The Forum

This Wednesday, the Village Board appointed Drive to Distinction (D2D) Chair Sean Cummings to the Trustee position vacated by Michael Phinney.  Now Trustee Cummings previously petitioned the Village Board for a $600,000 grant for the D2D athletic field renovation.  The Board eventually approved the request, at a lower amount of $465,000.

His term will run through April, 2010.  A total of 11 other applicants put in their names for the open position. 

According to a recent ShorewoodNOW article, the others who applied include Mark Clingaman, Daniel Daemmrich, Peter Grimes, William Kohl, Patrick Linnane, Brady McMonigal, Tim Ryan, Ryan Scott, Brad Simenz, Niki Skinner and John Toutenhoofd.

I saw with a mix of disappointment and interest that 12 people had put in their names for the open Village Trustee position.  Disappointment because at some level, I find it troubling that so many are willing to apply for the position, but so few are willing to run for it in an election.    Interest because there are some names on the list who are new to Village political life.  Hopefully, they will continue to participate after the appointment process is over.

The last Trustee election was unopposed, but now we have 12 people lining up for an open seat.  The election before that had 3 candidates.  As soon as it was over, we had 9 people lining up for Guy Johnson's open seat.  Why do so few run for the office of Trustee, but so many seek appointment to it?

Passers-by are reporting seeing Shorewood Police Officers on the east side of Lake Drive this morning with their weapons drawn.  According to the account, two officers were pointing their weapons at a man lying face down on the ground. 

If you saw this incident, or have more information, please email me or leave a comment. 

I attended a meeting last week on the various options for rebuilding Capitol Drive.  There are two main options, one with bike lanes, and one without.  In designing the options, the engineers considered tradeoffs between bike lanes, driving lanes, sidewalks, trees, medians, turn lanes, and other design components.  Needless to say, bike lanes change the amount of space available for other components. 

For more information on the two working designs, visit the Capitol Drive reconstruction information website. 

Rumors have been circulating that up to 50 trees may be removed in the course of this reconstruction no matter which option they go with.  In viewing the website, I do not count this number when viewing the various options.  If anyone can tell us conclusively either way, please go ahead and post a comment.