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?

One of the most significant changes to Brookfield government that I have been a part of is televising the meetings of the Council, Plan Commission and annual budget meetings.  It was a highly controversial topic at the time, but I think it turned out well. 

Televising was approved in concept on October 7, 2003.  The first video recorded meeting was June 15, 2004.  Televising was expanded to include the Plan Commission and annual finance meetings on October 5, 2004. (By the way, those are links to my aldermanic web site where searchable copies of almost all council minutes from April, 2000 to the present are publically available.  Due to the volume and size of the pages, a link is the easiest way to make it available to you.)  There was always opposition to televising from some aldermen due to fears of excessive cost, the potential of grandstanding, etc.  As with all legislative acts, it took a lot of work to build a majority and every vote counted, not just mine.

The meetings may be viewed on cable channel 25 for several days following the meeting.  On request, you may view a past meeting at the City Clerk's office in City Hall.  For a small fee, you can get a DVD copy of the meeting.

At the April 15, 2008 council meeting, I made a referral to expand the televising of meetings.  That means the city staff and the appropriate committee (in this case it will start in Finance) will study the idea and decide what to do about it.  The referral was:

To: Mayor Jeff Speaker

Date: April 10, 2008

Re: Meeting Audio / Video Streaming

This is a service request / legislative referral I will make at the April 15, 2008 Council meeting.

I request the City study expanding televising of city meetings.

• Expand the televising program to all official meetings. This may be a phased implementation, but a specific program should be outlined, funded and scheduled.

• Allow real time (live) internet based audio or video streaming of certain meetings. Council and Plan Commission meetings would be good candidates. The City of Waukesha telecasts the Council and Plan Commission meetings live. Waukesha County Supervisor meetings are audiocast.

• Allow video streaming on demand for past meetings. If YouTube can do it, so can we.

Here is a link to a PDF of the submitted referral:   Referrals_20080415_Televising.pdf

There has been a continuing problem with the sound for meeting.  This is mostly due to the fact that the aldermen do not speak directly into their microphones.  Due to the arrangement of the desks, aldermen in the front row tend to turn around to talk to their colleagues which means they are facing away from their microphones.  There has been some discussion of remodeling the council room to arrange the desks into a horseshoe so that everyone will naturally look toward the audience which will also be towards their microphone.  There is no specific plan to do that now, though it may be part of the study I requested.

By the way, the television equipment was paid for with fees from Time-Warner Cable Company.  The cost of room remodeling is always tax dollars.

Brookfield residents take great pride in their homes, including landscaping.  That means they produce piles of leaves, sticks, flowers and all sorts of other yard waste needing disposal.  A special task force met in 2003 and proposed several new restrictions on leaf burning.  They are summarized in this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel of August 17, 2003.  At the council meeting of December 2, 2003 the council accepted a slightly modified version of that task force recommendation, which placed new restrictions on leaf burning.  Note that I supported a total ban on burning. 

At the April 15, 2008 council meeting, I made a referral to study (again!) yard waste disposal, including leaf burning.  That means the city staff and the appropriate committee (BPW) will study the idea and decide what to do about it.  The referral was:

To: Mayor Jeff Speaker

Date: April 10, 2008

Re: Yard Waste

This is a service request / legislative referral I will make at the April 15, 2008 Council meeting.

I request the City study revising the yard waste disposal policy.

• Implement yard waste (leaves, grass, flowers, sticks, etc.) pickup at all residences on a seasonal basis.
• Once the collection system is in place, a phased reduction of leaf burning eventually leading to a total ban.
• Implementing this may have a substantial financial and operational impact, so the review may fall outside the normal committee workload.

Here is a link to a PDF of the submitted referral:  Referrals_20080415_YardWaste.pdf

The last point about "may fall outside the normal committee workload" hints at the possibility of handling this outside of the Board of Public Works committee meetings and instead holding public hearings or even using a special task force.  In any event, the BPW will be the starting point.

So, what do you think?