This is Jason Kofrat. Can somebody send me or Joelle, are you on the line?
I am, yes.
Can you send me a link? I didn't get an email with it and Wilkie sent me his, which is what I'm on, but it has me as Wilkie.
So can you send me one for me?
Yep.
Okay, thanks.
Second.
Thanks.
Jason, may I?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Let me just, I'm sorry. Carmelo, you said you were good to go, right?
Carmelo did say he was ready a couple minutes ago.
Okay, let's let's get started.
All right, welcome everybody to the September 22nd meeting of the committee of the whole for those of you who are watching from home.
And I'm not familiar with this type of meeting. This is a to the council meeting, but we're functioning as a committee.
Tonight's a fine point allows us when we have meetings like this, it allows us to work on committee thing on items that we don't might not have an opportunity to discuss otherwise.
As the president of the council, I'm chairing the meeting tonight.
You will not see Mayor McBride in the meeting, running the meeting tonight.
And in keeping with our past practices, we will not be taking any public comments tonight.
On the topics we discussed tonight are assigned to a committee.
That will be the opportunity for the public to have opportunities to comment.
We have just two items on the agenda tonight.
There was a third item requested by all the person Dubinsky who contacted the city's afternoon and asked that that item be removed from the agenda for tonight's meeting.
So we have two items to discuss. The first item is an update by city staff on initiatives to build an equity focus into city operations.
And I'll ask Mr. Archambault to go ahead on that one.
You're muted Jim.
Thank
you. I was just asking to switch over here. So, if you would, we can flip to the
next page here. We had a couple of different issues and a little bit of assortment of interrelated
topics that were asked for and two specific agenda items for tonight is, as a Council
Also, President Pozier mentioned one of those is postponed, but nonetheless, because of the
confluence of the various issues, I thought I would take the opportunity to present to
you some of the items and issues that the staff is working on, and maybe as a bit of
a foundation or background for some of the other discussions that are both going on
presently throughout other committees but also as a starting point for some of
the conversation this evening. What we've put together here as Kathy described is
is a little bit of a presentation about some of the initiatives that staff is
undertaken or is working on presently. It is not an exhaustive list of every
item that's been brought up from from any and all parties. It stresses or at
understanding that we need to focus on equity issues.
To give but one example, the city of Wauwatosa,
while not alone, certainly did have restrictive zoning
and restrictive covenants covering most of the city.
And I think anyone would be hard pressed
to not recognize that at least as a beginning point
of the segregation that exists throughout this region.
often times cited is that Milwaukee as a metropolitan area is one of, if not the most segregated in the country.
If we can sort of wrap our heads around or accept the fact that that condition exists, I think it's incumbent upon us in local government to, though we cannot fix the country, we cannot fix the world to try to work on those issues as they exist in front of us in our own community.
And so some of what we are trying to do is to undo some of the consequential effects of not just segregation as described, but also some of the other issues that have to do with equity.
And so for that, I'm just going to describe and turn over to staff some of the initiatives we're working on.
We by no means believe that we are the only source of good ideas.
We are not also in this presentation intent on describing everything that's been brought up.
But I think it will give at least some sense of the initiatives we've been attempting to undertake.
We've been trying to do a presentation of this sort for some time.
It has been extremely challenging because of all of the other demands on staff given
the pandemic and other conditions that exist and bear on our work.
But in any case, we want to build on past work.
We want to acknowledge what's been done.
I would admit that while we have made strides in some areas, there's an awful lot more
work that we can do.
And also acknowledge at the outset that this is a city-wide focus.
There isn't a department in the city that isn't undertaking this with seriousness and
with every purpose in mind of trying to recognize the challenge and to deal with it.
Some of what you're going to have described here is beginning in 2020, building on those
successes that we have had, where we have had them, but also attempting to acknowledge
what more we can do.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to Melissa, who I think is going to shepherd several
staff members from a number of different departments to talk about different initiatives
that are ongoing or contemplated.
Thank you very much for that introduction. I would like to echo Jim's comments about
all the city departments that are contributing to this work and you will find yourself to
be very well resourced this evening. It was a traditional council meeting. You would
see a very full staff table in the back and you will be hearing from a variety of
different staff members this evening.
But also a number of these items
that we're going to discuss this evening have come up
through various committees or commissions
and our other partners and stakeholders.
And so we would like to acknowledge that,
particularly some of these items have been developed
in partnership with the Equity and Inclusion Commission
and other committees in this session.
So we will enjoy the option and opportunity
that we have to continue to work both internally with our staff group, but also with some of
those committees and commission members as well as we move forward. So we wanted to cover a number
of different items that we have underway here from the staff level with you this evening. And I'm
going to kick it off at the top of this chart and the learning and data section to talk briefly
about the Zygler Group and strategic planning. As I believe the Alders are aware, but we also
We'll have some community members watching this evening.
The city has engaged with this either group to lead us through a series of community conversations
to obtain some additional information and feedback from the public in small circle facilitated
dialogue about experiences that people have in Wauwatosa and how we can improve upon
those in the future to build a more equitable and welcoming society here in Wauwatosa.
And that will be the foundation that feedback and framework for several sessions of this meeting group, the committee of the whole in the future where that information can be used to create the framework for the next strategic plan for the portion of that plan that might be an equity focus.
And so this committee of the whole will have the opportunity to work on that over the next several months as those meetings are scheduled and come forward with trained facilitators from the Zypher group.
I'm going to turn it over to John Regini to talk about the next item on the list.
Thanks Melissa.
My name is John Regini.
I'm the finance director for the city of Wauwatosa.
And under my responsibilities include purchasing.
So starting from the standpoint and recognizing that historically, there's businesses that have not received a fair share of government procurement dollars, but also recognizing that you can't improve what you don't measure.
We're going to utilize our new financial system to begin tracking how much the city spends with businesses that have historically not received a fair share of purchase of goods and services from local governments and governments of all levels.
So this would include minority owned businesses, women owned businesses, veteran owned businesses, and businesses owned by LGBTQ members of the community.
So with our new financial system, we will begin in 2020 to have businesses register to self-certify under one of these categories, and then we'll begin tracking how much the city spends.
At the same time, we'll develop strategies for connecting departments with vendors from these categories so that we can increase the amount that we're spending.
Well, we don't know how much we're spending.
Like Jim said in the first slide, we're not spending enough.
And so this is a way that we can begin measuring and also developing strategies on how to increase our spend with disadvantaged businesses.
With that, I'll turn it over to Alan Kessner.
Thank
you for those of you who don't know me on the screen. I'm Alan. I'm the city attorney.
The city of Wauwatosa, as you're probably aware, and Jim mentioned this already,
has an unfortunate history of what would be described as racially restrictive covenants
in the private developments in the city of Wauwatosa.
It's not directly a city issue because the city didn't place these covenants there
at the time that those pieces were developed.
However, we over the years have continued to allow those have been in place.
In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that such covenants are unenforceable.
But it really wasn't until even the early 1970s with the Fair Housing Act enforcement at the U.S. Supreme Court
before even the non-enforcement of such covenants really came into power.
And unfortunately, a lot of people have seen studies in the past.
In fact, Mr. Arshambo about a year and a half, two years ago, bought, I think, ten copies of a book that was very popular and is very educational called The Color of Law,
which describes both the legal and societal frameworks surrounding racial restrictive covenants and the term that came afterwards,
which is described as restrictive zoning.
A lot of people have described the fact that a lot of restrictive zoning measures that
are in the cities, especially in suburbs of Milwaukee County, have led to a continuation
of the unfortunate racial segregation that was started with the red lining.
And the racial covenants that occurred. A 1979 study is really probably the biggest one
we've seen in the county of Milwaukee. Lois Quinn at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
did a pretty exhaustive study of racially restrictive covenants throughout the city, the county
of Milwaukee found that all but two of the cities that she researched at that time in
her team had racially restrictive covenants. But Wauwatosa was probably the most prevalent
In their research, they found that at least 100 of the 300 different subdivisions that
had developed in the city of Wauwatosa over time, at least 100, which covered about half
of the developable land in the city of Wauwatosa, had racial or restrictive covenants against
them.
So what we're planning on doing as we move forward is really taking an effort to get
rid of this.
The covenants are not enforceable.
Paulette will talk in a little while about how we're going to work on the zoning code to address the racial equity issues.
But I'm really pushing, and I'm going to bring this to council later this year, hopefully then or early next year,
a program where I really want to push city residents as a whole to look at their own properties
and, for lack of a better term, disavow the racial restrictive covenants that may be there.
While they're not enforceable, they still by being present in a title history whenever somebody is buying a house have a negative impact on people that are moving.
So I'm going to work with a team of volunteer lawyers that I'm going to try to put together who can put together some documents that individual homeowners will be able to execute specific to their properties
and record against their properties, which will disavow the racial and restrictive covenants, whether they're there or not,
rather than try to research everything that's out there and every title history, and they'll do that.
The title companies that serve Wauwatosa have been doing this at the request of individual homeowners when there's a purchase.
It is quite involved if you do it on an individual basis because it can involve all kinds of processes.
But the title companies have also really put together some statements where all of their titles, the title histories they put together, do not push forward, do not republish those old unenforceable covenants.
So we're going to be working on that in the next year, and I'll bring that more to you, but what I really want to do is this is going to be an ability or an effort where individual homeowners who are asking,
what can I do are going to be able to find the ability that they can take that step on
their own property.
We have 16,000 residential properties in the City of Wauwatosa.
Individual homeowners hopefully will be able to take that step and move forward and try
to, as I titled this part of the presentation, they're going to confront those historic
deed restrictions and hopefully be able to get them removed.
So that's one of our efforts.
I'm going to turn it back over to Melissa for the next one.
Thank you, Alan. The next bullet has three acronyms on it. We strive not to do that and our government talks so at the bottom of the screen you'll find that we've spelled those out.
But I did want to touch on the first two of these items with you.
