In the Race

I attended the Franklin-Oak Creek Joint 27th Street Steering Committee meeting early this evening at 4:00 p.m.  It was held at Oak Creek City Hall.

During the Citizen Comment period, I asked the Committee why the minutes of meetings were not posted on the City of Franklin website, next to the agendas.  After making my comment, which was actually a question, there was no response from the Committee.  I was the only citizen to make a comment.  Chairman Grintjes then closed the comment session and asked the Committee if anyone had anything to say, and Kristen Wilhelm asked whether anyone was intending to respond to my question.  Oak Creek Director of Community Development, Doug Seymour, stated that meeting minutes are always available upon request.  That was it.  No one went into why they are not posted, etc.

FranklinNOW blogger Greg Kowalski covered most of the points of the Boomgaard issue in his blog.  Basically, there was nothing Earth shattering.  Mayor Bolender was forthright in his comments. 

Here is some of what he said:

"The name in my situation did not appeal to me and like a good soldier you fall on your sword once in a while.  And so I did that, and basically I received a lot of criticism for that, which I understand.  I was never nuts about this but I ‘m a team player and I thought O.K., Franklin likes it; half of the Council liked it, half didn’t and we could have went through that all week.  So, the idea I have is you should never do anything knee-jerk because knee-jerk never gets you any place you really want to go.  It just postpones failure generally.  So, I’m with you people if you’re in the same pew I am in church here in that we should be looking at this and if you know if it doesn’t sit right with us, and we think about this and we get some input from the citizens.  And you know I look at it in today’s world if kids who are text messaging each other talking a different language than us old people do and I look at it that that can be changed to several different  things and I think that’s part of what we also have to guard against."

"I don’t think that we want to make a giant mistake and then say O.K. I’m just going to show you I can make a mistake, and I think that this would be the dumbest thing we ever did is to just proceed on and say well too bad, that’s what we want.  And I just want to look at this and get some feeling for it because like I say, nobody’s convinced me yet. "

"And I always tell everybody I’ve got this little voice in my head that kept me alive and well in the service.  It tells me what to do and what not to do.  And I think this is about the second or third time that I went against that little voice. And it happened just like the other times.  And I just want to review this.  And I’m making this public and I don’t care what people think about this.  It’s not a switch.  I never was nuts about it but I did it for the good, the common cause of pushing 27^th Street forward which is very good for the region and our two cities. But to keep it in the suspension and to think about it for 60 days or 30 days or whatever the councils want to do, I think that’s just the smart thinking.    And if this name is a failure, then plan B comes jumping out at us and I don’t see any problem with that.  And I don’t believe to run…because people call me up….Saturday with the Mayor two people came in and made a joke and laughed, but after I explained it to them I said I’m not for this thing but I did it for the good of the group and I said you can’t be too strict so we’re going to think about it.   They respected the idea that we’re going to think about it.  If it doesn’t appeal, it doesn’t appeal.  But to just say O.K. drop it and let’s go to something else doesn’t show our maturity.  So that’s my stance on this thing."

After Mayor Bolender commented, Jim Rhiner, and the rest of the Committee commented about a timeline.  The Committee wants to take their time...60 days...90 days...120 days...150 days....this time it isn't as important to move things along from the sound of it.  And, just how will input from citizens be gathered?  That's what I would like to know.  That wasn't mentioned.  I heard mention that  "feedback from the business community" is needed.  Specifically "Milwaukee" businesses and developers. 

I'm going to fast forward to the end of the meeting.  When it was over I approached Ted Grintjes and he offered to email me past meeting minutes.  I asked why they aren't posted.  He said they don't work the same way as other committees.  I asked if the minutes that were approved at today's meeting were available, and could I have a copy of those?  He said yes, and those (April, 18th) are printed below.  He said he would talk to a few people to see what would be best, posting the minutes on the "web site" or emailing them to me.  I told him I felt if they could be emailed, that they could be posted just as easily.  Meeting minutes need to be made public before a meeting so citizens may review them in case they have any issues they may want to address the committee about.

Next I asked about the Agenda.  Why are dates and times of the next meetings not posted sooner if meetings are supposedly decided at the current meeting?  Ted Grintjes confirmed the meetings are set far in advance.  He said they aren't posted in advance because then the agenda would have to be posted, and it might change.  I said that a meeting date could very well be posted ahead of time without an agenda.  It's done all of the time.  The agenda does not have to be posted until closer to the meeting.   In looking at the meeting minutes below, today's meeting was decided upon back on April 18th.  There is no reason the public had to find out about the meeting yesterday.  People need to plan ahead if they want to attend meetings, especially if they are meetings that are held during the day.  The next meeting of the Steering Committee is going to be held June 12th, at Franklin City Hall, at Noon.  Most people are working at that time or may want to plan a lunch hour around that meeting time if they know ahead of time.

That said, here are the meeting minutes from April 18, 2008: