Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Franklin has a hiring freeze in effect; now Franklin has no director of city development

FranklinNow.com reports that Franklin's director of city development, Doug Wheaton, has resigned "to attend graduate school at Harvard University."

The story notes: "In the three years that he has worked for the city, he has overseen 41 commercial developments, including the Fountains of Franklin and Shoppes at Wyndham Village."

As I have noted here often: Franklin's director of city development is scored on the mere NUMBER of developments that occur on his or her watch, not the QUALITY of those developments. I was correct. This is why the quality-based plan staff should not report to a position that derives kudos from simple quantity.

Despite many attempts at a meeting, I have never had so much as a conversation with Mr. Wheaton; he invariably would have the city plan staff run interference for him.

Good luck to him, nonetheless, in his new endeavor.

Franklin Plan Commission sandbagged

Signs that post-flood normalcy may be returning:

- On Tuesday I found time to go running (in the process discovering all kinds of brand new aches and pains that come from days of hauling wet pop culture debris from a flooded basement);

- Tonight I'm going to mow the lawn;

- And right now I'm going to bellyache about the decomposition of Franklin's Plan Commission.

Weeks ago, when it looked like Kevin Haley was being forced off the commission (he's since been reinstated for reasons still unclear), I'd put in an open records request for the volunteer sheets submitted by current members of that body. With Haley possibly off the commission, the point I wanted to make was that the remaining members had little in their backgrounds to engender confidence in their ability to safeguard the city's long-term goals and well-being against the ambitions of developers who look no further than their personal bottom line. As has been noted here before, commissioner Kevin Haley was the lone voice against some pretty blatant developer manipulations. No one else on the commission felt moved - - or indeed seemed qualified - - to support Haley's legitimate objections and informed observations.

Now comes news that the mayor has successfully placed former alderman Pete Kosovich on the Plan Commission. As reported by Greg Kowalski on his now-defunct FranklinNow.com blog (continued at his new blog, Metro Milwaukee Today), Kosovich squeaked in when the mayor broke a 3-3 common council tie. The tally, which I'm pasting from Greg Kowalski's blog (with my comments in parenthesis), was:

Olson: NO (Very interesting, and should have set the tone)

Solomon: YES

Wilhelm: NO (Expected)

Taylor: YES (I'll assume Taylor felt he needed to be magnanimous after defeating Kosovich)

Sohns: NO

Skowronski: YES

Mayor Taylor YES (tie-breaker)

With all due respect to the mayor and Mr. Kosovich: What th'...?!?!

Is the standard for serving on the Plan Commission of one of the fastest growing suburbs in Wisconsin really nothing more than a desire to serve and, as blogger Kevin Fischer explains in his blog entry supporting Kosovich's nomination, a presumed "knowledge of local ordinances, state rules and regulations, and ... experience in dealing with Franklin business and economic development issues"?

The answer more likely resides hidden in the cynical language of a comment Fischer left after his entry:

Appointment of friends, colleagues, etc has been going on in politics for all time. This is nothing new.*

Jim Doyle has appointed tons of people that have been confirmed by the state Senate when it was controlled by Republicans and now Democrats.

Taylor appointed Kosovich because he knows him, likes him, respects him, is familiar with him and thinks he will do a good job.

But you know what else? There are certain developers in town who likely thought they'd been rid of their only obstacle on the plan commission, Kevin Haley. When the mayor inexplicably reversed himself and brought Haley back on to the commission, a "gesture" had to be made.

Enter Pete Kosovich, plan commissioner.

Don't get me wrong; it appears to me that Mr. Kosovich is a nice enough gentleman and should be commended for his desire to serve, but, verily, I doubt that intricate land planning and development theories regularly weigh heavily upon his mind. Will we find on his bookshelves dog-eared, yellow-highlighted volumes like Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use, A Better Place to Live: Reshaping the American Suburb, the harrowing Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, Community and the Politics of Place, The Geography of Nowhere, How Cities Work, Suburban Nation, the pro-sprawl Sprawl: A Compact History, the required-reading Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Regulating Place: Standards and the Shaping of Urban America, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, Land Use Planning and Development Regulation Law, and the noxious but still informative in a "know the enemy" sort of way, The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms Your Quality of Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future?

(I must confess, I don't own the above books either: My dog-eared, yellow-highlighted volumes of these tomes washed away when my office was flooded last week.)

No, Mr. Kosovich will rely on his "knowledge of local ordinances, state rules and regulations, and ... experience in dealing with Franklin business and economic development issues."

