Village Board - Regular Meeting

All right. It is 6.01 and I will call to order the village board meeting of June 15th. Erin, could you call the roll?

Yes. Trustee Casper. Here. Trustee Haller.

Here.

Trustee Sarabin. Trustee Van Evenhoven.

Here.

Trustee Detman.

Here.

Trustee Saunders will be absent this evening and President Buckley.

Here. Thank you. We have got a really long agenda tonight, so I'm going to try to go as quickly as I can through all of these items. We have 17 items on the consent agenda, so strap in. The first is the minutes of the regular meeting on May 18th, an investment report and check register for May 2026. Lead service line replacement community outreach grant program agreement. the Lake Drive overhead school zone signage upgrades, MMSD Green Solutions funding for alley reconstruction project, a resolution 3203 to adopt the 2025 reporting year sanitary sewer system, CMAR, a temporary beer license for the Civic Foundation 4th of July Festival, A temporary beer and wine license for the Civic Foundation Art Fest on July 11th and 12th. A temporary beer license for the Civic Foundation Sounds of Summer on August 15th. A beer license for the Civic Foundation The Great Pumpkin Festival October 28th through the 31st. Temporary beer license for the Bid, Sip, and Shop event on June 18th. Just the 18th. Temporary beer license for the bid sidewalk sale, July 24th and 25th. Producer full service retail sales application for Gathering Place Brewing Company LLC for July 16th through the end July 30th. and the alcohol licenses, the operator licenses, and the tobacco licenses for 2026 to 27. And I think we hit a new record on 250-some pages of documentation that was, I'm sure, really enjoyable to put together.

Absolutely. Just before the motion, item eight and nine. So item eight is the Civic Foundation Fourth of July Festival. Item nine is the Civic Foundation Whitefish Bay Art Fest on July 11th and 12th. They have withdrawn their application with intention to modify. So what is happening is that the Fourth of July will be a beer wine license and then the art fest will be hosted by.

By the bid?

The bid. The bid, thank you. And we'll still be a beer and wine. The reason being is that there's state laws about only having two temporary beer wine licenses. There's a desire for the 4th of July to have a beer wine license. And so if they withdraw it and modify who's hosting the Art Fest, then we would be able to approve both. Because those events have been approved in the past, we have an ordinance and state statute allows for staff

to approve those events administratively oh great so if they hadn't been approved they would have to be come to the board but because they have been then okay so we're withdrawing eight nine and staff will be approving them in the future right are there any comments about the other 15 items here if not i would take a motion to approve the consent agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented with the amendments to items number eight and nine.

Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Sam. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. On to the report of the village officers, Mr. Village Manager. Nothing to report today, Mr. President. Excellent to hear. Ms. Village Manager.

Nothing this evening.

Okay. Village President, the only comment I'd like to make tonight is that we are looking for a resident to volunteer for the Public Works Committee. We put that out in the newsletter this morning. And I'm sure it'll be on social media, etc. But meanwhile, if the trustees can think of anybody who would be a good fit for Public Works, send them to the application on the website and talk them up a little bit so that we know who they are. Any miscellaneous trustee reports? Once or twice.

I'd just like to call out a special thank you to the village staff and DPW for just the installation of the additional signage controlling traffic kind of down in the southeast part of the village. I think personally, I think there's nothing more important in the village than the safety of our residents, of our children. And I appreciate them kind of stepping up and putting that signage up there in the south side of the village. So thank you very much.

A specific intersection or? It's a number of them.

It's related to the construction on Oakland Avenue. Oh, okay. And it's traffic down there has become a problem. So there's five additional signs being installed. They should be going up tomorrow, I believe. So great. Took a little bit of work. We appreciate that happening. Great.

Any other miscellaneous trustee comments? All right. Moving on to petitioners communications. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address the village board on any issue that is not on the current agenda. Is there any one in the audience here for something not on an agenda? Going once, twice. All right. We'll close petitions and communications and move on to general business. We have eight items tonight. The first item is a discussion action on right-of-way exception request to enable portions of retaining walls to remain within the village right-of-way at 607 Bell, which was on Friday. our consent agenda a few weeks ago and now is going to be discussed person that looks like anna is okay two three ones you want to go to 306 in your packets

So as Kevin stated, this item was tabled and just refresh your memory. The property has two retaining walls. Well, technically three. There's retaining walls that divide the steps to the property. And that is encroaching into the right of way. 20 feet and nine, 20 feet in length and nine inches in depth between the two walls here. And then at the corner of the property, there is an L-shaped retaining wall, and that is encroaching 10.2 inches, the northern, and then the western portion is encroaching 2.7 feet into the right-of-way. I believe at the last meeting, Trustee Sarabin had questions. I don't know if you want to pose those at this time.

I guess I wanted to know a little bit the history of how this happened. And then I've come to understand that that L-shape, there was no permit for that at all. And that there was maybe some mistake on the front part that that was an error, I guess. But given the fact that it was... Permit was never pulled. And then it is also now all of it is fully in the right of way. I had concerns about just automatically approving that and just wanting to make sure that we had had some discussion about whether or not, as a matter of course, we wanted to approve anything that came up before us that people just said, oops, about. So that was my main concern about it. And I don't, I mean, that doesn't appear to be a real, like in the past people have come to us and it's because they're replacing a wall that was already there. That makes some sense to me. This, there doesn't seem to be a real reason that there would be a hardship that they could actually have put it on their own property. But I just wanted to make sure that we were, if we were going to approve this, that we were doing it with our eyes wide open.

I think it's important too, to take the moment and remind everyone in this room, but also the general public that the right of way does extend past the sidewalk. I know it's sometimes six inches, sometimes a foot, sometimes it's, more than that. And I think that if you asked 10 residents what the answer to that question was, they would have no idea that part of their grass is part of the village right away. So that's important to just note that. My guess is that village staff, when this comes up, it probably only comes up a couple times a year maybe, once a year, something like that. It's not frequent. But that I understand the concept that we don't want to have residents doing things and then asking us for permission to do them. It's obviously something that they need to ask, you know, permission for sure. Because perhaps the next time we won't grant this. And each case, as Chris would tell us, is not precedent setting. Correct.

But there is a perception of precedent. True. I think there is a perception of precedent. And this is not the first time that we've run into this. So that was all. I just wanted to make sure there was a conversation about it and that if people still wanted to do this, approve it, we had a full understanding of what we were approving.

i'm going to make chris chime in for two sentences about precedent and how village boards can there is no precedent in this regard um because as part of the agreement they disclaim any claim of ownership it's more the concept that a village board can overrule prior village boards and do whatever that too this this exists at your pleasure in other words you can have it removed

Maybe our newsletter can have reminders to residents about what needs permits. These contractors just do it. And, oh, I didn't know.

Well, the interesting thing about this is that they did pull a permit for the front yard. Oh, they did? Okay. And then just went ahead and did the corner without a permit. But that was the other piece of it. And I do think it's incumbent upon contractors to know where they should be doing their work.

Okay, are there any other comments, questions about that? We need a motion, don't we? Yes, we do. We need a motion number one. Correct? Would anybody like to make motion number one?

Can I make one other comment? Sure. I'd like to say as practice going forward, we would not ever have this as consent.

So, yeah, very heard. That won't happen again. But I had another thought about it. What if we run through Public Works Committee? Because I was thinking really the concern is obviously visibility and the right-of-way utilities. It has good synergies with that group. And then we could do consent on Village Board if there's not major concerns. Yeah. Okay. So that will be our process moving forward. Yeah, that works for me. Okay. Awesome.

Is there any issue with Section 8-17 specifically referencing the village board?

It would still be approved. We would put it on consent for village board, but the more robust discussion would happen at committee level.

It would be a recommendation.

Fair enough.

I am just curious before we vote. I'm curious what our powers are. This seems... harmless. But I agree with Tara that the precedent or at least the perception of precedent could be concerning. What are our powers in the future if we decide to not approve this? Can we force them to tear it down? Can we find them? What authorities do we have? And you know, I think it's okay. Occasionally we're going to have things that fall outside of code and we can make those exceptions and we should have that wiggle room. But, you know, we don't want everybody taking advantage of that. And so is there a stick we can use as well to go along with that carrot of exceptions?

Well, I mean, we could.

Yeah, use Joel with the stick.

So with the permitting aspect with this one, we still need a permit for the L-shaped one. That one will receive a six times fee per ordinance. because it is something that was built without a permit that didn't meet our code. So that's one end of the enforcement. The other part of this puzzle that is interesting to me is there's an agreement that needs to be drafted by attorney Jekylls that the homeowner signs. So in that agreement, and Chris, you can correct me here, but there needs to be insurance that's obtained covering the village. So kid rides his bike into this and we get sued. That insurance covers it. That also needs to be recorded with the county so that at the sale of this house, that shows up on a deed and the next owner has to maintain that coverage. Now, I don't know who polices that and I don't know. how that ever gets transferred down the line or if they have to do it. So that's one of the things that causes me pause.

In that case, the mortgage lender is going to require the insurance on the part of their boss. If there's a mortgage. Yes. If there isn't a mortgage and it's cash, all bets are off.

Yeah, the only other question I had was, so this homeowner will obtain insurance. What if they cancel the insurance? Do we find that out?

We usually require a certificate that includes a notice of cancellation to us as the insured.

Those are the things that... Additional insurance. Yeah, I just had questions on that. But as far as any fines or whatever, A, we could have them move it back to their property if sports solutions, or we move forward with a permit and...

So, so you're saying they're already paying a 6 times. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that's enough for me.

Yeah, and again, I'm not saying I'm 100% opposed to this. I am saying this is not something that. Doesn't it bears discussion.

Are there any members of the public who are interested in this item? Okay, can we get someone to make motion number 1?

I move that the Village Board grant an exception to allow structures to remain within Village right of way subject to the following conditions. One, property owner execution of an indemnification and hold harmless agreement in the form subject to the Village Attorney's approval. The agreement could contain language assigning maintenance responsibility to the property owner and would also make the property owner fully responsible for removing the walls at their cost if any future public improvements are required or needed in the area. Sub two, submittal of proof of liability insurance and the amount and form subject to the village attorney's approval. Sub three, staff review and approval of fence permit. Thank you. Do I have a second?

Can I just make a quick friendly amendment that we specify the structures referred to in item number, you know, it's a little generic right now.

You're correct. I noticed that too. The structures. The structures at 607 East Bell. That amendment, yes? Love it. Okay. And then I need a second? Second. Thank you, Sam. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on. Do a temporary beer license for the Civic Foundation World Cup viewing party on July 19th. Is that just a beer license?

So the beer license is what requires the approval from the village board, but it's obviously an opportunity to talk about the entire event. So we're going to.

I meant, is it a beer and wine license?

Oh, it's just a beer.

Yep. It's just beer.

Yep.

