Well, it's that time of year again.  The city council finance committee, which I chair, will be considering the budget for next year.  If you want to see the exact proposal the finance committee members received on September 27  (plus a few extra reports), you may download it here.

2009 City of Brookfield Proposed Budget (256 pages, 5.8M)

 This year's budget cycle is:

• In May, the aldermen set some goals for the budget.  That mostly means stating the maximum amount of money they will approve.  There are limits set by the state for both spending and property tax increases.  Those limits are not exactly known at this date since they are partially based on inflation for the entire year, new construction and last minute changes in state law.There also have to be some guesses on interest rates, both as income on the city's reserve funds and for borrowing.
• The mayor and staff spend the summer figuring out what it will cost to do the usual plus any new requests for service from aldermen or residents or as stated in the bi-annual strategic plan.  That may include looking for new vendors, eliminating programs that aren't working out, etc.  The idea is that the people who do all the day to day work are best equipped to figure out what it costs to provide services. 
• In October (well, September 27 this year) the finance committee receives the proposed budget with the requests from all the departments.  Since the mayor was guiding the staff all summer long in its preparation, the proposal has implied mayoral approval.
• [October 2, 8 and 13]  The finance committee meets for 3 or 4 evenings to hear presentations from the mayor and staff.  At the last meeting the committee might modify the budget proposal until it gets committee approval.
• [November 18]  There is a public meeting where anyone can comment on the budget.
• [November 18]  The full council votes on the budget.  At that time, any alderman can propose anything, spending or cuts.  The final result is a budget approved by a majority of the alderman.
• The staff spends early December merging the approved city budget with final estimates of state aid, etc. and prepares the property tax bills.  The tax bills are mailed out. 
• Merry Christmas.

All of the finance and council meetings listed here are open to the public.  The public may listen but there is no question and answer period.  If you do have questions, there are people around after the meeting who will help or you may call city hall later.

Over the next few weeks I plan to write a few columns about how the process is going.  I may ask for some guidance on particular issues that came up.  Stay tuned.

A few weeks ago I made a request for the city to study creating an ordinance protecting historic properties. I wrote about it in my blog entry Historic Building Preservation. It comes up for discussion at the Plan Commission meeting on Monday, June 9.  As with most things in city policy, the two biggest hurdles will be community support and money.

My recommendation is to start with a study determining how many historic buildings exist in the city and finding out what can be done to preserve them.  That will cost money that was not budgeted for this year.  Before the city can spend money now allocated for some other purpose or take it from a contingency fund (how do you think we paid for that extra road salt last January?), we'll need some feel for whether people will support the whole concept to begin with.  Here's how you can help:

1) Send an email to the city clerk's office (cityhall@ci.brookfield.wi.us) stating, "I endorse the city's study to identify historic local buildings which may lead to ordinances restricting the use and remodeling of those buildings in order to preserve them for future generations."  If you really want to make a point, you can state "I will support an increase in my property taxes or a voluntary user fee for the purpose of funding this preservation effort and am willing to make a private donation as well."

2) Speak at the public comment period of the Common Council meeting.  The next one is June 17 at 7:45 pm.  Your comment can be pretty much the same as in 1), but in person it can be more effective.

If this issue is of importance to you, this is the time to speak up.  I'll need a lot of help to make this go anywhere!

Click here for a copy of the official 1993 report listing local historic properties:  1993_HistoricInventory.pdf

The official staff report to Monday's Plan Commission reads:

"Report: 

1. At the May 6, 2008 Common Council meeting Alderman Scott Berg forwarded a legislative referral to the Plan Commission to consider an historic building preservation ordinance. 
2. Alderman Berg also issued a memo on May 1, 2008 outlining suggestions for how staff can research and create the ordinance.  Attached is his memo for your review. 
3. In the early 1990’s, an inventory of historic buildings was created by the Community Development Department.  Staff also provided an educational presentation to Plan Commission and Common Council on historical building preservation in the City and available grants and programs.  In addition, staff drafted an historical building preservation ordinance for consideration by Plan Commission and Common Council.  Ultimately, the ordinance was rejected because the City felt it was too draconian and onerous to property owners.  No other activity in regard to an ordinance has taken place since this time. 
4. The Mayor has identified that by statute, the 2035 Comprehensive Plan is to include a Historical Building Preservation section.  That could be a possible venue for this discussion. 
5. Staff’s direct response to Alderman Berg’s memo is as follows:

