Village Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening. I will call to order uh the April 6th meeting of the village board. Aaron, can you call the role? Yes. Trusty Deman here. Trusty Hower here. Trusty Casper here. Trusty Saravean here. Trustee uh Ben Even Hovind here. Trusty Saunders will be absent tonight. And President Buckley

here. Thank you. Moving on to the consent agenda. We have six items on the list today. We have the minutes of the regular meeting March 16th, the investment report from February, the check register from March, a contract award for the 2026 EAB treatment project, and another one for the EAB removal and replacement project. And finally, resolution 3198, the National Public Safety Communications Week Proclamation. Any questions? Or a motion to approve. Move to approve. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Sam. I think uh any further discussion hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to the report of the village officers. Mr. Village. Missing your report tonight. Mr. Other than how mad you are, you're going to miss the NCAA tournament. If we since I'm 36th out of 38 in my pool. Yes. I'm uh miss village manager

predisposed to disappointment. So, tomorrow is obviously a very important day in Whitefish Bay. It's uh the election as well as the referendum will be on that ballot. Um so, our polls will be open at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. Just a reminder that wards 7, 9, and 11 will be voting for the first time at Beayshore Lutheran. Um so far that partnership has worked out really well. Um so, we're um excited and optimistic for what will happen tomorrow. And then um anyone voting in Village Hall will actually be upstairs. We're going to try out the boardroom. Um, just more space, better lighting and all the things. So, we're going to try that out tomorrow, but we have lots of signs up and can direct people obviously if they come in looking to go into the basement. Um, we have 10,23 registered voters as of today and 27% of those have already submitted their absentee ballots.

Do you know how that trends from years past? Um, Aaron had a little bit of I feel like it's relatively similar. I was. Yeah, I we were very busy on Friday. We had 339 voters come in just on Friday alone. Previous to that, the biggest number was 218. And there's one there's a single station for that, right? No, no, there's upstairs. There's three. Oh, you went down. It was downstairs. Yep. Yeah. Friday, we did it in our lobby. We pulled it upstairs into our lobby because um we were only open for voting purposes. Uh so there was no administration. And we weren't doing any other counter services like the utility bills or taxes or anything like that. It was only voting.

And so there were more than one station upstairs. There were four express vote machines throughout the entire time. Nice. And thank you for working on Friday. And you don't use the express votes now on Tuesday. Will you use those? Each polling location has one. We'll still have one. Okay, is that the end? Um, and then also yard waste collection started. So, I've seen a lot of bags out on the curb. Um, so just letting everyone know that that has started. That's it. I do not have a report. Any miscellaneous trustees?

Going once, twice. Moving on to petitions and communications. It's an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address the village board on an issue that is not on the current agenda. Is anyone here to address the village board? Looks like the answer is no. So I will close petitions communications and move on to general business. We have four items on the agenda tonight. The first is discussion on the library strategic plan 26 through 30. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Um, so if you I've as you know who I am here we have Nikki Degair. She is on the library board and then also is a consultant. She helped us with our last strategic plan and then also helped with this one. So next we had a very intensive planning process. We pull in a lot of data. We benchmarked across peer libraries and gathered input from patrons and staff and conducted a SWAT analysis. We reviewed our mission and guiding principles with only minor refinements. Those were first set with our first strategic plan um back in 2006 and that they've held up pretty well over the intervening decade. Um we are a heavily used library as you know across all areas and demand continues to grow. Compu uh community feedback is overwhelmingly positive. All the open-ended feedback 97% of it was positive. So, and what was in there tended to be more constructive than negative. So, people love us and they want us to do more. Our greatest challenge is our success. Staff circulate 60% more materials per person than our peer libraries. We are overused for our staff size and we are understaffed for our level of use. Whichever way you want to look at those the two sides of the coin. Our facility is beautiful and well-loved. I calculated today that our front doors have opened over eight million times in the last 24 years. So four million visits times two. Um so after 24 years of heavy use, there's some updates needed including additional study rooms, improved staff workspaces, and a second floor public restroom. Next slide. Why we matter? We serve um the community well and we are well well loved by the residents. We support everyone within the community of all demographics. We are uh high community impact per dollar and we're a regional asset that generates additional revenue. When the

non-residents come and use our materials, that's where we get that additional money from the library system. So remaining a high functioning library with a great collection and great staff helps feed that. If things were to start, you know, if we trimmed it, then we might end up with a downward spiral. So next slide. the details and feel free to ask questions as I go along. I'm going to do about 20 slides and then there are quite a few others that were the weeds if you're the people who like to look at it but you know I wasn't going to get into that for today. So the planning process is five years. Our last plan was in 2021. It was co led by myself and Nikki. Um we compared to the villages strategic plan friends our foundation mikflas which is the library system. We benchmarked against 30 suburban libraries within the Monarch um bridges and Milwaukee County library systems. That covers Washington, Ozaki um and Shbboen counties. So looking at those were the ones that really are like us and so it gives us a pretty broad group to compare us to. Um assessment of community needs, we did a deep data dive using the census and patron activities looking at actual circulation data, program data. We did a community survey with 803 respondents which was significantly higher than when we did it 5 years ago. We did an assessment of staff needs um which gave us info on benefits staff um survey. We then did an inservice which was the staff day in October where we had more of a discussion of the results that we got and got some good feedback for next steps. We did a SWAT and a landscape analysis and we again validated our Michigan guiding principles. Next slide. Our patrons, 46% of our residents have an active card. The state averages 22%. When we utilized a particular vendor a couple years ago that we've since discontinued with, they let us know that

of whomever they worked with, suburban, rural, city, across the country, we had the highest engagement rate of anyone they worked with in the country. So, uh, you know, we're tweaking excellence here. 90% of the survey respondents visit at least monthly or more. Uh according to the census, we have the highest percentage of res residents under 18 and a growing percentage of residents over 65. So more seniors are aging in place, which can lead to different services that the library offers or programs for those people. Um since 2010, we've had increased racial and ethnic diversity in the community. We've become even more educated, which is saying something. Um, we're one of the most educated communities in Milwaukee County. More homes with technology, fewer adults in that middle working age range, and slight growth within uh minors and seniors. Our library is used by most of our residents and as a community hub. We serve the region. Next slide. We are a community connector. Whitefish Bay averaged 500 people per day in 2025. Uh that's 11 visits per resident annually. The average is six. We are the highest one highest used within the Milwaukee County Federated Library System. We've finally surpassed 2019 circulation a couple years ago. So we have rebounded from the pandemic. How we're being used is slightly different, but that use has come back up. Um 37% of our circulation is from non-residents up from 31% in uh 2024 which was pretty significant increase. That adds to that member reserve fund revenue used to be called reciprocal borrowing. Um programs we hosted over 300 programs with over 12,000 attendees. Um and we have one of the highest amount of hours open within the community surp within the county surpassed only by Greenfield and Tulsa which is

considering something considering how much bigger they are in comparison to the other Northshore libraries. You can see we've got a few extra hours than Shorewood Brown and Northshore have significantly reduced their hours in order to meet their budgets. So part of that probably adds to why we are again it had such a big jump in use by non-residents is they are just open far fewer hours. Browner and Northshore both closed Sundays year round. So within the Northshore if you want to use a library we're going to be the closest for them than going to Shorewood. Yes. Do you think Northshore is going to rebound now that they've got the new library open? No. No.

They don't have any additional operational funds and so as far as I they have come out and their hours are the same. Um, so unless the communities decide to give them more money, which I've heard is not the plan, they aren't able to add those hours back, but they didn't change their collections or I mean interesting. No. And I and I asked her that when I toured. I asked the director who is a friend of mine, Small World, so we're all friends about the collection since it looks it's the same size collection in a much bigger building, so it looks smaller, right? And she said they were not planning to grow grow it. They're using more. They put a lot of open space into the children's department and the teen department for play.

Yeah. And they have nine study rooms, which we'll get to comparing to us later. So, next slide. We are number one for children's material circulation in the county. Um, number four or five in the state off the top of my head. And number two for adults and teens. That trend has held for gosh probably the last decade at least that I've been here. Um Shorewood is number one for adults and teens. They get more of those Milwaukee residents that hit them as an inner suburb. Um but children's is our bread and butter. Digital use is up significantly as you can see from 2019 to 2025. That has some impacts on budget because digital materials are more expensive than print materials. Um, in particular, Hoopla, which is extremely popular, has been dropped by all but four libraries this year. And as far as I know, next year we will be the only one offering it if we continue to offer it. Do it's one of those. It's a pay-per-use. So, the more popular it is, the more expensive it is. And then it just becomes too expensive. So, you keep reducing the amount of tickets everyone gets. We're down to two per patron per month. And when we started it was six. So,

is there any thought to allowing more on a pay basis? That's not allowed by state law. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, we can't. We people could certainly donate, but they can't, you know, and they could just my two I want to do two more. Here's my Yeah. No, by state law, that's not allowed. So, okay. Um, collection budget. We meet the highest state standard, one of the few in Milwaukee County system that meets the highest standard for collections. And that then feeds into the member reserve fund revenue. Next slide.

