MATC Secession...
It appears that we're finally moving ahead in the effort to have ourselves removed from the MATC district and moved into the Moraine Park Technical College (MPTC) district. In spite of some village officials' assertions, the timing of this filing and its date of effect wouldn't have changed by filing three months earlier. That complaint is a 'straw man' from my perspective.
I would suspect that a filing made on behalf of a school district would receive more consideration than had the village filed its own petition. The school district speaks on behalf of the area while the village would speak on behalf of only the Village of Germantown. While we're a significant part of the school district, we're not all of it by any means.
Can we make history and become only the second such petition to be successfully brought? Wouldn't it be interesting since the first and only successful petition was that filed by our area to be removed from the MPTC area and realigned with the MATC area in 1971, if memory serves?
What goes around, comes around...maybe!
~~~~~~~~~~
Waste Management Strike...
The village is, of course, served by Waste Management. The Local 200 teamster members who are employees of Waste Management went out on strike, as you've probably heard, after some four months of trying to resolve issues on behalf of those members.
Village President Tom Kempinski has reportedly threatened to terminate the village's contract with Waste Management apparently to protest the company's inaction, and has supposedly sought an opinion from the village attorney as to whether or not this is possible. Kempinski is affiliated with Local 200 although he denies that has any direct involvement in this action.
Two things:
Our service with Waste Management is much improved over that we received from the former servicing company. I presume that many of those current teamster members were probably also former employees of the last firm that had the Germantown contract.
This seems a very convenient time for Kempinski to be pushing a termination; he appears to be using the village's business to bring even more heat on the Waste Management negotiating team in favor of his fellow teamsters. That is inappropriate if true, and an unfortunate confluence of events if simply coincidence.
His two lives must be kept separate and distinct.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Harley Rumble...
The "Harley Rumble", as I'll call it, has returned to our area. As I lay my head on the pillow last night, I could hear the sounds that are only made by Harleys waft through the open window. We're a couple of miles away from Hwy 41/45 so my joy may well have been another's dismay, but it is a great sound that we last heard some five years ago.
Quite a tribute to the small motorized bicycle shop that started in a shed.
And, quite a bump for the local economy. I had begun to see out-of-towners in Harley garb already patronizing local stores and hotels and watering holes yesterday.