All right. So a new special event application was submitted by the Whitefish Bay Civic Foundation in partnership with Free Lions for a World Cup party at Cody Park. on July 19th with the anticipated attendance of approximately 3,000 people. The event is proposed from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and set up beginning an hour before the event and cleanup concluding by roughly 8 p.m. Activities include a live DJ from 2 to 2 and then a jumbo screen for the World Cup viewing beginning at 2 p.m. There will also be food trucks and refreshment stations. This layout on the screen was submitted by the applicants and it shows the screen being south of Lake Drive facing east with then people sitting in the grass area in their lawn chairs facing west. The picnic tables will be back by the warming house. There will be a dumpster place on Bell. or the additional trash collection that's going to be generated. And then the applicant is proposing having the port-a-potties and food trucks be located in the parking lot. This layout is similar to the 4th of July. I will note that in the memo, staff puts forth a handful of conditions One of the conditions that staff is recommending is the placement of food trucks not be in the parking lot, but actually be lined up on the west side of North Shore Drive with their windows facing the grass area. In terms of operations, the applicant is proposing five professional security guards, volunteer trash collection during and after the event, and having a crossing guard at the intersection of Lake and Bell to facilitate the crossing of pedestrians. Public work services anticipated include barricade drop-off and pickup, picnic table drop-off and pickup, trash receptacles and then temporary no parking signage to be placed on Bell Road on this side and then on the western side of shore. And then in terms of police, staffing for traffic control will be finalized by the police department. It is anticipated right now just utilizing one officer. And then I'm just going to quickly go through the other recommendations staff put forth, our advance notice to nearby residents and those affected by the parking restrictions, prohibited soccer activity on the eastern side of shore by the bluffs, that area, and then also the prohibition of vuvuzelas and other artificial noise-making devices that are popular for soccer goers.

Who came up with that one?

I do just want to know for the public, but also for the board that the 4th of July set up our DPW staff empties trash in this case. where they will be volunteering and emptying their own trash. And so in terms of strain on our staff resources, it's pretty, at least on the DPW side, pretty minimal. And we anticipate without having to do a full closure to not have significant PD impact. However, I just want to note the difference because there may be different levels of service with volunteer individuals. And so just clarifying that.

Emptying the garbage into what?

A dumpster that will be on bail.

Was there anything about cleanup after? Because I know the DPW on July 5th runs the street sweepers through.

Cleanup is the responsibility of the Civic Foundation.

Why the prohibition of children playing soccer on the Eastern Bluff?

To avoid the crossing, since it's not going to be a full road closure. We don't want people going across shore.

They were originally contemplating like really little kids soccer games just as like an engagement tool. And they were fine with not doing that. But we just wanted to clarify. The reason we want the food trucks there is a natural barrier to try to deter people from darting in unpredictable patterns. Yep.

Any questions? I think it's a great opportunity to showcase our parks. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I expect Team USA to be there. The way we played last week, we may never lose ever again. So it's very exciting.

Yeah, I'll echo that and just thank the Civic Foundation for the willingness to do this right kind of in succession with the 4th of July. I know it's a ton of work, so we appreciate it. I think it'll be a great event.

Yep, 100%.

the numbers? What do we usually have at quoting for 4th of July number of people? Well, that's a great question.

I mean, I've tried to figure that out. I mean, I ran the best of all.

Are we assuming this is bigger?

So all I can say is about the 4th of July, I would estimate that there's anywhere between, you know, it's a flow of traffic, right? People are there at noon and then they're there at three and then they're there at nine o'clock at night. I would say that any given time, there's probably four to five thousand people there. And then, you know, the whole throughout the whole day, it might be 10.

But OK, so we're assuming this is slightly less than. I know it's a big assumption.

It's a big assumption.

Yeah.

We're anticipating parking impacts to be more significant. Oh, sure, because it's concentrated. Yeah, and there will be more out-of-town, presumably, people for an event like this.

Any members of the public interested in this? Would you like to speak on behalf of the public, or whoever you're speaking for, the BID or the Civic Foundation? State your name and address.

Yeah.

All right. I'm Lexi Devlis. I'm 6249 North Lydell and also serve as the current executive director of the BID Board and was a past Civic Foundation board member and chair of Fourth of July. And speaking in that capacity, just wanted to share a little bit of tribal knowledge on this event. Kevin's usually pretty great at this one, but those of you who've been around long enough, remember that we used to have sads and pandas for years. Endless, countless years as our vendors at this event. The year that Saz's was offered the permanent Summerfest facility, they left the event for us. And the very next year, Pandals retired from this event. And that was my lucky year to chair the event and leaned on a community partner and friend in Three Lions Pub to actually support two-thirds of the food for the event. And I just wanted to make the comment that this is a really nice opportunity for us to be able to pay forward that kind of support. service that Shorewood and that their business did for a Whitefish Bay event, it's a nice opportunity for us to be able to pay it back forward. And just wanted to make sure the board knew that while we have maintained one other partner consistently all of these years, they really underwrote opening their business and supporting our biggest event for the Civic Foundation that year.

Thank you. Any further trustee comments? If not, I would entertain number two, motion.

I move that the Village Board approve the temporary Class B slash Class B retailer's license and special event permit for the Civic Foundation's World Cup Watch Party in Clody Park on Sunday, July 19th, 2026, subject to final review and approval of event layout, traffic control plan, and staffing levels by the Police Department and Public Works Department, and subject to the conditions outlined in the meeting packet.

Thank you. Do I hear a second? I'll second. Thank you, Brian. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Moving on to the discussion action on official parking map amendment for Sendix grocery pickup parking stalls.

So this one is also a carryover from the May 18th village board meeting. At that board meeting, there was a discussion about several different official parking amendments as a result of the public improvements surrounding the Sendix project. One of the items that the village board pulled out and kind of wanted some additional discussion about was the proposal of three grocery pickup stalls on the south side of Beaumont. essentially kind of abutting the north entrance and exit to Sendix. It's an employee-only entrance and exit by that north side. Specifically, the board was kind of grappling or trying to balance the need and desire to maximize public parking with also understanding like employee safety being a priority. And there were a lot of different items that were brainstormed by the board. One was there's like a I forgot what it's officially called here. but essentially an area for box trucks to unload, an unloading area on the east side adjacent to these grocery pickup stalls. So there was thought, could that be dual role or could it be dedicated to the grocery pickup? There was discussion about reducing the number of stalls, discussion about moving the stalls entirely to the Masonic Lodge, the parking lot where the Masonic Lodge formerly sat. And so I did meet with Sendix and kind of discussed all of those different ideas which are outlined in more detail in the memo. And they brought back a lot of information about their concerns or reservations about some of the items. And again, that details in the memo. But ultimately, absolutely understood the need to maximize parking and prioritize employee safety. And so their refined request to the village was two dedicated grocery pickup stalls in those same locations. So reducing from three stalls to two stalls. And then I did ask Mark, President of Sendix is here as well, because there was a lot of operating discussions, and I just wanted to make sure that the board was getting the best information directly. So he's here as well, if you have any questions.

All right. So we've basically just gone from three to two and the loading zone stays. There was commentary about like changing the loading zone from hours and that's off the table. They're going to keep the loading zone.

Yeah. The concern was with the delivery times and yeah, Mark. Yep.

I think the main concern with the loading zone is you have a lot of activity at the same point in time. Based on when some of our key pickup hours are for our e-commerce business, as well as when a lot of the transportation deliveries are, you would have a lot of conflicting times to where you would have passenger vehicles dealing with cargo vans or side short trucks, I think it would create a potential safety issue both for customers as well as associates to try to co-mingle those spots.

Yeah, I always thought any kind of sign that would have to say it's a loading zone from this time to this time. But any other questions for Kelsey or Mark?

These spots convert to public parking after Sendik's hours, correct?

Yeah, they do. And I apologize. I realized when I read the memo again, that wasn't clear. But correct, the proposal is that after the closing time.

Actually, our latest pickup spot is actually 7 p.m. So after 7. Okay.

So we had included 9 p.m., but it could actually be 7. Okay. So the sign would say loading zone these hours. And so it would be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Okay. It's useful.

Okay. Slightly helpful. And we've tried to be a great partner through this hall. We went back and looked at all of our numbers. And we said, we think we can get it from three to two. One of the things we did is we configured a lot of the inside operations. to be based off of that express through the back of the store. Everything from cold, you know, medium temp, cold temp, and ambient temp, as well as all the equipment we built right next to that dock for ease for the customer, as well as safety for the associate, which is why it really plays well.

And we're all going to learn stuff, right? A year from now, you'll know that you'll, you know, maybe you only need one, maybe you needed three, and we can always revisit. Absolutely.

Can I throw out one possibility? Would you be willing to make that last pickup 630 instead? Because if there's I know it sounds silly, but that's two extra spots that somebody who's going to a show at the Argo could potentially go to. And I'm thinking those are like seven o'clock start times.

That's definitely something we can look at. We right now we give that customer a two hour window, but we can try to figure stuff like that out.

I'm just thinking that makes... I know it's silly, but it's two extra spots.

At the moment, it seems like parking for the Argo is not a challenge. It's been okay. So...

So maybe it's something that we revisit.

I think we're definitely, we want to be a great partner. We've tried in every aspect. It's something that we can also look at our numbers. And if we see that there's an opportunity, that's exactly what we did when Kelsey came with the, what can we do is we looked at how we could benefit the village where possible and still take care of our business. Okay. thanks just because you're here how's it going it's going really well okay it's going really well um you know now now that we're now that the roof is on windows are in we're you know it's at a point where things will go very and uh still looking at august yes okay all right I would prefer not to share a date. I said August. Yes, yes. We are looking and very confident in August.

Any other questions from trustees? I'll move that the Village Board amend the official parking map as shown in the meeting packet exhibit. Thank you, Dorian.

Okay. There we go. Any further discussion?

Just with the clarification about the hours until 7. 7 to 7, please.

I recommend. Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thanks, Mark. All righty, we are now, we're moving along faster than I thought today. Moving on to the presentation of the 2025 financial audit. Looks like some Clifton, Alan Larson.

All right. Well, as he's walking up, so this is the annual audit presentation. You see Mike Anderson, CPA with Clifton, Larson, Allen every year. So he'll present the findings of the audit.