Can you know what uh quick question just something that you said, you know, you can't charge things because of charge for things because of state law. Um I'm guessing that statewide libraries aren't amazingly funded and and and libraries are generally probably in in search of revenue streams. M is it something that we should be asking for to allow you know subscription services or you know some some new form of revenue um you know what I mean like right it's library funding is not getting better right in the future

I I would say just as a librarian sort of a tenant of the library is freefor-all and so it really kind of goes against that it is in chapter 43 so it would be a matter of rewriting state law to adjust that there were instances like say remember we used to have DVDs that you could rent for a dollar and the way around that within the state law was as long as we had copies available to meet the demand for free maybe it was a really long hold list but we offered them then we could have other ones that weren't paid for with tax dollars those were paid for by friends and then we could charge the money and it became self- sustaining but it was never enough that it helped fund the rest of of the budget. that eliminated though.

Um, after the pandemic, so many people in our community are streaming that our DVDs really didn't rebound and so few hot movies are released on DVD. They go straight to streaming that we can't even get a new Avengers movie. So, what we could offer for that dollar, you know, just wasn't much. So, we we did away with that um and can continue just to buy what we can and offer it for free. You do still add to the DVD library? We do. Yeah. So it's just you know a lot of things people will call and ask for something and we literally can't buy it. So and refresh me Hoopla is videos right? Um are

videos audio books and um print books threearters of the use is for audio books. Oh okay. Yes. Okay. Same with Libby at least for our community. I don't know about other areas, but we saw that change sort of in the last couple of years where it went from being dominated by print to dominated by audiobooks. Oh, and people are using Hoopla over Libby for audio. They use they use both. Okay. Is it that the collection is better at Hoopla? Is that why that's so popular? There's no wait time. That's why it cuts no matter what. Okay. Right. So you could put, you know, for the women in Libby, put a hold and literally, I think it was the women or something had 7,000 holds statewide,

but you could get it on Hoopla right away if if they offered it. They don't offer everything, but if it's in there, then it's right away. So when I do a book club, I'll look it up and see is it here, is it there? And almost anything in Livia that's hot has a huge hold list. And so that's why people prefer the Hoopla. It's just not as financially sustainable. And there is nothing that is equivalent. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.

Uh, next slide. Technology. We're the highest use for computers by patrons and Wi-Fi. This is where you look at per patron. Certainly raw numbers. Other libraries have higher numbers, but when you're looking at per resident given our size is where we end up being the highest. Um, the demand for our computers exceeds tech assistance. Um, as far as staff, we could there are people who would have us sit with them for an hour helping them. The majority of the households in our community have technology. What we're encountering are the people who maybe they have a computer, but they don't know how to use it or they come in and who knows all your passwords because it's just on your phone and now you need to print and you can't do what you need to do because you don't know your password. Um, and we get quite a few non-residents that come in and use our computers since we have a beautiful quiet space and helpful staff. Um, so really I would say when you're on the reference desk, 75% of your time is helping people with the computers and the copier.

I assume that's elderly. Not always. It's also young people. Young people come in and they don't know their passwords. So to get it from where they have it to where we can print it in a way that they need to say sit down on a computer and log into your Gmail, they can't do it. Um so we're constant we use a QR code for printing now. Oh, thank

thanks to you. Um and actually shared that across uh the system and the state and a lot of people have started using that so it makes it much easier but it still just depends on how they have it saved. It's always a lot of troubleshooting for it. So, next up, we are the lowest municipal cost per circulation in MITS for the last several years, meaning we are a great value. Um, we have moderate to average funding, but then extremely high use. Um, the range within Mickless, we are the lowest at 394 per circ on up to Hail's Corners is 794. Milwaukee Public is just a complete different animal, and they're almost $32 per circ. You can see um the lowest uh in the state. We're the third lowest in the state for cost per circ.

Does that mean cost per item that goes out? Sorry. CIRC is in Yeah. So if you look at the total budget and you divide it by the number of items that checked out. So that's staffing and collections. It's all of it. So um 84% of our budget is funded by tax dollars. I looked at us compared to the other Milwaukee County ones and it ranged from about 80 up to 97%. We are the fourth lowest. We're all kind of grouped there in the 80s, but we have a much more diversified um other funding than a lot of the other libraries do. Can we talk about circulation just a bit more? Is that only books? Is it CDs, DVDs? Does it include digital streaming? Streaming

that is all physical items. That's how the state looks at it. They do not consider a Hoopla checkout as circulation. It is electronic content usage. And that is by definition state uh set federally by IMLS. So it's one of those, you know, um again, if we added in the digital, it would it we'd still be one of the lowest because we have one of the highest circulations of digital materials. So um but that is print or physical regardless of if it's a museum pass, a laptop, a book, a movie, or a Tony. Do you have a guess on physical to digital percentage usage

for us? Yeah, I track that monthly. I believe digital is at 45% of our physical right circulation. Yeah, you guys uh lend to Tony's. We do lend Tony's. We started doing that last year. If you're not familiar, if you have a small child, you get a little Yeah, we have a little figurine you put on top and it reads them the story. So, you can get the Lion King and we'll read them the Lion King. So, we check those out. So you can come in and check out the little figurines. Very popular with two and three year old. You don't want to read to your own child. You want to do so much more than just way more entertaining than dad. It takes a village. That's all I can say. Yeah. Okay. Next slide.

We are vastly understaffed for the rate of our use which leads to burnout. Um being the second highest rate of circulation per staff member in Mikflas. I looked at the Mickflas average adjusted for the average theoretically White Fish Bay should have 17 FTEES and we have 11. It's hard to tell the public to use us less. So, um we are on average for Mikas thanks to the reset that you all approved in 2023. Um so it isn't so much at this point wages, it's simply that we are well funded for a community our size. We are not well funded for how much we are used. It's the flip side of that coin of being the lowest cost per circulation. So our staff is putting out 60% more effort than libraries in the neighboring communities. So they are working their tokuses off.

What is your turnover rate like?

Um it's as as we've talked about before particularly within CIRC that tends to be very stable. Those are people who are working part-time. Um, some have expressed particularly when we did the the staff survey frustration with that we rely on part-time unbenefited positions particularly within those departments. Once we get into the reference departments, whether adult or children's, we get more turnover there because it may be someone who's just finished their degree and they didn't go get a master's degree to make 20 bucks an hour, 15 hours a week with no benefits. So as soon as they get some experience and then they can move on, they do. So that's where we really get the churn and we notice the churn is within those part-time positions in adults and children's. Okay. So of the circ people, how many of them would want to be full-time? I don't know if any of them want to be full-time as much as they might like pro-rated benefits or even see it as a matter of respect for what they do and that those positions don't support that if they wanted it. So, it's it's a bit of a conundrum.

So, they want benefits, but they don't want to be full-time. Yeah, that that's that's what I've gathered from some you know. So, if if they were 25 hours, they would qualify for state retirement. they could now that we have the state insurance, they would get the the 50% health insurance. Um, but all of our part-time staff tend to be 10 to 15 hours a week. And how many positions um are there that are the position you were talking about? Somebody who's just out of school would take it and then they're going to move on to something else. How many of those positions do you That is three people in the adult side and two people on the children's side. three three positions that are typically filled filled by people who are looking to move on. Yeah. So essentially six positions.

Uh five total. Five. Yeah. Can can you tell me what what is what does burnout look like? What what is it exactly and how you define it? Um I was trying to think of my questions which were like for the full-time people, are they working overtime 40, 50, 60 hours? Are the part-time people working more hours than they want to? Like what what is it that is a burnout?