Just the sort of bootstrap knowledge you need when a developer is trying to sneak in another self-enriching, city-draining strip-mall, huh?

Notwithstanding Mr. Kosovich's admirable desire to serve, this was a bad, old school pol move that will have potentially devastating consequences down the line unless something is done very soon to fix a sandbagged plan commission.

* [Note - I was a fly on the wall (harmless intern) during Tommy Thompson's reign in Madison. Those guys might not have invented cronyism, but they certainly perfected it. What a pit of incestuous vipers. It led to my first (and so far, last) legal deposition, as part of a sexual harassment claim against a Thompson good-old-boy appointee.]

Has Fountains of Franklin peed on local blogger's lawn?

ABOVE: A recent picture of the Fountains of Franklin site. Or an old one - - it doesn't really matter, as nothing has changed.

How does one begin to dissect the folly of the latest manifestation of Republican senate aide Kevin Fischer’s fixation with the baby-step progress of Fountains of Franklin?

True - nothing is going on over there. I've had a little fun at Fountains' expense as well; there's no great glory in tagging a slow-moving beast, however. But Mr. Fischer seems deeply, personally offended by the lack of earth-moving equipment on the site. He is asking the city of Franklin for no less than “an analysis of the monthly lost tax revenue to the city of Franklin caused by the continued dormant site at 56th and Rawson. How much tax revenue is it costing the city of Franklin each and every month that site fails to operate with open businesses?”

He equates this request, you see, with the conjecture that Alderman Sohns' disastrous grandstand play wherein he displayed property values and taxes for Franklin bloggers was prepared by a city employee. Therefor, thinks Mr. Fischer, this same employee can run some numbers for him as well.

This is not a matter of retrieving numbers from a database, however. Evidently Mr. Fischer imagines an Excel spreadsheet sort of thing that the city of Franklin can fire up on their Dell computers (because I just know they don’t have Macs at city hall) and spit out a neat and tidy number that somehow perfectly conjectures not only what kind of businesses would be operating in Fountains of Franklin, but exactly how much revenue they are taking in per month: “By gar - - that idle land is costing us $7,267.54 per day, and $7,976.21 on double-coupon days! Let’s get a Walgreens planted, stat!”

The answer, perhaps, is an evening's session on the computer game SimCity. Punch in some data, do some terraforming, get rid of pesky plan commission input and UDI nonsense, add permanent tax cuts - DONE. Here's what Fountains of Franklin should look like in, say, 2010:

Will you just LOOK at the tax revenue we're losing as Fountains stands idle! No wonder Mr. Fischer is typing with such righteous ferver and purpose! Compare to the "before" photo:

Thank goodness for Mr. Fischer's vigilance, born as it is out nothing more than a pure and overwhelming concern for his community.

(Pause as laughter subsides....)

Fortunately, since "just a concerned citizen" Mr. Fischer has begrudgingly emerged from stealth mode (we are now told in his blog bio - - though not in print - - that he is an employee of state senator Mary Lazich, but only after I admonished the concealment) readers can fairly easily supply context. His employer has received (and undoubtedly hopes to continue to receive) financial contributions from Mark Carstensen, the developer of the troubled, no-announced-tenants Target-Shoppes at Wyndham Village (that's the one I fixate on, but I wear my bias on my sleeve), which is a direct competitor of what is planned for Fountains of Franklin. Nothing wrong with that, but smart businessmen don't lay out dough without expecting results. For her part, Senator Lazich has delivered, writing in support of Carstensen’s development sight unseen. She's a little inaccurate, however, in her effusive 1/6/07 letter to Secretary Frank Bussalacchi of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation:

I am pleased to add my support for the project to the unanimous support off [sic] the City of Franklin Plan Commission and Common Council.

Not unanimous. Plan Commissioner Kevin Haley voted against the development's crummy site plan - - hence, I submit, his momentary (more on that later) ouster from the commission.

So, bad for Fountains of Franklin is good for Carstensen and Shoppes at Wyndham Village. You don't think he'd like the tenants that are talking to Fountains to reconsider and come over to the currently Shoppes-less Shoppes at Wyndham Village? (How's this for a sales pitch: "Hey, Azana Spa - wouldn't you love to be located in the Target parking lot? it's, uh, really warm in the Summer!")

So, here's an idea: Plant seeds of doubt in the competing development. The only question is: Do Mr. Fischer’s marching orders come via fax, email, or over the phone? Bluetooth receiver in his ear? Bike messenger?

