Should a City Manager be chosen without public input?
City Meeting Happenings:
- City Manager search firm recommendation
- Another extension for 2023 Washington St
- Sidewalk ordinance changes to keep them clear
City Manager Search Firm
Last week there was a committee meeting to hear presentations by a couple potential City Manager search firms. I talk about that meeting in this article, but the committee will suggest to City Council that we should contract with Public Administration Associates (“PAA”). I agree, though almost certainly not for the same reasons. You can read Council President Stechmesser’s recommendation letter to council starting on page 159 and the PAA presentation deck a couple pages later. The other firm’s proposal isn’t in the packet, but I’m not sure why.
I know some people want a mayor, but electing one won’t happen by the time Mr. Buckley retires. Honestly, I’d be surprised if we can get a referendum on that by the Spring election. Council Member Wachowski is your best bet to push for getting that done.
But this council meeting agenda item is about finding a replacement for Mr. Buckley. The city really should be doing focus groups with members of the public about what it would like to see in a City Manager, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Both search firms said it would cost extra, and the only person who’s really pushed for that was Mr. Wachowski.
I think at best, if there are members of the public talked to about what we want in a new City Manager, you’ll see the same in-crowd of people that infest everything the city does. So if you have specific qualities you want in a City Manager, your only hope is to convince members of the City Council.
Giving up on 2023 Washington St
The developer is giving up on developing this property. Details can be found on page 185 of the packet below.
This contract amendment is one of those times where I’m not sure if there’s background I’m missing, or if our city leaders are bad negotiators, or if it’s the Two Rivers culture of being so nice to people that we don’t hold them accountable. I genuinely don’t know which of the three applies here. But this is the same thing I said about the façade extensions at the last meeting (which I got a lot of backlash about). I see the city keep extending deadlines with developers over and over, and ultimately ending up with nothing.
With this property, we were within our rights to keep the $5,000 down payment after the first time we sold it, but we refunded the “non-refundable” down payment. Then we sold the property to a new developer and gave six-month extensions twice… And both deadlines were missed. Now instead of taking the property back like the contract allows, we’re going to give the developers a year to sell the property and keep a huge amount of the profit. Let’s pretend the property sells for $50k. If the city sold it themselves, we’d pay maybe $7,000… Not $40,000 like the new terms state.
The short version of the history:
- City sold the property to Tim Klein for $10k with a $5k down payment
- Later that year the city allowed Mr. Klein to backout and refunded the $5k non-refundable down payment
- City sold the property to Wine Not (Andrews & Krahn) for $10k if they agreed to invest $100k in development of the property
- Deadline for that investment extended twice in 2023
- After investing $50k in cleanup and demolition, Wine Not does not wish to continue development
- City wishes to create a new agreement that they have to sell the property in 2025, and can keep any profit up to $50k, then 1/3 of the profit beyond that.
Sidewalk Ordinance
Personally I think it’s a good thing, since I feel like I’m constantly dodging things when I’m walking around town. But I wanted to include it since it affects a lot of you.
Large expansion of Section F of the old sidewalk ordinance that just says owners need to make sure sidewalks are maintained and safe. You can read the full proposed ordinance on page 157 of the meeting packet (linked at the bottom of this page), but the interesting parts:
- Sidewalks need to be clear of anything, including branches and bushes, to a height of eight feet
- At least 90% of the sidewalk needs to be clear of overgrowth like grass
- Any two pieces of the sidewalk can’t be different in height more than 3/4″
Meeting Agenda Packet
You can read the full packet that council members get here:
MEET-Packet-238acda4816e4464ade70c10466cdf0b.pdf
