This week in local government
Liquor licenses, Nancy Welch resigns from the Common Council, and the Police Department's Annual Report
During the Government Affairs Meeting
→ Liquor License Renewals: While the City of Wauwatosa derives most of its revenues from property taxes, it also receives a small (2%) amount from issuing licenses and permits. The City issues various liquor licenses depending on whether you want to sell beer, wine, or spirits; in the original packaging or not; for off- or on-premises consumption; temporarily for a special event or regularly as part of your business.
The price for a liquor license ranges from $100-$500 dollars annually, although temporary licenses for special events are only $10. The State of Wisconsin also limits municipalities in the number of certain license types they can issue.
At least as of 2017, the City has the option of issuing extra liquor licenses above the state-imposed quota if they’re within a “Premier Economic Development District.” The price for such a license is $30,000 for the initial license and a much smaller amount for the yearly renewal. The City recently used the proceeds from such a Premier Economic Development to fund a bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement initiative by the Police Department.
This is all somewhat tangential to the Government Affairs committee’s discussion about alcohol license renewals this week, other than to note that they’re scarce, occasionally expensive, and something you presumably want to keep, especially if selling alcohol is an important part of your business.
Conversely, one way to lose a liquor license is to not renew it by the deadline. Another is to be a bad neighbor.
While the City Clerk and the Police Department recommended that the Common Council approve all the requested license renewals, the Police Department did express some concern about “an extraordinary amount of police calls” originating at Club Tap and Camp Bar—both on North Avenue—and will be looking further into the matter. The Clerk mentioned the Police Department might recommend they be called before the Common Council. I’m not sure what this means. Called before the Common Council for what? Questioning? Finger-wagging? Threats to withold next year’s license renewal?
Additionally, a few license holders submitted their renewals late or not at all, including Texas de Brazil and Chipotle on Mayfair Rd., and…the St. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church?
Regarding Chipotle, the Clerk noted somewhat sheepishly:
We have not heard from anybody. We’ve sent emails, sent letters, tried to call. You can’t call the direct location. I actually physically went there on Friday—I had lunch—then I talked to the manager, and the manager was going to call the district manager. I haven’t heard anything yet.
Regarding the Greek Orthodox Church, he said:
They did actually apply today. Their next opportunity for approval will be July 5th. However, I talked to Niko over there, who filed the application. They don’t even have any events that warrant needing a license until September.
For whatever reason, I appreciate that City employees will drive to a restaurant and politely ask if they’ll be renewing their liquor license this year while ordering lunch. I also appreciate that someone named Niko is responsible for renewing the liquor license for the Greek Orthodox Church.
The Common Council voted to approve renewals for all submitted liquor licenses.
→ Procedure for filling District 3 Alder Vacancy: Nancy Welch, one of the two Alders for District 3, resigned last week. Her family recently purchased a home outside of town, and she will no longer reside in Wauwatosa (article here). According to the City’s Municipal Code, the Common Council can either leave the position unfilled until the next election in the spring of 2024 or they can choose someone to fill the vacancy now and have them run for election either in a special election in the spring of 2023 or at the next regular election in spring of 2024.
Ald. Makhlouf, the other representative for District 3, suggested filling the vacancy after the August recess to allow time for more people to hear about and apply for the open seat. He also wanted the selected replacement to run for election in a special election in 2023 because getting “the vote of the residents” is important.
No one really agreed with him. Some thought a special election was costly and time consuming. Others thought having them run so soon after being selected would cause them to spend more time running for election than learning how to do their job. Ald. O’Reilly felt that waiting until after the August recess would give the new alder very little time to familiarize themselves with the City’s finances prior to the budget approval process.
A short, somewhat funny exchange: [Note: The words below are actual quotes. However, I cut some of the dialogue for brevity]
Ald. Makhlouf: I do think it is very important that we fill the position and do so in an expeditious manner.
[10 minutes of ensuing discussion]
Ald. Tilleson: 2.04.020 has some very strict timelines put into it. [Reviews requirements in Municipal Code for selecting someone to fill vacated alder seat] With the council being in recess the month of August, we literally have to submit something to the Council tomorrow. […] If we cannot make that August 2nd date, the council doesn’t reconvene until September, and it just delays what we’ve all stressed is an important part to have that seat filled.
Ald. Makhlouf: I would respectfully disagree. I think that in this case we don’t want to rush things. We’ve got the July 4th holiday in there to schedule all those meetings. I think it would be more than appropriate for a new person to take a seat after the August recess.