What it is leading to in particular is the bulk of programming, collection development, all of that is on the full-timers, which is really the department heads and then one one full-time librarian. They do everything. And the part-timers do a little bit of program development or collection development, a program here or there, but it's it's all on Scott. It's all on Teresa. It's all on Katie. And so as there's turnover like there is right now in the adult section, having to train. So we put off doing this particular project because we don't have the staff time. Um for staff, it also can lead to as say like right now we're critically short staffed in the adult department. I am on desk six times this week. Um, and working six days in a row because I literally can't take a day off. I need to cover the desk. Um, so I'm putting off some of the stuff I need to do. Um, and so the the other part-time staff, we say, "Hey, we need to help cover this." And they're getting a little like they want to work their 10, 15, 18 hours in the circ department, and they don't mind filling in to help. They've been trained as reference assistants, but not five times a week. And so we're having trouble even getting who are trained subs to pick up those extra shifts to help us out. Um so

so ideally yeah and then and then some morale issues around you know feeling like when when they look at other departments that are relying on all full-time staff and we're not or they look at and I've said to them don't what if TOSA posts they just posted a department head that makes more than me. I said, 'Well, we're not going to compare to Tossa. Their director makes more than me, so their shelters are going to make more than our shelters. If you want to make that much, you got to go to TOSA. That's just the realities of it. But they see these things and they they some have a feeling of slight. What What stops you, I guess, from hiring more part-time people or fulltime?

No, no,

more part-time. Um, well, one would be budget. you know, it would still be a matter of increasing the budget. And even then, we get into what is already the cycle of say we hire an additional part-time ch person for the adult department and they're there for a year and then they move on. So, we're constantly training and at 10 15 hours a week, they're they're not taking much off of Scott's plate because Scott's the one who, you know, does all the things because someone who's working 10 or 15 hours, you're not giving them a ton of duties. They're really there to, you know, help the patrons in the moment. But as far as doing more programming or collection development or moving things, moving around the furniture, it's it that's hard to keep doing with multiple part- timerrs at 10 to 15 hours a week.

Okay. Um, just like you you look at you hire seasonal people for the summer, that's not the same thing as having a full-time DPW person who's been with you for 5 to 10 years that knows all the things and can do it. Sure. It's just, you know, when I hear things like you're working a desk, which is, you know, we just hired a new sub and so she will be starting this week and we have a new um part-time person on the adult side that Scott has been training. So, we're like doubly training two people right now. So within a couple weeks, we can hopefully get them doing some shifts on their own. Okay.

The answer might be more people and more money, but I'm curious if you've seen other libraries invest in labor saving devices or strategies to maybe take some of the load off of employees. Um whether that's like another selfch checkout. I don't I I I have not worked the library, so I don't have the answers, but I'm just curious if there are strategies you've seen uh maybe one-time investments that maybe take some of that burden.

We did the um RFID tag conversion several years ago, and that is what's used at the selfch check, but also we have pads at the front desk and the thought or theory had been, well, you can put eight books on at a time and it'll move faster. Then there's bed bugs and so you have to touch every single book. And it hasn't been an issue here, but it is issue at other Milwaukee libraries across the county. So we literally rip flip through the pages of every single book to look for debris or evidence of bugs. So doing that conversion ended up not saving staff time because that new concern about bed bugs trumped speeding things up by not looking at the books. Some of the libraries actually bake in an oven every single book that comes through their doors. So

doesn't take away from right the circulation staff actually it's yeah when we look at oh the two lockers and that neither of those found as much as needed

right so I can because it's a different checkout number I can compare it 70% of the circulation at the selfch check machine which is right outside of children's is children's books so people are coming out of story time with their laundry basket full of books and they're checking things out. 70% of the circulation at what I call staff checkout is adults coming and picking up their holds. Um, and so we could we could get a second one. We've been looking at it. Northshore actually when they did their new building, they have a machine that's identical to ours they're giving us for free. I've got to go to like the Bayside DPW and pick it up. Um, and then we can plug it in. So, we're looking at putting in another one on the adult side. I don't believe it's going to make that much of a difference within CIRC time to uh trim hours or or reallocate them elsewhere.

The lockers actually take that time.

Yeah, the lockers actually take much more staff time to to go through that process. And there are other libraries that are 90% of their circulation is on a selfch check machine. Our patrons come here and their residents come here because we're the nice library because when you walk in we say hello and when you leave we say goodbye. And so going towards potentially having fewer people at the front desk because we had more machines might go against what is our perceived personality and people choosing to come to us because we're the nice library. I'm I'm curious is there um any metrics on you know customer wait times? No,

you're checking out and so No, I will I will say our staff have like a it's a huge like work ethic. If there's two people in line, they start to freak out a little. Um so it's like Walgreens. I see three I see three. Thinking through the automatic checkout like that probably won't save you time because Right. And usually then if I see someone who's standing in line, if they don't have a hold, I'll say, "Hey, let me show you how to come over here and do this." Or you can even check out with your cell phone now. Um, we're one of the few libraries, but not a lot of people have embraced it. How about this question? Um, as a patron walking through the library, how how would they how would they realize that you're understaffed? Like what would what would be the thing that they'd say, "Wow, this library."

They wouldn't. They wouldn't. No, we cover it up and we had, you know, we have operated at 100 10% for so long that it's normal and the patrons wouldn't notice that. So, I think right now as we're more, you know, critically short staffed at the moment, it's taking a little longer to get help at the computers or over at the copier, but not so much that we would receive comments about it because we always step up and fill in the gap. Do do all libraries offer copy printing services?

Yes. and some even more than what we do. Vaccine. Yeah. Okay. Next slide. Staff survey. Real quick. 90% survey participation. Um staff love that we have strong teamwork and pride in serving our community. We're highly engaged and have a collaborative culture. Um as I mentioned, frustration with the reliance on part-time with no benefits. Um, and talking with them about actionable items, looking at improving office space for privacy. If you think of the offices right behind the desk, there's no door. So, if Scott or Katie or Valerie's trying to work on someone, a patron go, "Oh, I need him." Um, because they know he's the one with that's good with something. And so, because there's literally no door to have that privacy. Um, so one of our our construction projects is looking at trying to adjust that. Improving cross department communication, which we do a lot, but between the department heads. So, we're doing more that trickles down to the all staff, informing them of the updates or asking for their input. And just in January, we adjusted the shel and reference assistant wages to align with the suburban average. They had gotten a little lower in comparison to what others were doing. Next slide. Community survey. Um, let me see. A lot of this we've talked about in particular, top desired improvement, shorter wait times for popular titles. That means more copies. um more study rooms, more formats, digital and physical. So, it's not like physical is going away while digital is surging. So, it becomes a matter of trying to pay for both. Um there was a 19% interest in non-English materials, particularly German and Spanish. So, looking at what we can potentially add um particularly in children's story books or conversational fiction.

German. Yeah. We have quite a few international families in the community and and the parents want to read story books. Not expecting German. Yeah. German was coming from the older wellestablished families in the community that were homeowners and Spanish was coming from the younger families and the apartment renters. So we were able to to crunch those numbers. Can you give a little more color on the concept of more study rooms? Like what what How often is there like a waiting list for study room? Who's

all the time, especially after school? Like it's we literally keep a wait list. We track how often someone asks for a study room and if one's not available. Um you almost get into thumb wars sometimes with people, you know, that whether the teens want it or you have the tutors who are wanting it. We developed a tutor pod on the youth side a couple months ago and that's going really well. So they have some more space over there, but it's not the super quiet kind. So what we have looked at is converting those offices behind the desk to study rooms and then that backlog processing area. You know, you put the stickers and the covers on the book. 25 years ago, that was a lot of people doing it. Now someone's back there maybe 10 hours a week and that is long enough we could fit in nine 6x10 cubicles. Northshore just put in 6x6 cubicles in their brand new building for their staff. So, if we can move those offices to the back, we can repurpose those and we would end up with potentially um three to five more study rooms depending on how how big we make them.

Can you talk a little bit more about the tutors? Mhm. Yeah. Because my understanding is and and maybe my perception is wrong, but that we have a significant number of tutors who come in and set up shop and essentially we are their office for the entire There's three of those. There's three of them. There's only three. Okay. Yeah. There's others who are there all the time, but there's three who are there 12 hours a day. You give names. I do, but I'm not going to mention that. No, I just have concerns about, you know, if they are monopolizing our our resources that we have very few of. Mhm. Is there a way to address that? They aren't using the study rooms. They aren't using the study.