On the other side of the "methinks he protests too much" continuum is Fountains of Franklin's de facto champion, Greg Kowalski. His reaction to Mr. Fischer's post is virtually a Fountains press release. Having met with Fountains developer Dave Hintzman and apparently made privy to some Top Secret Information, Mr. Kowalski appears to have embraced the project and takes criticism of it somewhat personally. 

Who said municipal planning has to be dull?

Editorial: "The truest fact of American politics is that no candidate running this year is going to upset or even challenge the suburban sprawl industry. "

Bruce Fisher makes a contention that is hard for many to swallow:

Towns are the problem. Towns disrupt regional planning. Towns insist on going it alone. Towns poach development from cities and from each other. And towns demand that subsidies flow.

Yet, observing "planning strategy" here in Franklin, I see more competitiveness with neighboring municipalities than I see real planning. "If we don't offer this or that incentive or subsidy, Oak Creek will get 'em!" So, another TIF district is born.

Can you imagine the reaction to a proactive regional strategy by the Little Caesars who run suburban enclaves?

From Courant.com:

Ghost-Towns In A Sprawl-Land

By BRUCE FISHER

May 25, 2008

The truest fact of American politics is that no candidate running this year is going to upset or even challenge the suburban sprawl industry.

Sprawl is the endless increase in housing supply, the endless outward redistribution of population from cities and older suburbs, the endless federal subsidy for roads and the endless chatter about "good schools" that is just a code for "schools without poor, visible minorities" that dominates American political life.

Sprawl exists because of a bipartisan commitment to avoiding any talk about reining in the immense power of the real estate industry.

Americans tend to believe that sprawl is a natural consequence of free market forces when, in fact, sprawl is a consequence of decision-making by governments that are responsive to one single industry.

Alas, the people who would lead our national government are not addressing sprawl. That means that the long-avoided discussions America ought to have on race, on climate change, on imported energy, on highway construction and on agriculture will all continue to be lacking a certain element of reality.

Meanwhile, as the silence continues, sprawl continues to rule. And American cities will continue to die.

Folks in Hartford may be forgiven for believing that this is a Hartford phenomenon. The population within the city's boundaries fell from 136,392 in 1980 to 124,387 in 2003.

Did you know that it's San Francisco's problem, too? And Boston's? And Cleveland's?

In 2005, the Census Bureau measured domestic migration — people moving within the United States — from 1990 to 2000, and from 2000 to 2004. The report provides the number of people moving into and out of each state and the 25 largest metropolitan areas.

What that report showed is that thanks to immense national, state and local subsidies, population is being shifted out of cities and out of older suburbs and into sprawling suburbs.

The main incentive for sprawl: silence.

So far, Barack Obama is the only candidate who is speaking about urban America.

But he is speaking within the bounds of the 1960s paradigm about cities. His talk is all about the poverty of the deserted minorities of central cities, and not about the huge countervailing incentives that keep poor people marooned inside central cities.

The Brookings Institution's Center for Metropolitan Studies is trying to change the paradigm by getting thought-leaders across many disciplines to start thinking about cities again — not as enclaves, but as the indispensable centers of regional economies.

Governmentally, cities remain isolates. Former Albuquerque Mayor David Rusk suggests that the cities of the Northeast and Midwest are dying because they are trapped within "little boxes" that have no planning power over their suburbs, and so remain isolated.

That means that suburbs get to make their own planning and spending decisions as if they are independent, supreme, self-sustaining entities rather than components of regional economies.

Towns are the problem. Towns disrupt regional planning. Towns insist on going it alone. Towns poach development from cities and from each other. And towns demand that subsidies flow.

So in a marketplace where there is already a huge oversupply of housing, the availability of county, state and federal funds to build new roads and to maintain an already-overbuilt infrastructure leads to more and more subdivisions being built.

If our politics is going to be run by towns, is there any hope for cities or for metro regions?

There's despair about Washington, because Washington has been stuck in the 1960s mind-set — which is, to be brutal about it, that cities are for the very rich and the very poor, and that suburbs are for white folks, and that there's nothing to be done about it because the free market means that folks are going to live where they're going to live.

Governors are the logical players to disturb the political status quo.

Until they do, though, cities will continue to get special aid. Suburban real estate developers will continue to receive their subsidies for further sprawl through the town governments they already control.

Thus suburban town officials across the Northeast and Great Lakes states will continue to do what town officials do — which is to facilitate the sprawl that kills cities.