The CPSM study, which is the Center for Public Safety Management, which was formerly part of ICMA, the International Community Management Association.
A study of the Well Tones of Police Department was approved last night by the Ad Hoc Committee
on Equity and Policing, and that study will take about five months to complete, and it
will cover three items.
One is an analysis of the recruitment strategies in the police department, so really an examination
of hiring practices that promote diversity and some recommendations that will be forthcoming
from that.
a review of police department policies for equity and efficacy with a specific focus
on use of force procedures in the police department, and third, an assessment of the training practices
and some recommendations for coming from there on how to address mental health and
equity issues, including race, gender, economic status, and any other factors.
How does that training help deter bias?
And so that will be an involved process that will take place over the next five months and culminate in reports that will come back to committee and council for further discussion.
Next on the list is gear the government alliance and race and equity.
This is the topic that has been discussed at least at one, perhaps two meetings of the
Equity and Inclusion Commission recently, and I believe that they are considering a recommendation
to the city for us to partner with here.
It is a group of a national network of governments that are working to achieve racial equity
and advanced opportunities for all, a variety of different frameworks for various city
departments that you can use to look at your policies and procedures with equity lenses
and do work to make more equitable government practices. And so we would like to partner
with the Equity and Inclusion Commission in advancing that recommendation and initiative
and begin that work ourselves amongst all of our departments. I will be turning it
over to Beth Beaux, who will talk about the MMS-MMAC item.
Good evening. My name is Beth Boe. I'm the HR director for the city. I'm going to talk
about some of our internal efforts here. The first one being MMAC, as Melissa mentioned.
If you recall, the city signed the pledge back in July, and what that pledges is a commitment
to increase our diverse employment by 15 percent and diverse management by 25 percent
by 2025. So some of the efforts that we're taking for our recruitment practices and I should say
these are ongoing and have many of them have been in place before we sign the pledge but
it's good work that we continue on. And that's evaluating all stages of our hiring practices
and really making sure to standardize our processes such as interview questions,
evaluation guides, etc. We coach hiring managers on reducing bias and avoiding what's called
the like me syndrome where managers tend to hire people that have the same experience
and same attitudes as them.
We are expanding our reach of job advertisements and notifications and a future opportunity
we're looking forward to is working on our employment branding with a focus on diversity
and inclusion and more information about our workplace culture.
We also are exploring internships.
Chief Case reported on the Fire Department Internship Program.
HR worked with the Fire Department this year to implement the program,
and it allows potential candidates an opportunity for experience in the department
and a potential pathway to a position as a firefighter.
We've already seen some success with the program,
and we're also exploring an internship program with both Wauwatosa and Milwaukee High Schools.
We are also exploring a volunteer program for our employees to give them an opportunity to give back in the community.
Like to give you a quick update on training, diversity and inclusion training for employees and leaders through diversity partners.
I'm sorry, nurturing diversity partners with Reggie Jackson is underway currently.
We are offering sessions on unconscious bias, racial disparities, and a supervisory session on hiring and retention.
This will be an ongoing effort, and we're exploring topics for next year.
In addition, we are working on culture initiatives.
We have a number of workplace initiatives in progress.
Our goal is to build a diverse work environment where all of our employees
feel welcome, respected, and engaged in their work.
And so therefore, it's important to focus on internal culture,
as well as recruitment initiatives.
Along those lines, we've worked to redesign our performance standards
and look forward to investing in a leadership training
and also flexible workplace policies.
With that, I'm going to pass it over to Paulette in development.
Hello, I'm Paulette Enders, the city's development director. Our first initiative under the development tab will be to revise the city's economic development policy with an equity lens.
This policy informs all economic development investment decisions based on policy considerations,
mandatory criteria, and project evaluation criteria.
Staff will present to the council an updated version that includes social benefits and racial equity as mandatory criteria.
The plan currently touches on those public benefits, but not in a direct manner.
Second, we will propose creating an affordable housing fund. Housing trust funds are funds
established by cities, counties, or states to provide dedicated and going public revenue
to support affordable housing. They provide an important source of financing for affordable
housing preservation and development, which mean that otherwise be reliably funded in
city's budget. HTFs can play a role in comprehensive equitable housing solutions by focusing on
projects that provide for long-term affordability and serve low-income households, people of
color, and other historically disadvantaged communities. HTFs can be leveraged in a variety
of contexts, allowing local jurisdictions to maximize the impact of other housing
development funds, create new jobs related to housing development, and generate local
economic benefits.
The CDA does currently administer a housing fund that was seeded through the closure
of TIB 5.
Although it's a start, the funds in this account do not come close to the amount of
funding needed to address the needs identified in the city's most recent housing study
as it relates to affordability.
A proposal to fund the HTF will be presented by staff in the near future.
And as a side note, there are plans to update the study, the housing study, in 2021 pending
funding.
And third, we will be updating the city, the city zoning code within equity lens.
I think Attorney Kessner covered a few of the areas that we would cover, but incorporating
Creating equity considerations into the city's zoning code is a step we can take as we evaluate and update our existing code.
Achieving more equity will require us to focus on neighborhood building and supporting functions of zoning, rather than just the use separating function.
This might mean creating new zoning districts that mix structures and uses of ranges and scale, undertaking a targeted proactive rezoning process in our neighborhoods, making zoning processes more inclusive, and rethinking the use of the zoning, the use section of the zoning regulations.
And in conclusion, I would like to mention that all of the efforts that I've outlined
should include stakeholder input as these programs, policy and codes should be created or updated
with feedback in order to achieve the desired results at benefit all.
And now I would like to turn over the next step in the presentation to the police department.
Thank you.
You're muted.
If I if I could I'm sorry if I could Jack. Yes. I can't I can't hear you well. Okay. Let me move over here. Can you hear me now? Yes, that's better. Thank you.
All right, sorry about that, this speaker's not the best.
All right, so as we look at the presentation
that Ms. Weiss has put together for us,
additional funding for the body cameras.
Working with the finance department,
it appears that we're moving forward with that financing.
We have identified a vendor
that we are going to be purchasing
our body-worn camera program through.
that vendor is Axon. It is a remarkable product. It's a product that has been in
the Milwaukee County area for some time now. It's a pretty well-known product and
we're excited for getting that as an addition to everything, all the other
tools that we have available to us. The complaint and accommodation, the policy
that was revamped recently that allows for, prior to this, this update on the policy,
if you wanted to file a complaint against the police department, you pretty much had
to show up at the police department to request the complaint form.
Makes it hard for somebody to remain anonymous if they wanted to be anonymous and presenting
a complaint against any one of our officers.
The new complaint and commendation party was revamped.
It now makes it easier for somebody to issue a complaint or send in accommodation for an officer for a job well done.
And if it's able to be done over the internet and remain anonymous in that process.
So it's a really well-written document to help us in making sure that if people have something they want to say to us, they can get that message to us and we have a follow-up process to that.
The additional funding for more de-escalation training, when at the beginning with Mr. Arashambo with some of the things that he had mentioned were things that are already in progress.
I just want to reaffirm with everybody that our training program here, if you were to
talk to any other police department in the southeastern part of the United States here
at Wisconsin.
They would tell you that the city has one of the best training programs in this area,
if not the state. We're well sought after as a police department. We have been doing de-escalation
training and our training for years. It's an ever ongoing process when we look at that
particular type of training. It continues to grow as all of our training programs here
when it comes to what we need to train our officers in
in all aspects of policing.
So when you look at the additional funding
for more de-escalation training,
again, talking to the finance department,
we're looking at monies that are going to help
to buy continued training as we grow
in our training environment.
There are a lot of things I think,
Melissa has some more for us to include
at the end of the presentation just to kind of let you guys know some of the
things that we're looking at doing. As Ms. Poe had mentioned with the fire
department and internships, we have internships here at the police department.
They've been a little slow this year with the schools having closed early and
with the coronavirus being what it did to all sorts of activities and that
result. We kind of slowed down this year on that but we do have an
internship program. We have a CSO program that we bring in young people to help us out
that might be interested in the job. So we're looking at the schools, recruiting those people
that have an interest in moving into law enforcement and getting done that exposure.
One of the things that we're revisiting right now is we're relooking at creating another
citizen's police academy. We believe that at the time that we had that and I believe it
kind of went off the wayside because of funding. But that was an excellent program. It was well
received in the community. There were a lot was a lot of training that we did with the community
as part of that citizen police academy. So that's something that's back on the table.
The chief has seen seems to be very much approval in moving forward with that. So that's
something that we're revamping and relooking at. The other thing that we're looking at doing
And it's more center towards those of you that are sitting in on this meeting tonight is we've we've authored up right along. We want you to write along with us.
So that you can see what we do out there on a daily basis. So that's that's an offer on the table. I would encourage you if you have a desire to see firsthand and meet the people that are patrolling the city.
It's an opportunity that we present to you that's available to you to meet the
officers and see what this job is all about if you would write around with them.
There are some things that we have to do to prepare you for that. There's the
waiver that would be associated with it and we get you a bulletproof vest and
you would write it on with the officer and see what kind of calls that
person would be going on throughout the night. So I encourage you to think
about that and take up that opportunity. We're also trying to work with the schools,
the academies. There are a number of us that teach at the academies here at the department.
We're working with the schools to try to get some use of force scenarios so that you would
have a better understanding of the type of training that's going on in the academies right
now. Not only with the young people going through academies, recruits are going through,
But the in-service training that law enforcement practitioners,
those of us that have been in the job,
have made it successful to the recruit academy.
We go through use of force training and we're trying to set that up.
There's some liability concerns that maybe are issues with the schools.
But we're trying to get all those things set up so that you have a better understanding as the elected officials of the city,
what it is, what it entails to be a police officer in today's society.
There are a number of things that we're working on that we were really excited about.
And they do it and not only involve the community, but we'd like to get the engagement from you as the city elected officials to participate.
So that you have also a better understanding of what goes on here in the police department.
