she was “alarmed” when one of the poll workers asked her the same thing.
Mr. Braatz apologized for the error and assured the Common Council that those poll workers would be sacked spoken to.
→ Each year the Common Council meets in closed session to discuss the performance of City Administrator Jim Archambo. This last occurred in December. Apparently, one component of that is a discussion of his goals for the next year which he elaborated upon during the Government Affairs committee meeting.
Kind of.
One of the goals is a secret and involves the “acquisition and eventual redevelopment of a specific piece of property” that he expects to accomplish over the next ten to twelve years. All he could say was that, “when we last talked about that in closed session with Financial Affairs, nothing substantive has changed since then. We’ve exchanged a couple additional offers and counteroffers.”
His other goal is the execution of the 5-year strategic plan approved this past September by the Common Council. You can review the strategic plan here. Previously, I’ve mentioned that the plan outlines five main priorities:
Economic development and financial resilience, including support to local businesses, helping more people live and work in the same city, and balancing development with neighborhood preservation,
Public safety, including better communication and trust between the city and the public,
Infrastructure, including resilience to 100-year weather events, improvements to the Schoonmaker Creek watershed, and finding non-property-tax-based funding for capital improvement,
Housing, including inclusionary housing for all and an updated Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code, and
Quality of life, including an environmental adaptation plan and ecological enhancements in community spaces.
Each of the priorities above has several sub-goals which Mr. Archambo intends to turn into a set of detailed tasks to be executed by various government departments. Their progress will be reported during each department’s annual report, on a public facing web page, during the budget development process, and at his next annual evaluation in December.
Ald. Meagan O’Reilly suggested it would be good for the Common Council to have some idea about how individual departments were turning the broader strategic goals into concrete tasks before they went about accomplishing those tasks. There was a somewhat longwinded and confusing back-and-forth between Ald. O’Reilly and Mr. Archambo where I don’t think either side seemed to understand what the other was getting at, and Ald. O’Reilly finally said that she would “talk to [him] about it offline.”
→ Wisconsin needs to create a new Biennial Budget for 2023-2025. I don’t follow state politics too closely, but my impression is that Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, proposes a budget, and then the State Legislature, controlled by Republicans, mostly ignores him and comes up with their own thing. I would assume that compromise would be easier with a $7.1 billion surplus, but nothing I’ve read really suggests that’s the case.
Mayor Dennis McBride provided an update to the committee following his attendance, along with Ald. Margaret Arney, at the Joint Finance Committee’s 8-hour public listening session on April 5th at the Waukesha County Expo Center.
“This isn't going to be an easy process,” he said, describing the budget plan. And, based on what he gathered from the committee meeting, “it’s going to start with tax cuts.” He said that Governor Tony Evers has proposed an increase of over $2.6 billion for public schools, including $1 billion for equalization aid, $1 billion for special education, and increases (some public school advocates have asked for an additional $1,510) to the per-pupil revenue limit. I previously wrote about education funding in Wisconsin here.
But, he added, there are “a lot of people trying to get money out of the same pot,” including supporters of charter and voucher schools who say they deserve equal funding, and others lobbying for the state to join the federal Medicaid expansion.
Mayor McBride said that’s all great, but what he really tried to get across when it was his turn to speak was that “in Wauwatosa and other property rich communities, if you double the aid you give us now, it's only going to be 1% of our budget. We're going to go over the fiscal cliff in 3 or 4 years. You've got to do something about the levy caps.”
You can read more about levy limits here, but a short history would be:
After a period from 1998 through 2005 when property tax levies increased annually at a rate of 5.2% despite inflation only running at 2.2%, legislators finally passed a law that said local governments could only increase the property tax level by the greater of net new construction or some variable "floor" which ranged from 2%-3.86%. In 2011, the "floor" was eliminated entirely and cities could only raise property taxes if the amount of taxable property increased.
[…]
Unfortunately, these levy limits were imposed when there was a lot more new construction than there is today. […] The worry is that increases in the cost of services will outrun the rate of new construction and the city will become less and less effective as it’s forced to lay off employees, cut services, or defer needed maintenance.
Financial Affairs, March 28
→ The Financial Affairs committee unanimously recommended approval of a $283,823 contract with a Chicago-base consulting firm Houseal Lavigne to develop the city’s new Comprehensive Plan. While the recommended firm’s proposal is about $80,000 over budget, Ms. Tamara Szudy, the city’s Principal Planner, said that their proposal included a number of additional items that would need to be undertaken at a later date, and at greater cost, anyway. These include more detailed subplans and conceptual designs for key redevelopment sites along “North Avenue, from the western City limits to the Menomonee River” and along “Blue Mound Road, from the western City limits to I-41”—two areas on the western side of city where more detailed planning will be needed to guide investment and spur development.