That sounds good. Thank you, Kelsey. As she mentioned, my name is Mike Anderson. I'm the manager on the Village's annual financial statement audit. I've been with the firm going on 12 years now. And I have a short presentation here. I want to keep this agenda moving, but I'll start off by saying don't let the The briefness of the presentation tell you how long it takes to get the results that I'm going to present here. So if we want to go to the next slide, there's just really three items I want to cover. One is what we're engaged to do. Talk about that scope of this audit. I'll talk about the results of that process. And then I also have some required communications as part of that audit to communicate with this group. So we're ultimately engaged to provide three things. We issue three reports. The first is the opinion on the financial statement. And that's a letter that says whether or not the financial statements management prepares fairly and accurately represent the results of 2025. With that audit opinion, we also have communications to this group that I'll cover in a slide or two down the presentation. But it's just a few items of what we have to do and what we have to consider as we complete the audit and then communicate to this group whether or not we had certain issues. This is going to be very similar to years past where it's been a clean audit. And then finally, we have an internal control letter. This one is an optional letter where we can formally communicate whether we had any type of findings or observations as it relates to the audit. Consistent with years past, solely based on the size of the village's financial department, we note a segregation of duties finding where there exists, based on the structure of the department, potential opportunity, for a single individual to basically record a transaction throughout the entire cycle, thereby increasing the risk of potential fraud or misrepresentation of financial information. We highlight that as a possibility, but I can say since I've been doing this audit and similar with this year, there haven't been any instances we've noted, but something we always like to bring up to this group just to make sure you're aware that this opportunity exists or this possibility exists, but we don't have a formal recommendation of hiring another individual because it would be cost prohibitive to get that differential benefit that doesn't outweigh the cost. So here are the results. Again, a couple of sentences here that really is a result of months of work by your management team. So we have an unmodified opinion, which is the highest level of assurance that we can provide as third-party auditors, meaning those financial statements that you put out to the public fairly and accurately represent, here's the results of the village for the year ended December 31st, 2025. I mentioned we had one item in that internal control letter. We classify that as a significant deficiency. which if you compare material weakness to significant deficiency material weakness think of a pervasive issue that is likely impacting multiple areas within the village a significant deficiency is lower than that and unfortunately auditing standards only give us those two options so it's called a significant deficiency just meaning it's a reportable finding that doesn't rise to the level of a material weakness Then moving on to the last slide with the governance communication, this letter is issued and formally sent to this group. So you do have this written down. I just want to highlight it just to allow for any clarifying questions you may have. So overall, if you want to read detailed information about the footnotes or the accounting policy to the financial statements, the footnote number one has the detailed description of everything that goes into policies related to assets, liabilities, revenues, expenditures. We have one new accounting standard go into effect this year. There's no impact on the financial statements, but it's something that I like to think COVID had a play in this. If there's anything related to concentrations or constraints on the village that may have a negative impact materially in the next 12 months, there's additional considerations of whether or not that should be disclosed. So I would like to think in most cases, you would be aware of the instance that may need disclosure before it actually shows up in the financial statement. So it's that kind of level of severity that we're talking about. No transactions that lacked authoritative guidance. Similarly, with the difficulties, what you're striving for are these no's. So no particularly sensitive disclosures, no difficulties that we encountered during the audit. There are no disagreements between us as the auditors and management. And there are no consultations with other accountants trying to get a third party opinion where there may be some sort of disagreement between us and the village. We highlight one estimate used in the financial statements, and this is consistent across municipalities in Wisconsin. The other post-employment benefit related to health insurance, there's a liability that gets estimated. We highlight that just because there's a lot of factors that go into determining that liability. It's really dependent on actuarial valuation that's completed annually for the village. And then finally, no corrected or uncorrected misstatements. So I covered a lot of information. Like I said, it's a quick presentation. It's probably consistent with what you would have heard in years past. In our world, no news is kind of good news. And this was another smooth, clean audit for years to come.

Any questions for our auditor?

For the auditor, but maybe for Kelsey. So one of the notes here is that we were under budget by quite a bit because we were understaffed. But that was partially offset by solid waste disposal costs because they were almost $60,000 over budget. We are now fully staffed. Does that mean we need to reevaluate what we're budgeting towards our disposal costs?

Jamie, do you have one more detail?

I don't follow this. Don't we under budget the solid waste disposal every single year? I know.

I think that's an account. Yeah, we're working on getting closer to where it is. I think those are mostly the charges from Shorewood and Waste Management. I believe we did increase it this year. Again, it still probably will be over budget a little bit, but I think it's an account that we have our eyes on. Okay.

The bigger picture answer is that we do do quarterly budget check-ins. Jamie meets with every department and they love them. Where we talk in detail through the budget and we're in a good position right now. We certainly won't have the surplus that this year that was absolutely an anomaly, but we're in a good spot. We're not concerned.

Okay.

And I don't think, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, we're not really exposed on the staffing side because we would have levied at a full staff level, right? So those surpluses are in, yeah, we levied for full staff, we came in favorable. So at least that wouldn't be a year over year impact. But I agree, I saw that and glad you asked the question.

That's correct. Well, and true, DPW is now fully staffed, but it wasn't for the first four months of the year. And PD is not fully staffed. So there will be surplus of at least months of that.

I also believe a lot of those, we did a lot of extra collection because of the storm event. And so I don't know the exact dollar amount, but it was much higher than a typical year as well.

Wait, you mean for the solid waste or for the DPW time to collect?

The solid waste. I believe we had some overtime, but it was mostly the disposal fees to get rid of that trash.

Just another quick broad comment that this is a great memo and it has a lot of information that is exciting to a certain extent. Probably should have been its own agenda item because it has a number of interesting things. Sam, were you about to say something?

No, I was just going to commend our staff on this finding. I think it's like you said, a short presentation. There's a ton of work that goes into this and getting a clean audit report is difficult and it speaks to the integrity and the competence of the staff. So good job across the board.

Sorry, one other specific question, and that is on this memo and the general fund increasing by one point, almost nine million, but then being reduced by 766 for the surcharge, the state health plan. I'm trying to remember when Ehlers came here three, four months ago, they talked about a target of the fund balance and increasing it further. 600 000 i'm looking at jamie as if do you remember they had a target and i think it was 600 000 and i think that we've now exceeded that target does that that ring a bell with anybody so you're talking about our updated fund balance policy um correct do you know if this would put us at that because we were talking it would take like three years to do it and now it seems like we did it in four months

Yeah, I don't have a good answer right now.

I will send out the answer to that, but I agree this is a good sign for how quickly we would get to that place, that new policy level.

All right. Any other questions about either from the auditor? Sorry for making you stand here as we talk internal stuff. Or Jamie on this excellent memo. It's going twice. Well, we do need a motion to accept the audit report. Anybody like to move that?

I move that the Village Board accept the 2025 audit reports and related financial statements.

Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Anna. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Mike. Moving on to a discussion on the library staffing plan. That's Emma with a multiple-page memo.

Those on devices, I did send out the slides in case it's easier to follow that way. Oh, you just sent them out. Yeah, I just emailed them out.

That's what that was.

Okay.

Hello. Hello. So we'll go through using the slides. A lot of the extra details are in the memo. So certainly if you have questions as we go along, feel free to speak up if that sounds good.

I think you sent that.

Everyone ready?

Oh, both. I'm sorry. Wait.

There it is.

You sent it too. Yeah.

There we go. So we're here today, as we talked about in the strategic plan, the number one priority initiative was to increase a part-time adult services librarian to a full-time adult services librarian. Due to turnover earlier this year, we're able to do that in a budget-neutral environment. So this memo is laying out the background on why we believe it is imperative and strategic to do that. Hopefully. Just one second. We lost the slides.

There we go.

Go ahead and go to slide two.

Okay.

One, we have a proven model. That's okay. Ready? Yep. Sorry. So one of the things that came up as I was working through and coming up with these details is Valerie Morris. One, I would like to thank Kathy Rogers, Scott Lenski, and Valerie Morris from staff to come support the presentation. this evening. Valerie was a part-time librarian for several years. She became full-time in 2026 and moved up to the new department head, sorry, full-time in 2020 and then the department head this year. Her experience of what she was able to do impacting collection development, programming, is very informative from going from part-time to full-time. In particular, when she was part-time, she did a picture book reorganization Think of it as back in the day, someone would come to me and say, I want princess books. And I had to look up princess books and write down every author because they were alphabetical by author. Now you come in and you say, I want princess books, and I just take you to the princess books. It saves me time. It saves the patrons time. It's much more intuitive. Doing it on a part-time basis, it took over three years to complete that project. However, the impact of that is in that same time period, the other libraries in Milwaukee County saw a drop in their picture book circulation of 12%. Ours doubled. So very direct showing of what can be accomplished. It was at a part-time level in three years. A couple of years ago, she then reorganized the children's nonfiction in a similar way where it's by neighborhood. So if you're looking for turkey, you don't have turkey history in the 900s and turkey cooking in the 600s and turkey art in the 700s. It's all together. So if you're doing a report on turkey for school, it's just all together. It makes it much more intuitive. Also, the system continues from children to adults. So D's is animals. If you want puppy picture books, it's in the D neighborhood. If you want non-fictions on how to raise a puppy, it's in the D neighborhood as you move up. As a full-timer, she was able to complete that project in half as much time. So have the impact on making it easier for patrons and staff and also an impact on the member reserve fund, formerly reciprocal borrowing. If you remember what that is. So when non-residents use our materials and vice versa, that impact will be felt much quicker now that she was able to complete that project much quicker. We went from trending down 11% for children's nonfiction post-pandemic to going up 15%. So we have reversed that downward trend by reorganizing it. You know, we have a nice quote here to say we have an exceptional selection of children's nonfiction, which we adore. Next slide. Full-time capacity multiplies impact. One of our newer collections is Take and Tinker. It started during the pandemic, and that includes, as we've talked about, puzzles, museum passes, the metal detector, yard games, a projector if you wanted to have your own World Cup watch party in the backyard. Those items go out 22 times a year, whereas the collection-wide, our items go out 2.6 times a year. and state average it's 1.5. I looked up the range from that. Some libraries are as low as going out 0.6%. That's how many times one item checks out in a year. By being full-time, Valerie was able to work with Scott, who's our adult services, department head to create that collection, manage the collection, grow the collection. There is a lot more that goes into that. If we start checking out Tony's, which are little figurines you put on a box and it reads your toddler story. They love them. If you have grandkids, you might know what they are. You get that, and it's not a book. It's not a magazine. You have to think about how you're going to catalog it, how you're going to package it, how people are going to be able to use it. It takes quite a bit of time. And Valerie having that additional time as a full-timer the last few years, along with Scott, was able to make that happen. If you think about when our non-residents coming into our library to get things, a lot of times it's so they can pick up the take and tinker because we don't send it through the delivery bins. You know, we don't want a projector or a museum pass getting lost in delivery. So having that additional time has helped with a collection that impacts all of the ages. What we're proposing here is for adult services to have the same strategic, patron-centered work that transformed youth services, more in-depth collection evaluation and development, which will lead to increase in circulation and increased member reserve fund revenue, expanded program offerings to meet community demand, long-term presenter and community relationships, and deeper community knowledge built over time. Next slide. community is asking for more as part of our strategic plan we did a community survey last year it had 816 respondents 98 percent rated their library experience positive or very positive we know the community loves the library and as i've kind of tongue-in-cheek said for years we love what you do do more and being at capacity we can do different but if we're going to add something new we have to drop something we are not able functionally to do more at this point and we haven't for several years 95 of respondents rated staff experience as very good or excellent so they love our staff they love the recommendations they get they give and 47 of the people who rated adult programming said it was very or extremely important and in particular they are looking for evening or weekend programming and with the current amount of staffing on the adult side which is less than on the children's side we're just not able to do that The single most consistent theme in open-ended responses was a patron desire for more adult programming, particularly evenings and weekends. So trying to stretch and have the capacity amongst staff to meet that patron demand. Next slide. One of the metrics to look at is how do we stack up to other libraries within Milwaukee County or within Southeast Wisconsin? So I ran this both ways, just suburban Milwaukee County and also suburban Southeast Wisconsin, which is about 30 libraries. Whichever way I ran it, the results were the same. We have 29% of our total staffing is full-time in comparison to a regional average of 60%. So we rely on part-time hours far more than the majority of libraries within the region. The average across the region is 6.1 full-time staff members ranging from two to 11. Certainly West Allis is gonna have more full-time members than say South Milwaukee. So that's why I have percentage plus raw numbers. we have five full-timers. So even just taking a part-timer to full-time, that would bring us up to six. And on that metric, we would reach average. By all measures, we are more heavily reliant on part-time staffing coverage than regional average. This conversion begins to close that gap. Next slide. Budget impacts, cost neutral. Recent turnover in three full-time positions generated approximately $36,000 in savings from budgeted levels for 2026, enough to fully fund the conversion, regardless of which insurance plan the new hire selects. Over the last 10 years, the library property tax allocation has grown an average of 3.1%. Holding it flat in 2027 represents a savings of just over $29,000. So we're looking at the savings from this year would enable us to make that conversion immediately. We'll still end up under budget as you're talking about PD or DPW being short-staffed. We have had these savings already this year, and currently we're running with extra sub-hours in order to cover the desk while we pursue this initiative. We have developed a draft budget for 2027 where our tax allocation would remain flat, whereas if we'd had the same staffing as we did at the start of this year, it would go up $37,000. So we're able to actually save this year and keep it flat next year, which is a savings. over the long run. The cost of the status quo, each time a reference position turns over, the library incurs an estimated $3,000 and 68 hours of staff time spent posting, reviewing, interviewing, and training for the department head and the library director, in which we cannot do our regular duties. Next slide. Library board action and next steps. So the library board had their meeting June 2nd. How we approach this in consultation with Kelsey was the library board approved converting a part-time position to full-time effective immediately pending village board verbal support at tonight's meeting. If that support is not there, we will... The action is supported by, as we've gone over, proven quantifiable impact from youth services, Whitefish Bay being below the regional staffing average, and having a budget-neutral path funded by savings already in hand. So I welcome your questions.