Thank
you, Captain Morrison. Moving on to the next item here, the All or Welcome campaign
was an initiative of the Tourism Commission and kudos to them for their ideas on to give
land to the tourism specialist for bringing this to fruition. The Tourism Commission
asked Ms. Lance to design a campaign to work with our business community where the
businesses could self-identify as being a business
that welcomes diversity and welcomes diverse patrons
and thinks that all people are welcome in our community
and wants to hang a sign to that effect
in their business window.
This land designed a window plane for businesses
and in its first week, we had 70 businesses
that have already asked to be part of this campaign.
It will be further carried out by tourism
tourism to feature these businesses as well as our businesses owned and operated by minorities
in our community through the tourism marketing initiatives.
Moving on to community engagement, I am going to invite police departments to talk a little
bit again about their community policing initiatives.
So before we do that, I wanted to comment on,
I think really the importance of,
in addition to the internal training and understanding
that we are developing here as a staff
about implicit bias and the histories in this community,
it's very impactful.
And I think important also to offer sessions
for the community at large.
Staff is going to recommend that the Common Council
council provide a portion of the council training budget in 2021 to the Equity and Inclusion
Commission to host public sessions about these topics, about the history and about equity
and inclusion. For a nominal fee, there could be some public meetings that would be open
to the public, either within the Equity and Inclusion Commission can dive into virtual
options that could be for COVID, where speakers like Raj Jackson or other speakers could come
in and talk about the history and the implicit bias and those items. Hosted by the Equity and
Inclusion Commission, they could pick the topic and the speakers, but we think it would be an
important aspect for the community to have free opportunities for those additional exposures
to the topic. We also do a robust amount of community engagement to our police
And I know that it's a priority for them to continue to do that work as COVID restrictions kind of lighten up. Captain Morrison, if you had anything you wanted to add to that topic.
Keep hitting the wrong button. Yeah, so one of the things that actually back when Captain Sharpie was in the administrative and then the operations captain.
and he had started our community engagement program.
And basically Captain Vetter with the operations
and the things right now is a strong component of that
as our chief, as all of us are.
And that basically what it entails is that
while officers are out there,
they're not just driving around in the squad cup.
They're not just looking all the time for violation.
They're to get out, they're to walk the streets.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a walking beat.
like you might see in New York City, but they are to get out, go into the businesses, meet the business owners, and be a part of the community in that respect.
Thank you. The last bullet will turn it over to Laura Stevens to talk about public health.
Hi, I'm Laura Stevens. I'm the public health manager in the health department and currently the interim health officer while Laura Conklin is on maternity leave.
Equity is something that's foundational to public health.
We've been engaging in this work at the health department by promoting health equity.
Health equity basically means that everyone has a fair opportunity to be healthy.
It's hard to be healthy if you don't have access to a stable income, a safe home,
healthy food, a good education.
So while health is dependent on many of our individual choices, we can only make
choices based on what options are available to us.
So working toward health equity means
ensuring that everyone has the access and the opportunity
to make the healthiest choices for themselves.
In law which I said we know there are social
and systemic forces that can cause health disparities.
These disparities are differences in health outcomes
based on race, ethnicity, sex, age, socioeconomic status
and so on.
Improving health equity requires us to address
these disparities and remove the obstacles
that cause them.
So, at the health department, we work toward health equity by improving access to health
resources for the community.
Some of the things we've been working on, we have a webpage dedicated to health equity
that includes our health equity mission statement for the department.
Equity is integrated into our strategic plan and our community health improvement plan
for 2018 to 2022.
We host an annual health equity awareness week to educate the community and provide
resources on equity. We try to regularly post about equity on our social media channels and
other communications. Recently, we've been providing information about how COVID-19 is disproportionately
affecting people of color. Earlier this year, we began work on an equity project through the
National Association of Local Health Officers. They're a strong system, stronger communities
program. The Wauwatosa Health Department was one of seven projects nationwide to work on this.
Our project focuses on improving mental health outcomes for LGBTQ youth in Wauwatosa.
It's currently on hold because of COVID, but we hope to continue it again soon.
Also this summer, we collaborated with the Greenfield Health Department and some students
from the Zilber School of Public Health to create a health equity toolkit for the region.
As a region, local health departments recognize that there was a gap between
understanding what health equity is and actually integrating that into our work.
So we created the toolkit as a resource that provides ideas and tools to help local health
departments advance health equity in their communities. Moving forward, we plan to adapt
many of these pieces from this toolkit so we can improve equity work within our department
and further work toward health equity in Wallachia. So I'll turn it back over to Melissa.
Thank you. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the next couple of slides,
but we did put together a timeline for you so that you could see kind of where the work that we
talked about is intended to fall as things continue. And so we have two slides that show the timeline
that I just would like to show you here today. And I'm happy to take any questions on the timeline
that didn't want to bog down your meeting with going through it project by project.
And so I did just want to know what to that while Ms. Stevens did say that the health equity work is so important to them and maybe we'll work it on all the signs or priorities COVID as she mentioned right now.
And so that may be a later phase project that is off this timeline. We'll see when we can pick that back up in earnest.
I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Shambo to give a few closing remarks.
Thank you.
So I can well imagine that some of those listening have very different reactions to any of this information.
Some perhaps thinking, you know, what in the world are you doing?
Why are you spending time on these issues?
And others with a disappointment of that's all you've got.
Why aren't you doing more?
That's ultimately our intent here is to take a first step or take a next step toward creating a baseline of understanding of our own history toward knowing full well what we do so that we consider whether we should do things differently, do more of certain things, less of other things.
And so that we can move forward putting in front of the elected body and the electorate the kind of baseline understanding and knowledge from which to address these various issues.
I hope also that, at least in some sense, it shows that we have and you, the elected body, have an extremely capable staff that can bring to you some of these issues and try to get at the underpinnings of what we might see as symptoms of the problem.
A lot of this did not, as everybody knows, did not happen in short order.
It didn't happen in the last couple of years.
Much of what we're witnessing are symptoms of an illness or illnesses or problems that have been around for generations.
I think if we take these first few steps of exploring what we can do and what our responsibility is in this small corner of the world,
I think we will both come out of it with making real progress, but I also think that we'll come come out of it
more together in terms of having an understanding and a unified purpose in what we do.
Many of these items will be addressed or discussed in a couple different contexts, one being the
budget process, which we are well underway in.
Another, as Melissa had mentioned, is the strategic planning process.
It's our intent to go right from those community conversations into.
There are a number of issues and more than what's cited here that have been raised by different
groups or different individuals, which aren't directly spoken to, but that don't have a sort
of formalized access into the process, if you will, quote, unquote. And so a number of
other issues that you might be thinking about, we certainly can and will address going forward.
And I'll open it up to any questions if somebody does have a specific question, but that is at the pleasure of the Council President.
Thank you. I just want to take a moment to thank the staff. This has been a very eye-opening for me, a very comprehensive and thoughtful approach to this.
And I think it points out, this is not a single, this issue of equity and inclusion has many facets to it.
And I appreciate your approach to looking at each department's functioning and where we can make things better here.
To those of you who are listening in the public who maybe weren't on when we started meeting,
I'm just going to remind you that we're not taking public comment tonight as we typically don't during the committee of the whole meetings.
As these initiatives take shape and are moved along the committee process,
you'll have to watch your agendas and announcements.
That will be the time for you to speak publicly about the various topics.
Of course, you can always reach out to council members and staff electronically
and have your thoughts and comments recorded that way.
So with that, if I see council members, you can put your electronic hand up.
You can wave your hand in front of the screen
And we'll get going. I see all their person cool.
We'll start with our.
Okay, some, uh, we're having a little problem with Alderberg's and cool's connection here.
Anybody else? Did I see your hand? All the person will key.
Jason will key.
No, not yet.
Okay.
Anybody else?
Heather help is on the way.
All right. Thank you. I can just wait. I think they just need to move to TV.
Anybody else?
No comments or questions for staff on this one?
Kathy, I raised my hand.
Oh, Jim, you don't have your video on. I can't see anything. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jim.
All right. Thank you. Thank you, staff, for the presentation. I just have some, it was very helpful.
I have some additional comments. I was taking notes here. When the, I'm going to use the
acronym CPSM analysis that Melissa brought forward, I would kindly ask that that be presented
to a full council of the whole, given the breadth and depth of the three areas of
analysis that that is going to cover and the importance of that analysis. I would
kindly ask that that be presented to Committee of the Whole meeting. The other
comment that I have, and I shared this with Mr. Arshambo in a private
discussion, I'll just mention, I would kindly ask that the equity inclusion
initiatives be included in the quarterly management update and frankly he hit on it that we were
going to include equity inclusion as part of some additional things we're looking at right now
in specific to the budget and strategic planning. I would kindly ask that we all be conscious of
costs of doing things. And as we look at all programs, this is a major initiative and it should be fully transparent. And it sounds like that is what's going to happen.
So I would kindly ask for that. I have a question for the city attorney. Just so we're clear, City of Wabatose is in full compliance with all federal civil rights legislation as it's on the books.
Is that correct?
Yes, we are. The effort that I'm talking about here with the Fair Housing Act doesn't have anything to do, specifically with any potential violations that the city would be liable for.
It is an effort to community-wide address some historic issues that have been addressed by state of a federal legislation.
There will also be opportunities for states or county legislation as well, but right now
we don't have any concern about compliance with anything in the Fair Housing Act at
this point.
Okay.
And I appreciate that.
I just wanted to be on the record.
I think it's important that everybody know that we are fully in compliance with all
federal civil rights legislation and you're nodding.
And so I...
Yes, we are.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kessner.
Then one last comment, I would also ask that a little more transparency on the funding that was going to be added from, I believe it was according to my notes, the council budget going to the equity inclusion commission, whatever that is,
make sure that we have some transparency on that, so that we're all in sync on that.
Other than that, oh, lastly, I think Melissa also mentioned the Ziebler group.
I think all, all there's, I want to ask Melissa, are all, all there signed up for one of the sessions with the Ziebler group?
