Human Rights Commission - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Yes. This is everybody who we have.

Gina usually provides me a little cheat sheet of the roundtable, you know, deputy director.

Well, every everybody's here. There's nobody that's absent. So that what you're asking for?

Or Just start throwing out names?

You mean a cheat sheet of

all the people? It's on the screen except for Carl Green.

That's valid.

Sorry. Jenna did not apprise me of Gina's making me look bad. It's fine. I know. I got it. I know. She's off in Greece having fun, and here I am.

That's hilarious.

Sorry, mister Mayer. I apologize.

You are a okay.

On the screen, it's correct except for mister Green who is no longer on the commission, but everybody else is up there.

Okay. I'm just trying to find the agenda again. Give me one second. Alright. We're gonna call this meeting to order at 06:02PM on 09/03/2025.

All commissioners are present. And at this time, I will accept a motion for approval of the 08/06/2025 meeting minutes. Motion made by commissioner Gary. Is there a second? Second by commissioner McDowell. I did it right. Donald, dang it. Sorry. Second by commissioner McDonald. All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Alright. Seeing none.

Before we go into our next agenda item, I wanna take some time to introduce let our new commissioner introduce themselves. Are you okay with that? Alright. You gotta press the button in the mic. There there we go.

Oh, there we go. Hi. I'm Lisa Walker, and I am on Lower Northside Depot neighborhood, and this is my first meeting. Welcome aboard. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome. Alright. And moving on to our next agenda item, 20 or the first agenda item, excuse me, the presentation from Scott Lynn on outdoor lighting and dark sky initiatives. So just to throw a little background, we've been talking about a light ordinance. And at one point, we were talking about wanting to get some more education and bring in a speaker. And so now we are gracious to have mister Scott. So do you wanna do introduction or anything, Tim?

Sure. Thank you, mayor. So Lewis Coleman in our office had saw Scott do a presentation at one of his sustainability conferences, our climate action conferences, and had suggested to Jenna that he might give his presentation here because it was relevant to as we start discussing lighting ordinance and moving more into that. And so we invited him to attend, and we're gracious for his presence. And he's from Redshift Electric, a company here in Wisconsin. And I will turn it over to you, Scott, if you wanna give any more of an you know, introduce yourself a little bit more and then roll right into it.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Let me do tonight. So if this hotel connection is untenable, just speak up.

Scott, you are cutting in and out, actually.

Are we working okay?

Well, you're cutting in and out.

Alright.

And you just froze. There you go. Alright. I'm gonna keep

if I'm still cutting it out, we'll have to reschedule this, but let's see how it works. It's not working. So in addition to having Redshift Electric, I'm the president of the Kickapoo Valley. And we do a lot of work to try and improve outdoor lighting to reduce the negative impact. To talk to you about that tonight, and hopefully, the, the presentation will feed through to you okay. But

You're still cutting in and out, I think, Scott. Am I correct in stat? It's like we get five seconds, it

pauses for five seconds, then we get another five seconds, then another. Well, Tim, I'm I'm very sorry. Like I said, I was expecting to be with you in person, and we're we may have to reschedule this. I apologize.

That that's fine. It's probably more beneficial that way. Especially if you're planning on being in person, I think that would be highly beneficial as well. May I leave that up to you?

Perfectly fine with me.

Sorry about that, Scott.

No. I it's my fault. I apologize. I didn't I

We look forward to your work with

Jenna or with you to get rescheduled.

Yeah. We look forward to your presentation at our next meeting.

At this time, it would tentatively be October 1.

Okay. Let's out of the country on October 1, but that's to be determined. So we'll we'll have to reschedule. We'll figure that out.

Okay. Thank you, Scott.

Alright. So we're gonna postpone that to our next meeting and start with the next item, twenty four zero zero two two, discussion on neighborhood commission twenty twenty five twenty twenty six action plan. And deputy director, I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Yes. So let me make sure I have the right thing up. So here was my there we go. I can move all the stuff out of the way. You guys can see that okay, Sort of.

So this was attached. This was my current stab at redoing our matrix that we put together based on the comments from last month. And so thank you for those that have provided me with some comments. I feel like I was able to organize this more into goals and objectives and then have some actions in place since whose roles were being there. Obviously, still a draft.

There's opportunities for it to be filled in. I think just in sort of looking at this more and understanding sort of what the desired role or vision was of this commission. It's sort of, in my opinion, vastly changed from kind of what the reason for this commission was originally started for, which is more policy oriented, where this is sort of geared a lot towards the neighborhood commission helping neighborhoods with, like, events and ways to get more people involved into their neighborhood, which wasn't originally the purpose of this commission, but doesn't necessarily mean this commission can't help with that in some way. And so I think the larger discussion was sort of sort of this capture than what we've been talking about the last few meetings. And then is, again, this the direction that this commission would wanna go?

It's it's different than sort of the purpose that's outlined in our code and why this was committed, and maybe that fosters a larger conversation of should this should we start looking at our ordinance and and this commission's purpose to change, or do we look at, I don't know, sort of a larger fostering conversation about what that means? And so to reiterate that part, and I'm trying to figure out how to do this again. You guys can't see that. So I can bring up the code two section that sort of outlines what the purpose of the NRC is. That may help as well if people wanna see what that is.

One sec or another do that. So here is our code, and then you probably can't see that very well. See if I can make this bigger, but somehow actually, I don't really know how to do that either. But anyway. So the purpose, again, is for the NRC is right here.

It's to act as an advisory body of the council in implementing the comp plan. We should probably need to change that because those aren't sections in our code anymore. And any other recognized neighborhood plans, its purpose is to support and provide education as well advised on policy for all city neighborhoods. So the intent was really to be policy oriented and to help implement any of the plans that we have. And then so here's their powers and duties.

And, again, you can see make recommend strategies and fight staff input on, you know, criminal, gang, drug stuff, programs the city has, code enforcement, education materials, graffiti prevention. I guess it does say neighborhood organizing and volunteer recruitment. So I guess it's just, again, part of a larger conversation of the direction of this NRC and the document that we put together with your input. Did we get it right? Is there things we wanna add?

Is that the direction we wanna go? And sort of just sort of nail down the priorities that we want this commission to undertake over the next year or so. If anybody has any comment on that or thoughts.

Any thoughts or comments from commissioners?

A couple things that I thought were good uses of our time over the last couple of years. One, our our former chair would, a lot of times, brings up to us that maybe city council was interested in looking at or addressing and ask for something from us. What do we think of it? Do we wanna make a recommendation? Do we wanna chew on a little bit?

And I always felt like that was a good amount of direction for our our conversations here, and then we'd bring people in who knew what they were talking about. And I found that fruitful. And I also think a lot of conversations we've had have been around people coming from their neighborhood meetings and say, here's what my neighborhood's concerned about. And maybe that falls into these categories already, but I didn't specifically see something here about, like, let's bring stuff from our neighborhoods. Maybe all the neighborhoods are feeling that, and let's talk about if there's ways to address that or ways that it's already being addressed.

Commissioner McDonald.

Yeah. I I I feel like we we mentioned up and it shows up on the screen about our neighborhoods getting together a little more often for maybe a social get together of some kind. And it mentions a block party. Feel like my old neighborhood used to do block parties. Gary Podeski would always have a block party.

And it was just so great to get to know your neighbors. And National Night Out has been so successful in the Washburn neighborhood, and I know there's other neighborhoods that have had very successful National Night Outs. But maybe if we had something in the winter, you know, of with national night out being in August, maybe something in February where we get possibly get bigger membership through it. You know, we we just did the national night out. We we gained a couple of people, and it looks like they're gonna be the type that'll help out for a couple years.

So we all we all need new members.

Any other thoughts or comments? Oh, commissioner Stanton. Thank you.

Thank you. So, you know, the first sentence under the purpose is, to act as an advisory body to the common council in implementing the comprehensive plan, primarily the neighborhoods and housing element, the neighborhood revitalization commission action plan, and any recognized neighborhood association plan. So kind of what we I mean, we did have discussion in the last couple weeks about or the last couple months sessions about the various association plans and whether or not the the neighborhood associations are, like, kind of following their own their own plans that they've they've set up. But I'm also wondering if, like, maybe we should also be reviewing the comprehensive plan or sections of it. I know I've glanced at it before, but it's been a while since I've reviewed it.

So that might be something that we would do, is just to periodically kind of pull that up and see if there's things in there that we should be discussing.

Yes. I I like that. I I I love that because that's, I think, important. And I and I think I have sent that out in the past, the link to this, to sort of look at and foster ideas about things that we should be working on. I know it's a rather daunting plan in some cases, but I would you know, I don't know specifically, you know, without having to go through this.

But there is the probably chapter four would be the biggest one, a place to call home where it talks about housing housing, and then land use, and things of that nature. And probably maybe number six. But I think chapter four would largely be the the largest one to work with to start looking at in terms of what actions actions that are in here. And so there's a lot of good information in here. Also preservation commission, cultural resources as well.

And so I would encourage everybody to look at our comp plan to see if what items in here can help be relevant for the for the Neighborhood Realization Commission. And I'd have to look at it myself to sort of help give some ideas. But

You just gave us homework.

Yeah. That'd be great. Please.

So I've heard something around neighborhood events like block parties, bringing council items to the NRC, and then reviewing the comprehensive plan. Alrighty. Anything else? One thing that I talked to staff about was, you know, possibly having somewhat of a reset and thinking about is there, so to speak, kind of an action item that we can work on as a commission for neighborhoods. Right?

So be it if it's I think I threw out one time some sort of like gosh. I can't think of a name. It is in my head, and it is not coming out. So there was two things. One, I'm gonna say tagline for lack of a better word because that is really not the word that I'm trying to go for.

Campaign. That's what it was. Some sort of neighborhood revitalization campaign that we can kinda talk to neighborhood associations about. And then the other one was this conference of mayor or the mayor's conference that used to exist where the neighborhood revitalization commission could probably help in in bringing that back to bring neighbors back together in community with one another to talk about and promote neighborhood associations and the work that's happening and kinda tell people how to join in addition to if there's issues, right, when we can talk about education, be it if it's if you want a tree in your boulevard or maybe you have a a spot with and you need to know that, like, it's remind folks of the upkeep that they're required to do as a business owner, but also as a neighbor and things of that nature. And even going beyond some of that stuff too, but that's just something that I thought could be beneficial as well.

Commissioner council member Goggin.

Tim has heard this from me several times, but the name of the the meeting that we're having tonight is neighborhood revitalization. And I've been coming to these meetings for a couple years, and I would just like to see us actually dig into how to revitalize a neighborhood and what it means if it's as simple and, you know, you we've looked at things on this table of, you know, the gathering, you know, and and bringing neighbors together because there's a concern in the city about safety. And the best one of the best ways to be safe is to know who your neighbors are and what's going on in your neighborhood. Secondly, people talk about how their neighborhood looks or is maintained. Again, bringing the neighbors together and discussing ways to do that can bring you know, there may be people in your neighborhood that can't do it, but they can other people would help, that type of thing.

But I think we need to focus on how to revitalize something, and what does that mean? And that's where

I would like to see this go.

Commissioner McDonough.

My wife and I walked downtown last week. And just seeing all the weeds and things around buildings was distressing to her. She's like, this used to be such a pretty city, and it just feels like it's gotten a little not quite as nice. I worked downtown for forty years and maybe thirty years ago. Must have been DMI, the downtown Main Street, kinda spruced up the downtown with paint.

You know, we a lot of the bars and restaurants and businesses, is they kind of strongly ask people to improve their because I I worked at, like, 10 of these places, and I know the owners of these places weren't happy about it because they probably had to pay for the the work. But when it was done, it improved the downtown immensely. So all of our neighborhoods probably could use a sprucing up of some kind. And, I'm just not quite sure how to go about it, but, you know, we definitely could, talk about it and see where it goes. But, you know, I'm not you know, I don't wanna I'm not part of the downtown neighborhood association.

We do share a border with them. But it in the downtown, it it's kind of the face of the city. So that's better. That's a good thing. But if all the neighborhoods are spruced up somehow, that that can only be a plus.