No, because you get one hour and if no one else needs it, you get a second hour and for them to have to pack up and move. So, they go to the end of the children's department. They each have their table. They set up all their stuff. Um, you know, there were more issues before we had developed the the tutor pods last year where just after school, if you've been in there, you know, it's it's we let the kids go to seven, not 11. They're there after school, they're blowing off steam, they're playing games. So, if you're there then also trying to study or tutor. It's it's, you know, there's that that pushpull we have between quiet study. We recommend people if they really need quiet study to go on the adult side, even if they're tutoring. Um, so the the tutors who are there, they're there even during the day when people are in school. I don't know who how they're tutoring, but um so but there's about two or three of those. Other ones are more just after school and here and there. Okay. Um but particularly post pandemic the concern about the slide is very big in our community. Um students falling behind do doing online schooling. We offered a couple of different online tutoring options. Never used. Never used. People want to pay for a tutor have them meet with their child in person for an hour to go over their math or their English. So,

but I I guess I'm going back to what my original question is. So, if if we're looking at the use of study rooms by patrons who need study rooms, right, an hour at a time, that's a different story than if we're looking at adding study rooms so that tutors can set up for the day and run their business out of our study rooms. That is true. That's that's Yes. And and so my thought even if we had four or five, maybe we have a couple reservable so you have a job interview, you could actually reserve it. We don't do that now. Um but still stick with that one to two hours because there is the demand for that but not have one person set it up as their home office. Exactly. That that's what I would be concerned about. Right. Yeah. No, that's not the intent for those.

Okay. So you see enough demand if you remove those people the tutors for example you are seeing enough demand of great unwashed that are looking for

right the the high school students wanting to do a group project together where they can be a little noisier. We even had a group where they would meet in the study room for an hour and play D and D together. Um, or there's one guy who sits in there on a laptop and he's learning to play the guitar. I hear it through my office wall every day. So, people use it for different things and we do not limit what you can use it for. We don't tell you what you can check out. So, we don't tell you what you can use the computer for or what you use the study room for. Some people will go in for an hour and look at YouTube videos and play Candy Crush and that is fine. We don't judge what they're using up. Sure. Thanks.

Next, Aaron. Next slide. Chief. Oh, sorry, Dana.

Oh, okay. Um, facilities 24 years later, just, you know, mentioning the significant wear and tear. Um the village in recent CIPs have done the roof fire suppression. Uh boiler I believe is on track for this year and they're wrapping up the solar right now. That went really well. Needed functional updates are additional study rooms, the staff space, a second floor public restroom. We have a o staff only restroom up there and that has risen as a concern in the last year as the women's club uses the second floor more um and they all have to go downstairs and some of them aren't as mobile. So we have started o opening up the staff lunchroom so they can use the bathroom during those times. Valerie also mentioned if they're doing story time up there and you have a mom with three kids under five and one has to go to the bathroom, she's got to load up all three to go down the stairs to go to the bathroom. So making that permanently available um by whether it's taking off the door and putting in an archway, something um I believe would greatly increase accessibility and also push button door openers on the public restrooms downstairs. Seeing someone with a walker or wheelchair trying to hold that door open while they get in or out is is difficult. We still meet ADA standards, but there's more to accessibility than just meeting standards. It's going above and beyond.

The the restroom up there, the staff room, you have to actually go through the break room to get to the Yeah.

Um and then just showing Brown Deere uh renovated a donated building in 21. Northshore has a brand new building. Shorewoods. Uh they had a large donation years ago. It's grown to nine and a half million and they're planning to put a couple million towards renovating their building. Um it was delayed, but I talked with their assistant director recently and he said probably next year they'll start that process. So we will start to kind of be the the un renovated maybe worn looking library. Well, that uh prompts my next question, which is, you know, the the village on our side, you know, went through thousands of hours on a CIP for the village and included a few things for the library. I mean, like a million and a half dollars worth of stuff.

Exactly. But it it it misses the things like study room, staff price, you know, all those items and carpeting and painting and all the things that you need to do. Um, have you ever thought of creating a CIP for the internal workings of the facility?

We've had projects. I talked with Matt recently about how best to go about that. Working with John Edelbeck the previous years, he had a different approach. Um, and for years we've kind of heard or thought we heard that it it wasn't viable within the villages CIP. And it's not if it's over a certain amount of money, it's not something I I can do. You know, if it's a $10,000 paint project, you know, we can get those funds from friends and I can manage it, but once it's over a certain amount, we have to do that full bid process, which I am not experienced in. And so it kind of became, oh, we can't do it. So now with this third strategic plan, the board is pushing me to strive more and lean into how do we make it happen? How do we make those study rooms and the offices in the back happen? Whether that's working with you all to for updated CIP or saying who's a consultant we can hire is it Clark Deetsz to help us do that bid process and what would it be? Friends has over $100,000 in the bank. they can cover that remodel, the core of that remodel project we're looking at. I can't do it.

I I I I and I wouldn't expect you to. I'm kind of looking at Kelsey thinking, right, that that's really a village function in in the you know, we own the building, right? Um, but that I I think my question for you more is to create a schedule over 5 to 10 years of saying, you know, our carpet is going to is 22 years old or whatever it is and it needs to be replaced every 30 years. So in 200, you know, 31, we need to have new carpet. Um, we've had those conversations. They haven't been formalized. let's let's formalize them, you know, let's

and I do want to jump into so staff was very aware when we were developing the CIP that we were taking a massive step in the investment that the village is making in our infrastructure, most notably with the space lines. So, there was very clear intention by staff to have must-have items. Like if you look at our CIP outside of directly what the board provided with the parks buildings, everything is critical um and look at her bone the bones of that building. She's getting a new um boiler system, right? Like those items and so I do want to all that. So that so it was I would say if you challenged Matt to do the same thing, he would he would have a lot of items. he would come forward in a 5year CIP as well as would police. Every department had a lot of items that they would really really really like but didn't rise to that level because we were trying to be so intentional about

how much is going into critical across the village that carpet may it looks like a need or a want versus a need when you're you know trying to keep that total increase for the market basket low. And so as different priorities come up, I understand. Yeah, I'll take solar and a boiler over carpet,

you know, but in but in saying that Nyam, I have been in conversations because there are opportunities on the library side that don't exist in DPW in the sense of the friends group. Um there is awareness that the board does have a desire to support the library and to add some of these services that would be beneficial to the community. And so we're just trying to figure out through the strategic plan, okay, what are the next steps to be able to try to figure out how to bring this how to bring this package forward?

Well, I and I guess my question is mainly if the funding is available from the friends, the library has a plan and has an idea of what they want to do, do we have the ability, and this is a legit question. Do we have the ability to support that the bid process and that process so that additional funds don't have to be spent hiring a consultant for that or are we is our staff stressed you think that that can't happen right now that that is not the priority for DPW just with the amount of

definity in contracts and documents that we're trying to sort through at the moment which NAMA is being incredibly patient our first step is she's figuring out okay what's the priority list of those projects and then we're trying to figure out okay from there is there opportunities to slap those into Matt and his team's time and if not she had mentioned Clark de specifically because we had chatted about it is there a third party or somebody that we could utilize that could create those full bid documents for us that would allow us to move forward cost then Okay. Yep. So we're trying to be we're trying to be creative. Yep. Yeah. And we're we're in conversation about it and I'm understand really appreciated the conversations with Matt and with Kelsey the last couple months.

Yeah, it's just when he we're trying to do lead service lines for the first time, developing materials. I mean, there's just there's a lot right now that we're working through. Um, but definitely understand there's needs over there as well.

Yeah, I I guess from my perspective, I'm I'm interested in those projects. Um, I I get it that there's a filtering um level where we did CIP work and we not everything made the cut. Um, I guess I'm still interested in all the projects whether they're library or police or DPW and and you know that that is one of the functions of the village board is to to be part of that filtering um process. And so if there's, you know, study rooms that need to be created, um, that that's a capital borrow project, especially with conversations that we're going to have even tonight. Um, it it I think it rises to the level of letting the village board know there's projects out there that, you know, we we may like and and move forward with.

Yeah, I see as a next step for the CIP. Obviously, this this first step was a huge undertaking just to get something on the pages. The next step I do see as a full a full list, right? Where you can see and I've seen that progression in other communities I've worked in where then you have the list of okay staff reviewed these but it didn't make the cut and then that way if the board's like oh I would actually like to slot this one up. Um then you can do that. And so I think it's all about kind of that incremental progression that we're going down. Um and there may be opportunities through the spiral, right? We don't know how all those projects will shake out and how that will work out and um so we can have those discussions at that time. Is the level of expertise needed in order to create these bid documents?

I mean this one's tricky because it's it's a building. It's vertical. It's just a little bit different than the typical construction that we do. Um, but because it's the size, I mean, you have to do a full RFP process or not RFP, a full bidding process because it's considered a public works project. And so, you have to give them the exact plan set, tell them exactly when they have to drop off their proposals, how they need to submit their proposals. You have to do a bid opening. Um, Maxine just did one for sidewalks on Friday where everybody sits in the room and you open up the documents together. Okay. Um, so it's it's not that we can't do it, but it's also it's not something you're going to put an intern on. Exactly. Let's just say that that is actually or a library director.