That sounds like a pretty important initiative.
Thank you. We have invited all Alders to participate in one of the sessions.
We do not have all the Alders signed up for one of the sessions,
but if anyone still needs to sign up, you can certainly reach out to me to do that.
Okay, and I only bring that up because obviously I did sign up and I read through that,
and it sounds like a very transparent, very valuable initiative as part of items
that were referenced tonight and I would kindly urge my colleagues to sign up for that. It sounds
like it's a very good forum for us to get feedback and provide input on. And I also want to end by
thanking the police department for giving us some more clarity on the efforts to date as well as
ongoing initiatives with process improvement. I think that's all important. We often talk about best practices and always looking at better process improvement.
So thank you and kudos for your continued initiatives in that regard. I'll yield the floor. So thank you again.
Jim, can I just get a clarification? Just a second, Heather.
Jim, just a point of clarification. You said you wanted the CPSM study brought to the committee
the whole. I assume you mean what it's completed.
Of course, yes.
Just wanted to get that clarification.
Yeah, I want to make sure. Bottom line, Kathy, the bottom line is I want to make
sure because it sounds very comprehensive and it sounds like it's something that we
as a total counsel ought to be hearing about and hearing the report of and
frankly acting upon it as as a full common counsel that's where I was going
with that absolutely agree with you just wanted to get that clarified all the
person cool thank you sorry about that you can hear me right can you hear me
you're very quiet but you're all right I can talk pretty loud if you need me
to. So first of all, I just want to thank staff for that presentation. I thought it was
exciting and impactful to have so many different departments, not just acknowledging the sins
of our past, but really laying forward both tangible and symbolic action items that we
can do as a community and as city leaders to start righting the wrongs of our past.
So, I really do appreciate that.
And I'm about to ask some fairly specific questions that it's fine if there are not
answers today, but I just want to put them out there to maybe get answered another date.
For Mr. Regini, I apologize if you had mentioned this and I missed it, but I was wondering
if it's possible to dedicate a percentage of our city contracts that we award towards
specific minority and women-owned businesses as we do the RFP process?
It's possible outside of public construction. There's certain categories
were required to go to low bidder by state law, public construction being one of them.
And to be honest, it's a bit of a frustration, and I didn't include it in this presentation,
but one of the things I want to explore long term is if we can make changes or lobby for state changes,
is lobby for changes in state law
when it comes to public construction.
I think there's a lot of great literature and data
to show that apprenticeship programs
are a really effective tool
for diversifying public construction employment
and also help solving a pipeline issue
with the lack of skilled trades individuals.
So I'd like to work on that.
I have mixed feelings about setting a percentage. I've worked in organizations where a percentage is set and
The problem with setting a percentage is then it creates an incentive for people to gain the system
What I'd rather do at least as a start is try and connect identify businesses in the community that meet our
needs in terms of what we buy both in services and in
products and get them in front of departments, arrange for departments to get to know those
businesses and really measure what type of progress we're making.
If we're not making progress, then perhaps we do need to look to a system with very defined
goals or very defined requirements.
That's my initial thoughts.
What someone said, I think it was Paulette, about really listening to the community,
I think that's a really key part of all of what we're proposing.
These right now are just my ideas, but I'd like to learn more from the community, meet with some of the different chambers of commerce that represent businesses that have historically been left out of government procurement and find out ways that we can work together to increase the spend that the city does with businesses that have been left out.
So that's not to say a specific goal is off the table.
That certainly would be a possibility.
I'd like to think, given the breadth of departments that you heard from tonight,
that we'd be able to work together to achieve a greater spend
without setting really hard and fast requirements.
But if it comes down to it and we need to do that,
there are areas where legally we can do that.
Thank you.
And maybe if that's something that we can, as counsel, leverage our power as elected
officials, that's something that Attorney Kessner can bring to the government affairs
at the end of the meetings usually you talk about things that are happening at the state.
Maybe that's a presentation we can get separately.
Thanks, John.
Next, I – for mis-enders, I was wondering, is there any potential in encouraging developers
who are asking for variances to include LMI units or section eight, acceptances.
And again, I know that these are really specific questions that don't need to be answered today,
but I just wanted to put them out there.
So when they're asking for variance, do you mean like through the plan unit development process conditional use?
Yeah, yeah, that, and I don't know if, you know, asking for density variances is going to be coming up soon.
And I think if that also falls under that?
Well, and it plays into all of it
because a part of it is, as I mentioned,
I think under the first bullet revising our policy,
I think when developers ask for funding through the city,
we have much more flexibility than through zoning.
And Alan could touch on that,
but legally we're,
I guess legally we can only put conditions out that would be legally binding through the permission that we're given.
But we have much more flexibility in making some of those requirements or putting some of those requirements on developers when we assist with funding.
So, that's revising our policy so that when we are providing financial assistance, we
do look at affordability and equity and those community benefits that, as I mentioned, we
touched on them in our policy, but not specifically.
So we do want to make that change and present it to council.
Sure. I can add a little bit to that. The leverage we really have is money. When we are
putting money into a project, we then have the ability to leverage that into the needs.
State law in Wisconsin has been interpreted to provide that we can't require somebody
to put in a policy in a development that requires them to accept lower rent, for example,
for affordability, unless we're putting money into it.
Otherwise, it's considered a rent control that we're prohibited from having.
So really, state law, the biggest interpretation in Wisconsin law right now is that it requires
us to be putting in money in order to be able to buy the ability to have affordability
in those cases.
That's the strongest tool we have.
All right. Thanks. And I promise I just have one more question. Captain Morrison, while I fully understand and respect.
Perhaps that the majority of our businesses and residents are going to be thrilled with the
idea of an increase in foot patrol and feet cops walking around. I was curious to get
some kind of statement about your commitment or the department's commitment to work with
various stakeholders and hear that are maybe not Wabatosa residents that are not business
owners to hear their concerns and respond to them as we're working on reforming our police department
and our policies.
Well, I think, yeah, I don't oppose that. I don't think anybody here would oppose
that. I think it depends on the forum that that's going to be presented in. But I don't see an issue
with doing anything like that.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Okay, looks like all in person will key.
I see your little electronic hand is up there.
Yeah, that's right. Thanks.
Okay, go ahead.
So yeah, I just want to also echo the accolades that this has been
really comprehensive and I like that all the departments are
sharing what they're working on.
And I hope that people hear the message that we are working on
All these facets of how we can improve our city and that it's going to take some time
And we're working through the proper channels to make that happen
So I appreciate everyone that's putting in the time and effort in your individual departments in ways that you can and for sharing tonight
I had a question on a couple of items
One would be for the police department. I was glad to hear that
Things we've been talking about even before this summer
body cam issue sounds like there will be requests coming through for that
product in this year's budget I think and a couple other things like say this
Citizen Academy being funded again or the training can we anticipate that that
will be coming in this year's budget proposals any of that some of that most
of it. If you could speak to that, maybe the police or John.
Thanks Jason. I think that the early stages of the Citizen Police Academy, I used to teach
for that. It was a great program. It was sad to see a lot of us that didn't want to stop
doing what we were doing for that program. And I think it had a lot of value sharing
what it is that they went through a lot of police training and they got a chance
to see what it was like and they did ride-alongs with us and everything else. I don't see that
happening this year. I think we still are in the planning stages of how we're going to revamp it.
We can always look to improve our programs here. So, I think that's something that's
going to move forward into the following year. The training, we're always training.
I mean,
at, for example, the crisis intervention technique training. It's a CIT, it's called CIT. It
is a nationally acclaimed training program for dealing with people in crisis. It's a
week-long school. It's a very intensive school. It's a hands-on training program on how
to deal with people in crisis. And that's all crises that you can imagine. So those
things right there, we will have 13 by the end of the week that have attended so far from the
department. The goal is to get all of our sworn personnel through that particular type of training.
It's just a phenomenal course.
Those costs are minimal when we look at training though.
Depends on like if we were to host it, there's probably an expense behind that.
But when we send people out, those costs are relatively inexpensive for that.
But that kind of training will continue throughout this year into next year and every year after that.
And I can speak to the body camera.
Okay, yeah.
So the police department has made a selection and intends to make a recommendation to the financial affairs committee next week included in that recommendation will be a recommendation to include funding from 2020.
And then it will also, there's an annual cost and that will be also included in the 2021 budget.
So it's our intention to make that purchase yet this year funded in 2020.
And then your 2021 budget will also include funding to continue to maintain the body camera program.
That is excellent because that's, you know, a lot of extensions that we see combined. I'm glad we're seeing that we can maybe start this right away this year and not be waiting till next year.
So I look forward to that. That's timely.
And to those, you know, to speak to the defunding of the police department, these are things that we are trying to fund so that we can have a even better police department for our community.
And the camera's referral will be witnessed for all sides of the story, so that'll be helpful for everybody.
So I think that's a positive step forward.
My other question was.
Just to add a little more to that, it's a fantastic product.
It's really going to give everybody, I think, but they're anticipating a body worn camera program will offer.
It's just a phenomenal product, and we're very happy that we've gone this route with that particular model
I look forward to when we hear about that and we make the decision. Thanks. I
Also wanted to talk about I had a question from the beginning of the conversation with a presentation with the city attorney
Mr. Kessner
mentioning the that some of the
covenants still exist for the neighborhoods and I
I live in one of the neighborhoods that had horrible covenants and we were under the impression
that those, when the neighborhood association, but when the neighborhood, this is a different
name for it, I'm sorry, lost it out, but when it disband as far as a, and then neighborhood
associations now are more of a social informal association, not a neighborhood I've, maybe
you can fill me in on what they used to be called, where you actually had to follow those
covenants.
Right, let go.
Excuse me?
Like a homeowner's association that would have to do it.
Yeah, homeowner's associations had the covenants that everyone must comply to, and there was
an organization that upheld those with the neighbors or homeowners of that flat
of land.