Because the inevitable alternative is something like this: If cities are to live, the power of town governments must die. That's a paradigm shift that would disrupt everything we think we know about race relations, transportation, imported oil, agriculture and democracy.

But wait — isn't that what we need?

Bruce Fisher heads a public policy institute in Buffalo, N.Y., where he served as deputy county executive from 2000 to 2007.

Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant

The mayor faces the ongoing consequences of questionable commission appointments

First, Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor removed Kevin Haley from the Plan Commission, rendering that body inert; developers rejoice. Now he appoints a hostile alderman to the Environmental Commission, prompting a resignation by someone who will definitely make his grievances public.

Ouch.

From FranklinNOW.com:

Environmental panel member resigns

By John Neville

Franklin Environmental Commission Acting Chairman Gregory Kowalski announced his resignation from the commission today in a letter to Mayor Thomas Taylor.

Kowalski, also a blogger on FranklinNOW.com, said the position of the panel has been weakened by the recent appointment of Alderman Lyle Sohns.

"Considering that there were better aldermanic choices for the representative spot, that Alderman Sohns already didn't seem interested in the position, and his representation on the commission in the past was noted by other commissioners as not helpful, I will take it as a sign by yourself that you do not want this commission to succeed in its current form," said Kowalski in his letter of resignation.

Full text of Kowalski's letter is here.

Boomgaard: Relax - "professionals" have the situation in hand

The May 22nd Franklin edition of the NOW community paper printed a letter to the editor from Casper Green. As I've noted here previously, Mr. Green is a familiar fixture at various city meetings, keeping tabs on issues and reporting back to the senior community. Deservedly so, he was inducted into the Milwaukee County Senior Hall of Fame this year; to call him an asset to the Franklin community is quite an understatement. If anyone has earned the right to publicly register an opinion, it's him.

Mr. Green is not, in other words, simply an otherwise-disengaged attention-craver lobbing spitballs from the peanut gallery.

The grain of salt ...

I recall a conversation I had with Mr. Green almost a year ago regarding Shoppes at Wyndham Village development, and I was left with the overwhelming impression that he nurtures almost unshakable faith in "the professionals" and almost anyone in city government. The mayor "assured him" that the Wyndham Target would be "best in the state"; that was good enough for Mr. Green. He said of Doug Wheaton, Franklin’s Director of Economic Development: “He’s sharp. He could have taken lots of other jobs; he’s a lawyer. You heard his remarks, how he recommended going ahead. And he has nothing to gain from saying that.” That sealed the deal for Mr. Green.

I was especially taken with his response when I brought up the poor Shoppes at Wyndham Village site plan - - a layout that is distinctly unfriendly to persons with limited mobility such as the elderly. Mr. Green took this as a personal attack on Mark Carstensen, the developer of the project and, Mr. Green noted, a generous contributer to programs for the elderly:

"People fight him with excuses, not reasons," he said.

“You said 'they' fight him. Not 'they' fight the development?" I pointed out. "You said 'they' are actually fighting Mark Carstensen the person.” Mr. Green clarified that he didn’t mean to make that implication.

But then, later in our conversation: “When someone is against Mark, we …”.

I interrupted to call attention what he'd said; “It appears that you feel that a criticism of the development or elements of the development is personal criticism against your friend Mark Carstensen.” Once again, he assured me that that was not the case. Yet I could not help feel that, in Mr. Green’s eyes, if you hinder the progress of Shoppes at Wyndham Village, you hinder his friend personally.

Mr. Green's "Boomgaard" letter again reflects a rock-steady faith in "the professionals." Apparently, membership on a civic committee and/or employment at a PR firm(!) bestows special powers of perception that we should defer to without question. To wit (with emphasis added by me):

The name Boomgaard is thought, by professionals, to be a name which would attract businesses from all over the world...

In this case, they have started rumors that are not true and have no foundation, according to those on the committee and the Zizzo Group.

The committee expects to eventually attract $2 billion worth of tax-paying businesses to the corridor with only $300,000 budgeted for advertising.

...[M]aybe instead of second-guessing professionals, we amateurs ought to pull in our horns and allow the name to be used.

Let me, with all due respect, remind Mr. Green of some other great (and expensive) ideas dreamed up by professionals:

New Coke
Edsel
Miller Clear Beer
Betamax
Titanic - UNSINKABLE!
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge
The Green Bay Packers game plan in Super Bowl XXXII

All designed and conceived by "professionals." Some "second-guessing" would have been welcome in retrospect, yes?