What or yeah or a library director and there may be opportunities later this year. This is peak work period for bidding. Oh, sure. You know, and so we we got to get through this, get all our sidewalk contracts, all our road projects, all those things under contract and then we see, okay, how are we sitting for the rest of the year? Okay,

thanks. Next slide. Just have a few more. um the SWAT I will let you look at that later. It's a lot of small text basically. Again, like I said, we're we're tweaking excellence. So, we have a lot of strengths. There's a lot of opportunities. Um the main threats being the digital transition and that cost. And then as you're looking at levy limits, rising costs versus the ability to increase taxes and what that means for the village and and all departments in the library as a part of that. Um so, next slide. mission didn't change. So, um I like to it's kind of long. I can never remember the whole thing. We connect people. We inspire learning. We provide access. Boom. Boom. Boom. Next slide. Guiding principles have not changed for several years. Um we're a welcoming place. We interconnect. We aim to be flexible and creative. That really helped during the pandemic. We've supported an informed public. We offer an exceptional workplace. And we follow a thoughtful and measurable approach. We're we're never winging it. not on anything that's, you know, important. So, next slide. Strategic plan goals. So, this is getting into our actual goals for this one. And they're very similar to our last one. If you look at other libraries, they're all going to be like give great programs, have a great collection, support your staff, support the community. So, that's that's what we have here. Um, but we have three uh priorities that we're going to go to next. And it's all dovetales back to what we've been talking about. Um, we revisit our various plans. We have a communication plan, tech plan. Um, we're currently updating all of our policies and procedures on a rotating basis. We have a collection plan. And so, every year we have those on a cycle for review so that we have a strong foundation of what we're doing as we then do the additional things. Next slide. So, priority is a is to increase FTEES to support high usage. Um, and I show which

of our goals it relates back to in particular with the turnover we've had this year of Katie Kik for leaving Valerie Morris moved up and then we replaced Valerie's position. The savings from those couple of positions going from someone very experienced to someone newer. Um, gets us really close to converting one of the part-time adult services staff members to full-time. Um, now with Teresa retiring and we're looking at filling her position, you know, that may be more. So my my hope is at the end of the year as we go through the budget process, we can say, let's make this happen for 2027 and we got it covered. In the long run, we'd like to also look at converting a part-time circulation services person so that each department has a department head, a full-time person, and then multiple part-time people. So there's a little more depth and breadth to the leadership team and who's there to cover things if someone ends off on either an FMLA or taking a trip around the world. Next number two, develop and implement a facilities plan. Um pre-esign study by an architect. We could fund it by fund 13 fund balance. I off the top of my head I think we have about 60,000 in there that is uncommitted. Some of it is committed to other projects based on donations. um do a request for proposal to three or four firms, consultation with village staff, um library board to approve requests to the village board for large projects. Um so we would come to you and say here's our list and if you say yeah then let's go through this process because of the size of it doing a full RFP you all would pick the final person is my understanding of how it would go. Um and then smaller projects such as let's paint these rooms. We have 20 or 30,000 here to do something from um a donation that we can manage those

in-house like we have for years. So next priority C develop a financial plan taking into consideration potential levy limits the member reserve fund. Friends of the Whitefish Bay public library contribution they give us about 40 to 70,000 a year. They made 70,000 last year. Increasing foundation will be about 6,000 a year. Um they're looking at doing a community breed this year with that money. And then the women's club has with the sale of their building, they created a fund at GMF and they have about a dozen charities that they split it between. So we're one of those dozen and they are giving us about 4,000 a year. So, right now we're digitizing their scrapbooks for the local history collection, but then after that, that'll be something we can use within the operating budget for special programs and projects. So, next

well, hold on. Um, yep. Question. Here's the question. um basically about the foundation. Mhm. And and has there been any more development on um you getting some big fish, getting some bigger donations, sending out a a mailing. I mean, I think I saw

doing the mailings. So, yeah. So, last year the the GMF fund is now at almost 250 and there's another 20 or 30 in the bank account. So, um, what we found was going after big fish didn't particularly pay off. And so, for the people in the skill level that are on the foundation board, they're very much leaning into doing coming up a spring campaign in a couple weeks and then the fall campaign um to generate upwards of 50,000 a year to keep building that. Yep. And so, that that campaign, how does it manifest itself? Is it? Um,

so this time they're going to be doing postcards to all the houses. Last year they had high school students hang the knockers. That was a little bit mixed result. Um, and it's it's it's a big village still if you're hanging one on every door. So, they're going to do postcards, multiple things online, a lot of QR codes so they can kind of track which method gets more traction. Yard signs in the fall. Then we do the, you know, giving uh Tuesday is it after Thanksgiving um through the end of the year and the light the library campaign. And again with that one it's a lot online and in the email newsletters. Great. Sounds great.

Any na can you just maybe help the board understand too how the reciprocal borrowing works longer term? So how far out you know what that's going to look like for your budget? I mean I know from being on the library board, but I think it's helpful. you find out a year and a half ahead of time. So, it's based on circulation or use of your collection by non-residents whether or not they come in the building. If the book is sent to TOSA and checked out at TOSSA by a by a TOSA person, then it counts and vice versa. So, um and it's October 1st through September 30th. So, in October, they let us know for a year and a quarter out. So, right now, we know the 2027 amount and that's it's we have been going up exponentially. the le since the pandemic. We are using a new um database uh vendor that allows us to analyze the collection more and strategically grow it. In particular, we're moving I don't know if any of you have seen we move the adult music CDs over. We're going to move the DVDs over to grow the children's because that's like I said the bread and butter and that will increase even more. Whereas adult non-fiction doesn't go out quite as much. So we can utilize that um software program to help us learn where to tweak things and grow it a lot more gishams a lot more whatever is popular and then that gets put on hold by people and it goes out and fills the holds and that's four bucks four bucks four bucks for so a book might be $20 after five circs we're making money.

Does the tink the tick and tinker um work with that too? We do we won't send that in the in delivery because they might get broken, but a lot of people do come to us if they're looking for the uh projector or the museum pass. They come to us and yes, that counts. And then that does count because we have probably one of the bigger collections. We do. We do. And ours is known staff put in a lot of time like when those come in, they count all the pieces and make sure they're all there. whereas they go other places and they take it home and it's missing pieces and they can't play the game. So, we're known for being one of the the better ones for that. Really good diagonal covers that rubber bands.

Yes. Yes. All right. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Great report. All right. Uh we will move on to number two. discussion action on a new parallel storm sewer on Bowmont Avenue between Console and Lake Matthew.

All right. So, uh this has been months in the works for this agenda item. Uh we've talked a lot as the village board and village staff about the August of 2025 storms and it really was a reflection period throughout all 25 going into 2026 just about the need for continuous improvement throughout the entire village with storm as well as sanitary improvements. So, what really kickstarted uh this specific uh agenda item is there was a lot of uh local members of the community that are part of what's considered Lacassa. It's a condominium at 450 East Bowmont as well as a complex at 330 East Bow Mount that had expressed during public comments about continuous uh flooding of their parking structure below ground during these peak storm water events. And after we had time to meet them on site, we did see the validity of some of these current concerns and felt that it was prudent for us as far as village staff to work alongside consultants to really see if there was a feasible root cause of what is causing uh especially during these peak storm events uh their parking structure to flood. The one in 2025 had two feet. On the western parking structure that filled up with water on the eastern side, it was four feet. So, it was definitely a major challenge for our residents and we wanted to make sure we listened and were adaptive to if there was anything on the public infrastructure side that made sense that we want to work with all residents on that. So, uh, since about October of 2025 to currently, we worked with a Sigma, who was our consultant that helped out with, uh, this, uh, process, the program, to see if there was any root cause that we could tie to. And basically, long story short, no, there

was not one direct root cause of what we think happened to Lacassa with that flooding, but it did point us in multiple different directions as far as things that were could be improved both on the public infrastructure side as well as private on the LCASA side as as a private property owner. So working through the the needs analysis and that included uh surveys, historical storm water management reports, topography surveys, we interviewed residents both with Lacassa as well as other residents on Bowmont. Uh we had our DPW crews do CCTV televising of storm and sanitary utilities. We did site visits uh QAQC by the village engineer. So this was a very comprehensive robust investigation and the reason why we wanted to do this what what I would explain kind of the cart before the horse with this instance versus what we're trying to do holistically with our storm and sanitary sewer survey and study for the whole entire village is that this is close in proximity to the development of the public infrastructure improvements with SUNIX. So, we did not want to miss an opportunity where ripping apart a road twice, right? That this seemed like it was warranted to do this analysis. So, we didn't have to come back to the village board in a year or two when we were done with our our comprehensive study and say, "Hey, brand new infrastructure, brand new road, let's dig it up twice." So I really felt it prudent in this instance to expedite this in uh this uh concern by our residents because it I just wanted to make sure that we did our thorough analysis that we didn't miss an opportunity because the cost to go back and rip something apart again it it's then you just lose that opportunity. So there's there's an advantage of doing the study now because of the construction the you know millions of

dollars we're spending on infrastructure just made sense to do so. So with that with the evaluation again it didn't tie to one individual thing but there were some points that we discovered and that was that the storm storm sewer searchcharge did uh have some localized surface flooding. uh the depressed garage elevations are relative to the roadway, which means that some of the storm uh water is more susceptible to going into that parking garage based on their driveway approach and apron. And same thing with back pitch driveway and sidewalk areas that lead to more uh susceptibility of storm water entering their parking structure. as well as on the inside when we did our walkthrough with the Lacassa residents, interior plumbing configuration showed that they don't have backflow prevention. So, this goes on to show that there's multiple causes of why um the parking structure had two plus feet of water on both of those structures. So with that, uh we actually just met with Lacassa residents um this afternoon to kind of go over um the evaluation process and because there was um I'd say responsibility on both ends with something like this. So that was a very healthy conversation that showed that the village has a part uh to participate with increasing uh storm water uh management on our side in order to protect against these uh peak storm uh surges. There's no absolutes when you're talking about a thousand-year storm or even a 100red-year storm. So, it's just reducing risk wherever possible within these areas, but also talking about recommendations and next steps when it comes to Wicassa residents, how they can protect against themselves. So tying into um where we stand today, one thing

going back to the public improvements in the Sendix development is that uh based on uh previous historic records and studies uh Bulmont uh basically has can searchcharge with a 2-year storm event within their storm water utility and that's prior to development. So that was a storm water analysis that was done with our parking structure that showed that um there is a susceptibility to storm water peak flows uh during heavy rain events. So based on these archives of storm water analysis that was done with the previous development uh the topography that we overlaid with that study there is what you can almost imagine like a bowl where storm water if it doesn't collect and actually uh go down our storm water like um manholes and our drains it will pond on the intersection of council and Bowmont and that's why you saw a differential of more flooding on that eastern Lacassa structure versus the western one is it was a combination of storm and sanitary that we believe was um the culprit um for that last flooding event. So with that uh with the SendX development happening right around the corner, we engaged with not only the Sigma engineers but also um Clark Deetsz since they're the designers of the of the Sendex Public Improvement Area and found based on the bids we received and we have those unit costs that we are able to add an additional uh storm sewer pipe a main on Bumont from council to Lake drive at a cost of approximately $100,000 and that would be within the construction site, construction zone within the TID one uh area for this

development. So again, it makes sense based on our findings that this is the opportune time to make recommendations to enhance the storm water area that will help drain especially that intersection of council and Bowmont. So we have um so we can manage uh those peak storm water flows. So with that, there are available funds within TID that were not utilized. There's $200,000 that were originally earmarked for traffic synchronization. So there there are funds that were untapped and unallocated that can go be leveraged towards the storm sewer uh improvements along the section. Um, if that's not the desire by the board, there is uh the 2026 2027 CIP with approximately $300,000 in unallocated funds. It wouldn't be my suggestion or recommendation to tap into that because there's a lot of unknowns based on what Clark Deetsz is doing with the holistic study of the storm water management plan that there might be other opportunities to leverage those funds for the village with other uh projects in the near future. So, uh, in front of the board this evening is not only the recommendation and the memo, but, uh, a comprehensive packet of information if you really wanted to do a deep dive at what it took in order to really figure out, um, where we stand today with the root cause. So, it didn't happen overnight. It's not a recommendation we felt comfortable when we presented the Sendix development project because these things you have to follow that that trail of breadcrumbs to make a recommendation that we feel comfortable would be would be a recommendation in front of us. And one final thing with that is that Clark deets they're they would be designing right now basically for this. We want to do the math. We want to make sure that the data proves out that the storm sewer will indeed reflect what we think it will. So there

will be the storm water analysis, the data, um the hydraulic modeling to see the effectiveness of putting in that additional main. So the recommendation is to move forward. We're already working with Clark Deetsz on the design, but one of the caveats is that they have to do the analytics to go along with the recommendations. That was part I was partly going to ask sorry jump in. Uh three questions come to mind. So if they if they analyze it and it does look like it's going to make a big difference, are we going back to the drawing board on this or is there a secondary plan?

I we would have to look we would come back with a different recommendation. Uh I don't think that we would if it showed minimal improvements. I would not make that recommendation to move forward. Second thing is it and I know that we've got four potential reasons why this this and this. Is anyone hazarding a guess as to percentage that each of those things contributed to the issue? Yeah, it's very interesting because there's one neighbor in between both LCASA uh condominiums that the one because I was wondering why there was one neighbor.

There's one neighbor. He's like smack dab right in the middle. And maybe it was like a caretaker house at one point. I don't really know why that was like a thing back in the day, but I actually called that individual and he was out of town, but I was like, "Hey, did your basement flood?" And he was able to give very detailed information from that August storm cuz when he came back, he says that he had zero flooding or surge of sewer in his basement. just stuffed on like the corner of one part of his basement that typically floods, but he knows for certain that it's more storm water related because of a drain tile issue. So based on that data point in the survey that we did, there's about a 2T differential of basement floor uh depths or heights and that 2 feet probably is the first two feet where it was a sanitary search search charge for Lacassa because just the hydraulic pressure of the sanitary coming up through a parking structure that's a little bit lower or deeper in the ground versus a private residential basement. So we believe that that was part of what uh affected Lacassa to begin with is the uh the sanitary searchcharge coming through their parking structure because a parking structure is tied to the sanitary just like your floor drains in your house. The add additional 2 feet we really couldn't figure out the 4T versus the 2T of Lacassa why it wasn't balancing because typically when you have that happen it's even across especially a parking structure if they're the same depths. Why are we having that variance? So that's where we really were scratching our heads at that. But if you look within the report, the topography of that area shows that everything basically comes from council south and Bowmont comes in both directions to go in the intersection of council and Bowmont is like that's like a low spot within the village because you have throughout all the village

these low spots these bulls per se where it tends to collect more storm water and the Sendex development is putting in uh additional storm stom sewer grates and catch basins in order to have that drained and improved upon. But with that, since that didn't happen yet, we believe that because of the velocity of storm water that happened, there was sheath flow that went and bas basically went to the back pitch of the sidewalk, it was pretty flat between the actual grade of the intersection to where the parking structure is in Bulmont. that that storm surge added an additional two feet of water. So that's where it's like one of those things that it's s part sanitary I believe part storm in this area.

So So this is not going to address the sanitary issue. So is the So my third question I guess is is there a commitment on the LCASa side to manage the private side issues? So the backflow protector, the eliminating of you know the gooseeneck or whatever else is in here. So have they committed to doing that as well? because I I don't want to have this back because we've done this but they nothing's happened on the private side.

So, we do have a member of the Wacasa board here this evening. So, I would hate to speak on behalf of the board, but uh they did seem very receptive and they were all taking notes as far as a shared responsibility. So, I don't know if there's additional comments that you would like. No. And I and I wouldn't ask you to commit to that right now. I just was mainly looking for a you know we generally we accept that this is a shared you know thing and this is we're not expecting the village to be able to fix it with this one because I think it doesn't necessarily address all of the pieces that you discovered. Okay.

Yeah. Absolutely. And that was very clearly spoken about on my behalf as well as Chris Carr with Sigma. Um that this isn't going to be like that silver bullet effect of how to manage your parking structure issues that it's multiaceted. It's not only storm, it is sanitary. And by making those corrections, especially with the parking structure and how it's back pitched to allow more storm water in there, that adds to our sanitary sewer system. Right. So we want to work alongside all residents to reduce the amount of inflow and infiltration wherever possible and having that dialogue and that relationship with LCASa that could be a large volume of INI entering the sanitary side that we want to work with them to make sure that we remove that because that might truly affect other U residents downstream on the sanitary side.

Yep. Agreed. Okay. And then the sidewalk. We haven't talked a lot about the sidewalk but that's a part of this as well. redo the side where it's pitched backwards.