And I was of the impression that those went away when those were disbanded years
ago, decades ago.
and a thing of the past. But can you tell me, are there still, are there still
homeowners associations? I guess I think I've heard maybe the Washington
Islands is still a homeowners association that might have these
cupents, but aren't the rest this ban do the... It's a complicated network and
that's why we're going to try to do a more comprehensive overview program for
people. Every different neighborhood or subdivision or development that has
these. And like I said, that's about half of the properties in Laulatosa had them at one time
or another, according to the account. They came in quite slightly different ways. Some were done
by a subdivider, a developer, put them on to the 27 houses that they built in this corner.
Some were put on by individual homeowners. Some were done by a neighborhood association,
a homeowners association. And the problem with dealing with those on an individual basis
is that each of them has a slightly different way you'd have to officially withdraw it or
pull it off of your deed to pull it from the deed itself.
They aren't enforceable.
As I said, they haven't been enforceable since 1948, and really the enforcement teeth
or the enforcement teeth against them came with the Fair Housing Act in 1968.
But some of them, while the Homeowners Association may have disbanded, they may not have,
They may not have withdrawn them from the deed records themselves.
They may not have been pulled from the deed records themselves.
Some neighborhoods have.
Some neighborhoods have been able to do that, a few of them.
And some individual homeowners have been able to go through that.
But it's irregular and spotty as to how it was done on a regular basis.
So it may still show up on a deed even if it's not enforceable.
As I said, the title companies now are prohibited from even republishing them.
So they may be on a deed or in a deed record but not republished because there's some liability for title companies that are republishing them.
So this will be a good way to sort of hopefully get a more uniform disavowal and removal of them or at least an affirmative statement against them by homeowners citywide.
And you'll be able to do that whether or not you actually still have one existing
entry property, the document will likely say whether or not this still isn't against my
property, whether or not it's still enforceable.
We understand it's not, but I disavow and move and state that going forward this isn't
applicable anymore.
It'll give people an opportunity to make sure that that is off.
Yeah, to be very strong to be able to, if you thought it was a thing of the past to
to make a strong statement that it is a thing of the past and it's over and gone, can acknowledge that.
Will you be working with the NAC, the Neighborhood Association Council, then, to make sure that
however this format is that you intend to do this is dispersed throughout the associations that people...
Yeah, the neighborhood...
What's your one to do it?
Right, the current neighborhood associations will probably ask them to participate in helping spread the word and getting this out.
these neighborhood associations, as you said, are not the associations that would have put these
on in the past. Right, they're social now. But that's part of what I'm formulating right now,
how we're going to get that out, how we're going to get the right legal paperwork together and
the right legal language out through the title companies and the neighborhoods and the owners
so that they can all do it in a way. There'll be some other implications I've got to walk
through and some other parties to cooperate, but I'm looking forward to getting this out
and hopefully making it a big community effort at some point.
What kind of a timeline?
Any thinking?
I imagine we'll have a program started in the middle of winter, probably by the time
we get that all started, I'll get some of the legal details put together in the description
of a program.
I've got a rough outline now, but I'll probably bring it to the council to ask for an endorsement
since it's really not a city policy that these were even on there in the first place,
but I think it's a good program for us to promote in the community for people to
voluntarily do something positive to address the the past. Yeah it's like
surprising that that hasn't happened but it's one of those things that we're
taking a deeper look internally and we're finding you and I appreciate that
and I can't wait till we can get that out to everybody so we can perform this
so that is erased forever. It'll be another opportunity for legislative
effort. There are about 12 states that have that have put the enacted
state legislation around the country on the ability to eliminate these kind of
covenants at the local level. It's not required that we have state
legislation, but some states, New York, Washington, and some others have actually
put some state legislation that makes it a more statewide effort, and I
hopefully will be able to even move that along that way as well through
the efforts we talked about at government affairs. Thank you.
That
Thank you. Thanks again for a very informative and focused presentation. And I just have a real quick comment or addition to the discussion of Alderman Cool and Mr. Regenia, which I thought was great, looking into contracts and purchasing.
And if they're just that we consider the ability, as was discussed, to maybe leverage and access, maybe there's existing databases out there of certified businesses,
businesses, contractors all across the board of other units of government, state, county,
city of Milwaukee, technical colleges, I know even the Pfizer forum had really strong minority
women disadvantaged business participation.
So if there's any ability to, again, leverage and access other units of government and
other resources. It's something that we should look into. Thanks.
Anybody else? Oh, I'm all the person who will. I just saw your hand went up. Go ahead.
Thank you. And thanks for the presentation. I do appreciate the holistic overview of things
that we're working on in the city and appreciative of all the staff effort that's gone into
not just the presentation tonight, but the initiatives that we're hearing about.
I would like to just remind us we've all, I think on this call, certainly the elected
officials have acknowledged that we don't have the full toolkit for being perhaps the
best in figuring out how to really design and pull off all these equity-type programs.
So I really encourage these items, you know, be brought to those citizen committees that
we have that have the expertise we've identified as the sounding boards we'd like
to rely on. I know various pieces of what was presented tonight have been talked
around in different contexts, but, you know, for instance, the Agri Inclusion
Commission, I think, will meet in two weeks for its monthly meeting, and I'd
love to see a full presentation like this, or at least the full overview,
whether or not we have the full staff complement, you know, kind of showing
how we as city leaders, our city staff sees it fitting together, and make
sure that we're kind of doing that gut check that we've all identified
is a need of ours.
Thank you. Anybody else? Mr. Cofrop, I see your hand went up. Yeah, thank you.
I agree with a lot of these other comments. This is a very thorough presentation from staff. I think
many of us were aware that a lot of these conversations were going on, but didn't know at
the level that
That staff was really focusing and putting in the time on some of these discussions.
I think what's most eye-opening about a lot of what we heard tonight is, without these committees
and without the common council elected officials forcing us upon staff to do, we have staff
that's in place already that has the ability to implement many of these policies and discussions
and different practices without it having to go through weeks or months of common council discussion.
So I think the more that we have the ability, at least at the staff level,
to implement a lot of what was talked about into existing practices and refined practices
and make our processes that much better so that we can hammer on some of these equity issues,
I think that's really efficient way of us being able to tackle some of these, especially in the short term.
I might agree we're going to have a lot more discussions related to this, and we're going to have to allow some of our
citizen committees to be able to tackle maybe some of these bigger items.
But it was clear through that presentation that we have a buy-in from staff right now,
and we need to continue to use that momentum that staff has on refining some of the processes that we have.
So, thank you very much for that presentation tonight.
Anybody
else? I don't see anybody hands up there.
All
right, then we're going to move on to the second and what will be now the final item on the agenda tonight.
And this emanates from all the person will key who requested an update from the city administrator.
On meetings of the council leadership communications from the law house of police officers association.
The Association and the Government Affairs and HAC Committee.
Mr. Arshamal, I'll let you start this off.
Yeah, I did.
Jim, there you go.
What I thought I would do is, I'm not entirely sure that we've captured the intent of the item necessarily.
What we did try to do is distill into discrete items or discrete pieces what we thought we heard or what we understood.
And so to sort of start this off, I thought I would just touch on each of these in very brief commentary and sort of leave it to leave it go at that.
As it relates to meetings of council leadership, it has been the case for years that periodically
the council president and the four committee chairs will meet on specific issues, whether
it be agenda related or communications purposes.
And I want to assure everybody that, in a double check, the attorney's office can speak
to this if need be, but that those meetings, by the nature of the assignments that they
have, are not in any way a violation of open meetings.
In no case do they constitute a quorum or negative quorum of either the elected body
nor of the any of the committees thereof. What what I would suggest however is
that what you may want to consider related to it is to formalize it and
I'll be very blunt here that this is a large, inordinately large elected body
for for local government of this size and so to provide for some means by
by which to improve communications or certainly to attempt to do so is probably an appropriate
way to go about that.
It's worth noting, too, that in its structure when whomever holds those seats but the possessors
thereof, when they do meet, there is no opportunity to set aside adopted policy of
council, no differently than for staff members. We implement policies adopted by the elected
body as a whole. It is not by individual position but by the consensus of the majority or whole
body that policies are created.
On the second item, related to the various
communications from the WPOA, and I think specifically
as it relates to the ad hoc is the way I understood the question to come up.
Either of the two unions and previously the five or six unions that we had is a separate
But Alan will correct me if my terminology is wrong, but it's a separate corporate entity.
Its relationship to the city is one of a statutory bargaining unit.
And so for the sake of collective bargaining, we have various things that were either obligated
to discuss and negotiate or things that are allowed to be negotiated or discussed
and ones that are prohibited.
The exercise of essentially a free speech opportunity to
comment about a policy of the city is merely as a separate entity, not different in many
ways from an individual citizen commenting about something that the council may take
up or may have done. The third item has to do with essentially the status of the ad hoc
committee. Herein, the Government Affairs Committee created the current ad hoc committee.
There have been ad hoc committees created over the years for any number of reasons.
One that often comes to my mind is had to do with the design of the, the retaining wall over by Discovery Parkway, where the Council for for its reasons at the time wanted to have a essentially a work group.
That was assigned to look at and review the manner by which it was being designed what it looked like things like that.
So I use that description to suggest that when ad hoc committees are created, they generally are for a specific purpose, not a general purpose.
And that they are a subset or report to the committee that they've been created for.
So, its responsibility is only within the breadth of what they've been assigned and in no case
are they able to effectuate an action without delegated authority such that the current adhoc
committee can discuss and make recommendations within the focus or the narrow focus of what
they've been assigned, but only back to the committee that created it.
So that's sort of a short description of what I think I heard in the question as it was
posed.
Hopefully I've gotten at least enough of it to enable you to discuss further.
Okay. Jim, we had three distinct but somewhat related things here. If you want to make comments
on something, can we kind of clump them together? I'd like to just make notes about if there's
recommendations or a pattern of comments that we want to address somewhere or so.
Whoever's going to start this, Jason and Lillie, I see your hand went up her so let
start this discussion off but then the rest let's kind of clump the comments under the topic that
Jason starts off with and that'll help me organize a little bit. Go ahead Jason. Okay and to no surprise
I plan on commenting on all topics but I'll try to group them together. Well that's fine but just
as far as the leadership. Go ahead. As far as my request to know about exactly what the
there's department heads and you know just hearing about some of these
meetings happening and wondering if you know direction is being chosen aka
hearing certain things that maybe have been decided or maybe they weren't maybe
just the word on the street that they were decided and then you hear about
it in social media or the news as on behalf of the Common Council or the
and that Common Council has never really truly discussed like what do we want our response to be
to the protesters, how aggressive or not. I've heard from even police officers that have
approached during an incident, asked the Common Council, they're the ones that decided that,
you know, these are things we're specifically deciding in a meeting or at Common Council.
I'm just wondering if some of those decisions might be being made with a smaller group.
I'm not trying to call out whether that was legal or not for that group to meet, but I do agree,
if you're talking with Jim, too, about this further agenda item that perhaps if there is a benefit
to a smaller group meeting like that, because we are a large group,
that I think it should be formalized as an executive committee or some sort of maybe precedent
that does it in another community. Formalized, actually have like we know when they're meeting,
there'd be an agenda in minutes so that people know and that we maybe quarterly updates throughout
the year or at these COW meetings, we would committee the whole meetings we would get
a update as to things discussed and the ideas or decisions maybe would come to the actual
committees that were relevant.
Okay, and so another, that's about that one. So I
guess I'd like to hear what other elders think, and I don't know, Kathy, if you want me
to stop with that, to hear what other people think about that idea, or if it's just
to be agendized. I think it would be easier to have a discussion if we kind of
invite some responses now to this topic. Okay, then I'll stop. I won't go on to
the other ones, and I'll let us hear what people think about this topic, and
we can move on. All right, I'll come back to you when this one seems to have
play itself out, I'll come back, wave your hand and remind me to come back to you to
let you kick off the next area. I see all the Crystal Wilson's hand up. Go ahead, Dave.
Yeah. Thanks. And Jason, I was talking about this directly a little bit, but, you know,
I just, for my part in some meetings that occurred in August, it was very much to
address, you know, concerns that I had about some of what Jason, Jason just described.
we were in a situation where the council wasn't going to meet for most of a month.
There are a lot of messages flying around on behalf of the city, many of which invoked the
common council as supportive of whatever the content of those messages was. And I had my
own personal concerns, you know, that, you know, just like Jason, you mentioned that,
you know, suggesting that new decisions had been made by the council was not accurate.
And I didn't think it was one reasonable to have messages out there that suggested that something like that had happened.
I didn't think that some of the issues that I saw necessarily needed convening a committee of the whole or formal action of the council, because I, you know, I wasn't looking for in the meetings I was in.
Did we see any specific directive or direction or action of the council furthered it was, frankly to push back on my part, a little bit.
And say, look, you know, let's not suggest that the council has taken any action because it hasn't taken any more.
And, you know, I think we all from time to time have discussions with others on the council, the mayor, the city administrator, staff members, et cetera, about how we see things heading.
And, you know, I think that's a characterization, you know, I'd put out there of what the several meetings I was involved in were.
And I'll say that, you know, we were mindful of open meetings rules, but also thought that some of the discussions might be better understood if we had not just one or two alders coming but, you know, representative of, you know, it happened to be the,
We had a meeting or two with all of the committee chairs and frankly picked them because they were the committee chairs and said let's let's make sure we're on the same page on this kind of stuff.
And again, I think some of it was both pushing back on the idea that the council could be held up as supporting any particular actions or comments if we hadn't officially reviewed or endorse those things.
But in addition, the other problem I think we had that was fairly acute in the beginning of August was not a lot of communication coming back to council about what's happening, what decisions are being made at City Hall elsewhere to even understand.
I think many of us were left in the position where we understand what's transpiring as we catch up with news reports and social media and calls from neighbors the next day.
And I think we felt that it was only fair to all of us council members to have a better understanding and, you know, maybe a more consistent set of comments, I guess, for us to understand.
I think we saw that with Kathy forwarded updates over, you know, regular basis.
That was the output of one of those conversations. The council needs to be served a little better
and have information to help serve the community better. That's kind of my position. I don't
know that I'd be in favor of somehow turning any particular subset of the council into
a group with different abilities or authorities because I think I hear you're expressing
this that none of us would want to think, I guess, that there's going to be another
that's not a real meeting of the council but somehow has influenced or sets policy or direction.
I don't know if that's the right answer. Jim, I appreciate how unwieldy it can be to deal with 16 or 17 of us.
But at the same time, I think there's a reason that we have this structure and there's a reason that we should do our governing in our business out in the open.
Um,
looks like all the person verb and then Welch. I'm not sure who was first like this
glance, see both ends up. I'll let you go ahead.
Burn.
Thank you, Madam President.
Yeah, I concur with what Craig had said.
I'm sure the concerns that Alderman Wolke had brought, I'd saw, you know, her feedback
that this was there was police policy that was coming out of city council that we
we had not discussed nor voted on.
That was not a policy for us.
And then other communication was coming out
that I had questions about.
And I appreciate because twice I had been in City Hall myself
and talked with Jim and talked to our communications department
to try to figure out sort of why certain blips
were coming out of City Hall
and were coming to the media.
And I appreciated the time talking to my colleagues
and talking to Jim and talking to our communications department to figure out to make sure the information
we have is the right information to discern to the public.
So that is – it was more of a reaction to communication, I think, than any kind of
an agenda on our part in August.
Thank you.
Nancy?
Go ahead.
I was muted.
Sorry.
All right.
And I just want to, you know, reiterate the concerns about any policies being made or discussed
or directions being given in meetings that aren't being discussed by the full council.
I heard the reference to there was no open meeting violations that basically having elders
getting together and talking about issues and responses that isn't then followed
up in the public forum to my mind is in fact a open meetings violation. We should be meeting
to discuss policy that should be discussed in the open. And I think particularly when we're
dealing with some of these sensitive topics, part of the focus of that meeting should be
providing much of the information, not just to the committee members discussing it or the
council members, but also so the public can get that information as well.
I think when we start using the excuse that the common council is too large to discuss
these issues, that's really just an excuse to avoid discussing those issues in public,
and I hope that we're not going to go down that road.
Thank you.
All the person who will.
Thank you.
I guess my question is for Alan.
I kind of understand the idea that the chairs met while we were on recess,
because so many things are happening so quickly right now that they do need to be discussed.
Is it an ethics violation then for, say, Jim to disseminate that information to us separately
via a phone call or to have the chairs contact us individually to let us know what's going
on if we're not going to be having meetings about it.
Probably the way to the best describe it, and we've gone back to the open meetings
law.
The chairs are a group of five.
That's just five.
The four chairs plus the council president is five people.
That's not a quorum of the governmental body.
The group of chairs themselves is not a governmental body subject to the open
and meetings laws. So there's that. What you do with that information becomes separate.
The real violation, once you get beyond that, is when a group gets together, a group portion
or a quorum-based portion of the whole group, so eight or so, gets together and agrees upon
a course of action in the future. That's really where we're trying to be careful.
And they haven't done that.
The group of five, as I understand it, was talking about where the agenda setting is going and where it's going
and what they're going to do, what items are going to be on the agenda.
But not really setting the policies themselves or setting that discussion.
And that in and of itself is not a problem.
You have to be able to do those logistical things in a group like that.
But the key is not to sort of, I told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on
and get to a group where you've got a group agreeing upon an actual decision-making process.
Moving into the agenda setting and deciding what issues are going to come forward is a
logistical issue that has to be taken care of, but once you've decided what your final
course of action is going to be, that's what you need to do in the full public meeting.
From my understanding, I've not been in those meetings myself, but I've been paying
attention and consulting with Mr. Arshambo and the Council President on that topic.
And I think, from my understanding, they haven't been doing anything that's a violation of
law and seem to be moving forward with the proper agenda setting and logistical type
arrangements.
So, the short answer is no.
It's not.
It's not an ethics violation for the city administrator if our chairs are going to
continue to meet behind closed doors, not breaking any rules, not holding a quorum, is not an
ethics violation. And maybe it's something that needs to start happening, that our city
administrator or our chairs are keeping us as council members that are being held at
the same standard as they are as elected officials, abreast of what's being said and
done in our names.
Yeah, and I know that the committee council president has been making an effort to
do that as well. But we, I think we haven't gotten to the level of a walking quorum, which
is the concept we really talk about, because what they're doing is really that forward
is taking that action and moving it out as far as setting the future agenda, making
sure you know where you're going. So I don't think you've got that quorum issue.
So yes, I'm the lawyer. Of course, I'm not going to say a short answer is no.
But yeah, I think you're right that I've not seen a problem from that now because it's an informally constituted group right now.
It becomes more formally constituted.
It probably has to follow more formal rules about agendas and openness and open meetings and stuff.
But as an informally constituted group just arranging for the bigger group, it's not a problem.
All right.
Thank you.
I yield.
Thank you.
Looks like all the person called for off the top.
Yeah, thank you, Madam President. I think just this discussion and the perception that there is
is an indication that at least the other elected officials that are unaware of at least some
of the conversations or the outcome of even those conversations are unaware of and we're
uncomfortable with it, is an indication that the process or the practice should be at least
changed or stopped. The simple fact that it's just simply an agenda setting is not consistent
with common council practices in the past anyways. Agenda setting has usually happened
is handled by the common council president and maybe a chair or two will get involved
in something that's specific. Having all five of them meet together to quote-unquote
plan an agenda or to schedule things is just not consistent with past practices
especially when we're talking about topics like this that are extremely important to the public
and to the other elected officials. And even if we want to accept that these meetings are appropriate,
the fact that we don't know about them and aren't getting any information about them
is unacceptable as well. So let's all accept that for a second that it's perfectly fine,
it was just agenda setting. It fits, doesn't break any quorum rules. Then why aren't we getting a
report on, okay, here's what came out of those. Here's what we're planning for these agendas
moving forward. Like we've been told very little, if anything, related to these until tonight,
where we're getting descriptions of what was discussed and what wasn't discussed. But if
everything is just about agenda setting, why aren't we getting that information so that
But we're able to communicate that to the residents that are asking us, but what are
happening to these topics that were brought up in June and now we're at the end of September
and we haven't heard about any of them yet.