I just want to add kind of a procedural clarification. As Naomi was mentioning, the library board is in charge of spending the budget that is allocated by the village board. So what is on the agenda today is not approval for them to hire the position. However, in highly functioning organizations, which we are, you would collaborate on decisions like this because obviously if the money isn't allocated by the village board. Then all of a sudden we've hired someone in the library and that would be an unfortunate situation for everyone. And so this, that's why this is the best course of action. But just wanted to clarify that the library board is in charge of how budget dollars are spent.

Any questions from trustees? We're so many.

We'd like you to start. Tara. I mean, but does anyone else have anything they want to jump in on? So I want to preface this by saying as a general rule, I am the principal that the library board and the library, you know, department leader determines how to spend the library board. So I don't feel that it's that I'm the best person to micromanage how that budget is spent. So that's my starting point. OK, that being said, I have a lot of questions.

OK, thank you.

So tell me about there are a couple of comments that you made. There was one thing in your in your first in your memo. You talked about how it's hard for a part time person who has desk duty to do major projects. Did you consider having a part time person who doesn't do desk duty and only does projects?

Theoretically, that could be an option if we have to regroup. As I mentioned in other parts of the memo, it is difficult to hire part-time and keep them long-term as we have the person here. Just replaced Valerie we hired as a part-timer. She is graduating in December, and now she's full-time. So the turnover we get is people go to library school and then graduate. They're not going to library school to have a part-time job with no benefits. So we train them, and they leave us.

OK, so that's specifically your librarian trained people as opposed to, say, your CERC people who tend to have a longer time that they spend there because they don't have the level of training that you're looking for for this position.

Correct. And when we've hired within either a reference assistant, that's a bachelor's level person supporting the department versus the MLIS librarian. Over time, once or twice, we had someone who made that transition. But the last couple of times, the circulation staff has not been interested in making that transition.

Okay. Are these all projects that can only be completed by somebody who has special library SLS training?

So typically how we hire it is the department head manages, in this case, one full-time librarian and two reference assistants and children's. On the adult side, we have two part-time librarians. One is empty right now due to retirement. And then one part-time reference assistant. So Scott or Valerie kind of might come up with the project and talking with their staff member and then they would allocate it to whomever, but they definitely oversee and manage whether it's an MLIS librarian or a reference assistant, there's still very much supervision and they use a team approach. So we look at the reference assistants or the part-timers as support and not decision makers.

OK, so Scott is not full time. That's full time. It is full time. Yeah. OK, so you do have full time. Yes. On the adult side.

Yes.

OK. I just want to make sure I understood that. Yeah. OK. So then while you're talking through your slideshow and anyone who wants to jump in and cut me off, feel free.

Maybe not cut you off, but just on, I mean, you're talking about the types of librarians that might be interested in this role. Do you have, maybe you can't tell me this, do you have someone in mind? Would this be an internal hire or promotion or would you be seeking an extra?

We have another one person in library school right now who would be welcome to apply, but it would be open to the posted regionally, statewide, and we anticipate that we would get quite a few applications. applicants for it as a full-time benefit position. And the goal would be then someone may stay five, 10, 15 years versus leaving within a couple of years.

Okay, thank you. So you talked a lot about the organization of materials and how that's impacted interlibrary borrowing. How does, explain to me how the way it's internally and how things are structured internally impacts how somebody from a different library is requesting Materials? Yeah. Why is the way that we've internally organized those books make somebody from a different library want to borrow our things more?

Well, one of the examples I use is our cooking collection. We have a lot of cookbooks. They're very popular. We may have a chicken casserole cookbook that still goes out that's from the 90s. But if you put in the catalog chicken casserole, It's sorted by newest title. So our title is going to be down here. Someone's not even going to put it on home. So by going through and revising the collection, not just typically we get rid of what hasn't gone out in three to five years, or we look at things, maybe it's had more than 200 circs. So you have dusty and you have grubby. So something that's gone out so much, it's falling apart, it's dirty. Think of a classic edition of Romeo and Juliet. Staff would have the time to go through and touch each thing and go, yeah, that's grubby. We're going to replace it with a newer copy of Romeo and Juliet. So when you have a high school student in TOSA looking up Romeo and Juliet to put it on hold to do their homework, ours is going to be at the top because it's now newer.

Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So I'm trying to understand staffing. So on the adult side, you've got Scott full-time and on the children's side, you've got Valerie full-time.

And Lainey is now full-time.

So two full-time people on the children's side, one full-time person on the adult side. Okay. All right.

And they each have a total of four. So you just fill in those numbers with how many part-time. Got it.

Okay. And then I guess my other piece, when you were talking about how we compare to other libraries in terms of staffing, you talked a lot about percentages, but what are the real numbers in terms of, do we have more part-time people then? Okay, so would you then be looking at reducing some of the part-time people because now you're going to have a new full-time position?

Not particularly as we last month when I did the strategic plan presentation, one of the metrics that I didn't repeat in this one so i'll mention it is that when you look at. the amount of circulation per staff member, we are 60% higher than the average. So our staff are doing 60% more than even the average, much less the slow libraries. So we're looking for more capacity to help meet that. If we were to base our full-time equivalents on how much we circulate, we should have 17 people. We have 11.27 and we're looking to go to 13.19. Okay.

To clarify, though, this is a part-time position that they are converting to full-time. So how many hours was the additional hours? Yeah.

Where we would be going from someone who's at about 20 to 40. So it's an additional 20. So a double.

Okay. Or a thousand hours a year, I think. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes. And so then my very last thing, and you're probably not going to be prepared to answer that right now, but maybe you are. So we kind of talked about budgets and, but, you know, and you've talked about wanting to keep it flat and, you know, appreciate that. That's a really important piece. But if, if a couple of years down the road, we're finding that budgets are going to have to be constrained, right? So how would you prioritize everything that is in your budget? You know, what's going to go? Now you've got this additional full-time person. What falls off the bottom if, say, now we're looking at $40,000 less in a particular year?

And that becomes a new thing. conversation i believe of the board with the leadership team with full staff to talk about because when it comes down to it as with any other department it's for us materials and staffing right there's only so many paper clips you can cut so it'd be a matter of whether it's reducing operating hours and we are a little higher than the current average as others have trimmed we have stayed solid stayed solid Or do we start trimming some of our collection budget? Like this year, we're one of only four still offering hoopla, which we talked about can be a budget buster because it's cost per use. We're looking at next year, we would be the only ones offering hoopla. In talking with just Scott, haven't talked about it with the board, if it came down to it, we would drop hoopla to save that $15,000 if it helps this effort.

So you're very well aware of the fact that in three or four years we could be having a very much more difficult conversation.

In the strategic plan, our third priority was developing a financial plan, learning. I've heard of levy limits. What does that really mean when we hit it for the whole village? And then as a part of that, the library and working at that as a team.

Nayama, to ask her question really directly, I think what she's saying is we hire a full-time person. You imagine in three years if you're forced to cut the budget, say 3%, 5%, whatever it is, that that position would be one that you would be looking at.

Not specifically that one. We'd look at it more holistically.

Okay. Other places of staffing, other materials.

Okay. Right.

Okay, thank you.

Well, and that's, you know, it's always interesting to think of the roles we all play. The Village Board's role is mainly to be a cheerleader from the library because it's a great library and we love hearing all how great it is. Um, but the lens that we look through is, is, is budgeting. Um, and it's interesting to see, you know, the, the, the comment that you're making that 2027, you're going to hold the levy flat, which is great. Um, the, the problem that we have, and I'm really just talking to our board at this point is, um, AILERS came to us four, five, six months ago, and they showed us projections on levy limits. And that we've been living in a really nice bubble for 15, 20 years of not really having to pay attention to levy limits. And next, not this year, but the following year, we're going to have to pay attention in that we will be restrained from spending what we want to spend on the services that we want to provide for the village. And that's gonna be a total sea change from what we've been experiencing over the last 15 to 20 years, where we just go, hey, the DPW needs more money for this. Okay, we're there. I think that in two years, it's probably not gonna be a significant problem for us, but in three years and in four and in five and in six, it's going to become significant. Look around to every municipality in the Southeast Milwaukee and really all of Wisconsin, Talk to any mayor or village president and they talk about constrained services and what they have to cut. Look at Menominee Falls, look at South Milwaukee, who cut library full-time people and library hours because at some point it's a guns and butter conversation where do you cut police? Do you cut DPW? Do you cut village staff? Where do you cut? And so Transitioning to a full-time person is definitely a large expenditure that will occur every year annually. And as you just suggested, if the levy that we were to give to the library is significantly reduced in four years, five years, six years, that that position would be somewhat sacred. We wouldn't want to get rid of it. We would get rid of other things. So while we're looking, my commentary to the board is simply that We're heading in an interesting financial path in two to three to four years. And imagine you as a trustee in 2029 thinking this decision in 2026, converting a full-time to a part, I'm sorry, part-time to a full-time position. You may regret that choice. in three years, four years, five years, because of the fact that full-time people make more money, that we're paying healthcare that explodes in cost every year, that we pay pension costs for all of this. That's the view. All the slides that you provided are great, and that tells an interesting story, but it's more for our board to look at what are the long-term financial repercussions. Because of that and because of the concern I have for the next two years, three, four, five, I would personally not want to do this. Now, I don't know if anybody else is here with that thought in mind, but it very much concerns me that we're shifting into a different mode of literally cutting services in Whitefish Bay or wait for it. adding revenue through wheel taxes or garbage taxes. Let's just take a look to the south with Shorewood, where they have streetlight taxes and their fees and wheel taxes and garbage or recycling, whatever. They've got three or four. And every time you roll one of those out, people are pretty unhappy with that revenue generation. And they're only doing it because of levy limits. So keep that in mind. I've said my piece that I think that this is Um, in, in 2026, it makes total sense. The fact that 2027 has a levy that's going to be flat predicted, um, is great. I'm thinking of 2028, nine and 30. That's all I got.

