Council Meeting — The Internet Tribune

THE INTERNET’S FIRST TOWN COUNCIL convened at 2 p.m. Thursday in the chambers above the public library, a room that had been painted three days earlier and still smelled of it, and in four hours passed legislation sufficient to give the town a legal framework for conducting its affairs and a coffee machine for conducting its meetings.

The four aldermen — Dale Przybylski (1st Ward), Dennis Kowalczyk (4th Ward), Raymond Stibor (3rd Ward), and Margaret Borowski (2nd Ward) — arrived promptly, sat around a table that Kowalczyk confirmed was not from his family’s furniture barn, and opened with a five-minute standing ovation from the twelve citizens who had attended the inaugural session as observers. Stibor called the ovation “gratifying but somewhat excessive.” Przybylski did not stand for it, on the grounds that, as he explained to this reporter afterward, “I am the one they’re applauding. It would feel strange to applaud myself.” This reasoning was not challenged.

The council’s first order of business was the adoption of the town’s operating budget: $4.2 million for the fiscal year beginning October 1, covering municipal operations, public works, the police department’s four officers, the library, and a contingency fund that Mayor Gerald Voss described as “money for the things we haven’t thought of yet, which will exist.” The budget passed on a 4-0 vote. It was the only vote of the evening that was 4-0.

The zoning ordinance — a document adapted from Oshkosh’s 1997 model code with modifications for a lakeside town without an existing downtown core — passed 3-1, with Przybylski casting the dissenting vote. He said afterward that his objection was not to the ordinance itself but to a specific provision regarding setbacks on Commerce Avenue that he believed would “create problems we will spend the next decade correcting.” He declined to elaborate on what the problems would be. “I’ll write it up,” he said. “I put things in writing.”

The coffee motion was introduced by Stibor and seconded by Borowski. It called for the replacement of the council chambers’ vending machine with a proper drip coffee maker, to be purchased from Henke’s Piggly Wiggly at a cost not to exceed $40, with coffee and filters to be reimbursed from the meeting supply budget. The motion passed 4-0, the evening’s second and final unanimous vote. Kowalczyk noted, during discussion, that he preferred a 12-cup capacity. The motion was amended accordingly.

The evening’s most extended discussion concerned Alderman Przybylski’s motion requiring the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection of Commerce Avenue and Mill Street prior to the October 1 start of full factory operations. This motion, which Przybylski has been introducing in preliminary planning sessions since mid-July, was familiar to the other council members and to Mayor Voss, who had heard it, by Przybylski’s count, six previous times in six previous meetings.

“I want to be clear about my position,” Przybylski said, during the discussion. “That intersection is dangerous. It is dangerous today with forty cars passing through it daily. When the factory is at full operation, it will be handling three hundred cars in the morning window alone. Three hundred cars. Through an intersection that is managed by a yield sign. A yield sign.” He paused. “I have been saying this for two months. I will continue saying it.”

Stibor, who chairs the infrastructure subcommittee, said the motion could not proceed without a traffic engineering study and that the study had been contracted and would produce a report by October 15. Przybylski asked whether the report would be completed before or after the intersection experienced a collision. Stibor said he was unable to predict collisions. Przybylski said he was also unable to predict collisions, which was why he would prefer to install the light before finding out.

The motion was tabled 3-1, with Przybylski voting against the table. He then asked, for the record, that his objection be entered in the meeting minutes. Town Clerk Lorraine Misko said it would be. Przybylski said: “Good. I want it on record that I said this would be a problem before it became a problem.”

“I have been raising the Mill Street situation for six weeks. Six weeks. What does an alderman have to do to get a traffic light installed? I’m asking sincerely.”

Dale Przybylski, 1st Ward Alderman

Separately, Przybylski introduced and then withdrew a motion regarding designated parking spaces for aldermen in the municipal lot adjacent to the library. He withdrew it, he said, “because I realized the optics were bad on day one.” He maintained that the substantive concern — that council members attending evening meetings currently have no reserved parking — “remains valid and will be reintroduced at a future date.”

Alderman Margaret Borowski, representing the 2nd Ward, spoke four times during the session: once on the budget (in favor), once on zoning (in favor with minor reservations about the Lake Lakeview Drive setback provisions), once on the coffee motion (in favor of a burr grinder attachment, which was not approved), and once at the end of the meeting to welcome, formally, the town’s newest citizens and to note that the 2nd Ward would be holding a neighborhood meeting at the library on September 18 for residents to raise concerns and meet their representative.

“I want people to feel like they have someone to call,” Borowski said. “I want to be the person they call. That’s the whole job.”

The council adjourned at 6:12 p.m. The coffee was vending machine coffee. The 12-cup drip machine will be purchased before the next meeting.

Donna Marchetti covers town government for the Tribune. Next council meeting: September 18. The intersection of Commerce and Mill Streets remains uncontrolled. Proceed with caution.

Council’s First Meeting Produces Budget, Zoning Code, and a Motion About Coffee; Przybylski’s Traffic Signal Tabled Again