Parks and Rec Commission - Regular Meeting

I will call this plan commission meeting to order on May 27th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in city hall council chambers. Can I have a roll call vote, please? A roll call, please. Sure. Uh, Burgess here. Hannon here. Hughes here. Kubak here. Principal here. And Reeves here. Right, we have six. Okay, we will um do we need to seat any virtual attendees? We don't need to seat them because they're on the agenda. Correct? Police. Jesse, do you want them seat? Anybody seated? Or is it just you two? Are they listening? Okay. Do you want to just verify who's Yeah. Sure, but they're both on the agenda. I don't know that we have to seat them. [Music] [Music]

Do you prefer that they're seated? Okay. Does somebody want to make a motion to seat those virtual attendees? I will make a motion to seat the virtual attendees. Steve Tremblelet, Stephanie Brown, and Brad Bowskar. I'll second that. Motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Slide it down to Tim. Thank you. Okay. I do not have any general public comments. Tim, right? There's nothing. Okay. And then we'll move on to number five, which is the approval of minutes. Um, plan commission meeting April 29th, 2025. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carried. Then we'll be on to number six with which is the comprehensive plan interview of consultants. Um, let me get through all of our papers here quick. Does anybody want Is there a coin? Should I flip a coin? Um, that's a great question. This is my first time, so bear with me. Um, and honestly, we haven't had one of these in a very, very long time, which is why you're here tonight. Um, I guess what is your input? What do you what do you normally see when you go to municipalities like this? Taking turns. Okay, sure. Um, yeah. So, we are going to Did you guys all get the questions ahead of time? Um, we're going to try to Oh, sure. I don't want to say speed through them, but we don't need to spend a couple hours on these tonight. So, if we

could keep this to about the 20 minute range. Um, so you don't have to go into a huge great um extensive background on all of those, but we would like to try to limit that a little bit tonight. So, with that being, I'm just going to go left to right. If you would like to go first. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. Yes. And I'm going to have you come up to the microphone if you can. So, we are going with Chastain first. [Applause] Oh, yeah. So, this is where it gets hard with virtual. So, um, anybody online? Um, Chastain is going first. If MSA you want to mute for a little bit or, um, this is such an awkward I don't have a great answer for this. You're doing great. Um, but MSA did step out of the room for Chastain's um, questioning for their interviews. This is Steve. I think I'll have Emily tell us when you guys are on to us and we can exit for now. Does that work? That sounds great. Thank you. All right. Yep. Byebye. Okay. So, I Brad is with MSA, correct? Okay. So, Brad, if you just Okay, perfect. Yep. All right. Do you want to start off and just introduce yourself? Yeah. and then we'll we'll jump right in. Okay, great. Well, I am Sophie Parr and I am with Chastain and Associates. Uh we are located in Illinois. I've been with Chastain since last August, so relatively new to the company. Prior to

that, I was working as a freelance planner in mostly northeast Wisconsin, primarily the Door County area. Um I was also a contractor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the last six years working in the parks program where I did a lot of the mapping and planning for a lot of the trails and parks um across the system. So I have a very passionate place in for Wisconsin in my heart. Um I moved back to Illinois essentially to coach high school swimming. I'm originally from Illinois, but I've been very fortunate to work with Chastain where I have the opportunity to pursue projects in Wisconsin still. And so when the opportunity in Berlin came up, I was like I would really like to go for this. So I am just very happy to be talking to all of you. And then my colleague Stephanie Brown is on the phone. So I will let her introduce herself as well. So Stephanie, if you want to introduce yourself. Sure thing. Is audio okay? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. Just wanted to make sure before I started talking to no one. Um, hi Stephanie Brown. I am an urban planner uh with Chestine Associates. I'm out of our Decatur office which is in central Illinois um where I live with my farming husband on a bunch of egg ground. So um my background is in urban and regional planning. I started out my career with the city of Decar, worked in the municipal side for about seven years before switching to the consulting side. So I've been here about 18 years now in total 18 years uh professionally working as a planner. Um I've worked in all sorts of municipalities primar primarily small rural communities is kind of my bread and butter. Great. Give it back to you Sophie. All right. I think we're just going to go right down the line then if you don't mind. Yeah. No. Um we'll start with what interests you about facilitating the city of Berlin's comprehensive planning process. Um so kind of as I mentioned I

definitely have a passion for Wisconsin planning having lived in the state for the past six years and most of my work has been with smaller communities. The Dor County communities I've worked in very tiny and they're just they're very fascinating to me. I think there's a lot of pride in the communities and a lot of loud voices and a lot of people really passionate about the future of their community. Um, I also think there are very interesting challenges like attracting younger families as generations kind of get older and making sure there's affordable housing and solid and sustainable job opportunities. Um, and those challenges are just really interesting to look at from the perspective of a smaller community as well as the idea of balancing the rural character and the small town charm with growth and how does that combine and how does that happen? So, I think both Stephanie and I have had a lot of experience working in this these smaller communities and we just really enjoy talking to the people. There's a lot of history, there's a lot of stories um and we would really we really love opportunities to get back into Wisconsin, especially me. And so, yeah, when this opportunity came up, as I mentioned, I was excited about it. Great. All right. Um, have you had any experience working with municipalities that share similarities with ours in terms of size, location, and circumstances? And then what example in your work is most um analogous um in your professional opinion? Yeah. So Stephanie and I actually both um were just wrapping up a plan in Byron, Illinois, which is near Rockford. It is pretty much the exact same population size and also situated outside of kind of a metro area, Rockford, whereas Berlin is kind of situated out of that Box Valley metro region. So similar just characteristics and just so much like I mentioned, pride, just so much like pride in the families that live there. They love their community. Um so that's the most recent one. We were literally just wrapping up that plan. But then

I've worked a lot in Door County, uh, Egg Harbor, the village of Egg Harbor, population about 250, so very small, but they have a lot of the same infrastructure and economy that serves a community the size of Berlin. Um, so again, I kind of mentioned like these small communities face similar challenges across the board. Ensuring a year-round workforce, sustainable jobs, affordable housing, um, but also like h having a high quality of life. So those recreational aspects and making sure that families are attracted to the area and they want to raise their family there. Um and I know I wanted to pass this question off to Stephanie too because she's had a lot of work in communities the size of Berlin. Sure. That's correct. Thanks Sophie. Um yes. So I've worked in a multitude of communities similar um to Berlin. Monaceel, Illinois is a great example. They're about 6 to 7,000 in population, but kind of a bedroom community sandwiched between Champagne, Urbana, and Decatur to where they need to rely on themselves, but then also have a large um that also serve as a bedroom community and are trying to grow within and have had a lot of success entrepreneurally starting small businesses. Um, we've got this village of Foresight, which I am the uh planner um planner of record for, and helping them navigate the nuances of being a small village. Um, trying to manage all your assets um grow sustainably and and smartly all while um you know, keeping the quality of life high and keeping your bills down. It's a it's a delicate balance. And I've had the opportunity and the fortune to work with a lot of communities um in those challenges. And so um I'm happy to help share my experience with you too and move move your village into the next um or city into the next um 10 20 years. Perfect. Could you outline your proposed

approach to comprehensive planning detailing the roles, responsibilities, timelines, and then the expected outcomes? Um, so the RFP I know kind of outlined a process and so we feel that that's a great way to approach this plan. Um, so we would start with the public engagement aspect and we know that there is a firm budget here. So we definitely want to make sure we're doing the traditional survey interviews and um a public openhouse to kind of gain as much insight as we can within your budget. Um, we also recognize that staff and, you know, members of the planning commission can help with engagement and so we want to also encourage you to do engagement and give you the resources that you would need um to do even further engagement that we can then utilize um in terms of well so so following engagement, let me just get back to that. Following engagement, we would go into the draft plan that would include updating your demographics, updating maps, things like that. Um, and then we'd go into a review process and that can take a little while. We want to make sure that what we're giving you is what you can actually use for the future. So, we anticipate that to take some time and then obviously putting the draft plan out for public comment. So, that's kind of the general process. In terms of roles, I will be the project manager and then Stephanie would provide oversight, administration, and advisory support. Um, prior to joining Chastain, I did work um, solo as a freelancer and so I am familiar with managing projects of this size. Um, and then Stephanie would also provide insight and quality control, making sure that the final outcome just meets meets your expectations. Uh, we anticipate for timeline, we anticipate the project taking up to a year. Um, but depending on ability to schedule meetings, public engagement sessions and coordinating with the planning commission for sessions like work sessions and things like that, it could be shorter. Um, I tend to like to take advantage of any trip that I would be making here, so I

would be utilizing that time as effectively as possible. Um, I also have family in Madison, which makes being here a lot easier. So, that's nice. Um, and then in terms of expected outcomes, we intend to deliver a completed comprehensive plan, all the graphics and maps. I know that you have a list of maps that you would like updated. Um, so I develop all of our maps so we can definitely make sure that we're producing those graphics and maps for you. And then the plan would include all the goals, object objectives, and action steps that the city can be taking. So that would be the the final product. Okay. Um, we just talked about public engagement. Uh, what is your approach to public engagement and how would you characterize your facilitation style? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, we did mention it. Um, we will pursue traditional engagement methods like the online survey, interviews in a public openhouse, but as I mentioned, we can help you do some additional engagement if that is wanted or desired. So, we can give you the resources to do that um while staying in budget. My facilitation style in terms of interviews and things like that, I'm uh I usually will review the focus topic with the individual or group that we're talking with. And I like to stay pretty structured, but also recognize that conversations flow and giving the group or the individual time to just kind of like have a discussion, be open, but also kind of sticking to a timeline. Um, so in terms of things like a public openhouse, it's more of a presentation and then opening up for comments or questions, just kind of getting general conversation going. And then for more specific working sessions with the plan commission, um I'm pretty good at adhering to an agenda, but again also allowing for conversation to happen, but making sure like your time is valuable. So we want to make sure that we're actually accomplishing things in work sessions. Um if we have a question, whatever the

question is, we just have to ask it at the next one. Sure. So, if you think it pertains to this and you want to ask it, we just make a note and I'll ask it at the next one. I guess I was just curious because you've referenced a couple of times um giving us tools to be able to um create more public engagement. Could you give like examples of what those tools would be? Yeah. So, if you wanted to So, I think what we have in our proposal is hosting one public information meeting. So if you wanted to do another one with staff or with the planning commission who are kind of like presenting the information, we would be preparing those materials for you. So we will give you all the materials that you would need to be able to successfully have like a meeting like that. Does that help? Yep. Okay. Thank you. If I could also add to that, sorry. Um, you know, one of the things we had ideas we had brought forth originally was the idea of a pop-up. um you know uh to host an event or to go where an event is already being hosted, some sort of festival or um you know event where you know a lot of the community is. Maybe it's a football game, maybe it's you know a downtown um historic preservation event, whatever it might be. Um, we could also provide you with materials and to arm you with questions and tools and handouts to have a table or a booth somewhere where you know you're going to be able to interact with a lot of residents. Um, so I think there are a lot of different ways and we can workshop with you what tools might be most useful for you and where you feel comfortable also engaging. I think there's always that that give and take. Some of us are more outgoing than others. So what at what level staff would feel comfortable doing things too? We would want to work with you on that. Sure. Thank you. Okay. And then we'll move on to in what ways has your organization's comprehensive planning model evolved to meet ongoing challenges? I think one of the biggest things that has changed and I think um Stephanie bringing me into um the fold at

Chastain, we are working on a lot more visual documents. um the plans that we're currently working on are very visual, graphic, map focused, which I think just helps people in like stay interested a little more than reading a 100page written document. So, we're very big on graphics and making it look really nice and making it look like people will want to read it and like actually use it and be excited about it. Um, so that's something that I think Stephanie and I are both very kind of passionate about is providing something to you that that is not only quality with the content, but also your residents can feel excited about it. Um, the other kind of thing I think that's changed since your last plan is just we had a pandemic. A lot of things went online. There's a lot of more social media happening. And so we definitely try to think about that and utilize, you know, social media as an opportunity to push information out. We've produced social media posts for clients in the past, kind of putting together like a brand and marketing packet that you guys can use to post on your um city city Facebook page or city Instagram page. Um but also doing the online survey, that's something that has been around for a long time, but I think is especially more important because there are still people that don't want to come to a public engagement session. So making sure we have that varied option so that everybody can at least have their voice heard in the way that works best for them. Okay. Um, when leading planning sessions, how do you manage the competing demands of ensuring full participation, building consensus, and addressing divisive disagreements? Um, so we definitely prepare well for working sessions. Um, we prepare a lot of materials. We want to make sure that it's interactive. Um, we set clear expectations. I'm very good at sticking to agendas. But again, but again, also want to make sure people can say what they want to say. Um, in small communities, I know Stephanie has has stories about this too, there are a lot of competing ideas and there are loud voices and there are people with very big opinions and they like to show up and a lot of times they

just want to be heard. They just want to feel like their voice matters. And so when we do start to get into disagreements in different sessions, I think what I like to do is just make sure that I let everybody speak, record all of those thoughts and say we actually have to make a decision about something and there's not consensus. We can try to reach consensus or we can table it and we can kind of wait a little longer, gather some more information and make a decision at a later time. Say it's a planning issue, we have to create a goal, we have to create an objective and we have to make a decision. Um, at that point I think Stephanie and I would both step in and say this is the most balanced idea for this taking into account all the perspectives. And that's kind of what we as planners, I think you're looking for us to do is come in and make sure that everybody's perspectives are heard and that the result is a balanced is a balanced outcome. Okay. What steps should we as a plan commission take to ensure success in our comprehensive planning process? Talk positively about it. Engage with the community when you can um throughout the process. Let them know what's happening. um you are obviously very invested in the future of Berlin or you wouldn't be here today on this commission. Um and so just showing up at the open houses and making sure you're present, making sure that people know that it's happening, sharing the survey link, um sending out flyers to local businesses to put up, all those kinds of things can help. And also when we're scheduling things with you, just being responsive, making sure that you know we're getting things scheduled. Um, there are a lot of communities where the steering committee will want to be really involved, but then it kind of fizzles out. So, just like sticking with it and making sure you show up. Um, and then, yeah, your ideas, you know, you're on the planning commission, your ideas hold a lot of weight. You know a lot about the community. And so, speak up, make your voice heard, tell us what you want to see in this plan. Um, you know, you have

such great insight. You, this is what you do every day. So, all those things can be very helpful in the process. Okay. I'll I'll just add if you don't mind. Um you know, as the plan commission, you're one of the first people to see the development trends as they come through as as changes come to you for zoning changes or as you know, site plans and uh planned developments and you know, expansions, you know, may perhaps an annexation, whatever it may be. You're kind of at the forefront. So, you're seeing the trends. um you're the ones that are are helping to shape, you know, move that forward with your decisions. So, I think being excited throughout this process and being the champion for continuing to shape that vision is is paramount to a successful uh process. You've got networks, you know, people who know people who know people, you know, and I think this is the opportunity for you to really make this is a success is to use those networks and use your excitability. Um because I love comp plans. I mean that's I've dedicated my life to them. So I think everyone should love comp plans and I think that's the attitude we come with that and we hope you express that same attitude. Great. Thank you. Um we'll move on to is the workload manageable for the primary points of contact as outlined in your prop proposal? Uh yes, we are currently wrapping up a large comprehensive plan project and we basically have the capacity to begin when the city would like us to. Okay. Um what are the typical challenges you have observed municipalities like ours face during the comprehensive planning process? I think one of the biggest challenges and I think I kind of touched on this is conflict over growth and preservation. So the people that want everything to stay the same and the people that want growth. There has to be a balance. Um there are cities that go away. It it can happen. And so making

sure that the city is staying along with the trends evolving and growing but in a way that maintains its character because it has history and it has those roots and that's the pride that a lot of people have. And so we want to balance that. You may have a segment of the population who loves a city as it is and then wants to see change and we have to bring those voices together. And I think that's that's one of the biggest challenges I know I've seen kind of across the board with with communities of this size. Um Stephanie, do you do you want to add anyone anything on this one? Um I will say, you know, when having done many comp plans at this point, you know, when you get to the community survey, we like to sometimes ask questions about like what do you love about your town? You know, something open-ended that just allows some free thought u for residents. And in a lot of communities your size and of similar uh makeup, the biggest thing we hear is the small town feel. keep our small town the hometown feel. Um, you know, I think there are some words that resonate among some rural smaller communities that that's what we're trying to balance when you talk about, hey, where should we grow? No, we're we're a small town. Well, you can be a small town and you can make small incremental changes that will preserve that small town feel with these goals and action steps that we set forth in the comp plan. Great. Okay. And lastly, given your firm's active involvement in various communities, how can we ensure that Berlin's specific issues are adequately addressed? So, we essentially start with that. Basically, when we do a kickoff meeting, we want to talk to you about what are the current issues. we have I I've looked at your past plans and so I have some understanding but what's changed and what are the things that you're facing today. So in that kickoff meeting that's when we really start talking to you and saying what do you

want us to ask the community about specifically? What do you need them what do you need to know from them over the next 10 to 20 years that they want to see change. And so we use that kind of those kind of beginning meetings to really flesh that out. And then we can also figure that out in our interviews when we speak with community members or groups that you want us to speak with. um kind of getting into the more nuanced specific issues. Say we talk to a real estate group, you know, what are the housing issues that they're facing? Um so it's really in those conversations that we can address that and then we really like to bring those issues into our survey so that we're asking things that are really relevant to you. We don't want to put together a survey that's generic. We want to put together something that's relevant and going to help you actually make decisions for the future. Um so yeah, that's yeah, that's how we do that. Great. That's all I have for you. Okay, we zipped through that. That was very nice. Thank you. Does anybody else have anything else? Otherwise, we will move on to MSA. Good. All right. Thank you. Nice to meet you all. Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much. Um well, we kind of kind of discussed not discussed. Hold on, let me find my So there is a point of selection and and I don't what is again what is normal this is we haven't done this for a very long time do you guys normally wait around is this a decision that's you know we are able to freely talk and I guess I don't I don't have that let me ask Emily too Emily we were just talking about followup she asked if she should stay and I said again this isn't typically normal for us this isn't something we've done like recently do you guys typically stick around and wait. Do you let us do you guys leave and we get to discuss? And I think it would be your preference. I have experience around

um I guess uh commission. I have to think of where I'm at. Um, are you How do we want to tell them to proceed? Do we want to maybe discuss this and then we can send them an email in the morning with our our findings? Is that Tim safe? Does that seem pretty safe? You look like you're on the edge of your seat. Just Okay, I think we'll do that just to make everybody a little up here a little bit more comfortable to to have those discussions. So, thank you. Thank you so much for coming again. You too. All right, Emily, this is And did you tell your your people? Yeah. Sure. And again, this isn't something we Well, I've never had to go through. Yeah. And now you got to find it. Sure, you could. Perfect. It's okay. I sent them I sent them a text, so they should be I think it was Steve and one more, right? Yep. Brad. Brad.

Do you see them? Jesse, there's nothing. Nobody waiting to You didn't have to let anybody on, right? No, they just showed up. Actually, I think one was on there before I even started. Oh, really? They were eager. I'm calling them. Sure. Was that your phone ringing? Um, how would you feel about closing up a meeting if that's really? It's nothing. It's just um the selection. Okay. Yeah. Are you good? I just have to be at school at 7. I mean, ish. I have a little wiggle room. I apologize. I'm not Yeah. Well, we can get started if you would like. Are you okay with that? Are you Are you um I can skip questions if there's ones that you know that he was that you had help on. Let me I mean I'm okay getting started, but I I know that Steve Brad and Brad wanted to participate. So, no, we can give it some time. Okay. I appreciate the Yep. the patience with

us. issue. I could probably call them on the conference phone, too. Yeah. Yeah. The link is the same. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Steve, do you know where Brad is? Just Yes. I I'll message him. Sorry. One second. No, you're fine. We're We're good. Technology is so great. When it works. Yes. Audio sounds perfect. Hey, audio is great. Sometimes we don't have audio and we have video. So, we're one for two here. You're leaving by seven ish. Question I have are we viewing this comprehensive plan as something to satisi satisfy the state of Wisconsin or use for other advertising or whatever. I would say both. I Yeah, because it kind of really matters. I know the ones that because I said that I think I've been here since the 2011. Um and we've done it and reviewed it, you know, a couple times, but we never used it, I think. So there Yes. No. So it's kind of like there there's an issue when you don't have a marketing person as a um staff, you know, or we lack that in staff. So that's a huge You're not wrong. I hear you on that one. And that that's how I would approach

even reviewing this process. We plan to use it. Oh, we have bread, too. Sorry. Okay. Oh, good. All righty. Emily, do you want to give a little intro? Absolutely. Um, so my name is Emily Soderberg. Um, I am a planner and project manager with MSA. I've been with MSA for about three years. Um, I am a graduate of the University of Michigan's planning program. um been in Wisconsin for three years but have been coming to the state much longer. My husband is from Wisconsin so that's what brought me here. Um MSA if you're not familiar we're an interdisciplinary engineering firm so we have a lot of offices across Wisconsin as well as Minnesota Iowa um and uh we do a lot of work on comp planning throughout Wisconsin. So we're super excited to be here and um I can have Steve and Brad introduce themselves briefly as well. Sure. Sure. I'm I'm Steve Tuml. I am the team leader for the planning group in Wisconsin. Been with MSA for 17 years. Uh so I've done a few comp plans in my day. Um but I also have a background in urban design and development. So I understand both private development interests as well as municipal side. I'm also the zoning administrator for a city of Loi. And so I see all aspects of how this can be um impactful to the community. And I just know you you spoke about currently not using the comp plan. Hearing that does make me want to talk further and excited about the ideas of of some of the things we've improved our comp plans and make sure that it doesn't sit on a shelf and is helpful for uh land owners, developers, and the community to make decisions. And I'll pass it to Brad. Yeah, my name is Brad Valscatter. I am a graduate of a landscape architecture program at University of Kentucky and also planning

program at water resources management at University of Wisconsin. My wife's from Wisconsin so I'm a transplant. Um, and I have a long history of doing urban design projects along with comprehensive planning. Uh, I've been a bit of a a practitioner that's dabbled in a lot of different things and so I've seen it from both the public and private side like Steve had mentioned. I do zoning administration for a couple of smaller communities and so I get to see how comp plans play out in terms of land use decision-m and so it would be nice to transform your plan into something that could be pulled off the shelf and be used within the community uh to make some of those decisions by everybody involved. So glad to be here and looking forward to get to know you a little bit better. Great. Thank you. All right, Emily, we're going to jump right in. Perfect. um what interests you about facilitating the city of Berlin's comprehensive planning process? Yeah, so kind of um our planning team, we do a lot of planning with kind of smaller rural communities. So that's really like the heart of the planning pro planning work that we do. Um we sometimes work with larger communities. Um but kind of the size of Berlin is sort of the community that we really love working with. Um so that definitely excites us. Um we also do have um we have a little bit of a deeper background and understanding of Berlin through our connection with um Diane Wessel as well if Steve wants to expand on that. Um but really we our kind of um drive when we work with smaller communities, rural communities is we really want to be kind of proactive instead of um reactive to development. So, we really want to think through like what does Berlin what is ber Berlin's vision for itself for the next 10 20 years and how can we be really thoughtful about that kind of growth and development um over the next over that next time horizon. Um and I'll let Stephen Brown jump in if they'd like. No, I mean Emily covered um main points uh that we u strive to work with smaller

communities. We understand them have extra knowledge as noted by Diane. Um, but we bring best practices even to the smaller communities and how it could fit to, as Emily noted, make thoughtful growth potentially. Okay. Did you have a question? I have a com uh just a comment. Okay. Um, the regulars in town here, we call it Berlin, not No, I was like I was coaching that in my head when we were driving up because I knew it was Berlin. But I just see the spelling and but yes, you're you're not you're not the first. You're not the first and you're not going to be the last. But it's important. No, I know it's important. I know it's important. Okay. Um, sorry. Was there We were We're good. We can move on to the next one. Um, have you had experience working with municipalities that share similarities with ours in terms of size, location, and circumstances? And then what example in your work is most an an analogist? Analogous. Um, in your professional opinion? Yeah. So, absolutely, we work with a lot of communities. Um for instance uh Oyola is a community that we've worked with where one particular similarity is sort of the proximity or its location right along a river. So in OciOla that's um the St. Croy River. Here it's the Fox River. Um as well as we worked with Loi maybe a little bit smaller. Um Steve is greater familiar familiarity with that project and through his zoning administration work. Um but really kind of like I mentioned at the top, we do work with a lot of smaller communities that are situated um within kind of a broader um kind of farming community. Oftentimes there uh there's kind of like one big interstate highway that runs through the city which kind of is a big um big kind of feature and draw for the community. You know, there's a pass through or um

and then I would also say historic downtowns as well. We know that there's um an upcoming like uh reconstruction project for Hiron Street and we know that that's going to be a big um both issue and opportunity in the community, but Steve, I'll let you chime in. I think you covered I especially Loi has hit on that point. There's a river and state highway that runs through the downtown there and that's very impactful to the businesses. Um obviously there's truck traffic that relates to that as well, but it also is a bank driver that allows for economic growth. Um, but it all has impacts and obviously with the construction project that's something both a opportunity to see any streetscaping enhancements to build further on your character. Great. Thank you. Um, could you outline your proposed approach to comprehensive planning detailing the roles, responsibilities, timelines, and then expected outcomes? Absolutely. So, we see kind of a 10 or a 12-month planning process. So, kicking off in uh June, so of next month, and kind of running through um May of 2026, um we have kind of scoped the project around four uh meetings with the plan commission. And in those meetings, we would basically chunk out the kind of core chapters of the comprehensive plan that are dictated by state statutes into what we call ele like element reviews. So, we would do a number of chapters at a time. So for instance um in our first plan commission meeting which we have scheduled for August, we would review the um a draft of the natural um agriculture and cultural resources chapter utilities um community facilities and economic development um and then kind of we'll get into this maybe a little bit more detail in an further question, but we typically draft our the first draft of our plans in in Microsoft Word just so that it's super simple. It's really editable. You guys can leave comments, we can leave comments and then after that we bring them into our graphic design software which is called inesign

and that's where we make the more kind of visual compelling um graphic final version of the plan. So there would be sort of a sequencing where we would bring the first draft in word and then at the second um the second meeting we would bring that draft back to show you kind of the graphic design published version when we review the next round of elements in um word. So it's kind of a succession if that makes sense. Um, additionally, so we have in June, we'll have the public participation plan adopted by council. That's also when we um could do some of our one of our engagement activities, which I think we'll touch on later as well. And then we'll do the survey as well over the course of the summer. Um, we usually space out our plan commission meetings to be every other month um to allow for, you know, us time to develop the content and you enough time to review and get comment back. And then we would roll over into the next year, do our final review meeting, I believe in February, and then we'd have our um mandatory public hearing comment period, and then if all goes according to plan, um we would adopt the plan in May. Okay. And if I could add just for you know, we have three people on the call. Yep. If it's not clearly noted, is Emily be the project manager. That is our role on our team. uh making sure that we are hitting milestones that we're having review of the content um and staying on budget and then I am the overall review of the plan from my experience of 17 years and reviewing documents. Brad would be the person that would be in front of you the most often. He'll be help leading through the content. So in the proposal you won't see him in there. um his availability opened up and he has more experience in comp plans. Um so we felt that since we have availability we should bring in the person that's worked with more on these comp plans. Yes, thanks for adding that Steve.

Okay. What is your approach to public engagement and how would you characterize your facilitation style? Yeah. So, I'll have Brad weigh in as well, but um we kind of see our approach to engagement as we want to do, of course, kind of most of our or if not every single comp plan we do, we we have an online survey. This is kind of a general best practice because it is very flexible for people. You can take a survey at home, you can take it on your phone, you can take it on the go. It's also a good way it can be kind of splashed around town through flyers. We always make sure we give you a nice flyer. Um so, that's kind of part one is the survey. It also just gives you really a nice big kind of like output of data and we have kind of a range of different questions that we ask where you all will have the chance to kind of weigh in and finalize um uh kind of like our standard set of questions. Um, and then we also proposed in our outline um, doing kind doing a public openhouse. And I know in our proposal we said we'd have the public openhouse at the end, but I do want to bring in kind of some greater flexibility to see if you would rather um, have that openhouse at the beginning and have it be structured kind of more as a visioning workshop. Um, we have that flexibility as well. So um for so we kind of have the online survey is sort of our online engagement where we can try to spread it wide far and wide and then we have kind of our in-person engagement opportunity which could be the public openhouse kind of at the front of the process or at the end. Um as well we can even be more flexible beyond that if kind of doing something more like tableabling at a community event would be more appealing to you. um you know in kind of planning best practice uh there are pros and cons between sort of going to where the people are versus asking people to come to you. So if you thought that we would get better engagement doing a kind of popup or tableabling at a community event, we can be flexible with sort of um what we want to do for that inerson inperson piece.

Okay. And then Brad want to talk Yeah. if you want to jump in on your facilitation style. Yeah, I I have had a lot of experience doing public facilitation and public meetings and um I've in pulling from the survey uh getting some key questions and key topics. Usually the survey comes first and we get an idea of of general themes that we can propose uh different uh boards for for going over the elements in more of an openhouse style where people can drift around to different boards and ask questions. We also pose questions and let the community give feedback uh using sticky notes or sticky dots and and different types of forms. Uh we realize that participation means different things to different people. Some people may be more outgoing and want to talk through their plan. Some people may want to write their ideas down. So we provide a range of options for people to document their comment. Um you and then we we have people uh propose uh different ideas that can go in and then vet that. Uh uh we summarize all of that content that comes back to plan commission in one of the meetings and then we would sort of sort through the different vision items. If anything comes from the community we want to uh kick around different ideas. Uh we let that openhouse that communitydriven input uh really guide our our plan. And of course pulling from the survey that allows people to dabble in a range of issues, not just what they're interested in. We get people that show up and want to want to talk about different topics of what they're really interested in, but the survey sort of forces them to think about many range of elements that we're working through in this process. And so it allows them to respond in their own schedules. Usually that comes early on so we could get a a sense of what themes we're going to see from the community. and and so that's that's generally how we promote that communitydriven process. Great. Um, in what ways has your

organization's comprehensive planning model evolved to meet ongoing challenges? Yeah, so I'll kick us off here and then I'll get a bit over to Steve because he's kind of our leader on this. Um, but we at MSA have really kind of fine-tuned our comprehensive um, planning approach over the last kind of decade to what we call the lean comp plan approach. And this kind of grew out of this recognition that, you know, the state passed its um smart growth planning law in 1999, I believe. And a lot of that first wave of plans were really long. They had they were overly verbose, if we're being real. Um, they had a lot of data and some of that information was great, but you had to like sift through it to find it, right? So how we came to the lean comp plan approach is we are trying to consolidate and be concise and kind of narrow in on what is the most important to Berlin, what is the most important to the citizens here and really focus on the visioning, the goals, the objectives um that really are the core of the comp planning process. And I think that's what you know when you were saying at the top of the meeting, oh we didn't really use our last comp plan. That is really the that is what we're trying to respond to with the lean comp plan is getting a plan that's smaller, concise, visually appealing, um, and more straight to the point so that it is more usable for the community, usable from, you know, city officials and usable and understandable from the public and it's not just a super dense long document that, you know, is collecting dust on the shelf. Um, so that's kind of how our model has evolved over time. And really, and when we work with smaller communities, we are always kind of bringing our best practices to the table, but we're always kind of trying to kind of what Brad said, hear the themes, hear the issues and opportunities from community and making sure that we're fine-tuning it to what is most pertinent to the community members that live here. Okay.

Um, when lead I wish these were numbered. Um, when leading planning sessions, how do you manage the competing demands of ensuring full participation, building consensus, and addressing divisive disagreements? Yeah. So, this is such a core um part of the planning process because, you know, we know everybody has full lives and competing demands um on their time and their attentiveness. Um, and we also know that in the planning process, a disagreement is of course going to come up. People have different opinions about different things. So really our role as planners is trying to kind of be neutral facilitators, neutral mediators. Um, and trying to kind of get to the heart of what those disagreements are and trying to find that common ground. Um, and you know, to our best of our ability, we try to find that common ground and move forward. Um, I don't know if Stephen Brad if you want to chime in. No, I mean that's exactly it. A part of our role is to get the conversation going, document it, um, find some commonalities between what is being stated and and presenting. Some of this is education and presenting best practices, how it matches those issues. Not all the time we're going to get to a resolution for everyone, especially when we talk about development. Um but the idea is to get go always back to the core of what's the vision for the community for everyone not just for a specific group. Thank you. Um what steps should we as the plan commission take to ensure success in our comprehensive planning process? Yeah, I would say there's kind of two core things that I would ask of the plan commission. Um, one, your kind of participation in uh, you know, helping

us being a partner with us in developing those draft elements. Um, you know, taking the time to uh, review those drafts, provide comments to the best of your ability is so helpful for us. or at a minimum even, you know, when Brad comes and facilitates our meetings, just having thoughtful engagement engagement and um conversation with Brad so that you know we can try our best to really hear from you all what you believe are the issues from that are most pertinent in your community and what people are telling you because you all are our leaders in the community and are kind of representatives of the um city here. And then um additionally kind of like I said you know as as being leaders um we really need your help in kind of tapping into your networks and helping promote the planning process. Even just telling people we are updating our comp plan um and letting the community know that this is a process that we're getting started and and why it's important to the community um goes a really long way when we have that survey out helping promote the survey um so that we can get a good response. That is super helpful. Um, so really we we like to see the plan commission as sort of, you know, our partners and champions in um the planning process. So you definitely um help us move move it along and are are important people in in making sure we get good engagement. Great. Is the workload manageable for the primary points of contact as outlined in your proposal? Yes, I would say so. And and that's also representative in um kind of the switch that we made with bringing in Brad um because we know that he does he kind of his availability and his workload has opened up in comparison to Olivia who we included in your proposal. So we thought it was a best choice um to bring him in and he does have a little bit more um expertise and experience in this realm. Um me as a project manager I definitely have the capacity to take this on and I'm eager to take it on. Okay. Um then what are the typical challenges you've observed municipalities like ours face

during the comprehensive planning process? Yeah, I mean to be honest I mean sometimes the biggest problem is uh kind of lack of participation or low turnout um when we do hold events. Uh so that is kind of one thing to consider when we talk about like the public openhouse or not. Um the success of a public openhouse is really how many people we can get to turn out. Um, so that is, you know, making sure it's promoted with enough time, making sure we're doing it on, um, you know, we would we could come on a Saturday if you guys thought that we would get more participation on a Saturday. Um, making sure that it's in a time where people aren't working, so they could come. And then additionally, if you wanted to not do a public openhouse, we also have that ability to do tableabling or empower you all to do tableabling um, at a community event. I would also add that we always want to pair the public openhouse tableabling with the survey as well to the best of our ability just because it's a great way to promote the survey. Um so I would also say the summertime is great as well because usually there's summertime events and community events and stuff and so if we can tap into those existing community draws um so that we can promote the process that would be great. Um, so that's definitely one challenge is just making sure that we can get people aware and get them involved. Um, I would also say like on a more plannerly bigger picture, we do know that there are competition between kind of farmland preservation, um, environmental corridors and potential growth and development opportunities in a lot of rural communities. Um, so it's all about trying to find the balance and trying to be thoughtful in identifying how and where Berlin would want to grow. I would I would add to that point that that facilitating uh part of that process and figuring out uh what works best in the community and where those competing interests are when there are

uh divisive situations that come up uh if there's a potential conflict uh with farmland or environmental corridors and the need to balance development uh and planning. It's mentioning those and uh providing a thoughtful direction for the community. Not everybody's going to agree with that direction, but putting that putting that foot out there and um talking about it, the different the different aspects within that community, we'll find those competing interests kind of like laid out within our our comp plans. So, finding a balanced approach to growth is definitely something that uh happens through that communitydriven process. Nobody Nobody I'm for half a second I forget that people are virtual. So, somebody talks tonight. If anybody else saw me flinch, I apologize. Um, okay. Then we'll move on to our last one. Given your firm's active involvement in various communities, how can we asssure that Berlin specific issues are adequately addressed? Yeah. So, I feel like how I've kind of mentioned a couple times already. Really, what we what our role as consultants are is, you know, trying to be a sounding board for hearing what your top issues and opportunities are. So we bring to the table kind of our expertise um best practices and strategies but we are always like single-mindedly focused on how can we adapt those best strategies and um best practices and goals to what is most relevant to you all? What is what are the most pertinent issues? What are the most pressing things that affects your community? Um that's really what our job is. Um, so we all of our plans have to be tailored to the needs of the community or else we won't be doing our job. Um, I don't know if Steve and Brad want to chime in. No, you covered it. It's it's, you know, we've done large and small communities. There's um, you know, there's what the community wants to see and finding um,

where there's avenues for for growth and handling any issues that come up. Um, we obviously do have some set points of strategies and goals, but that's when we work with you to kind of fine-tune it for what makes sense for your community. Um, this is your plan. We want to make sure it is your plan and you want to use it going forward. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, thank you so much. Um, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Sorry for the tech troubles, but yeah, we got there. I'm I'm glad we had sound tonight. You have you have no idea. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um Tim, what is our quorum number that we need to have? Do how many are on this commission? Brad is still on. Yep. Thanks. Um I'm gonna have to sneak. So Kayla is going Can we get a motion to have Kayla um chair for the rest of the meeting? Will you guys discuss and then I will um I'll loop in on YouTube tonight. Are we making the decision? Yes. If you guys want to discuss to um make the decision on who it is, but first we need a motion to seat Kayla as chair as I'm leaving. I'll make a motion to seat Kayla as chair for the rest of the meeting. Second. Motion a second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Kayla, you can sit there or you can move over. You can do whatever you want. I can sit right here. It's fine. Thank you. All right. We will move on to number seven, the selection of consultant. And we can proceed with discussion.

It's gonna be a tough choice. I thought they both did a pretty good job. Um just as a minute before Yeah, I will say the only thing is we um mentioned um a lot. Diane did work here as administrator. she did have a very good um for in a very short time she got thrown in and she had to learn really fast. So I would say that if anything Diane has a very you know a foot and she handled it well and she did she did. So that's my only my only can I just make a comment real quick when I said um that I've been doing this since 2011 at that time uh the people that were on the planning commission with me kept going back to the plan from 1968 that's when they thought it was ideal when Berlin was ideal uh but over these years of from 201811 2018 or whatever We did do surveys. We did surveys of businesses. We did surveys of uh residents. We did we even did surveys from visitors to the city. Um one thing we found when we did surveys, especially in the summertime, summer is a happy place. So you don't hear the negative surveys about the city, you know. Uh we also did meetings in this room um and invited you know anybody in the city to come and it was packed. It was absolutely packed and we had a lot of responses. Um we also did um a meeting with just business leaders um people who own business here in town and what their perspectives were. Uh so we try to come

up with all this information and I don't even remember who what the company was. Verbick did one. So I was here for Bureicker for their housing and economic plan, right? And I went through that one as well. And I do I would agree that our room was packed for that. I was shocked. But I think the amount of people that want to see change for the good wanted to step up and I think for that meeting there was a lot of business people at that one. um as we talked about um the DOT stuff recently um the school offered to allow us to hold stuff in the auditorium. Okay. So that is an option too if we think that hey we want to involve as many people as we can but maybe this isn't the right setting. We do have the availability of EMTT would support us holding stuff like that at school. And it was funny because the B obviously the business has come with it at a different thing especially since we don't have a chamber right uh but the the one thing I you know if we're going to use this document uh more than just to satisfy what the state requires uh I'd like something done about seeing the identity for the city. What is our identity? I I I fully I think especially with a downtown review coming now is the time to rebrand. Exactly. Exactly. And I I completely agree on that one because the previous ones wound up in my opinion focusing on the residents needs versus the growth of the city. Yep. Yep. And piggybacking on your city identity, I liked MSA's mention of the highway and the river, especially the river. The other proposal didn't mention that. Um why aren't we utilizing more of our riverfront? Why aren't we using that to attract? That's that's always been a since 2011, but they but they mentioned it. So, yeah, that's that's a valid point. I also like how they were aware of the pro the highway project going through downtown. They've done

they've done their research. There is also one major factor here location of both companies. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to keep it local. Both companies picking a Wisconsin based versus an Illinois based. Correct. I would prefer to keep it as local as possible. So I think that is not that red flag but they're two major. [Music] It's just a challenge realistically. Well, I don't know. I lived in rapper for a while and uh moved up to the Fox Valley and then here. So I've been around but um it's really fast from rocker's practically statewide you know but I do have to see it as a that much different than Madison but like we had talked about when we narrowed it down from the four to these two the experience that MSA has with Wisconsin communities is extensive they're very familiar with I But the size of our community, the state of Wisconsin, I know that that lady said she had lived here for a bit and a couple other portions, but in Wisconsin, their list was a lot. Where is it? Yeah, this was their list that they provided of how many communities in Wisconsin and their, you know, villages, cities, and the majority of them are comprehensive plans. These three columns all are. Do can we contact any of the cities or is that not allowed? I I don't think we did. I think it's a little bit late in the process for that. But I mean they did provide a few you know uh summaries of what they've done for other communities like AI that they had mentioned. Um excuse me. The reason I brought up city identity because like uh Green Bay

country it seems like they're getting their stuff together because they have the video person now. Um and they're I guess they're looking for more of what the identity of each of the cities is in Green Lake County, you know. So I'd hate to see us doing something really in conflict with what they're doing. I don't think we can. I think in country I don't think I would I I what they're doing and what we're doing I think are in completely different scope than I would what about the economic green lake economic development because they're doing something too. I would argue the same thing that these choices what we're in my opinion I don't know Is there I guess I don't have a good answer to that but I don't I guess I don't know what what is the question. What is the concern? Well that that we don't go off on a crazy tangent someplace that we will never be able to attain. I think we'll make sure that they also get any of the plans that those groups have done. I mean we've in since the beginning of this process been giving them u and been informing them that they would be getting anything that's been done in that covers Berlin. Okay. So yeah anything whatever they're doing is only going to help. Yeah. I think it's complimentary. It's a promotional tool essentially. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? A little bit of an unfair situation here where because we had the evaluation

team. I think we've had a lot of this discussion and and I mean I don't want to completely like fail to lead anybody who wasn't on that team but I'd say that we probably had I mean the whole process we I think had our rankings and uh while there was a very clear gap between the first two and the third and fourth I think that had a bit of an idea with both of these what we wanted to see. I'd say that if we're going to go and do the comprehensive outdoor recreation, I'd be very interested in seeing Chastain for that one. And if that's goes to the extent of reaching out. Yep. I just wanted to say if there's any other discussion that you wish to have to compare what you heard from the two or questions that you have for staff. If if you don't at this point, then you can if you're ready, make a a motion and somebody second and then discuss if you know how you feel about that motion and and vote. But just where we are in the where we are in the process. So just want to clarify. Is anyone willing to make a motion for to go up for vote? I'll make a motion that we choose MSA. All right. I would second that. Any discussion? All in favor? I Oh, yeah. We can do roll call. All right. Uh Burgess is Hannon obviously. Okay. Hughes MSA. Kakain.

Standing. Okay. Principal MSA. Reeves. MSA. Okay. Well, that is I mean a sufficient number that we have here. So just going to number this. Okay. and I'll prepare something to inform them and we'll go from there with getting the kickoff going. Sounds good. Moving on to item number eight, old business. Is there any old business to request on a future agenda? Hearing none, we'll move on to number nine, new business. Request items of new business to be put on a future agenda. Hearing none, we'll move on to adjourn. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. I'll make the motion. Oh, sorry. All right. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. recording stuff. It adds a lot.