I disagree. I mean, okay. No, I think you're, I think you're right. Obviously we do need to look towards the future. I think that we need to be prudent where we can, um, Now, I mean, you and your team run a world-class library. You have for a very long time. If you tell me you need a full-time staff position, then that's what I'm going to support. And I think we've been creative. We will continue to be creative. I know you would be creative if and when it comes time to – to cut when it comes, if it comes time to tighten their belts, I think we're, we're able to do that. I, in my own personal experience, every place I've worked, um, kind of the, the synergy, the, um, The added benefit of a full-time worker, they just tend to end up being higher caliber, have more experience. Not that they're better than the part-timers by any means, but they just have more time in that setting. Ownership. And that has been in retail and in every place I've ever been. And I have no doubt it's different at the library. So I'm in support of it. I think the plan that was laid out was really, really good. I think we can afford it. I think it makes sense for the foreseeable future. And if it ever doesn't make sense, then we revisit it. I don't think we should do things out of fear of having to undo them in a few years. I mean, we're going to have to have tough conversations no matter what. I think sometimes we, I don't know, we're a little cautious because no one wants to look someone in the eyes and tell them, you know, we can't afford to pay your salary anymore. But that's part of this role is making those tough calls and we don't have to make it now. So anyways, I'm in support.

And it would be tough conversations across the board. Sure. Just be the library.

Anyone else?

So I've kind of refrained from asking questions because I think I lobbed 50 questions at NIAMH at the library board about this topic. And I came in with similar skepticism. I have similar concerns, but I think I've gotten comfortable with how this is laid into the budget. And I guess the way I think of kind of running the organization is you own your budget. We talked about this, you know, you manage that. So I would tend to let you own your budget in this case, but also when the time to tighten comes, you own your budget and I would expect you to be able to deliver that budget in a way that minimizes impact to library services. You've shown an ability to do that. I trust you to do that, but those days will come. And I think we just need to be very creative. I think you have kind of unique revenue sources in the library that other areas of the government may not have. So one question I was curious about just as a follow-up, how many or what's your attrition rate on part-times? You said it's about 3,000 of turnover.

15 this afternoon.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. So I came up with all of the part-time staff we had from 2014 to 2026. We were averaging a turnover rate on the part-timers of two years.

of this specific type of part-time.

Yes, so part-time librarian, part-time reference assistant, not the shelvers, not the circ assistants. I will say, too, we're going into an interesting period where the librarian position that's open right now that's part-time, she was here eight years. She was happy to be part-time. She recently retired to pursue her writing career. So we'll be moving into filling her potentially with a part-time person who will likely be in school in turnover. So that one that was a little more long-term is going to get into that cycle likely of turnover. And then someone else who's been with us over 20 years is looking to retire within... the foreseeable future. And so that long-term position will also get into that cycle of turnover. So I believe that average of two will actually accelerate in the next couple of years with the positions that we have.

How many does that equate to in an average year? I'm thinking of $3,000 of cost times how many per year?

Say we have one turnover annually. If they're kind of staggered between the departments, it's been about one year as people graduate. And we've had some people where they weren't even the masters of library science, but they were able to get a full time job somewhere that had benefits. So they left. So it's not even just the librarians who, you know, some people come in and they're Happy to work with us. They've just graduated or they're going to grad school and it works to be part time for a bit, regardless that we've had someone right now who's getting her master's in public administration. So to some day be an Anna or Kelsey and stuff and we anticipate when she graduates, then she will she'll move on.

Can you talk a little bit, too, about the trend in that member reserve fund over time? I know it's gone up. I don't remember the exact kind of growth.

The member reserve fund?

Yeah. How has it looked kind of over the last three to five years? That's a revenue source, so I'm just curious how that's moved to theoretically reduce what we'd have to lobby in the future. Interesting.

So going back 10 years, right now they're predicted through the 2027 payout, because that is the CERC data from October of 24 through September of 25. There's a year and a quarter lag, so they can say you're going up or you're going down and you can plan. So I'm talking payout years, 2018 to 2027. 2018 was 54,000, 2027 will be 112,000. An extra important way to look at it is we have gone Whitefish Bay population-wise within Milwaukee County is 4.3% of the county population. You ever take a tenth of a percent as it changes. 10 years ago, we accounted for 5.1% of the population. net circulation between all the libraries. We are now at 7.4%. So we rebounded significantly better than all except, I think, Tosa and Greenfield across. And I will say, to put it in perspective, we're getting 112,000. Tosa gets a third of a mil. West Dallas gets a quarter of a mil. And Cudahy gets 200,000. But those are significantly, aside from Cudahy, they're still kind of small too, significantly bigger libraries where we then are the fifth highest check out of 15. So we're doing a lot right with our circulation. And we're known as the nice library, the friendly library. As we have different libraries closed or people come here for us, they go, oh, you're so nice and you answer my questions. And they keep coming here instead of going back to their home libraries. So as they're drawn in to pick up a metal detector and they see how friendly staff is or we have these different things, they keep coming back to us.

You have metal detectors? We do. It's checked out a lot. I went to magnetometers. Yeah.

If they're shuffling and your wedding ring comes off in the snow, people come get them as far away as West Alliston. Check that out and find their own one. So, yeah.

I guess the only other question is maybe just speak to the board a little bit about the trajectory of the foundation. So again, as we're thinking about levy limits, I see that as a way to kind of offset challenges in the budget. I know it's grown, but where do you see that playing into supporting operating costs, supporting collections, just for the wider board?

So the foundation was created in 2021. Its purpose is specifically to support the library with donor money that is put into an endowment at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. There is now, they just hit about 250 to 260 total between the bank account and GMF. That generates interest. So 5% will be rolled off to use if it makes 15%, that extra 10% stays there to compound to grow it. I will say in looking at other library foundations, it typically took seven to ten years to reach a quarter mil, and we did it in four years. So I think that speaks well to us to it growing. This year we'll be doing our first community read. It will be a big name author with a title that came out last year. We're in the point of negotiating and signing the contract, so I can't say who it is yet. But it is $10,000, and that enables us to have a – You know very large Community right program I think regionally to bring in for this particular author that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. As it continues to grow if we hit 400,000 by 2030 that's more money that's coming off and within the bylaws the money has to be used for library board strategic plan approved initiatives. And it's supposed to be programming, collections, and technology. So if money were to, say, get tight in other areas, we could leverage it towards that to help fill the gap. It would not be used for staffing unless they updated their bylaws.

So in theory, this staff position is a strategic initiative, right? Just something to think about if needed in the future. Whereas other staffing is not specifically outlined in the strategic plan. So it may give flexibility around this specific role someday.

I think that $5,000, $10,000 a year towards collections, which then frees up collection money to go towards what would have been collections to the staffing.

Yeah, just as we get into that environment, those sources, I think, are just a good way to help balance that budget, particularly if we had this individual.

And I will say we also are receiving now approximately $3,500 to $4,000 a year from the Women's Club. They took their proceeds and created their own fund at GMF. they voted and that is being split between 10 or 12 organizations so over time as that compounds its interest also that may grow at a smaller rate they're not adding to it like the foundation is adding to but it's just i mean that's two databases i'm sorry so this club is going into what fund the foundation or it goes into the operating fund as a donation

Sorry, one last question. Your collection budget, do you typically spend that in full every year or do you roll some over?

A couple of years due to some issues within the market. Baker & Taylor, which imagine Amazon all of a sudden said in two weeks we're going out of business. Baker & Taylor supplied books to Amazon. and all the libraries in the country. So to all of a sudden have your main vendor go out of business last October impacted libraries across the nation being able to fully expend. And so we were underspent last year. We are aiming again for the full amount, which puts us into, if you look at state standards, we're in the excellent area and very much what we spend on collections we get back in the member reserve.

Okay. And I guess, sorry, I lied. One last question. So in addition to kind of thinking about the wider budget on the board, I'm also thinking, how does this role, in addition to improving the staff experience, how does it improve the resident experience at the library and the patron experience? Maybe some examples of that.

analyze the collection much more strategically to say okay what's grubby what can we replace you know update that collection so it's it's fresher we call it weeding and as a non-gardener i didn't make this connection until a co-worker said it to me you weed your garden so you can see the beautiful flowers you can enjoy those flowers more um so it would be more weeding not just of what doesn't circulate out but the things that maybe it's a microsoft book from 1995 We don't really, someone's checking it out because it hasn't hit the no-serk list, but we could get rid of that and we could get newer things in that so they can think about strategic development much more strategically within the collection. Also being able to do more programming and having more capacity to do evenings and weekends, which people are asking.

Okay, so you see this role directly supporting those more off-hours programs.

Or at least freeing it up where, okay, once every other week we have two people on a night shift or on a Saturday in order to be able to do a special program instead of keeping it to just one, which is what we do currently. If we have an evening program, there's a sign at the desk. And they then have to go to the other department to ask for help.

Okay. Thanks. Right. Do we have any other comments?

I was just going to say, I also support it. As long as you're going into it, eyes wide open. Okay. Yeah. Sounds like you are. Like I initially started with, I don't feel that I should buy granted your budget. Trust you to do that.

Ryan, can I get a... Yeah, have you not chimed in on support? I'm in support. I mean, you run a great operation there. I've become a little bit more familiar with the operation you're running, so I'm in favor of it. I do share the concerns long-term of where the budget's going, but it sounds like you're going eyes wide open and there's alternatives.

You bail the water and plug the holes with you. Yeah.

Good.

Well, there's no action tonight to take an official vote, but the head count seems to be about five to one. So there you go. There's your, there's your.

Thank you everyone. I appreciate you. I also say one more thing. I also like this because there are certain services we don't have in this community. And this is doing that instead of us creating a whole new position or area, you're doing something for seniors or after five o'clock, like that's really important. If we think of it that way.

Yeah, we don't have a community center or senior center, so to speak, you know, the rec department handles that but that tends to be classes that are charged for and we try to offer things that are free. So, which is why we don't collaborate too much. They have to charge and we don't. So, but.

I don't know who always reshelves the children's section, but if you could just say thank you, because I know my kids will just go and pick up 60 books to find the one they want.

I will pass that on. We currently have three adult shelvers, which is newer for us, but the majority are high school students who work four to six hours a week and do a great job. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Moving on. to discussion action on the purchase of replacement portable radios for the police departments. Chief.