Ald. Tilleson: Let me just be clear, you’re asking us to not move expeditiously to fill the seat?
Ald. Makhlouf: I’m actually asking to move cautiously, uh [and?], expeditiously. I don’t think we want to rush things. [Says we need to have more time to notify public and collect applications.]
Ald. Moldenhour: I respect and appreciate my colleague, but [Talks about following a very similar process to the one suggested by Ald. Tilleson during previous vacancies without issue.] Frankly, to be very direct, I don’t think you’ve made a really concerted argument for why we should be delaying outside of saying we may get more candidates or better candidates. [Mentions there was a Patch.com article already announcing the resignation.]
During the Common Council meeting the next day, Ald. Makhlouf motioned to amend the selection process to make sure that flyers were mailed to District 3 residents to notify them of the vacancy and the timeline for submitting applicantions.
No one seconded the motion.
On Thursday, the selection committee was chosen. It consists of:
Alderperson Meindl
Alderperson Makhlouf
Alderperson Tilleson
Alderperson Morgan (chair)
Alderperson Arney
The City is accepting applications for the position until 4:30 pm on Friday, July 8, 2022. Interested applicants should submit a resume and a cover letter. Interviews will be held between July 11 and July 22. An appointment will be made on August 2.
Pay is $450 per month ($5,400 per year).1
During the Committee of the Whole Meeting
→ Police Department Annual Report: Chief MacGillis presented the Police Department’s Annual Report to the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday. He reviewed the Department’s strategic goals including their efforts to improve community engagement, increase patrol efficiency to minimize the effects of staffing shortages, and identify, recruit and retain more police officers.
He discussed how the department measures performance—not based on numbers of citations and arrests but on community engagement, trust building, enforcement, prevention and crime reduction, and public perceptions of safety2—and reviewed the Department’s traffic enforcement efforts, their Community Service Officer Program which deploys unarmed, “unbadged” officers to respond to non-dangerous calls for service, and the new Citizen’s Academy which is aimed at educating civilian residents on Police Department operations.
Ald. Franzen praised the Citizen’s Academy program, said he’s learned a lot, but doesn’t regret not volunteering to get tased.
Ald. Arney asked questions about officer injuries while on the job (Answer: While they happen, they have rehab programs to return them to duty quickly. They also have mental health services which he may ask for additional funding for at a future meeting) and the Department’s progress in conducting racial bias training (Answer: The top priority is still focused on improving morale and getting the Department fully staffed, but they are attempting to find relevant training that is provably effective).
Ald. Moldenhour and Ald. Wilke asked about the Police Department’s relationship with the school district (Answer: The school board and school administrators are cooperative even if they occasionally disagree, they’re still working on adding an additional School Resource Officer, and they’re coordinating with the school district to make sure buildings and students are safe following the recent school shooting tragedy in Texas).
Ald. Lowe re-emphasized the need for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training at the Police Department and also expressed disappointment that their website didn’t have anything about Juneteenth Day.
It’d be nice to just have a post about Juneteenth Day on the social media for the Police Department. Because Fourth of July is right around the corner. We all know every city social media page is going to have a Fourth of July post, but there wasn’t anything about Juneteenth Day.
Chief MacGillis said he really enjoys Juneteenth Day and thanked Ald. Lowe for his comments.
Finally, this table was presented during the meeting but without much comment. It lists the frequency of various crimes and incidents over the last several years.
I think there are two things to notice in the table above:
Offenses, Arrests, and Crashes in 2021 don’t seem too far outside of the recent past. Everything was lower in 2020, but 2021 was closer to what you’d expect based on 2018 and 2019 numbers.
What’s going on with traffic and parking citations? I mean, I do think it’s bad when Police Departments pad their budgets by issuing lots of unnecessary citations, but no explanation for this 70% drop in traffic citations and 40% drop in parking citations was given in the Annual Report or during the presentation to the Common Council. Was there an official or unofficial change in policy?
On a side note, I was reading the beginning of Dennis Kucinich’s memoir The Division of Light and Power the other week, and he earned $12,500 as a City Councilman for Cleveland when he was first elected…in 1969. In 2022 dollars that’s $100,000 per year. To be fair, Cleveland was the tenth largest city in the U.S. at the time and had a population of 750,000 (current population: 368,000). But even the Milwaukee Common Council only gets paid $80,000 per year.
Although he didn’t say how these things are actually measured. While I do think grading performance based on the number of tickets someone writes creates perverse incentives, part of the reason it’s popular is that it is at least something that can be measured. I’m not sure how you measure something like “trust building.”