With that sprucing up, I mean, of course, I guess I'll go back to, like, the education pieces too. Right? Like, what are the responsibilities of homeowners and business owners and renters and kinda reminding and encouraging them to really take care of their space and also help their neighbors? Yep. Commissioner Stein.

One of the things that I think about and notice a lot is that a lot of the houses but also businesses and parts of downtown and, you know, certain buildings or certain streets that do tend to kind of need the most kinda sprucing up are the ones that are being that either seem to be unoccupied or underutilized, you know, particularly downtown, which you would think would be kind of like, sort of prime real estate, but there's, like, you know, like, certain like, almost entire blocks that are just either vacant or closed businesses or you know? And then those and then the the, you know, whatever houses tend to be around there tend to kind of look kind of in disrepair, and the whole street kinda looks in disrepair, and the weeds are starting to grow up. And so I think a lot about, like, what can for private owners who own those properties, there has to be some kind of either it's not a disincentive enough to to either sell the property or or develop it or reopen a business or try to get a new tenant in, or or there's not, like, enough of a disincentive for just hanging on to a disused or underutilized property.

So I'm kind of I sort of think about that a lot. Like, are there ways to change this the either through taxes or fines or you know, I know that if you have, like, a vacant building, you have to pay some kind of fee annually, and maybe that's not enough to offset whatever, like, tax write off they're getting, by just hanging on to this empty building. But, you know, I kinda think about that a lot as, you know, we shouldn't have vacant businesses and we shouldn't have the need for housing is so much in particular that there shouldn't be vacant houses, like houses that are just sitting that aren't being, you know, rented. And so is are there ways to kind of encourage the owners of those properties to, you know, kind of do something, either sell it or do something, get tenants in there, fix it up, do something. So that's kind of another idea that I I don't know if that's for this commission to investigate, but that's just another idea for I feel like it's an area that could be investigated.

Thank you. Where would you like to go next? No.

I think that that is something because that's more of a policy thing. So to me, I guess, just being part of this commission since it started to me is more policy driven, driven, but also policy driven stuff that, again, comes back to revitalization of neighborhoods as what council member Goggin is trying to do. And so it doesn't mean the other things are important too of trying to get more of the neighborhoods to work together and come together for events and things of that nature. And so I guess I guess maybe the short of it is is when it comes to those events, I think there's very little staff would be assisting with that. We'd be willing to help in any way we can to help with those events with with whatever city resources we have and promotion and things of that nature.

But I think, like, our to be more helpful with stuff would be the policy driven things. And that's where, like, the history of this commission, they helped with, like, the garbage pickup ordinance. We've done ADUs. We've done parking. We've done Airbnbs.

We've done we're working on the lighting ordinance now. I know there's other things I'm not remembering that we helped with policy stuff that I just feel like would be more beneficial for staff to help with this commission and help with revitalization, sort of the primary purpose, whereas the other things were more of a secondary or tertiary help with those things. And so something like that is something we can look into. I have a feeling I know the answer, but it's something that I think we can look more into how that would work. The lighting ordinance is something that it's more something that we can take the lead on.

And so those sorts of things too. I was also hoping to have a larger discussion of what that is. From a policy point of view, what are the things that would help revitalize your neighborhood? Is it code enforcement? You know, we've talked about that a ton. You know, we're hoping maybe we can address some issues through our zoning code update. And so there's a big piece of that coming out soon that I hope all of you can help us look at and review as well towards the end of this month, October. So those are sorts of other things too. I just wanted to have a discussion on is, like, what are those kinds of pieces that we can help with as a commission and as staff.

Question for you.

Mhmm.

Similar to some other commissions and boards, there are certain resolutions or whatever policy pieces that have to go through certain committees. Is this one of this isn't one of those committees where we have to send legislation through this committee as a recommendation. Right? We're just

No. Typically, legislation would come from this body that then would go through the council.

Okay.

So it's just, like, it was we were talking about short term rentals and off street parking and 80 accessory dwelling units and things like that for neighborhoods. This is sort of the committee where those are discussed and worked on. Whereas there's not really, in my opinion, another committee where we'd be taking these state items too to have the discussions that this committee has from a neighborhood point of view. I I just don't see those occurring at planning commission or anything else. They're just not that sort of committee that has those discussions. They're acting legislation in front of them, not developing the pieces of legislation, if that makes sense. And so so that would I don't know if that answers your question there.

But Yeah. It does. We're we're we're creators of legislation, Dashes.

Correct.

Commissioner.

Tim, didn't like, last year, did we talk about what Jessica was talking about, the empty houses that are throughout the city? There you know, there's probably dozens, maybe hundreds that are been empty for twenty, thirty years. And isn't there, like,

a Twenty or thirty years?

Yeah. I mean, I know of a couple for sure. I mean, I I walk a lot. So Mhmm. And I have friends that live next door to houses that have been empty for twenty, thirty years.

Her point Twenty

years, thirty years, really? It's a

long, long, long time. So if her point was, is there any way as a city can we at least find out what the owner's intentions are? You know? If they're probably don't even you know, they don't live in La Crosse probably anymore, but they're not even trying to make them into Airbnbs. They're just sitting there. That's not doing anybody any good other than that they're obviously paying taxes. But

So we do have an ordinance that requires all vacant buildings be registered. If they are going to be vacant, I think, more than six months. I saw chief inspector Reinhart on. If if I don't know if he's still on, but to verify that. But I believe it's more than six months they have to register it. But I don't at the moment, we have no requirements to require that somebody has to do something with it. It can sit vacant. They just have to maintain it and have it on file and pay a yearly fee, I think. So at the moment. But it doesn't mean that we can't look at that for other Do

we have a, like, a a committee or a commission of some kind? Because I thought we talked about that a year ago that has a list of these homes, probably businesses too that are but I guess we never followed up

on that. Aware of that. I don't I think we'd tell you if it was vacant upon request, but I don't think there's a list that's published on the website or anything like that.

Yes, Commissioner Stein.

So I think what I had in mind was maybe if we did want to take up this issue as something that we could kind of investigate and explore is the question of could we increase that fee that they to make it to sort of incentivize them to not keep the property vacant? And I also know that there's, like, a difference between, like, empty and and vacant, although I do not understand what that difference is. So I would I personally would be interested in in, you know, exploring this a little bit more finding some of finding out what some of those nuances are, and then also, like, is is that something that we could increase that fee as a way to nudge people to maybe do something with their properties.

That is certainly one thing. And then then there's other programs too. I was just texted something from somebody who's listening about these programs that are targeted investor neighborhoods that we can look in a little bit more to see how that would fit in and come back in the future with with the report of what we've discovered on what are if other communities are doing something like that, what programs can help with that and because that's essentially that's that's a great idea. If we can do something as a city to help with vacant properties and make it more either incentivized or some way to force force them to be done, especially in a city that's landlocked like ours, ours? Yes. Absolutely.

Council member Goggin.

Kinda dovetailing with that, there's a I'm aware of a property on the North Side that's been on Onalaska Avenue that's been vacant for quite some time. And they keep renewing the building permit, but there's no actual building going on. And the structure is falling into more and more disrepair. And along with that, they just do the minimum amount of mowing. So the property that's next to it, to the south, is like a pristine property.

But because of the property next to them, they're thinking about selling their home. And so when they've contacted me and, again, I understand that the you know, with whatever's in place right now that, you know, the inspector or whoever does as much as they can. But to have a a vacant property and just to keep renewing a building permit, I don't get why that's allowed. So I'm wondering, is is there a limit to how many building permits you can have and not work on anything? Or

Well, I think you have to you can apply for a building permit and pay for your fee. And then if you have you have to show that you've done a certain percentage of work over a certain time period in order to maintain your building permit. If you don't, then you have to reapply for your building permit, pay for another fee. But there's no requirement that says you have to have it completed in so many months or whatever it is. It's just if you don't do any work on it, you gotta reapply again, pay a building permit fee.

Unless there's, like, an order to correct or something like that that's attached to it that has that time frame of when you have to have the work done. And so if they as if there's a order to correct tied to the building permit, then that changes sort of that perspective of the requires to get it done. But not every building permit has that. I mean, one one example of that is the Kmart site. Right? That's been sitting there forever, but there's no requirement that says they have to do anything with it unless, you know, it's tied to maybe funding they get from the city or it's time tied to zoning special zoning conditions or something along those lines. And the at moment, there's none of that on there.

This sounds like we have our first resolution.

Yes. This is helpful. This is something I think we can work we can discuss more and bring back. Yeah. At least from my staff perspective. So

I would be curious from a legal perspective what we can actually enforce because then I wonder if that starts kinda running into, like, that landlord right issue and all that.

Yes. Yes. Obviously, they'll be part of who we reach out to. I can't imagine Ellen hasn't looked into some of that regarding other things she's researched. So

And I noticed so I went back online to look at the vacant property registration. And I guess we don't necessarily have to get in the weeds now, but I'm really interested in this conversation. So the current fee is $500 and incrementally increases thereafter up to a thousand and only 250 per registration. So is that saying, like, we pretty much maxed out you only can pay a thousand dollars for a vacant property and that's it?

I don't know, to be honest enough about that. I will that'll be something we can bring back on how that works. I don't wanna say something incorrect.

The one time David gets off, we need him. I know. I do wonder too from someone that when we were talking about weeds and beautification, essentially, I also then think of other than inspection kinda doing citations, what other things could we encourage both from, like, a neighborhood association standpoint or even a policy standpoint to kinda get people to care a little bit more about those aspects. So commissioner, correct.

Yeah. Couple more things that that came from that. One, just about and that was in our discussion too, keeping things positive. So I have the benefit of working for a firm that has a lot of people that come to La Crosse from other communities, and they're always amazed at how beautiful La Crosse is. So I just wanna throw that out there that it's, you know, easy to to see the stuff that we see when we live here and get negative about it, but we're a lot better off than a lot of communities.

And I'm very proud of that when people do travel here and say that. The other thing too is I put some comments in there as well, but, I don't know, maybe just to say something a little bit uncomfortable. Like, I don't know how effective, you know, having these types of meetings 12 times a year is. You know? So maybe we could look at having because it's not really official business either. Right? Like, nothing has to come through us. So we could look at, you know, maybe, spending some of our time rather than having Robert Rules in the in the council chambers doing more workshop type stuff, more action, less talking.

Okay. I like the more action. Seems like we are at a we said everything we need to say moment. Where would you like us to go from here?

I guess, again, you know, I don't know how much more we wanna keep talking about that matrix and stuff, but if you get a chance to look at it and add more to it or provide suggestions, I'd be grateful just so we can kinda finalize that. What I can do is add to some more of these, like, the lighting stuff and some more policy action goals to it as well. And then I can give you a link to the comp plan to look at as well, which I encourage you to read and look at again and see what it comes to that for neighborhood oriented actions.

There was another good point brought up in in terms of, like, looking into what does it mean or not so much what, but how do you revitalize neighborhoods? And so I'm curious, and I'm gonna gonna throw this at you around, are there communities, speakers, or initiatives that we know of that the city might have looked at already that we can kinda explore when it comes to revitalizing our neighborhoods because we're trying to talk about I mean, we've been talking over the last few months about revitalizing neighborhood associations, increasing attendance, wanting to kinda develop these more vibrant communities, getting people around to know their neighbors, and things of that nature. And I feel like this committee might be doing twofold in terms of work. Right? Like, there's this piece of being able to talk about building up membership in neighborhood associations and that particular type of work while also talking about policy and accountability in some ways.

So

That could be the theme for the next mayor's conference too.

You're right. Let's do it. We need the money.

K. Thank you all for your feedback.

Alright. So before we adjourn, I'm gonna open it up. We've talked about neighborhood updates. And so in neighborhood updates, we usually talk about any concerns that are happening or celebrations that we wanna acknowledge that's going on in our community. So I'll open it up to anyone that have any neighborhood updates.

Councilmember Goggin.

We're very excited on the North Side and the Harry J. Olson area that the Onalaska Avenue has been graded so that and the big all the big machinery has been removed. So it looks like paving is just around the corner. And they've opened up our intersection, so the seniors are very thankful, and they want everyone to know that they're thankful that somebody has opened up that intersection at North Onalaska and North Street for them.

Awesome. Any others? Alright. Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Recording stopped.