The new comprehensive plan is expected to go into effect in 2025. While it’s being developed, there will be several opportunities for the community to provide its input, including a project website, community surveys, key stakeholder interviews, and numerous workshops for residents and members of the business community. The very detailed proposal is here.
Ald. Fuerst expressed a “personal concern that we aren't emphasizing the west side as much as East Tosa, the Village, and Midtown” since each of those areas have their own standalone developments plans while the western side of the city is merely getting slightly more detailed subplans.
Ms. Szudy responded that, “Typically, the stand alone plans would come after the comprehensive plan, and it would be a separate bidding process” so it probably wouldn’t happened until sometime after 2025, and that this was the process taken for other standalone plans.
Ald. Robin Brannin, during the Common Council meeting on April 5th, expressed a similar sentiment when said she was “incredibly disappointed” that it could be “five plus years before we could see a plan for these areas,” and that she “ [doesn’t] believe that we’re giving these areas of the city enough focus and attention to match what we’ve done in East Tosa, or the Village, or Midtown.”
The contract was approved unanimously by the Common Council.
→ City Engineer Bill Wehrley requested approval of a $476,888 contract with GRAEF, an engineering consulting firm, to design and build a new water pumping station on the west side of the city. This is part of a $5.25 million project fully funded with ARPA money.
Mr. Wehrley emphasized the need for this project as a loss of water pressure on the western side of the city due to a pump failure would mean that the water could become contaminated and that “before drinking you’d have to boil the water for several minutes.”
From the Memo:
The western district only has one station and one tower available at this time. The lack of a secondary pumping station makes the western district extremely vulnerable to system wide failures if the water feeding the pumping station or the pumping station itself experiences a failure. If a systemwide failure were to occur and pressure within the system was reduced, the lack of pressure would result in potential contamination to the drinking water supply as well severely limit the ability to provide water to combat fires.
[…]
The proposed secondary pumping station will be located adjacent to the Burleigh Water Tower. This pumping station will be sized in order to serve the entire western district so that if a failure occurs at the primary station no loss of service would occur.
Financial Affairs, April 11:
→ David Simpson, Director of Public Works, sought approval for a $135,000 contract with CDM Smith to create a Lead Service Line Replacement Plan. According to a memo provided by Mr. Simpson, "The City currently has over 15,500 water service lines in use. Approximately 9,100 are considered in-use with lead/unknown material on the private and/or public portions of the service line.”
Mr. Simpson said the plan, “would essentially include a full inventory” and prioritized list for replacement of lead laterals based on community feedback. The cost is greater than the $60,000 originally budgeted for the plan, although Mr. Simpson noted that “On the plus side, we've had a relatively light year for water main breaks” so there is extra money in the budget.
The fund transfer and contract was unanimously recommended for approval by the Financial Affairs committee.
→ Mr. Simpson also informed the committee that his department had applied for a $2.2 million grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for “construction of a multi-use trail on the north side of Wisconsin Avenue and a portion of Mayfair Road as well as improved marked crosswalks along the route.” He requested the city approve a resolution in support of the grant application.
He added that this project would also provide off-street connection to the Oak Leaf trail and “would really tie in many access points along the route including elementary schools, major employment hubs, connection to the BRT and then the [future] Wisconsin Avenue Park.” While money has already been allocated in the recently approved 5-year Capital Improvement Plan for reconstruction of the trail on the north side of Wisconsin Avenue from Mayfair Road to 95th Street, this grant—if received—would allow the city to complete a much larger project for the same cost to the city.
If the grant is awarded, the city would be required to match 20% (approximately $445,000) of the total grant funds which Mr. Simpson would ask for in a separate request to the Common Council.
A resolution of support grant submission was unanimously recommended for approval.
→ Mr. Simpson requested a similar resolution in support of grant through the Wisconsin Department of Natural resources to help fund development of a new city park located at the intersection of 116th Street and Gilbert Avenue on the western side of the city. In 2022, during the new parks master planning phase, the City’s consultant, Site Design, estimated development and construction costs for the park at 4.5 million dollars. The Common Council has allocated 2 million dollars of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds through the City’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for the development.
Mr. Simpson described the grant as fairly constrained in how the money could be used:
So in reviewing and meeting with the DNR, city staff felt that the best chance for us to score the highest and be able to potentially get a grant was to go for what’s included in your packet today, which was something emphasizing passive recreational opportunities.
So, we’re intending to apply for a $235,000 grant fund to construct a fully accessible restroom within the park. It would have an adult changing station.”
Ald. Margaret Arney was very excited about the accessible bathroom and said, “This is a distinguishing thing for Wauwatosa. It’s really positioning ourselves as a city that welcomes people with disabilities to come and enjoy [our] services.”