“Something new has begun” as the inaugural Bespoke AI Model factory opens its doors on Commerce Avenue
The Internet’s inaugural day was marked Thursday by sunshine, ceremony, and three hundred townsfolk who gathered outside the new Bespoke AI Model factory on Commerce Avenue to watch a red-and-white ribbon fall in two pieces while their new mayor held his breath and their new town began.
Alderman Kowalczyk praised for “efficiency”; Alderman Przybylski’s traffic signal motion tabled for third time
The Internet’s Town Council convened for its inaugural session Thursday in chambers above the public library and opened with a five-minute standing ovation that Alderman Raymond Stibor (3rd Ward) called “gratifying but somewhat excessive.”
Following the ovation, the council adopted a $4.2 million operating budget on a 4-0 vote, approved a zoning ordinance based on Oshkosh’s 1997 model code, and agreed that the coffee at meetings will be upgraded from vending machine to a proper drip machine, to be purchased from Henke’s.
Alderman Dale Przybylski (1st Ward) introduced a motion requiring the town’s first traffic signal to be installed at the corner of Commerce and Mill Streets “before the new factory workers start backing up on Mill.” The motion was tabled pending an engineering study.
“I have been raising the Mill Street situation for six weeks,” Przybylski said after the meeting. “Six weeks. What does an alderman have to do to get a traffic light installed? I’m asking sincerely.”
Ceremony delayed nearly an hour; crowd stood in silence; Voss says “a town that forgets is not a town worth having”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday began, by Mayor Gerald Voss’s design, not with the scissors but with a silence.
At 8:46 a.m. precisely — the moment, twenty-five years ago, that American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York — Mayor Voss stepped to the microphone outside the new factory and said, simply: “We remember.”
Then he read the names. All 2,977 of them, from a list prepared by his office over the previous week. It took fifty-three minutes. The crowd stood. The September light moved around them as the morning progressed. No one left.
“I was not going to let this town open on this date without saying those names,” Voss said afterward. “Every name is a person. Every person was going about their day on a morning just like this one. We owe them more than a moment.”
Head librarian Zofia Deschamps says collection strong in history, fiction, and “the kind of science books that actually explain things”
The Internet’s public library opened Thursday morning at its location on Main Street, sharing a building with the Town Council chambers. Head Librarian Zofia Deschamps, a 2015 graduate of the UW-Madison library science program who came to this job from the Marinette County system, said the library is “ready for readers” with 14,200 volumes across all sections, plus four public computer terminals, a children’s corner with a reading rug, and a no-shouting policy that applies to everyone.
“The policy exists because the computers in the previous public library I ran became a venue for people arguing about internet things,” Deschamps said. “This library will be a quiet space. The internet is right outside. Keep it there.”
A thirty-foot gap in the sidewalk on Commerce Avenue between the factory entrance and the nearest bus stop will be “addressed in a timely manner,” according to Public Works Director Stan Czerwinski. Czerwinski said the gap was created when the new utility conduits were installed and has been “on the list.” When asked what list, he said “the infrastructure list.” There is, apparently, a list.
The town’s first completed residential development — a 48-unit apartment complex on Lakeview Drive — will accept tenants beginning October 1, property manager Irene Kucharczyk announced Thursday. A waiting list of 31 households has already formed, which Kucharczyk called “gratifying.”
Meteorologist Agnes Burkhalter, formerly of WSAW-TV in Wausau and now writing the Tribune’s weather column, says the next seven days will bring a gradual cooling from today’s pleasant 72 degrees toward the upper fifties by the weekend of September 19. A frontal system approaching from the northwest may bring the town’s first fall rain by next Thursday.
Agnes Marie Rybicki, 89, who moved to town six weeks ago to be near her grandson and who passed away quietly on Tuesday morning, was remembered by neighbors as “a very kind woman who fed the birds and made excellent kringle.” She is survived by her grandson, Bobby Stankiewicz, Model Fitter. Services at St. Casimir’s.
Dale Przybylski, 1st Ward Alderman
I would like to formally suggest that the town be named “Lakeside” on the grounds that we are by a lake and it is simple and dignified and would look fine on a sign. I would also like to formally note that if the Tribune’s contest results in a name I cannot pronounce, I will be registering a minority opinion through the appropriate council process. This is a democracy. I have rights.
Seven residents of Mill Street
We write in support of Alderman Przybylski’s long-standing motion regarding the traffic signal at Commerce and Mill Streets. We have been nearly struck four times this week. The factory is open now. The cars will only increase. We implore the council to act. We also implore the council to stop tabling this motion. It has been tabled enough. It is very well rested.
Marge Kuczynski, St. Casimir’s Parish
I would like to thank Mayor Voss for taking the time on this morning of all mornings to read every name from September 11, 2001. My brother Dennis was in New York that day. He made it home. Not everyone did. The fact that the mayor of our new town knew that today’s celebration needed to begin with remembrance rather than scissors says something very good about the kind of place this is going to be. We are lucky to be here. I know I say that a lot. I mean it every time.
Dennis Kowalczyk, 4th Ward Alderman
I would like to clarify, for the record and for any readers who were confused by Rod Black’s inaugural column, that the two sofas in my council office were not provided by Kowalczyk’s Furniture Barn. One was provided by my wife. The other was left by the previous tenant of the office, whoever that was. I have no connection to the furniture industry beyond being its enthusiastic customer. Also: I am not Przybylski. We are different people. We have different last names. People keep mixing us up and I find it disrespectful to us both.