Yeah, there it's twofold with the sidewalk. Our recommendation on the private side is the western um parking structure would be the responsibility would cost because they have to raise up their driveway apron because right now it's flat. So that would be their responsibility just like any typical homeowner would have to pay for their driveway apron in order to increase that elevation. and anything that they would have to match with the sidewalk slabs would be that responsibility on the eastern side. That one may be part of a sidewalk program because that's public sidewalk that if that is back pitched where some of that sheet flow is going onto private property as we've seen with the contours that might be part of a sidewalk program. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, you bet. Matt, uh, first, the Milwaukee County GIS contours map is great. Uh, it's very illuminating. I feel like you could look at it and almost just immediately pinpoint where the problem areas are. Which leads me to my next question. Are we utilizing this tool throughout our entire village to try to locate those those dead spots and those bowls? Yes. And that's part of the Clark deets that uh storm and sanitary report that we'll be working on within the next month or two. So using the topographic maps, that's where we're going to be doing heat maps in order to see where those low points low spots are that are more susceptible especially for where we really have those bowls that don't um collect and and manage the storm water effectively as we'd like to see. And the other question I had, I know you'd mentioned um that this particular intersection was overwhelmed uh with a type 2 24-hour two-year storm. Um that seems like a low number of years. I'm curious if the Clark Deetsz report is also going to do this analysis on throughout the entire village and if we have some idea of what an acceptable threshold is like. What kind of storm should all of our infrastructure be able to hit? That's exactly what that study is going to take into effect because throughout the years uh the private development side village ordinance has been improved over the last 10 plus years to reflect that any private developer delight for instance needs to manage their storm water runoff and we we increased the amount of responsibility that we push onto private development to manage that. So SNX for instance has three large underground storage tanks in order to manage their impervious surface area both with their building and their parking lots. So that's one point is like how you manage

it on the private side by doing storm water management analysis. But on the public infrastructure side you're exactly right. What is the level of service that we want to get to with the village and who is under that level of service and that's who we should be earmarking very holistically. So, we're letting the data lead to where our project area recommendations will be, and that will be found out and reported to the public works committee, I believe, this summer. Awesome. Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Mustafa said the last time this analysis was done, they did manage to a certain year storm. They did, but I don't want to misspe what that

there was a target and that's how the projects were prioritized. And so, we'll be kind of stepping back and looking at that target and if that's still suitable and which areas might still be under that. Correct. Is is there any data to where you're connecting the additional pipe onto Lake Drive that that that that additional that that that connection can support double the capacity that we're dumping into it? Yeah, that'll be part of it for sure. We want to make sure that we're not pushing this problem literally east where it cannot handle that. Um, correct. But we do have a larger diameter size storm water because we're pretty close once you go that far east on like let's say Bulmont and uh Lake Drive.

If you just go a little bit on the Silver Spring side, that's where our storm water outfall is at uh Silver Spring Park. So you're about five, six blocks away. So as you get closer to that outfall, your diameter goes from like a 24, 36, 48 to a 60 in. So, we're pretty close to making that where it ties into a larger diameter par on uh pipe on Lake Drive before it exits out for the outfall on at Silver Spring Park. And then we just bought some monitoring devices recently. Correct. Is it? Yes. For sanitary though. Only for sanitary. Correct. I didn't know that.

Because mainly I'd say it's generally with basement backups, it's not a storm as much as it's a sanitary searchcharge. So that's what we really want to monitor is on the sanitary side. Got it. And then al last question is on a toppo map it does it shows that the lowest point is directly across from their driveway and has there been discussions about potentially sloping that to like the intersection for example to take some of that pressure off that area or has that not been sloping the driveway or

the the street. It looks like the low point is literally right right in front of their their access to their driveway. We're adding the the catch basins right over in that section. So, that was part of the Sundix improvement is adding basically additional drainage. Where do those catch basins go, though? Uh, that's going to be connected to that Bowmont storm drain and then going out towards Lake Drive. So, it all goes east. Would would it potentially help to move it to the east if you're already tearing it up and you're already putting it in to move it off like give yourself some reprieve from the the entrance to their their downs slope traffic. You know what I'm saying? Like to move it to the intersection basically you're moving it over if you're doing the work anyways.

Yeah. So part of that is like we're shifting over those catch basins to be more on the I would say the western side of Bowmont Council. That's true. close closer to their driveway, but they're not on the western block of Bowmont in front of their in front of Lacassa, right? They're on the they're on the eastern side near lake, those catch basins. There's going to be new ones added as far as the Sendex development. So that the four corners of Bowmont and council will have additional

fourers. I'm just talking about physically to the west of um well to the to the east of Santa Monica, you know. Yeah, we'll we'll definitely look into engineers will figure this out. I just saying just idea I can never Yeah, man. I know. Oh, go ahead. Good. Are we still talking public improvements or can we talk money about like the funding source for this? I I want to talk about the funding source. Is there any other specifics though on the the actual improvements or

I just assume once we get the Clark deed study back that this will be additional information taken to account when we're when we're choosing our lead lateral roads and we're I know there's a lot of factors but like you said we don't want to tear up roads more than we need to. Yes. 100%.

Okay. So, I I'll just start by saying I'm I'm supportive of of moving forward with this. I think it's a good project. It's a good thing to look at. Um I would actually prefer we fund it out of the storm uh fund myself. I would prefer that the TID funds stay in the district to improve the district and this feels like a storm water project to me. Um and we have the room in that fund. So, that would be my recommendation personally, but I'm curious what others think. So the so this is TID one funds because it's the borrow and so we can't allocate any additional funds from that because from TID one.

Yeah. So you if it was TID 3 I would be with you. Um but TID one essentially all those will roll over to CDA funds but our use is very limited for those CDA funds. It's essentially just grants. It's not infrastructure projects and a lot of things that I think you're imagining. No, I understand that changes my opinion a little, but I I still wonder just conceptually it makes more sense for me that this comes out of the stormwater fund. This feels like a stormwater project. Um, we made that fund solvent with with rates. Um, but yes, I I get your point. It's it's a more limited use. I was thinking Tit 3,

right? You know,

no, I get it. The reality is is the CDA has allocated lots of thousands of dollars, millions from the TIFF funds. Um, it has been relatively rare that we've used it for infrastructure. It's usually used for grants and trying to bring in businesses. So, I'm not I I I understand what you mean, but there's something to be said to have some having in this case $100,000 more funding for the CDA to utilize in the future. Um I I I had the Sam and I talked about this a little bit today and I tend to agree that it probably should come out of the storm. And and the other thing is, by the way, shouldn't this need to go to the CDA for a vote on whether or not we can use TIFF funds for an for anything? You know, the village I get that anything over $50,000 goes to the village board anyhow, but I think we skipped a step by not having the CDA vote on um this as a funding source.

Yeah. So my my thought around that is the borrow was included in the developers agreement with Sundex and an allowable use of those borrowed dollars per that development agreement was infrastructure specifically storm water was called out. So I mean you're you're right you could take it. I I think that the SEX project is is moving at a clip that we would we would need to be scheduling those meetings really quickly. They're signing contracts. We're trying to get this designed. All those things. But if if you wanted it to go through that those steps, it certainly could. Uh we were just looking at how to optimize dollars and limit impact to rateayers and

Yeah. Well, and I would target that. I mean, I think that the Sundex project is going to make this situation worse. I mean, and so in that way, you could justify having it come out of the TED because it's that that pro we've got a problem that's a problem already, but developing further and adding more water.

I mean, I'd say local projects always impact the sewers. Right. Right. Um I I I tend to think of TID funds are, you know, it's it's for the development of the district, you know, and and and and I always use that concept of the economic impact, not particularly the infrastructure impact. Um mainly because that's that's what the CDA has been up to over these last three, four years is granting, you know, funds to businesses to get economic activity. Um so yeah. Yeah. But if our infrastructure is not up to snuff. Yeah. I mean the that but right now it's only impacting residents and not you know commercial district commercial district

potentially. But I mean we have a known problem that may get worse. You know it seems like it behooves us to I mean in the end it's you have a mythical $100,000. Do you and it and it is in the TID. Do you want to use it for district purposes which are typically economic or do you want to you know put it on the storm sewer

storm utility? I think we've got enough other things that we would want to use storm. I mean, we've got so much storm, you know, spending that we could do. If there is something that we could justify using it, you know, using TID money for, it would make sense to me because that doesn't that means that we're not holding You're not wrong. That's the storm utility is, you know, magnitudes higher. Um but that also means that the TID is magnitude smaller and and you know the future of it and what we can do for economic economic activity is limited by a smaller amount. Anyways, what did you

that was actually how I thought about this is $100,000 to the uses of the TID is more impactful than to the storm given the scale of that and the length of that. Um, so I tend to like the idea of keeping TID funds for economic development, but I understand I I weighed both of these and that's where I came to. When does TID one have to be used up by?