All right, good evening. So in September of 2025, the village board approved to have money put into the 2026 to 2031 capital improvement program for police radios. Police radio is something that officers use every shift from mundane radio traffic for service to possibly life-saving calls to dispatch or other officers. The current radios were purchased between 2012 and 2013. Motorola ended the support and repair service for those radios on December 31st of 2023. Um, so the majority of them are out of warranty and out of, um, being able to be repaired. There's still some parts out there, but they're getting harder to come by. Um, and a lot of our radios are starting to break down. Uh, we send them in for repair. There's a service fee to actually just have them looked at to see what's wrong with it. Um, so that's money coming out of our budget. Small number of these radios are slightly newer model. They look exactly the same, but they have new interior parts. We have six of those, which are still in service, but I think we need to, it works better if we can replace all of them. So each officer training-wise are all using the same radio. The ones I'm suggesting are Motorola N70. These were recommended by the Milwaukee County Office of Excuse me. Office of Emergency Management. That's who runs the county radio system. It's a Motorola system. So Motorola brand works the best. If you read the memo, a jurisdiction south of us tried a different brand radio. It didn't work out for them. They ended up having to buy radios twice because they had to buy Motorola radios a few years later. The original purchase price, the original quote that I received was $275,000. We went through it. We got rid of some of the unnecessary features that we didn't think we need. We worked in conjunction with River Hills to do a joint radio purchase. And we got the final quote down to $193,000, just over $193,000, which is a reduction of more than $80,000. Motorola has a special pricing that ends June 30th. If we didn't take advantage of this and we bought these radios at regular price, it would be $318,000. So definitely this, in my opinion, is the time to do it. We've looked at joint radio purchases throughout the North Shore. We looked at grant funding. None of that has come to fruition. Our radios are older than the majority of other jurisdictions in the North Shore. So they're in a little bit of a different place than we are. Most of theirs aren't end of service or end of life. So I think this is the time that we need to replace ours.

Quick question. It seems like a lot of this is you get the radio hardware and then you kind of buy the license for the software. I'm curious, you said that our old radios were like 10 to 12 years old. Will that be allowed with this new set where like they're licensing it to you for X number of years? Like what happens if you keep it for 10 years or 11, you know?

Yeah, so I mean, the radios that we have could work on the system for, for longer. It's not like they'll end, they'll stop working. It's just, we won't be able to repair them.

Right. No, I'm saying we buy these and 10 years from now, like don't the licenses expire or something?

So no, we, the licenses, well, licenses never expire. It's, it's a seven year warranty.

Okay.

That's maybe what you're thinking.

In conclusion, 11 years from now, we have no problem. We don't have to pay anymore. We may have broken radios, but it's not like they will go out of service like a lot of other subscription models.

Yeah, it's not a subscription model like that. Okay. That's all I, yeah.

Did you have something to say? So there's a seven-year warranty. What is the typical time where they stop supporting them? Is it about 10 years? It looks like ours are like 11 years old.

Yeah, they started making the ones we have. I think 2012 was one of the first years that they made them. And then in 2023, they stopped making them. That's roughly probably what I would expect for these as well.

So you'd have three to five years outside of warranty where you may keep them but not be supported?

Yeah, it all depends on how many parts Motorola is making for them. And they stopped making the parts. So there's a few that, you know, it just depends on how long you can get parts is there and i'm sorry if it's in here is there a licensing fee over time or is it a one-time so this is a one-time purchase it covers the seven-year warranty um every year we pay a fee to milwaukee county for use of the radio system but that's separate that's outside that's in our normal budget

But there's no incremental cost to upgrade software on these over time or once you're outside of warranty. It's just when they stop supporting them.

Correct.

Okay. And then just one other question. This feels like pretty kind of old technology, kind of hardwired on a network. Do you see police radio staying this way over the next 10, 20, 30 years? Or do you see it changing to something different?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that what you see is not going to go away anytime soon. There is, so these radios would be capable of an upgrade to like a cellular service LTE. So that is something that's being talked about right now. It's, it's really not needed for where we are. That's more for, so these radios are capable, they have just under 500 frequencies in them. So if we get a call to, so, A couple of years ago, we went and helped the Waukesha during their parade issue. And we had to switch to a different frequency. So it has all the frequencies. And sometimes when you're outside of our Milwaukee radio system, you would switch to LTE. But right now we're not needing that.

Okay. I guess just another piece of that question is, in 10 years, do you expect we'll buy another fleet of radios, or do you think we'll be doing something different that's a different technology? Do you think this is just here to stay?

There will always be a police radio, yeah.

That will be roughly kind of this cost per or higher, you think? I would imagine. There's no kind of technology that's going to emerge and displace this, in your opinion?

Oh, you know, Years ago, the push was, oh, everyone's going to have a cell phone and have the push to talk cell phone. And that's kind of died off. And this is a proven technology that died off because Motorola's made that seven.

Yeah, I was going to say. That might be a reason.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Nextel. Nextel. Nextel. Good brother. Don't see her. Maybe just get you some pagers. Max machine.

Those might cost more.

I would ask, I mean, just to, you know, similar to, I mean, you run a very good police department. If you tell me you need these, I trust you. But what makes, other than many, many frequencies, what makes this a $7,000 a piece radio?

So it's meant to be, you know, it's water resistant to IP68 standards. It's meant for daily use. These get dropped, they get When an officer gets in a fight, they get thrown on and they land on the radio. It continues to work. If you think about it, how many cell phones have you bought since 2012? And what's the price of those cell phones added on year after year? And we're buying one radio for that whole time.

That's fair. So you mentioned... that there might be some parts out there for our older radios. And I'm not advocating that we keep our old radios, but I assume there are some police departments that have those models. Is there value for our current stock of radios on the secondary market and what we try to take advantage of it?

Yeah, there's definitely a market, not generally for police departments, but other like farming industries use them, things like that. So there's definitely a market to sell them, yes.

You know, buy some for your kids. Is that what you're...

Do we reuse old radios for snow operations?

I don't think our DPW uses radios anymore.

Because in some cases that happens. So does the warranty cover if an officer gets in a fight and crushes a radio? Yep.

For seven years, it's an accident. Everything.

And you would automatically go to sell the old ones as opposed to keeping them for backup if things are down?

Yeah, with... 28 radios, that gives us plenty in case there's an issue. And yeah, once these are up and running and we're confident that everything is good, yeah, we would put those up for auction.

Maybe put it in our calendars, six years, 11 months, we'd break all the radios. Yeah, it should be a lot of fights.

Drive away and run over them.

Yeah, I don't know. Let's not wish for that. All right, any other questions that are coming to me?

I move that the Village Board approve the radio purchase at a negotiated price of $193,405.27. Thank you.

Anna, there you go. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to last summit the last item discussion on the strategic plan initiative to evaluate permitted conditional and prohibited uses of other standards in district 11 silver spring hello Anna.

All right, so this item is tied to the 2024 2027 strategic plan which called for the evaluation of strict and loving since. Staff also considered feedback from the strategic planning focus groups with an interest in a boutique hotel, additional restaurants, more first floor retail, and businesses that attract people from outside the community. Additionally, staff has heard board feedback related to drive-throughs as well as the building height.

Yep, a little bit louder.

At a high level... Permitted uses are uses the zoning code has determined that are generally compatible with the intent of the district and may proceed by right if they meet the applicable code standards. So what this really means is that a business is only required to pull an occupancy permit or any other additional for building permits with Joel. Conditional uses are uses that may be appropriate in the district but warrant a case-by-case review, which is done at Planning Commission so the village can evaluate potential impacts such as noise, light, smells, and apply any conditions where needed. Then prohibited uses are uses that the code has determined are inconsistent with the purpose and character of the district and therefore are simply not allowed.

I have just a question that like, because you're talking about conditional uses and this is appropriate, is there a particular burden to a merchant who wants to get a conditional use permit? Like, is it difficult to get, you know, is there a lot of documents you got to file? Is there a lot of time you got to hire a lawyer? I mean, is it particularly burdensome?

If it's a simple tenant build-out, we have two pending right now. It is not burdensome. And internally, we have developed a checklist that we have begun to provide to applicants to streamline the process when it is a bigger development, not just a tenant build-out that is circulated between Joel, Kelsey, and myself.

I think the answer is it depends. Small things, not a big deal. Big things... It's more challenging.

On the specific topic of conditional uses, I would actually ask Attorney Jekyll's a question because I've seen in my travels and other work in other communities, they're really getting away from all conditional uses. There's been some recent case law, if you want to speak up to this, where it's essentially made conditional uses. There's really no way for a municipality to deny conditional uses. And so because of that, effectively by making it a conditional use, you're effectively making it an approved use. Do you want to speak to that first?

It's true. The statute was amended to create those presumptions. It also puts basically a stopwatch on the process too. The municipality is significantly hamstrung by that because we got to get an answer to you in 60 days or whichever of the deadlines apply. Yes. Got to get an answer to you in that time and have it be the answer that we would have come to if we had the luxury of more time to sort through it.

So I would recommend that we eliminate conditional uses and we have permitted uses and prohibited uses would be my take.

There is a trend in that regard.

Wow.

And maybe be more strict on what floor it's on.

Whatever. I mean, whatever the list becomes. I mean, we have a lot of conditional uses in here and just the communities are very hamstrung on conditional uses specifically.

I wonder if we want to let Anna get all the way through.

Well, it's just... Yeah, I kind of wanted to like get a 50,000 foot level and I... Yeah, it just seemed like that was the appropriate thing.

Yeah, sorry. But because I'm usually the guilty one.

Proceed.

Okay. We'll circle back to that at the end. I was just going to point out the table. It does categorize the regulatory status as well as what Anna spoke to distinguishes based on the location within the building. I'm not going to read from the table, but my key takeaways based on the review and my experiences is, in general, District 11 permits traditional retail and certain service-oriented uses by right. particularly uses that support an active and pedestrian-oriented business district, which was heard throughout the strategic planning process. The code is more restrictive with some other uses by requiring conditional use review, to Brian's point, including many restaurant and entertainment-related uses, first-floor professional office uses, and uses not otherwise specifically listed. We have a wraparound cause that for all uses not listed. then they are considered a conditional use. And then finally, the code prohibits certain uses viewed inconsistent, including certain auto convenience and adult oriented uses. So at a high level, currently the framework generally favors the retail storefront activity while using the conditional use process for uses that may require additional review. In terms of with keeping that framework in mind, The five specific topics highlighted in the memo where staff are looking for direction is, and then we can circle back to what Brian said and dive through the questions I had in the memo, but hotels are not specifically listed and therefore they fall under the wraparound conditional use that we have in the code. Restaurants and dining establishments that sellers serve alcohol as well as cafes and coffee shops are currently conditional uses regardless of the floor location. Currently zoning supports the first floor retail because retail uses are permitted on the first floor while first floor professional offices uses require a conditional use permit. And then the next two topics, they come from board feedback that Kelsey and I have heard. Drive-through establishments are prohibited only when more than 50% of sales occur through the drive-through, meaning some drive-through uses may still be considered through the conditional use process. And then lastly, Building height currently district 11 allows a maximum height of four stories or 54 feet with the setback requirement of 42 feet in certain situations, such as a budding of residential zoning district. So with that, we can either address the questions that I posed in the memo or go back to Brian's point and talk about act 67, which established the three prong threshold that makes it hard for municipalities to deny conditional use. But by removing the conditional use process in general, then it makes it hard for the municipality to apply any conditions similar to what we did with the Argo. So I know that's like an extreme, but to provide kind of a forethought to build onto that, think about the process. If we want to have the conditional use in place with a bigger development like the Argo, that wasn't a PDD.

Can you explain the three-prong review process?

I don't know it off the top of my head, but I know Act 67, which was passed in 2014, established there has to be hardship and it has to deviate from the comprehensive plan. It has to be in alignment with any master plan that we have. And then there's something about fact-based action.

Substantial evidence is the key. That's the key phrase in the whole thing. So you're bound to that as a municipality.