• Item 1:  Funding would be required to update the historic building inventory.  The last inventory was conducted in 1993 at a cost of $14,000.00.  An estimate of the cost today is not known because the inventory is complete and would need updating; however, the existing inventory is 15 years old.  Funding would need to be identified, possibly in the 2009 budget. 
• Item 2: Plan Commission and Common Council can direct staff to conduct a local, regional or national search for what other communities have done in this regard. 
• Item 3: Currently, VK Development is planning on preserving the Ruby Farm house and outbuildings west of Calhoun Road.  The Dousman-Dunkel-Behling house is preserved and the City has implemented a recommended preservation of the Village Railroad Depot in the Village Area Neighborhood Plan and completed an architectural assessment of the building. 
• Item 4: This could be addressed through the 2035 Comprehensive Plan process. 
• Item 5: The creation of any ordinances or implementation of tools would need to wait until staff was directed by Plan Commission and Common Council directed staff to undertake the previous items discussed in this report.

 Please note that items #2 and #5 are not currently within the scope of services for 2035 Comprehensive Plan update. 

6. Staff is requesting that Plan Commission review the referral and provide direction to staff, with particular guidance given to items 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Alderman Berg’s memo."

Almost every week, each alderman receives a packet of information regarding the city.  It is delivered to their house, usually on Saturday morning, by a Brookfield Police Reserve officer.  This ensures delivery in a timely manner, especially for those aldermen who have full time jobs, who travel often, etc. and thus would otherwise have difficulty getting the pacet.  The old joke is that once someone is elected aldermen, "the cops are always over at their place."

The packets range in length from a dozen pages to hundreds of pages.  They include the agenda and supporting information for each committee meeting that alderman must attend during the coming week.  Also included are minutes of past meetings, letters from residents sent to city hall, special reports, the library newsletter, and the occasional miscellaneous item.

At the council meeting of April 15, 2008, I requested a study be done to:

• convert the packet information (supporting information for committee meetings) to electronic form for delivery to the aldermen
• place the electronic packets on the city web site where they would be available to anyone at anytime for free
• convert all past city records into electronic form and stored in a searchable database. 

Click here to see my referral on electronic packets.

It's all about making the city's business as open and available as possible.  Round the clock for free seems pretty available to me, and would be a natural outgrowth of modernizing the current paper bound system.  Of course, it won't be free since a new database tool would have to be acquired, old documents would have to be located and imported into the system, etc.  Brookfield already has agendas, minutes, some reports and planning documents available in this way, but I want to expand it greatly.  The city clerk's office has long used a special database product designed for city clerks.  My point is that it doesn't include everything and is not available to the general public or even the aldermen.

To help you understand what this information is, I have scanned every packet I received since January, 2008 into a PDF file and stored it on my web site.  Here are a couple of examples:

So, what do you think?  Would allowing everyone full access to exactly the information the aldermen see, at the same time it is delivered to the aldermen, be worth a few bucks?  Do you think it would create better public policy, debate and decisions?  Do you think it would address the accusation that the city is always hiding something?

Well, the April 15 Council meeting held a few surprises after all.  Here are the highlights.

Mark Nelson and Dan Sutton ran for Council President and Mark Nelson won.  The first and second ballots were ties, 7 to 7. The mayor chose to abstain since he felt this vote was unique to the aldermen.  Besides, a tie breaker would have instantly alienated half the group.  After the  second vote, Dan Sutton asked for a recess.  When the meeting started again, Dan stated that his candidacy was about unification, not division, and he withdrew from the race.  The third ballot was 13 for Nelson, 1 for Sutton.

