Cancellations first: The Feb. 25th meeting of the Neenah-Menasha Fire Rescue Joint Fire Commission has been cancelled. Next meeting March 25th.
Monday, Feb. 23rd:
The Community Development Authority meets at 4:00pm. They're going to continue to talk about the little wedge of land that the city will acquire from K-C that sits on the shore at the mouth of the Fox River just to the north of the location of the new Plexus headquarters. The diamond-shaped sliver of land to be acquired amounts to 2822 square feet, bringing the total to 41,250 square feet (just under an acre). It has to do with cleanup costs of the groundwater contamination. Looks like the city will be more responsible for that than originally proposed...but it's supposed to be fairly cheap. The Wisconsin DNR is apparently helping with grant funds to chip in for the cleanup. There'll be a public hearing on March 4th at 4:00pm.
The acquisition of this little sliver of land changes the Redevelopment Plan for the Downtown Gateway. The material I have includes a 20-page detail of the amended plan, complete with four (4) maps showing the exact same section of the downtown with that little sliver colored in different ways. It looks like it'll become "urban greenspace".
One thing I found interesting about this 20-page amended plan was the following:
Consistency with Local Plans
This plan is consistent with the recommendations contained in the following community plans:
- City of Neenah 2020 Comprehensive Plan
- Tax Increment District #5 Project Plan
- Tax Increment District #8 Riverwalk Zone Project Plan
- Neenah Waterfront Design and Development Master Plan
- The City of Neenah Downtown Parkeing Management Study
- Downtown Neenah Market Analysis & Branding Study
- West Canal/Riverwalk Zone Redevelopment Plan
- Market Study for the Glatfelter Mill Redevelopment Project
- Glatfelter Mill Redevelopment Master Plan
These plans may be amended from time to time. The Redevelopment Area No. 2 Downtown Gateway Redevelopment Plan, as amended, is intended to e consistent with any changes or modifications in these plans as they may be amended and adopted.
Does this seem like a heck of a lot of plans to you? What this makes me curious about is the result of all this planning. That is, once the projects that were parts of these various and sundry plans have been built, did they produce the benefits that the plans envisioned or not? I'd say it would be incredibly difficult to tell.
The Finance and Personnel Committee meets at its regularly scheduled time of 7:00pm. The Health Department has a couple of items on the agenda, presented by Judy Crouch-Smolarek, the Health Department Director. The first item is her proposed fee increases for 19 different permits whose fees are below average for the region from Brown to Fond du Lac counties. Those fee increases affect things like restaurant permits, retail food outlets, hotels, weights and measures, and residential swimming pools. The increases range from a 6% increase for the "Restaurant - Simple" fee (from $255 up to $270), to more than a 150% increase for the fee for small retail scales (from $15 up to $40) and timing devices (from $7 up to $20).
Second, Ms. Crouch-Smolarek is making a pitch to create a new full-time position from pieces of three existing part-time positions that add up to one full-time position. This position was approved in the 2009 budget, but the timeline had to be moved up based on the anticipated retirement of the current Sanitarian (½ time position).
Next on the agenda, a purchase request for six (6) police squad cars for $170,000 and change. The number of cars is large because purchase of three (3) cars budgeted in 2008 was deferred to this year to get a better deal on six from Bergstrom Enterprises. The request is accompanied by very detailed reports for each vehicle being replaced showing defects, maintenance records, and repair cost analysis.
Then Community Development Director, Bob Buckingham, will request authorization to make a budgeted purchase of a software package "to build and maintain a comprehensive collection of photo images for all properties in the city". $18,000 is the budgeted cost.
The committee will then consider a damage claim from a lady whose basement flooded. She says that the work crew that was installing a water main pumped water into a retention pond which then caused a backup into the lady's sump pump leading to about $4500 in water damage in her basement. The insurance investigator was uncertain that the contractor caused the damage...and if it did then the contractor would be liable, not the city. That's the position that city staff is recommending.
Tuesday, Feb. 24th:
The Public Services & Safety Committee meeting takes place at 7:00. Lots of routine items and a couple of particular of note: Single Stream Recycling Proposals and the Mormon Retention Pond situation.
It appears that the Mormon church wants to have equal treatment regarding recovery of the cost of building a retention pond based on city specs. The issue that has arisen is that the pond -- blasted out of bedrock -- leaks as many ponds do that have been blasted out of bedrock. The church claims that it has done enough to try to repair the leaks, but it's saying that since the city accepted leaking bedrock ponds in the past, the church should be able to gain acceptance of its pond and receive compensation for its construction costs...about $21,000 worth. City staff has no recommendation and the committee is on its own as far as determining what to do.
If you haven't heard about the big recycling changes coming up, then you may be interested in the proposals the Public Services committee will consider for single stream recycling. That is, no more separate blue bags for bottles and cans. Paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, and cans would be mixed together in a single container...no blue bags, no bundles of paper and carboard. There might even be a "blue bag surcharge" if Neenah residents continue to use blue bags beyond a certain date.
One of the proposals is for uniform recycling containers to be distributed to each of 9000 homes in Neenah. The main question is "Who pays?", the city or the homeowner? (Of course, the homeowners/taxpayers are responsible for anything the city purchases.) The cost of the 18 gallon container would be cheap, though: around $6. If the city goes with that option, then single stream recycling could start as early as July to coincide with the startup of the tri-county (Brown, Outagamie, and Winnebago) recycling facility in Outagamie County.
Thursday, Feb. 26th:
Finally, the Safety Committee meets at 1:00pm. This committee has no Common Council members on it. It meets quarterly when called by Chairman Mike Easker, the city's Director of Finance. The agendae and minutes of the committee are not available on-line. Just FYI.
The item for discussion is the CVMIC work plan meeting for 2009. CVMIC stands for Cities and Villages Mutual Insurance Company. I have no idea what the "work plan meeting" is about. The committee is composed of department heads and deputy heads from Finance, HR, Public Works, Parks, Library, Fire Dept., and the Police Dept.