So if you read the conditional use from the Argo to reveal some of our secrets, you'll see that they agree to all of those terms. From a municipal perspective, you enter those conversations from a perspective of getting agreement on what we feel like the village needs. And so, yes, I do. Absolutely. It is a fact that conditional use has been handcuffed. But it still is a tool. You can talk about parking impacts. You can talk about entrance locations, noise.

It's been handcuffed in that you basically have to grant unconditional use. You have to grant the permit, but you can attach regulations to it, like parking and time of day and deliveries and noise levels and all that stuff that we did for the Argo. So there's still something. I mean, you got me, but there's still some things that are beneficial to the village to be able to control when offering them the permit.

But are you saying...

Senator Jacobs, can you comment on that?

Yeah. Could somebody say, I don't like the hours that you're offering in this conditional use permit. I'm going to sue you to allow us to have more hours or different parking regulations.

Depending on whether Act 67 was satisfied in terms of the substantial evidence that was presented to be in the record to form the basis for the denial... No, not a denial. No, I'm saying the denial of that one term. I mean, the ability to have a drive-thru, for example.

Let's take something simpler, like hours of operation.

Hours of operation, you're still going to have to have substantial evidence to support your choice of what those hours are. Yeah, which we kind of don't. Under the new statute.

And you got to remember too, I mean, I appreciate what you're saying with the Argo, but the Argo needed other things from the village. It wasn't just strictly coming in, applying for a condition to use for an occupancy. So we had them and there was a reason for them to cooperate. Not every business is going to be that way.

More are than you would think, though. It a little bit depends on the use, but a lot of them come in with questions about what's the community going to want. They're taking the feedback, they're entering the community and want to be a good teammate and player. And so I think there are a decent amount of situations where people will agree to participate. it's not really requirements. They will agree to what it is the plan commission desires.

They don't want a hostile relationship. Exactly.

And they're in front of who will be their customer. And it is a tool that you... At a minimum, we should be looking at conditional uses then as approved uses.

There might be small little things, but there's very little a municipality can do.

I would say at a minimum, we should look at all the possibilities of things we want to prohibit. Not that I care, but hotels. I don't know if we need to have hotels. We certainly wouldn't want to have that debate and dangle a conditional use permit and be able to have them sue us. Instead, it just needs to be prohibited if that is the decision.

That's been challenged in court.

Do you think the average business owner knows that?

I don't know if the average developer and retailer does. They say hire Brian, they know.

No and yes.

So there's a difference, right?

And so if you're in one small shop, you're not necessarily going to know that you can buy it. It might be more inclined to buy more.

And to staff's comment about hotels, you know, You can turn away, I'm sorry, not hotels, it's the drive-thrus I was going to comment on. You look at the Chick-fil-A in Glendale. Glendale said, we don't want you to have any eating space. So it's all drive-thrus. And rather than get into a lawsuit, Chick-fil-A said, okay, well, it'll work for us if we can do this and that and the other thing and, you know, set their hours. And, I mean, you go past there and there's got to be more carbon monoxide going out into the world, you know, because it's like the Kentucky Derby starting platform when you're going over there.

Yeah, that one ticks me off because, like, every bank has a drive-through and I can, like, cash a check through my car, but I can't get a taco. And it's like, I don't know. In Whitefish Bay. In Whitefish Bay. Yeah, I could go.

I do want to say, though, I absolutely agree with what Brian's saying. If there is something on the conditional use or multiple items on the conditional use that you say, no way. This is not something that I would. Yep.

Yep.

Or even something that's like 50% of the time I wouldn't want this. Right. Like you really should be.

I was curious about motor vehicle sales or service as being a conditional use on any floor. That one jumped out to me as a, do we want that?

It's interesting too, because you get into these, some newer services, you get like a Tesla or a Rivian and they're not really your traditional auto retailer. It's more like a small boutique, you know, it's like a Best Buy almost. I mean, it's a very different vibe than.

So you're saying, yes, you are okay with that.

I think it depends. I think, you know, do we want, I don't want all of Silver Spring eaten up by an auto retailer, but at the same time, if a small, you know, like a Lucid car or something like that wanted to put a second story shop on wherever and kind of show their wares, I think that might be really beneficial.

Car service as well?

I really think it all depends. Oh, you mean repair?

Well, I mean, it says motor vehicle sales or service.

Well, when you decide to go forward into that, you're getting into use of hazardous substances and things. Yeah. So it actually kind of goes in the same bucket as do you want a dry cleaner? You know, which also is technically environmentally dirty. I guess we have none, right?

We have no drag cleaners now.

Right.

We're all right out of town. They're like 50 feet off of our municipal boundary. You don't want to own that property.

To your point, though, Jake, when you say maybe, that is where I would challenge you to think about what Brian's saying. Because it is, we, as staff, when we're having those conversations and playing commission when the individual comes in, You can cut around the corners, but like you can't just outright say. And honestly, they could just say no. And so your oversight is much more limited than it was before. And so if your answer is it would be a really, really defined small window. then maybe what you say is no. And if that does come forward, you look at your code and amend it in a very narrow way to allow that use if you feel like that is fitting.

That's the one that jumped out to me.

Another one that jumped out at me was the permitted any floor service oriented camera, wireless service. Like that's not shopping and having a great experience.

Where was that?

Sort of an upstairs cottage. It's in the first. It's a you break, I think. Or whatever, you know.

Page 355.

Photography studios. Yeah, right here, Tara.

And those are chosen for that because of who we're in. That one. Okay.

Oh, I see. Okay, thank you. Photography studios and services, though, to me, I'm thinking of the old Sears photography where you would take your family and go get portraits taken. You're reading that differently than that.

Like You Break, I Fix, that sort of stuff I think should be on Second Stories.

Okay. So specifically... Wireless service stores, yep. I would concur.

Leather goods repair.

Although we have one on a first floor right now.

Yeah. So if we change this, what happens when they're lease renews?

They're just illegal, nonconforming. But I guess the question, Anna, is does that one bother you that it's there?

Yeah, you break, I fix. Is that something that?

It's not a shopping experience. Let's meet up and we'll go to these boutiques and this beautiful cooking store. And like, it's just kind of like no one's coming. Like you're going to run in, run out and maybe go to Starbucks and go home.

But I would argue that it's also a service that probably a lot of residents have used.

The second floor, not first floor. That's why I'm not saying get rid of it. Totally.

Yeah.

I don't know. I think there's an insurance.

I'd go if it's on the second floor.

I mean, yeah, there's, there's a lot of services though. Like getting your haircut is a service.

It's not really a shopping experience.

Well, I know I'm just, I'm trying to compare service.

Technically a beauty salon.

Right. Whether you're getting, let's just drop the, the semantics part of it. It's just that it is a service to have your hair cut versus your phone fixed. So I'm, I don't, that one doesn't bother me personally. And You Break, I Fix, I think is actually a business that's probably doing pretty well in Windfish Bay.

Sure. I guess, what do we want our vibe to be? Well, how do you feel then about paint and wallpaper stores?

Are you getting into chemicals again? Interior design.

Well, yeah, I don't know. I mean.

It doesn't bother me. How do you feel about plumbing supply with Gerhardt's? That's a strange store on our block.

Are they doing one?

I have no idea. I think their margins must be really high for what they have there. I only see people in there.

It's hobby stores, stationery stores.

Well, let's try to go through the questions that Anna was trying to get to. And the first one, I think, is hotel. I just want to specifically identify hotels and or modify the regulatory status. So the regulatory status currently is conditional use. Conditional.

I'm not opposed to hotels, like a boutique hotel.

Yeah, I think you should, that's exactly my comment. I think we should clarify boutique hotel and define it. How do you define it? This is not.

And I would say second floor.

Yeah, some of our staff recommends, but I completely agree with that.

I think a boutique hotel would do well. I think the arguments that we're having about Airbnbs and short-term rentals show that there is some market for people staying here. And I think if it could be done well, then that would be a wonderful thing to add.

How do you define a boutique hotel? 10 rooms or less?

I will say this is a good example of one, if my memory's right, Anna, that isn't defined in the code. So therefore it's the conditional use by default. So this is another opportunity to circle back to what Brian was saying. Perhaps that wraparound clause should be that it is prohibited. And then if a use comes in, that's... desirable and not in the code, then we'd have to come back and you'd have to amend the code, which is a three-month process. I want to be clear about that. But that would be the other way to look at it.

But if it's something that some of us think might not be a bad idea or might be a good idea, if we put it out there that it's prohibited, is somebody going to come and say?

Ask Brian. I mean, they still would, I think.

They wouldn't be less likely to bring a boutique hotel here because we have it listed as prohibited?

I would recommend to define a boutique hotel.

So I'm not saying to say boutique hotel is prohibited. What I'm saying is right now the code says if it's not listed, You can do it by initial use. And I'm saying perhaps what it should say is if it's not listed, it's prohibited. In which case, the village board would have to consider a code amendment. Anna, we're kind of talking about this on the fly. I don't know how often that happens.

A lot of communities have that.

It's been twice since.

If it's not listed, it's prohibited.

pet grooming for Fitzy's. So they could make their addition.

Good job. And if I remember the pet grooming, like they asked for it, let's say January 1st and in 60, 70 days, June?

Yeah, it was a little.

I thought it was pretty fast. I remember like commenting, they were like, wow, it was really fast.

We had to do the three notices. So it has to, because it's a zoning text amendment, it has to be referred to the plan commission. You have to do the three notices. There has to be the public hearing. And then how fast those meetings occur, right? Sure. And then it goes to village board, but then they get to go back for the approval.

Okay. Right. So six months ish.

It's not an easy process, but the point is, is if there's things that aren't on this list right now, they are allowed by conditional use to Brian's point, which means they're essentially allowed. And so if you want to be more careful about the uses, that would be something to consider.

They'd be governed by the same height requirements, right? A hotel be four stories. It couldn't exceed four stories because it's a different use, right? It's, it's all the entire district. That's kind of overarching.

The legal definition for the record is a 10 to a hundred rooms. Oh, it's under 10. I'm just saying it's a, yes. They call under 10 though.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Let's say understand.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Airbnb.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- But I think the state statute in Wisconsin administrative code for lodging has definitions that yeah. would probably want to adhere to or something like that.

How many players?

It's a little more complex when it's a hotel as opposed to a bed and breakfast.

So boutique hotel definition and permitted or conditional

I think I like Kelsey's idea. If it's not listed, it's not.

Well, that's a different question.

Yeah, they're two different things. So what I was referring to earlier would apply to all business types. Right. So right now, I would say if your concern is being careful or intentional about uses, you're in a bit of a precarious situation in that regard. like data centers kind of popped up and people were scrambling, right? And we're not going to have a data center on Silver Spring. But I say that is an example of codes that weren't ready for the change that happened.

I'm not going to have a data center.

So I think for Anna's purposes, I think we're going hotel under 10 units and figure out some legal. And I think the answer to that is conditional use permit. Because I think we always want to have the ability to enact conditions on things like no, no check-in after midnight, you know, something where you're able to control this. And if they don't like it, then I get to say, if they don't like it, then hopefully they'll play ball with you. I'm sorry. Diana has a, That's the legal definition. We'll use a different word. We'll use a different, whatever the official term is. Okay. The next one was restaurants and dining establishments. Does the board want to make any changes to the regulatory status of cafes, coffee shops, restaurants? Um, currently they're conditional. I don't, I don't know what, what, what would we do? Make them permitted, simply permitted.