Electing a Council President is the only situation where state law allows a secret ballot.  It is clear that a close vote could create permanent tension in the group and poison the rest of the term.  That being said, this is my personal opinion of who voted how:

• For Sutton: Sutton, Carnell, Balzer, Blackburn, J. Mellone, L. Mellone, Lowerr
• For Nelson: Owen, Reddin, Garvens, Ponto, Nelson, Mahkorn, Berg

I have a pretty good idea of who the lone Sutton vote was on the third ballot, and it wasn't Dan (or me!).  The really sad thing is that lone alderman has repeatedly shown that he has no interest in the people's business.  He just wants to settle scores, real or imagined.

The proposed north side fire station was another big topic.  Director of Administration Dean Marquardt, Director of Parks Bill Kolstad and Interim Fire Chief Bill Selzer prepared the presentation and answered many questions from the Council.  In the end, the aldermen agreed to the following:

1. The Park and Recreation Commission should study the proposal for placing the station in Fairview Park.  A long list of concerns from aldermen and residents was created, including parking, playground equipment, stormwater management and landscaping.
2. The staff should prepare a report on the four alternative locations (all near Calhoun Road and Capitol Drive) comparing the sites for operational efficiency, cost and traffic impact, plus anything else that might come up.

Nothing about the stations was "decided" or "cast in stone".  This is one more step in evaluating many options.  With this dual track analysis, and under the best possible conditions, a decision might be made by the council in July. 

There were perhaps 10 residents in the gallery for the fire station issue which is about the same as the number who attended last week's joint Plan Commission / Park Commission meeting.  It was erroneously blogged that last week's meeting was packed.  In fact, almost half of the visitors were developers, architects, lawyers, etc. for the Plan Commission meeting, plus several aldermen not on those Commissions (I was one of them).

I also made four referrals for committee action.  Each has many details that I will describe in future blog entries as they are considered by committees.  To summarize:

• Review the yard waste disposal policy.  Ideally, this would lead to a comprehensive residential collection system and phase out leaf burning completely.  The real problem here will be money.
• Expand televising to all city meetings.  Start live broadcasts and internet audiocasts. 
• Provide aldermen with city managed email accounts.  Some new technology makes this much easier than in the past.
• Convert all city records to electronic form, accessible to anyone via the city web site.  The challenge here will be cost and a perception that such widespread accessibility would be useless.

The meeting started about 7:45 and ended about 10:15, which is average.

The first meeting of the 28th City of Brookfield Common Council will be held on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 starting at 7:45 p.m.  There are a few items of special interest.

The first order of business will be swearing in the 7 newly (re) elected alderman.  They are (in order by district) Dan Sutton, Rick Owen, Ron Balzer, Steve Ponto, Scott Berg, Chris Blackburn and Renee Lowerr.  Renee is the only new alderman. (I haven't had a chance to ask her if she prefers alderwoman.)  I remember my first inaugaration very well.  It's a moment of great satisfaction.  Then the real work begins!

Second will be the election of the Common Council President.  There are several duties for Council President, including:

• Appoint most of the committee members
• Chair Council meetings in the Mayor's absence
• Serve as acting mayor if the mayor is unable to serve
• Perform ceremonial duties such as ribbon cuttings

This year, there will be two candidates.  First is 1st District Alderman Dan Sutton.  Dan announced his intentions with personal phone calls to each of us.  There are tight limits on what he could say as outlined in a letter from the City Attorney, but his main point was that he wants to bridge the rift that has developed in the council in the last few years.  The second candidate is 4th District Alderman Mark Nelson who mailed each of us a letter (I got mine today) outlining his experience and his intentions to foster healthy debate yet unify the group.  The candidate who gets a simple majority (at least 8 of the 14 alderman) immediately takes office.  In the event of a tie, the Mayor is legally entitled to vote a tie breaker, but he is not required to.  For this issue, the Mayor is almost certain to abstain, letting the aldermen sort out who should have the job.

The other key item will be a presentation on the proposed location for the new north side fire station (Station #2).  The first public presentation was at a joint Plan Commission and Parks Commission meeting last week on April 7.  Many of the questions raised by the commissioners and residents will be answered at this presentation.  I will have lots more to say about the fire stations in future posts.

There are also lots of routine ("ministerial duties") items such as granting bartender's licenses which usually go pretty quickly.

If you can't attend the meeting, you can always catch it on the local cable channel during the next week.  I will share my insights on the meeting in a couple of days.