Well, we don't have a good, we don't have a good response to them because we don't
know what was going on in those meetings.
So I don't, I don't think they're appropriate.
I'm not a legal expert related to those.
So I'll leave that up to the city attorney.
But I think at least the practice that needs to be addressed is if these are going
to continue to happen, we need to at least give reports on what's being discussed
anybody
else not seeing any electronic or I don't I don't know where the notion
of agenda setting comes in and frankly I don't know for the way that this this
particular topic tonight has morphed from a message that was emailed by
Lerman Wilkie a couple weeks ago I'm not exactly sure what the focus of this
discussion ought to be I was speaking to a couple of meetings several
meetings that I was in in August that included the other chairs and the council president
included the city administrator at one point included the mayor at one point and included
leadership from police department at one point and I think the point of all those meetings was
not I mean it it wasn't agenda setting it was focusing on the concern that several of us
were reflecting that a lot of communications on behalf of the city and invoking the council's
support had been flying around and it wasn't appropriate. And so it's in fact the opposite
of this notion that we were out there doing something to set direct direction from the council
because they were all topics that we were told very directly by all those people we met with
that the council doesn't have any direct control over and, you know, aren't matters for the
And we weren't looking to insert ourselves where we didn't belong other than to relay
that we understood the council to be, we as members, and we understood our colleagues
and peers on the council to be frustrated by how those things were being addressed.
And so that's the sense of my involvement.
Agenda settings have occurred every other Thursday for as long as I've been on the
council.
And I think they're relatively not well attended by elected officials from time to
But I didn't know I've been in others in many years past where there have been multiple elected officials talking through particular issues.
Clearly this is something that needs attention. Jason, I thank you for bringing it up and we'll.
To work its way through the committee level to have a more thorough.
Directive discussion about this.
All right. I don't see anybody else's hands with more comments on this topic, Jason.
I'm going to go back to you and let you go ahead with them with a second on your list.
Just to wrap up that topic, that because it wasn't just agenda setting discussions is why I thought
if it's going to take place it should be more of a formalized meeting agenda,
minutes so we know and a response of what kinds of side are discussed. That's why I brought this up.
I apologize if I was unclear and calling it agenda setting. It's not the formal agenda setting that
we have for the actual meetings but setting the course and trying to discuss what topics are
moving forward I think was my, that was my impression of what was going on I think.
I'm not sure you're correct because if they're meeting with the police and maybe it was
as how to deal with response level to protesters?
I don't know what was that about,
but again, I'm not here to dissect what was and what wasn't.
I'm more, unless you want to share,
I'm more, if it's going to happen, formalize it
so it's on the up and up
and it's part of our, one of our committees
and people are aware and people know
and have a report back on what got discussed
and actual decisions or directions are made
at a committee or at the council level,
not with just four or five people from our 60 percent council.
So I guess I'll move on from there to the – my other topic I wanted to kind of touch
space on was the responses and the letters and the emails we've been getting from
the Wauwatosa Peace Officers Association.
I feel that – and I can sense their frustration and a lack of response in some of the letters
or maybe the most recent one.
And I feel that we as a group haven't acknowledged these because I guess we're all getting them.
And it's like, okay, noted.
But should there be a response?
Should there be a discussion of those items that have been brought up?
When is the appropriate time to do that or where?
But I think that a response of some sort is probably, you know, at least an acknowledgement should take place.
And I don't know who that would be or what or if there's any of those items that we should be further looking into.
because some points may have merit from my personal perspective when I read it,
but these have been going on undiscussed and unresponsive.
As far as I'm aware, unless, again, this leadership group might be, I don't know, or if
people are individually. So, I just wanted to put that out there, too, as an opportunity
during these meetings, we can talk about that or send it to some sort of other agenda or committee
or former responsive.
So, thoughts on that, anybody?
Anybody?
This is something that I've been struggling with, too, as I may have mentioned
and some conversations. If you as a teacher and parents and
my preferred, if it were me
personally, I would probably just not, you know, just not make a response, but I'm not
going to take that posture on behalf of this group. So, if no one is, wants to add something
tonight, if you want this agenda is to.
Kathy, I had my hand raised, Jim Muldenar here.
Okay, there, it just went up. Let me just finish my sentence.
Well, go ahead. I'll wrap my thoughts up later on. Go ahead, Jim.
I just sensed that you were inquiring as to if someone else wanted to speak on this issue.
Yeah, frankly, I totally agree with Alderman Wokey.
We need to have transparency.
Moreover, we do need to come up with a response to this.
And many of these items that have been raised in those letters are concerning and they merit a response.
And the, I sense, I don't want to speak on behalf of, I think one of the reasons why we're getting, we're seeing the communications and some of the tenor of that communication is the fact that we have not responded to this.
So I just want to underscore that we as a body, I think, need to be responding.
We need to hear and come together with regard to communication on this.
And so I'm just seconding Alderman Wilkie's desires in this regard.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Looks like all the personal Riley.
Thank you. I don't really have a fully formed opinion, I think, yet on whether or not we
need to respond as a council on this, but I know that our council president knows that
recently, when there were members of our community who were contacted about this Kibwa
white group or whatever it was that was out there. At that time, I was gravely concerned
about that and reached out about when something like this happens, what do we do as a council
and do we release a statement? Do we speak as a voice when something outrageous and appalling
happens in our community? So I think what's dovetailing for me here is that it seems
like there are things that are going on that are troubling to us individually, that are
troubling to us as a group, and it also becomes troubling to the community that we seem to
be staying silent on these issues, and sometimes silence is because, you know, there's a pandemic
and we didn't meet in August, and sometimes silence means that you are complicit.
Silence can be construed a lot of different ways.
So that's the piece that I think is is hanging for me is sort of as a as a new
member of this body you know when when do we come out and say something and it
seems like we're going to be asked to do that more and more so perhaps we should
have a longer conversation about it.
Mayor McBride.
Thank you.
I certainly am not in a position nor do I want to be in the position of
telling the council what to do so I'll just speak for myself.
The WPOA communications have typically, I think in every case, I could be wrong, but typically
have been addressed to me as well as to the council. And so I have responded on a couple of occasions
and I have copied the council on my responses.
The primary goal of the
The communication seemed to be to challenge a statement that I've made in emails that
officer men's situation is unique.
And when challenged on that by the WPOA, they cited one example that proved that officer
men's situation is not unique, meaning one of a kind.
But that was the only other example given, and so I pointed out, well, if it's not
unique. It's certainly extremely rare. And then we kept getting challenged on that and they wanted
the identity of the experts that I cited and I mentioned that.
And Mayor, I think you just muted
yourself accidentally.
I don't know how I did that. Anyway, I also said in my responses that
But rather than have a battle by media, by press release, that would be better for some
of us to meet.
And it took quite a while, but we are actually going to have a meeting tomorrow, and Alvin
and Kofra would be part of that, be assisted in setting it up.
So, you know, the battle by accusation and by media and press release is not useful at a time like this.
I also didn't think that it was warranted providing dignity to repeated attacks on a particular older person.
I want main names. You know who that person is.
I thought it was unfair. There were attacks and suggestions that the older person should be recalled, which is inappropriate.
So there comes a point in which you said what you're going to say and what's the point.
The other thing is,
you know, the statements often are intended to provoke a response.
And if you get into it too often, you suggest that there's merit to the controversy.
And the controversy, again, boiled down to four-year experts.
Officer Masse isn't unique.
Well, I already responded to that once or twice.
So how many times am I going to respond to that?
So, again, the council can do what it wants and it should.
and if the council has a particular response in addition to mine that it
thinks is appropriate I will not criticize that in any way but I just want to
point out that I don't know that there's much merit from my point of view in
responding further except for through the meeting I hope will be productive
tomorrow with the WPOA. I hope that we can get back on common ground. We have challenges as a city
that require all of us, I think, to pull and harness rather than to pull away from each other.
We should try to be on the same page as mayor, common council, police department,
and whatever, so that we can get through what everyone would acknowledge is a very difficult
time. So I'll leave it at that, but thank you for allowing me to talk about it.
Thank you. All the person cool.
Thank you.
I will only speak for myself as someone who has several times been called out
specifically in the press releases from the POA.
For me, I think it would be extremely helpful if we had,
had, whether it was in a closed meeting session, had Allen, had the mayor, and Jim explained
to us exactly what we are allowed to say because there's a lot of undertones in these press
releases that we are going to be held liable for what we say in making statements.
It has been, and I don't believe that I stand alone in this thought, that we,
For me, I don't know what's okay to say anymore because it seems that these press releases continue to escalate and to provoke.
And whether you think that there's merit in responding to them or not, that's not my issue.
But I think it would be extremely helpful to have the support of our administrative staff and our legal counsel to let us know what parameters we're allowed to speak within,
what we should say, because we, well, I made a statement on my own. The majority of council came together and signed that resolution together.
And so I think it would be very beneficial if we met as a council and discussed exactly how we're supposed to move forward from here.
Because I quite frankly have felt very hung out to dry with no support, with no advice, with no check-ins, nothing.
And for me, there's absolutely no way I'm responding to any of those press releases and giving more opportunity for myself to be a public target of threats on social media and via phone.
So, again, I'm only speaking for myself, but I feel like I have seen a real lack of support from our staff in letting us know how we should proceed in an appropriate manner.
Thank you. Anybody else want to add on to this? All the person who will be.
This is exactly what I was talking about this discussion here is what we can have.
