July 11 Village Board Mtg
The Jul 11 Village Board meeting featured the debut of the new AV system for live-streaming meetings! Kudos to Tim Blakeslee, village assistant manager, for getting it up and running so quickly. Looking forward to having this function available to residents more and more in the coming months. Other highlights:
Village manager Paul Boening noted that two committee meetings of potential public interest are coming up:
The Plan Commission will be meeting on 7/13, 5:30 pm at Village Hall (https://www.wfbvillage.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_07132022-1006) to consider the rezoning request submitted by a developer (with the consent of the Woman’s Club) for the Woman’s Club building on the 600 E Henry Clay block. There will be opportunities for public comment at this meeting along with a specific public hearing at a subsequent village board meeting, assuming the commission forwards a recommendation for the Village Board.
The Community Development Authority (CDA) will hold its next meeting on 7/19, 6pm at Village Hall (agenda not yet available) to continue discussions on the New Land, LLC request for incentive grant money to re-develop the building at 306-316 E Silver Spring, where the Fox Bay theater is located. There will also be upcoming information circulated by village staff to further explain the nature of the grant application and grant money origin.
Major props to our Finance Director Jaimie Krueger! The Village Board received its 2021 financial audit and is in excellent position thanks to wonderful management by her team. In fact, the Village received the Government Finance Officers Association’s (GFOA) Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the third year in a row.
American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) fund use was a topic related to several agenda items:
The Board approved a request to use funds to refurbish the Police Dept's women's locker room to bring it in alignment with current needs
The Board also approved a request to use funds to buy traffic barriers used by the Police Dept and Dept of Public Works for parades and other community events
The potential use of remaining ~$950k in ARPA funds for other village needs and for possible strategic initiatives is planned for budget discussions beginning in late August
DPW Director John Edlebeck gave a brief update that the village was able to secure grant funding to cover 90% of the costs for upgrading the traffic signal at the Lake Dr/ Silver Spring/ Marlborough intersection and work with the Winkie's building owner to add ADA accessibility features to that intersection as well.
Finally we had an excellent presentation from Jaimie Krueger overviewing her role in the village. It was interesting to note that her department sends out more than 19,000 utility bill statements and that automatic withdrawal (ACH payment) of these utilities are significantly under-utilized! More information about the ACH payment option is available here: http://www.wfbvillage.org/DocumentCenter/View/254