Onboarding
Happy Easter and Passover weekend!
I’m going to try to record my thoughts and observations on the Village Board experience on this blog. Like me, many of you want to know exactly what Trustees and the Village Board do, so I hope this is a useful means to that end! I also hope it will help me remember my journey and experiences over the coming 3 years and serve as a sort of dialogue with you.
As always feel free to ping me, either by commenting on the blog or reaching out to me through one of the social media links or email button!
Learning about village government structure- fascinating! Honestly!
One of the items I received from our village manager was a booklet published by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, a group formed by these guys in 1898 (I shouldn’t have shaved my beard!):
League of Wisconsin Municipalities Founders- such distinguished facial hair!
Both the booklet and website have so many great resources and I’ve learned so much already! For example, did you know that Wisconsin cities and villages (but not towns):
have “Home Rule” powers which allow them to “take any action to serve their citizens, provided that action is not contrary to an existing state law” and
can “annex or control the use of adjacent property from the territory of a town” (too bad we’re not adjacent to any towns….)
Other highlights, in no particular order:
The general rule for a village is that the president of the village board is also a trustee and executive power is shared equally among the village trustees.
The village manager is a statutory position, selected by the village board, who is professionally trained to carry out delegated executive functions and provide administrative oversight.
One important piece I’ve learned about from our village administrators and this booklet is the Open Meetings Law. In essence, a group of Whitefish Bay Village Trustees (or any council/ committee/ board members of governmental bodies) can’t meet in groups without first announcing that meeting to be public and making it open. Honestly, I think that’s a great principle for transparency, but it does create some logistical hurdles to a major concept I’m workshopping:
I think it would be great to convene listening sessions with groups of Trustees at various Bay establishments, not only to involve residents in developing plans and strategies for our Village, but also to promote local establishments!
We just have to make sure that these adhere to regulations…. More to come.
Anyway, time to enjoy Easter Sunday and root for the Bucks!
-Jay