So let So what's going to happen? It's going to happen. So all of the decisions on how those funds are to be allocated have already been made. That was that October deadline. However, essentially all there's a there's a a ceiling, but essentially all of the funds that remain will roll over to the CDA in the form of an MRO, which is a basically the funds will move over to the CDA. And so that's where I wanted to look up so everybody's on the same page. Those rollover funds can be used in accordance with the CDA agreement, which specifically says they may use be used only for business development incentives, grants, andor loan fund programs. Um the funds are intended to encourage the upgrading and renewal of existing buildings and the construction of new buildings within TID one. Um they may be made via grants, development incentives or lowinterest loans to qualifying businesses including but not limited.

Had we included the word infrastructure, would we have been covered? No, I spent a lot of time talking to them about that because it had to this agreement had to align with the project plan for TID one in order for all of this to work out. And so this was really the only thing we could create this agreement and Chris was involved in those conversations as well. Y

but you you are correct. I mean that you you guys are weighing the right questions here. You this almost always I'd be saying you should use utility funds to pay for utility projects. This will probably be the only time in my career that I perhaps recommend otherwise. Although the other option is perfectly that this is a perfectly acceptable option. this is just so unique in that the TID one funds are so limited um and you know so it is truly a balance of the grant program which is a great use um if that's what the board wants to do or using the storm water funds and either is perfect because we can borrow for the storm water funds with this next debt issuance

and we used to have a a decent amount of grant funds that we could use and now we kind of don't because we've spent all that So, I I look at this as, you know, $100,000 that we could use for economic activity that we would have zero if we didn't. So, I'm I'm on team Storm. Um, anybody the cool team name, but I don't know, but yeah, that's pretty cool. Uh, anybody have some other thoughts, I guess, on whether it should be TIFF or Storm. If we do go team Storm, you'll at least delay any I mean, nope.

Um, because we're doing the debt issuance. So at the next village board meeting there will be that resolution that authorization resolution. So what we'll do is just decrease the TID borrow by 200 well by 200,000 or 100,000 I guess is the cost and then increase this the storm water by 100,000 and those will roll into the rates. I tend to feel like with the new Tendix development and some of the other things that are coming down the pipeline, having some dry powder for economic development might be a good strategy. So I'm on team storm. All right. So to to clarify, would that be increasing from our CIP an additional 100,000? Okay.

Yep. So we'll increase the storm borrow. We do have storm we are borrowing for storm funds, Jamie, right? Do you remember? Okay.

Storm funds. Okay. Is that everybody think it's reasonable to switch it from tiff funds to storm? Okay. Uh any further questions? Any members of the public? In that case, I think it looks like we need motion number one, although it will be different from what is printed on your packet because it says allocated function TID one. So, would anybody like to make that motion number two? I move that the village board approve the design and construction of a new storm sewer main as part of the Sendix redevelopment public improvements leveraging unallocated funds from the storm water utility

borrow borrow that effect

second thank you any further discussions hearing none all those in favor say I

any opposed motion carries. Thank you. Okie dokie. Uh we will now move on to item number three. Discussion on new Silver Spring entrance signs to be paid for by private development projects. Uh so there are two gateway signs on Silver Spring. One is in front of Sundix on the corner of Silver Spring and Lake. Um the other is in front of the apartment complex at Lidell and Silver Spring. Uh so both of those gateway signs are set to be replaced by developers. So the village would not be paying for these replacements. Um the Sendix as part of that developers agreement and then the sign at Lidell and Silver Spring is the result of a conditional use agreement um as part of that project. So both of those developers have asked for feedback from the village about what we would like those signs to look like. Um I'm not expecting you all to design them. Uh but it would be helpful to me to hear if you have thoughts and ideas that I can share with them. And then the idea is they can kind of sketch up an option or provide some feedback and then I can bring that back um for additional review and discussion. So just looking for general feedback and then also if you want this to go to CDA or bid I'm happy to facilitate that as well.

We want match. That's another question I have on here. Do you want to match? That's a good idea. Okay match. Yeah. Okay. Matching. Perfect. Any of the other feedback? I had questions about whether or not we want to stay with the red brick. Obviously, some of the new developments have utilized that. Is that too much red brick? Do we want to go a different route? Can we pull design ideas and send them to you? Yeah. Can we pull design ideas from like other communities and just send you some images? Um, pull some examples. Yeah. But can I send you some? Would that be

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. said lighting's important. I feel like right now the lighting we have is maybe a little inadequate. If you're driving at night, you almost don't really notice like when you leave Glendale when you enter White Fish Bay. Yeah. Firstly, that should have an electric outlet somewhere. And secondly, it is interesting. I' I've seen just you'll have like a strip of uh you know LEDs above that are softly glowing so the whole sign is kind of down lit. I think I don't know again like we're not going to design this here but I think you should ideas and see some concept but definitely have an electric outlet there. Um

and the red brick one that you're making especially near Sundex just kind of blend in. Yeah, it' be like a camoufl like the sign we have now was almost camouflage like you wouldn't even see it. Okay, which is bad. Well, not if you're trying to hunt. Um, um, the other thing I would like to see possibly is the the actual text. Um, village of White Fish Bay. I'd like that to be a little more elevated. I feel like where it is now, it prevents a lot of plantings because if you get any shrubbery or any sort of like growth, um, you just you don't see it. So something that would allow some sort of like natural planting in front of it might be pleasant.

Okay. Make it higher words. Um any preference between the two logos? So like the fish or the seal? There's a seal. Fish. The fish. Oh, the seal. Oh god. The fish. Oh, not the singer. Goodness. If it was the singer, I'd be kiss from the rose like fish. Fish fish. Okay. Is there fish people? Fish. Yeah. Seal. I don't know where that What is that house? Is that the old school house? The old school. Yeah. That's what it's supposed to be. Should know before I commit to that. A lot of lot of words. The seal is okay.

So, the fish look Everybody knows what the fish is. It's perfect. Seal is a white fish. But we don't have those anymore. Very true. coming back. And I'm gonna try to in Green Bay encourage them to figure out a way to more securely hang up the banners. So, we'll turn it so it looks a little bit better as a installation or It's I mean, it's funny you say that because the banners always kind of look a little tacky, but Yeah. Okay. Or do you want to do you want to do banners in different locations? I was just thinking if they're going to be there, let's try to make it look nicer. We should have good mounting points and Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And then do you want that this to come back to the village board? Do you want to run it through different groups? So you you have here you thoughts of having it at the CDA or bid. Um the CDA like do you think we need Ray Krueger weighing in on what that sign should look like? I think they'll lean to the bid actually. Yeah. Just come back. I mean, it's it's all aesthetics at this point. You know, I think functionally I'm happy with listening to anybody who wants to suggest, you know, banner holes or lighting or whatever, but the aesthetics I think we can make that decision or something. Yeah. So,

Okay. So, um get their feedback before to to supply to the designers before they create the renderings. Is that what I'm hearing? No. like like the CDA. This is an aesthetic thing and I I don't see the CDA as like needing to weigh in on aesthetics. Anybody? What about ARC? Um maybe arc. I could see the arc. I Yeah, if you're if you're gonna Yeah, if you could We're looking at design stuff. I would say Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Hey, that makes sense. We have We have a committee for aesthetic stuff. What are we thinking? All right. Okay. So, I'll get I'll we'll take the design to arc then before it comes back to village board. I mean there's time

like I understand that this has to go rapidly. Okay. Why does it have to go rapidly? Yeah, this one actually. Why not? Yeah. I don't I don't know. They we've just had the initial meetings about Lidell and Sundix hasn't started the design. So, standalone. It's not in the world to their building. I think so, too. I think we definitely have to. I'd rather do it right than Yeah, I'd rather do it right. It just it would seem to be missing if it if Sundex opens in August and it's not. But really, is that what they're talking about is Oh my god, they didn't have a sign. Are they saying August sign? The way they open? Yeah. Really? Okay. We have no idea where we are. I think so. You got what you need? Yes, I do.

That case, we will move on to our final our kind of our final item, which is to move into close session. Anybody like to make number four? I move that the village board committed a to close such pursuant to Wisconsin state statute 19851E deliberating or negotiating the purchase of public property investing of public funds conducting other specified business whether competitive and/or bargaining reasons require a close session specifically regarding 1111 North Lidell. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you Sam. All those in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. We are in close session. We will pause the recording session. All right. It is 8:21. We have come back into open session. Uh we have no no further business tonight. Can I get a motion? Move to adjourn. Move to adjurnn. Move to adjourn from Anna. Do I hear a second? Second. Second. Uh I'm giving that to Jacob. All those in favor of adjourning say I.

Any opposed? We are journed. Thank you so much everyone for sticking with