Here's Mr. Green's letter from the FranklinNOW Public Forum:

Boomgaard! After culling through hundreds of names, that is the name chosen by a steering committee of two Franklin residents and two Oak Creek residents for the South 27th Street corridor. The Zizzo Group, a professional advertising and public relations firm, was also involved.

Now the second-guessing has begun.

I've lived in Franklin for 24 years. I've accepted leadership responsibility in helping run organizations, so I can tell you that no matter what decision one makes, second-guessers show up. Seldom do these second-guessers take on a responsibility of any magnitude, but to hear them talk you'd think they've been around the world at least twice and seen everything and done everything.

I happen to know, very well, the two Franklin men - Ted Grintjes and Jim Rhiner - who are on the 27th Street Corridor committee. I do not know the two from Oak Creek; however, one can bet they are also of upstanding character.

And one would think all four people are concerned citizens who are giving of their time for the good of both cities. These people have given thousands of hours of their time. Yet, when their committee comes up with a name, someone has to complain.

The name Boomgaard is thought, by professionals, to be a name which would attract businesses from all over the world, but that doesn't matter to the second-guessers as they shower committee members with ridicule. How sad.

What bothers me most, personally, is the way second-guessers work. In this case, they have started rumors that are not true and have no foundation, according to those on the committee and the Zizzo Group.

Yes, the name Boomgaard is different, but certainly not offensive.

The committee expects to eventually attract $2 billion worth of tax-paying businesses to the corridor with only $300,000 budgeted for advertising. If the committee is successful, it would be a very small price to pay.

The name Boomgaard is strange to those of us who have lived here all our lives. Some of us have never gone outside the United States and maybe have not even ventured outside of Wisconsin. But if we intend to further 27th Street's long-term image and status, maybe instead of second-guessing professionals, we amateurs ought to pull in our horns and allow the name to be used.

Casper T. Green

Franklin

Franklin Alderman's clumsy attempt to intimidate bloggers

It used to be so much simpler to be an alderman in the days before bloggers started coming to meetings and proliferating to the masses just what was going on in municipal government.

Franklin Alderman Lyle Sohns (district 5) stepped in it this past Tuesday when he decided to put local bloggers on notice by distributing a document/spreadsheet showing property values and taxes for a cross-section of Franklin residents.

He thought it would be a keen idea to personalize the issue for those bloggers who complain incessently about high property taxes (I am not one of them) by having someone - at taxpayer expense? - look up the home values and property tax history of each blogger. I've posted a portion of the document to the right, omitting the detailed property value and tax information.

Get the message?

Granted, this is all publicly available information and no names were used, but Sohns attempts to make his point by none-too-subtly serving notice to local bloggers that he is willing to, at the very least, make them uncomfortable.

And there is the legitimate question of "what's next?" Photos of bloggers' homes showing improper lawn care when making a point about beautification efforts? Screen shots of Wisconsin Circuit Court Online to reveal the speeding ticket I got in Wausau 12 years ago? (Note to curious searchers: I share my name with a much older scofflow who was born in 1948.)

Welcome to the New Day, Alderman Sohns. And say goodbye to rubber stamp re-election, because now you've made Fred Keller angry.

UPDATE: Blogger Janet Evans transcribed the portion of the Council Meeting wherein Sohns presented his spreadsheets.

Boomgaard: "We've heard from only one side, the blogger community and the people who comment on the blogs"

Ted Grintjes evidently doesn't read Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columns or see the video they posted, or listen to talk radio.

What a botched job. Horrendous and expensive - - and this debacle comes from a member of the Franklin Citizens for Responsible Government (Grintjes was the group's spokesman in 2003).

Ah, the Franklin Citizens for Responsible Government. Here's a little background on that group from  the 12/17/06 Journal Sentinel:

Franklin Citizens for Responsible Leadership emerged in March 2003, saying it intended to recall [Basil] Ryan and anyone else members saw as blocking the city's economic development efforts. Over the next year, the group replaced four of the six sitting aldermen with one of its founding members - Ald. Steve Olson - and three others sympathetic to its agenda. Olson later distanced himself from the group.

The group made what turned out to be false or exaggerated claims against opponents in fliers, claiming in one case that the candidate knew a sex-offender home was being planned for Franklin and that the candidate did nothing to fight a landfill expansion whose height would "exceed the Empire State Building."

