The agenda for the 01/05/2009 is available on the City's website. One of the biggest items on the agenda is another closed session regarding the Chief of Police. Of course I cannot discuss that, so I ask for your continued patience while we work through this situation.

Another big item is the request from the Village to renegotiate and amend the Fire-EMS agreement. We all remember the concerns expressed by the Village Board when the fee increased because of the addition of fire fighters. At one point, they considered passing the fee on, in effect switching from the levy to a user fee. Having public safety as a user fee is a recipe for disaster. While the Board did eventually decide on a way to fund the Fire-EMS service, it is still a major concern. The Village has sent a letter requesting that the contract be renegotiated and list four areas they would like to be addressed.

1. Establish some form for performance measurements relating to response times, equipment and staffing levels, training standards and EMS certification.
2. Cost sharing with WCTC and PSD. Both these entities server the greater community, but since they are located within the Village, the Village bears the entire cost of calls for service.
3. The creation of an advisory committee to assist in facilitating discussion between the Village Board and the City Council regarding department operations, planning and budgeting.
4. The current 5% administrative fee which is placed on all calls for service and inspections should be amended or eliminated.

I do agree with the first item and I fully understand the justification for the second. I am somewhat less enthusiastic on the third item, but also understand that request. The final item needs more thought.

The Council has has several discussions regarding the creation of Finance and HR committees. Item 7 creates those committees. The committees are both comprised of the Mayor's appointed designee and three Council members.

Captain Meister has formulated an informational memo about his intentions to use monies received into the asset seizure forfeiture account. Recently $60,000 was received from the U.S. Department of the Treasury based on the Vnuk investigation of 2004. If you do not remember the Vnuk case, here is a 2006news release from the USDOJ.

Item 9 on the agenda is the request from the Joint Park and Rec Board to create the necessary documents and get bids on the development of the park. While there is still debate on where the money will come from and if the project needs to go to referendum, until we really know what kind of money we are talking about, it is all just conjecture. This would give us real numbers to work with.

Well we have endured round 1 of the snow, last I looked, round 2 was just starting. The official reading from the NOAA as of 11:57am on the 19th was 12.5 inches. That reading appears to have been taken at Simmons Woods. According to the 2007 to 2008 comparison, we have already reached the 2007 December snowfall.

My son was visiting one of the websites he frequents and thought it was pretty neat that it had snowflakes on it. He asked me if I could do that. So I did. Just a fun little Javascript. I hope you enjoy it.

Someone was following the John Doe pretty closely yesterday and posted that charges had been filed against Lt Kopatich as a result of the John Doe. The MJS has the story. From the charge on CCAP, it appeared to me that it was recording without the knowledge of any party, but according to the story, it was the fact that the recordings were released to others.

Some have already commented on how this will hurt the case before the PFC. I don't know that it will. Remember the charges are about the Chief spread false information to members of the department in July of 2008. The charges against Kopatich were based on recordings made in 2005 and 2006.

I forgot to mention this when the agenda first game out. If you are interested in attending the Joint Park and Recreation Board meeting on Wednesday, it will be held at Wagner Park because of the Police and Fire Commission hearing in the Common Council Chambers. You can find the Agenda on the City's website.

The LCR has the story about the fire contract and budget discussions at it's meeting last Tuesday.

Well we now know that the John Doe is about. The Chief alleges that several officers conspired to get him fired. The MJS has the story. From the sound of it, everyone was 'secretly' taping the conversations they had with others. If an officer is taping a conversation with the Chief and the Chief is taping the same conversation as the officer, my question is why is it the officer who violated state wiretapping law? I guess it is time to read more statutes.

The MJS has posted a story about the John Doe Proceeding.

The agenda for the December 1st Common Council meeting is available on the city's website. There are several items on the agenda that I think will be of interest to people, several of them are on the consent agenda. So let's jump right in.

Item 3.4 is the contract with the Village for Building Inspection Services. The Village has been contracting with the City for several years now and this is just the 2009 version of the contract. For those who are interested, the contract fee to the Village is $1000/month plus 60% of permit revenue. This cost is not changing for 2009.

Item 3.5 is the contract for the City Planner. Many of you probably already know that City Planner Harlen Clinkenbeard is not an employee of the City, he is a contractor. This is the 2009 version of his contract. The contract fee is a total of $67,466/year. As a contractor, we do not pay any benefits. The contract requires a minimum of 144 regular working days.

There are several items regarding change orders to the fire station. The net amount of increase is $3,720. I don't have the exact total for all 28 change orders right now, but I know we are still within budget on the project.

The final item on the consent agenda was noticed by some right way and commented on in another thread. Item 3.18 is a resolution allowing the City Attorney to attend and participate in a John Doe investigation filed in Waukesha Circuit Court. I really do not have much information on this, just the resolution itself. That resolution states that the John Doe Proceeding allegedly involves members or personnel of the CPPD and employees or personnel in City administration. It also states that several officials, employees and personnel have already been served subpoenas to appear. I do not know who has been served and I do not know the nature or purpose of the case. My speculation is that it has something to to with the charges against the Police Chief, but that is strictly my speculation. I also have speculated as to what purpose these proceedings would serve. I suspect, assuming my first assumption is correct, it is a legal maneuver to delay or eliminate the open hearing before the PFC. Only time will tell if my guesses are correct.

Item 4 on the agenda is the 2009 proposed budget. As of November 26th, we still have not received the final assessed value information for the State DOR. Without that, we cannot take action on the tax rate. We can, however, approve the levy. But until the tax rate is set, the tax bills cannot be printed up.

Item 8 on the agenda is a proposed agreement between the City of Pewaukee and Ryan Companies for the study of the extension of sanitary sewer to serve the properties in the north west corner of Ryan St and Hwy 16. Because the City does not currently have any infrastructure in the area, the idea is to connect to the Village system. It is not clear at this time if the Village system has the capacity to handle this connection, and in the future, the City lands to the west of the Village. The agreement spells out the fact that the cost of the study will be paid for by the developer of the lands.

Two new meetings to let you know about. The Ethics Board will be meeting today at 4:00pm in the Bonnie Blair Conference room. The agenda is here. The Joint Park and Rec Board has also scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday at 7:00pm, also in the Bonnie Blair room. The agenda is here. The sole topic for this meeting is the development of the Pewaukee Sports Complex.

The first meeting of the Merger Advisory Committee is set for Wednesday, November 19th. It will be held at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission offices on Rockwood Drive just off of Pewaukee Rd (Hwy 164). The meeting starts as 6:00pm.

The City's website has the agenda.