So usually this is a tool to basically try to incentivize the businesses you want to see and make it a little bit more difficult for the businesses that you have concerns about and say, no way the businesses you don't want to see. So making something permitted is a clear indication to people looking to locate that, Hey, you are welcome here. This is what we want.

The number one thing that people want in Whitefish Bay is more. There's no reason we don't make this. Yeah. Why isn't it permitted now?

Right. But, but again, there's some value in having them go through the conditional use permit process. It's minimal. I mean, I think you're, I mean, I'm on the platform, and it always seems like they give you some details. How many public patio tables can you have? Well, we'll give you five. Okay. Oh, we want seven. Well, that's too many. You're going to be close to the sidewalk. Joel had his hand up. No.

to a single family home. Why is that a concern?

I was chastised for this as if it was a fire code thing.

Just an example of again, I'm trying to get a condition for a condition that might be without any control and that's not a power without two or three Another option is to write a letterpost that strips or things like that.

But in that case, though, he wanted something external. Like he was going to park something there, which I don't see.

You know, in the end, to Brian's point, that was why I asked the question, how burdensome is this? And if it's not tremendously burdensome, then why don't we try, you know, like, why would you just flip things to permitted? You might as well have them go through the minor burden of filling out some paperwork and showing up at the plan commission meeting that takes eight minutes. Anyways.

So, okay, let's just take that example to the extreme. So, Would we have standing to be able to say no to this? If we said it was permitted and they came in and they decided to do this, would we...

If it's permitted and they come in with a valid application, they have a vested interest.

I don't think we would allow somebody to permanently park equipment in a parking spot and say that that's... But let's say, because I think this is a great analogy, though. What if that smoker was inside the building, was venting outside the building? You would still have potentially odor concerns. And let's say, hypothetically, it is a conditional use. Would we have enough standing to say no?

Unless the substantial evidence could rise to that level where that odor alone is an insurmountable problem.

Which we would have a burden to prove. The village would have to prove. But we could do that. If it was something that was very concerning, we could go to the work to do that.

But we may or may not be able to. May or may not be successful.

But they might want to cut a deal like Chick-fil-A did in Glendale. They gave up their dining room.

It just seems like it's a tool.

Yeah. It's a tool.

It's a tool in the toolbox. And if you just say it's permitted, then you lose that tool. But if your toolbox gets too heavy, it's tough to build.

Sorry, not really true. But I'm just saying, at a certain point. You're usually right on.

Must be tiring. Keep working that one.

All right. So back to the question at hand, and that is restaurants and changing anything. I'm guessing the answer is no.

How do other municipalities with similar density like ours handle this? Are they mostly permitted? Because I think in a place that's more... Mostly conditional use, if you want.

Mostly conditional. I don't know who else around here is similar.

Anna, can you speak to restaurants based on Shorewood?

Shorewood, they're permitted in their actual district and then their conditional use in. Okay.

Just because I didn't get a chance, I've been the chair of the plan commission for 5 years now. I don't think we've ever denied any permit. We've always had relatively excited applicants who come and they're like, yeah, this is my business plan and I want to tell you about it. And they're pleased that the meeting takes, you know, 10 minutes and they're out and they get some validation that they have a business that the public is interested in. Just a comment. I think, I'm sorry, the only time we ever had an issue was the The drive-through ATM at Johnson Bank.

Yep.

They initially said, the plan commission actually before I was on the board said no. And they said, okay. But then like three years later, they came back and they said, we really want this ATM. And we went through a few more meetings with, it was interesting. We went through a meeting with, and neighbors came and they said, this is a terrible idea. And then the second meeting, nobody showed up and we, We seem to have proved the point and now they have an ATM. Sorry. So that was really the only glitch I've ever seen in five years of playing.

Those neighbors were a little flaky too, if you pardon me.

So another example really quick is the Lidell Silver Spring development, which I believe was originally proposed as only a bank or maybe a bank and apartments with no retail. The one on Lidell and Silver Spring.

That was initially proposed as just a bank. Yeah, right.

I appreciate that they have a very good development attorney and probably knew all the laws and such, but they still did make concessions.

Right.

That I think would have been difficult staff alone to be able to achieve. Correct. Because they don't need a PDD. They're meeting all the requirements.

Well, let's keep going.

No change for...

Should we vote on restaurants? I'd still.

You'd go permitted?

Yeah. Without the ability to have the two holders. Unswayed.

I agree. But there's other, you still control, you still control liquor license, you still control if they want a patio on land that we own, they still have to give them a job.

I think we tell everybody that.

We don't deny them anyway. It's not a burden. That's where I am.

But it's a signal. It's saying we didn't come here to build. Bring your smoke shop.

Do we feel like we lose opportunities because it exists? I guess that's the problem I'd be trying to solve. I don't know. I guess you don't know the answer, but do we feel like it prevents them from ever coming forward? Because I agree, it doesn't seem like a terribly burdensome process. I just don't know. Does anyone kind of look past us and go somewhere else because of this? I'm looking at you, but I don't expect you to have the answer. That's what I would want to know.

A much better perspective on that.

I don't think so. I mean, first and foremost, I look at existing restaurants ways. Yeah. And I, I don't think that candidly, I don't think we lose them. I just think that it's always been the CDA's role to every survey that's ever been done in the village. Everyone says that they want more restaurants and we are showing them. I understand, but whatever.

It's we will, every restaurant that comes in front of us, we will grant, except we would like to have the conversation with you to perhaps, um, you know, modify some of the parking issues, like parking and hours and delivery times and noxious odors and et cetera. Like there's a directory of things that we, that staff goes through to possibly influence them to do things that we want them to do.

Brian, what about in situations where like they have a lease agreement, but it's contingent upon, like sometimes we met, we met with prospective businesses and they're saying like, Especially if it's someone who hasn't done that type of business before and they're like, should I sign? And then we have to schedule a plan commission meeting.

That's a good point. Yeah, you need to negotiate that into the lease where the tenant would have a contingency to terminate in the event that they don't get a permit from the municipality. And that landlord would need to agree to that timeframe. You could apply for it before a lease is signed, but then as a tenant, you have a risk that you may make an application and that landlord may lease it out to somebody else in the interim. So that is true, Kelsey.

And we did meet with a prospective business at Yellowwood that I don't think moved away for any reason. related to us or the village, but he was very concerned and was reluctant to sign a lease because he wasn't sure about the process and tried to understand it better.

The tenant would run the risk. That being said, isn't the biggest risk a liquor license? And an approval of a liquor license. Don't we have, what is our license count? We have, we have plus two. There's so much for me. I think the Argo took the last one.

We have, we saw reserve.

Yeah.

I don't think we have any reserve. We have no reserve, which means we have five. That's what I thought.

I thought we had reserves. I'm sorry. Can you say that again? So what is the answer?

I believe it's five reserves, but Aaron's going to look it up. On the spot, sorry. Let's keep talking, then she'll jump in.

I'm pretty sure that we're maxed out. That is my recollection.

But a reserve license. No, we're not maxed out on reserve.

I was surprised that it was five. I thought it was two.

Okay, well, we'll find out in a second. We are not maxed out on reserve. That I know. That's the $10,000 one-time fee. Yeah. Got it?

There are six that we would have approved tonight on our consent agenda for the 26-27 period. We are allowed up to eight, so we actually do have two available, and then we would go into reserve.

Do you know how many reserves we have?

Off the top of my head, no.

Okay, but we can get that answer.

Just get your checkbook. We're not at risk right now.

We're in a lot better position than a lot of communities for attraction in that regard. Oh, right.

In addition, I would add that we don't have any improved uses. We don't have bookstores, which is ironic. I don't know if you want to add that use based on the recent developments.

Right.

And I would echo Tara's comments that I think we should move the motor vehicle while I'm in support of what you're saying. I like to have control over what that is. that's one in a million state law prohibits that today as we sit here anyways and i vote to move that to prohibited use as well like it does doesn't it it does yeah we're not silly but it is and i imagine that'll change at some point but you're right it doesn't maybe yeah Joel can you comment on bookstore um

Sorry. We recently reviewed one and I'm trying to remember what you specialty store.

Yep. Is that what we specialty retail?

Yeah. Specialty retail. I like just adding bookstores.

Okay.

Why not?

Let's be specific.

Okay. Permitted on any floor.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have a question about adult oriented businesses. Is that defined as, Because it goes into it and it says not limited to adult bookstores, which we don't have any bookstores anywhere else, movie theaters, video arcades, and paraphernalia, and internet providers. And I'm just curious, are there very clear definitions as to adult internet providers?

Yeah.

I need to clean that language up. I was just confused.

Perplexed in my review of that as well, I think. It was a combination. I don't know. I tried to find where that was added at some point. I think it was just added. That's where they put it in.

I mean, I agree generally. I just don't want to be outlawing movie theaters generally or video arcades or internet providers broadly.

Okay.

Because we have an undefined standard.

Let's just say internet providers as a part of an adult-oriented business.

But I just want maybe some more definition about what they mean by adult-oriented. I mean, a bar is an adult-oriented business. I mean, maybe not in Wisconsin, but in a lot of places.

So what I have so far is boutique hotel for 10 units or less. We'll have a different word for that. Add bookstores permitted on any floor. Look at the definitions of the prohibited adult oriented businesses, car sales and the mechanic. I forgot what it was. Motor vehicle service. Okay. Is prohibited. What did everyone think about the wireless service stores technology? That one that Anna spoke to? I would like to hear Brian's take on that.

I mean, you break, I fix as a client of mine for the right. May have done that deal. I don't know. I mean, I think that's a different use than like a, I don't know, T-Mobile, but even then it's a service use. I mean, it's.

I think it still drives traffic on the silver spring. And if that's what the goal is, is to drive traffic on the silver spring.

I would consider it kind of like a bank though, where you go once every three years to T-Mobile and you have a reason and like you can probably do it all online anyhow and they can ship you your phone. So, I mean, it is not a preferred use, that's for sure.

Do we think another one of those is really going to pop up, though, if there's already one there? I think of just like the market. Brian, is there a market for a second wireless service? You know, if we have one, are we solving a problem that's unlikely to arise here?

There's a lot of... Yeah. We're probably not going to get another book, you know, hotel or bookstore. So...

I want to make sure we're not spending a lot of time solving problems that aren't problems in this case, but...

There's a lot of mobile phone retailers that pop up. Oh, yeah. I suppose, yeah.

Like you'd have an AT&T, a Verizon, yeah.

What's poppin'? The one that was across the street, across from the bay where the plumbing, the Gerhards is now, that used to be... It wasn't just T-Mobile. It was like a cell phone store.

What was the family? The brothers. Oh, they had the sign up. They owned Schellert's Liquor, that building way back.

Oh, that's killing me. Dynamic family. They did the bike race. They had real tea. Andy Garrison.

Garrison Boys. Very deep in my brain. Andy and what was the other person?

You're the one that was lecturing about efficient.

I know. Sorry, sorry, sorry. We're getting a little punchy.

So thoughts on that one. I think what Anna was proposing is second floor. So allow those uses, but on second floor. What's the majority think on that?

All I can say is Ubreak iFix, I think, is actually a beneficial store on Silver Spring. I've used it.

Think about T-Mobile or something.

Yeah, I know. That is different.