"It was 'take the office at all costs.' That was the tactic they used," said former Ald. Don Dorsan, who lost to Olson and complained to the district attorney's office that the group had knowingly distributed false information about him.

Sounds like a great bunch of fellas.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Regional News Briefs section.

Group awaits feedback on 'Boomgaard' name

Franklin - A controversial plan to christen the area along S. 27th St. in Franklin and Oak Creek as the Boomgaard District is on hold while the committee that chose the moniker gets more feedback from local residents and businesses.

Ted Grintjes, who chairs the S. 27th St. Steering Committee, said Wednesday that a final decision on the name could take 120 days or more.

"We've heard from only one side, the blogger community and the people who comment on the blogs," Grintjes said of the negative reception the name has received since it was announced. "And we'd really like to hear from the business community and residents."

The name Boomgaard, which is Dutch for orchard, plays on the city's environmental and cultural history, but it has been pilloried by critics as pretentious and a bad fit for the two communities.

The committee decided to suspend action on the name Tuesday night after the mayors of Oak Creek and Franklin sent it back for reconsideration.

Deploy the bad puns: Franklin and Oak Creek reconsider Boomgaard

Now Boomgaard is talk radio fodder for Sykes and Belling - no surprise.

It's not just the NAME that's messed up. I'm certain lots more will be revealed about the faulty process in days ahead...

From FranklinNow.com:

Panel considers lowering the boom on Boomgaard

27th Street committee reviewing district's name

By JULIE BECKER
jbecker@cninow.com

Posted: May 14, 2008

At least one city official admits the cities of Oak Creek and Franklin might have made a mistake in selecting the name Boomgaard District for the South 27th Street corridor.

"The idea I have is, you should never do anything knee-jerk, because knee-jerk never gets you any place you really want to go," Oak Creek Mayor Richard Bolender told the 27th Street Steering Committee on May 13. "It just postpones failure, generally."

Bolender said he "never was nuts" about the name, but supported it to help move the project forward.

Reacting to public criticism, Bolender and Franklin Mayor Thomas Taylor referred the name back to the committee. The committee decided at its meeting to suspend the naming and logo development for the corridor while gathering more public input, particularly from the surrounding business community.

More input needed

"I just think we need to do our due diligence, think about it, think about the process," said Ted Grintjes, committee chairman. "I think that shouldn't come from us; that should come from the public."

Bolender suggested allowing Franklin and Oak Creek residents to participate in a naming process if the committee decides to scrap Boomgaard.

So far, the two communities have spent about $9,800 on naming and logo development work with the Zizzo Group Advertising and Public Relations - about 47 percent of what was budgeted for the task.

Zizzo Group, with help from the steering committee and city officials in each community, chose the name "boomgaard" - Dutch for "orchard" - to represent the economy of the area dating back to the early 19th century and to pay tribute to some of the early settlers.

However, the name has sparked backlash from community members who say any name that must be explained probably won't convey a good message to potential developers.

No need to rush

Grintjes was hesitant to provide a deadline for a decision on the name, but suggested the committee give itself at least 120 days.

"If it takes 60 or 90 or 120 days, what's the difference, as long as the entire project goes forward," Bolender said. "I don't think we should stop the project or tie the progress of the project to a name."

There are plenty of other issues for the committee to tackle, said Doug Seymour, Oak Creek's Community Development director. They include development of marketing materials and collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation on designs related to 27th Street and the Interstate 94 North-South corridor project.

 

Julie Becker can be reached at (262) 446-6606.

Next step

WHAT: 27th Street Steering Committee meeting

WHEN: noon Thursday, June 12

WHERE: Oak Creek City Hall, 8640 S. Howell Ave.

Joint 27th Street Steering Committee Meeting 4pm today

Thanks to Franklin alderman Steve Olson, I was made aware that there's a Joint 27th Street Steering Committee Meeting scheduled for 4 pm today. It's at Oak Creek City Hall and includes a citizen comment period.

4 pm? That should encourage citizen participation, huh? I can't get there, but I'll get a tape.

On the agenda: A $29,254.24 "marketing, branding, positioning, and public relations" payment to HTNB Corporation - - an engineering firm. They are the conduit through which we pay Zizzo Group.

Why do it this way? Ask Ted Grintjes. And this bill is ONLY for the period between Feb. 23rd and March 28th of this year.

Here's another question someone should ask: How much does Ted Grintjes think it costs to buy and reserve a group of internet domain names?

Boomgaard!