In some respects, this is a new Planning Commission, with a new chair (Kristine Zaballos) now in that role, and a new term, beginning after the latest round of nominations from the Common Council. This is still true even though many others on the Commission are incumbents.
Staff reports now appear earlier on the agenda, and that’s a good idea. Setting out any updates early may prove useful for discussion later in the evening.
In those staff and community updates, Tami Brodnicki noted that Downtown Whitewater has a portable device for merchants and volunteers to help vacuum streets in the downtown area. The device may be modern, but it’s a positive step for merchants and volunteers to maintain their own sidewalks even if conventional municipal services are unavailable.
Better still – even when conventional services are available – as merchants can monitor their own areas more effectively than others. (Jane Jacobs points out — in all her works, I think — how taking ownership of one’s area and caring for it oneself is a sign of a healthy community. It’s more work, I know, but it achieves a guaranteed result. Over time, some conventional municipal services may become superfluous.)
Two restauranteurs, both mature and established, received conditional use class B permits for the sale of beer or liquor by bottle or glass at their establishments. I favor the decisions in both cases. It’s a common part of our culture to have a drink with a meal. It helps the businesses, but it helps them because it allows them to meet a common, existing customer expectation. It’s not an additional idea or concept, to my mind; it’s a effort to fulfill a common expectation.
(What would be new? Something that wasn’t common elsewhere, such as a combination restaurant and dog grooming salon, for example. You just don’t see a lot of those, and you probably never will.)
The Commission considered a certified survey map for a property in the city, for division into two lots. Fred Kraege, a local historian, had several objections to current city practices. He noted that he did not trust city services and staff to enforce existing regulations appropriately, and he did not trust how private property owners had managed the current property.
Fair enough. What’s interesting to me is that Kraege has doubts, as far as I can tell, from the opposite direction of mine. I am not confident — at all — in existing enforcement, either. I think, though, that there’s too much enforcement, poorly and selectively administered. I am not unwilling to say as much.
Whitewater will continue to change, though, and all the overreaching enforcement in the world will not be able to stop it. On the other side of this issue are some who see conditions changing, and decry the lack of enforcement to prevent these change, or to enforce in the way they’d like.