We're learning a lot. I didn't know about, you know, brought this up a week or two ago to have this scheduled this meeting for this discussion.
And tomorrow, the mayor and one elder is having a meeting with them regarding this topic.
seems odd. We didn't know that. I don't mind. I'm glad someone's talking, but it's
just kind of odd. And Mayor, your comments, you talk about what you decided to do,
what your response was, and we can go do what we want. It seems kind of odd, too,
since we're being addressed, I think, as the entire, as you and all of us. And I
did know about a resolution that some alders signed down with for cool,
I don't know how a resolution can be made and signed on to without a resolution to be
passed by the council, but it was just a statement or what it was, maybe not an actual resolution,
but I thought it was going to be passed by the council, because I did hear back from
some people, did you sign that, or are you one of the people that signed that resolution,
and I'm like, I don't even know about it.
So it's just kind of like having these discussions, and I'm not blaming that you did that
or whatever or judging.
It's just things are happy individually, but yet if we can have discussions like this
on the topics and the merit within those, and what is like like Old Woman Cool saying
some counsel advisory on what's collectively a good idea to respond to, what's not.
And if a meeting is going to be set, who's going to be at it to have communication.
Because I think communication, whether this is trying to provoke negative communication
or not it's communication that we need to make and not let walls get built by bad communication
maybe or lack of because unintended walls based on all this stuff going on we still
are one city with leadership and staff of all departments that are working towards
keeping TOSA a great community even as we work on improving some areas where we are
realizing we need some improvement whether we agree or not all yet on those
areas what they are specifically. But this discussion like this and I had asked
if we could go into closed session tonight for specifically the reason
Alderman Kuhl brought up to have councilor advisory on a breakdown on
what's when you do make statements or you do what is and what's not
potentially something like to be litigation or something if things advance
down a worse road, which hopefully they don't. But, you know, yeah, I was told we were not,
there's no merit to us having closed session. There's nothing that I sort of disagree with
that. But you just having this discussion now and bringing this out and seeing what people
are with this and me and then hearing that some discussion or response is happening that
there is going to be a meeting, at least there's something happening that's an update
in itself. So it's been helpful. I don't know if there's anything more we can do
with this but we can't just let these things sit on the side lines and then
build up when we're all on it together.
Okay Mayor, I had Jason Kofroth's hand up
first and then I'll call you Jason Kofroth go ahead. Yeah thank you so I'll
address the meeting that Mayor McBride brought up that I don't think that
should be a surprise to anybody because that was requested and I believe
the mayor said that he would work on scheduling that in one of the email
responses that he sent so I think we all expected that so I would I would hope
after that meeting that there would be a report and there would be a release of
kind of what kind of response or what what came out of that because I think
there's a benefit to it to the response that or to the other comment that Mayor
McBride had, I think having these arguments over email with the union is not beneficial.
So as much as that can be handled in person.
And in the public, I think, is a benefit so that we can figure out a way to work with them.
This is not a policy discussion with them because they're not in a bargaining capacity to bargain with us on policy.
So I think there needs to be an understanding of kind of what their role is in all of this and how they really play into it as the bargaining unit.
I completely agree, though, with All the Woman Cool related to what can be said and what shouldn't be said.
There's kind of this emptiness since we had that one meeting of, okay, we made this statement.
You can try to explain yourself to the public, but I'm not going to tell you exactly what you're allowed to say
and what you're not allowed to say, but you're going to hear from a lot of people and just be cautious about what you say.
And I don't think that's an appropriate kind of mechanism for us to have public discussion by not having the legal guidance that I think we all kind of expect to have.
So I support other women cool and whatever more we can get on here is what is able to be shared with the public on the discussions that were had in closed session.
And here's what is not allowed to be shared with the public. I think that would be appropriate at least moving forward.
I don't know.
We obviously can't make up for statements that maybe have been made already, but I think
as this goes down the line and some of these topics are brought up again, I think a clear
guidance on what should or should not be said and who is going to be saying it I think
is important.
One of the things I think is important I think for us to recognize is us as a common
council do have a common council president that we rely on for um some of these uh for making
making comments for the public. I believe though our ordinances say and you can correct me if I'm
wrong attorney customer that the mayor is the spokesperson for the city so how that kind of
plays out and what the mayor is and isn't allowed to say I guess is up to interpretation
But it doesn't surprise me that the mayor has made comments.
I mean, I'd agree with everything that's in the comments that he makes, but he is in
that role, and I believe the ordinance is provided for that.
So as much as we can criticize comments that have been made, like, we need to at least
have somebody that's able to make the public comments.
And so I think they were appropriate in many of the cases.
I think is what all the women of Riley brought up, that situation.
I think the mayor are taking a leadership role in that and having that press conference
that announced was brought up there was I think a great step in the city taking a stance on it
without all of us having to meet and come up with a statement. There's just deficiencies in
allowing the mayor to be able to come out and make those obvious statements announcing
what was what was disgustingly sent to those residents. So I don't I don't know what exactly
do with those comments. I think that from the union, I think some of their concerns, though,
related to the ad hoc are valid. I think some of those are what should be discussed if we have
a discussion.
Us having a statement coming out to some of their responses, a formal statement,
I don't know, is really effective or not. But I do think having the discussions on some of
those specific topics related to the effectiveness, even of, like, what the ad hoc and the reason
for why that was created. I think that's valid. I think there's an opportunity for maybe government
affairs to look at the ad hoc and take the feedback from the department and take the feedback from
some of the residents that have contacted us since it's been created. So I think that would be if
we have any kind of takeaway from what's been sent in those press releases, that's probably the
one that I think has at least the most merit for a public discussion moving forward.
Thank you, Jason. Mayor McBride? Thank you. First of all, I'm kind of surprised that a
negative inference was drawn from my comments about the Common Council can do what it wants.
I wasn't being demeaning. I wasn't being dismissive. I was just suggesting that you all are separately
elected and you have the right as a council to do what is within your sphere of authority.
I have a separate sphere, you have a sphere, and the council certainly takes actions.
You set up the ad hoc committee, for example.
I didn't have a role in that, that's fine.
So, don't draw any negative inferences from that.
I was just merely saying that I was responding on my own to the WPLA statements which were addressed, that I thought to me.
So new folks have the right to speak collectively as well for those things that were addressed to you. That's all I meant by that.
Secondly, when Alderman Wiltie was talking about, I don't know what this resolution was, that Alderman Kuhl was talking about.
She's talking about the July 14th resolution that was passed 14 to 1 by the common council and signed by me the next day, which
was a directive to the city administrator and the police chief to facilitate the transition of officer Joseph Mencer from these
Employment by the law to a police department for them quote. That was the resolution
Directing if I'm wrong all the women cool that you were referring to she's nodding her head. So that's that's the point
There was no separate resolution.
She was just, the WPOA had any express releases
has attacked the Common Council and me
for that July 14th resolution.
That's what the genesis of the criticisms
from the WPOA was kind of all about.
Going on to the meeting that's happening tomorrow.
As mayor, I have meetings every day with people. I've met with protesters, I've met with community groups, I've met with concerned citizens. I've taken phone calls from Kimberly Motley.
I've met by Zoom with members of the Wisconsin legislature. This happens on a daily basis. There's not only nothing wrong with it.
It's exactly what the mayor should be doing, I believe.
I'm trying to respond to people who call me and write to me
every day saying, can I have a meeting with you?
I want to express my concerns about X, Y, or Z.
And I'm sure you get all those requests, too.
Dear older person, I'd like to meet with you
because I'm worried about the Johnny Visala development.
I'm worried about rats in my neighborhood.
I'm worried about protesters marching through my neighborhood.
but you have meetings like that all the time,
and I have meetings like that all the time.
And Alderman Koforowski is absolutely 100% correct
and one of the responses that you all received as CCs,
I said to Mr. Malowski, I'd like a meeting,
and I'd like it to be soon, and this was in mid-August
and he had a week of training
and it took a while for us to set it up
and Alderman Koforowski helped us set it up.
So that you've known about this meeting for a month.
And so we're going to have it.
And I'm just going to try to get on common ground with the police union and find out where we can go with this so we don't have a war of press releases.
The other thing I need to say here is that I'm almost literally asked for comments every day about everything.
Today's request was the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services has recommended
against trick-or-treating.
What is the city's position?
I said I wasn't aware of that recommendation.
The discussion hasn't occurred at the city level, and I'm sure that if a discussion
does occur, the recommendation of the state will be taken into account.
It was a no-comment comment. I try not to make comments about things that are
getting out ahead of the council. I try not to make comments about things I know
nothing about until I gather the facts. And there are times when it's best to just
shut one's mouth so that you don't get into it with the police union or a
protest group or something else. So there are many times I have not
comment when asked for comments. I probably have, all the times I've been asked for comments over
the last several months, I've probably responded less than 50% of the time, because I just don't want
to get out ahead of all 16 of you. It's more prudent, and I say this many times, for the
matter to come to the council to be fully discussed and debated, and then we'll go ahead and we'll
talk about it. When the council has already issued a resolution that I've signed, I feel
that I can talk about that. In fact, again, the broadcast people, the print people, they're
always asking for comments. And so that's someone who is elected by the voters of the city. And as
someone who, as Alderman Kofa was pointing out correctly, is in my job description, official
spokesperson for the city, there are times when I have to comment. But as I said, I try
not to get out ahead of the council because I recognize the system we're in and it's more
prudent for me anyway not to do that. So I hope that responds to your concerns.
Thank you. Looks like all the person friends them. I saw your hand going up.
Yeah thank you and I appreciate the discussion we've been having and what you've all had to say.
I have a question for Alan, though. On the issue of what we can say or we can't say,
I always thought it was pretty clear. If it takes place an open session, we can talk about it.
If it takes place in closed session, we shouldn't or we can't.
Never quite that easy, of course, because it's a lawyer thing.
That's sort of the gist of the thing, isn't it?
Yeah, that I would probably say the best way to describe it is most things that are appropriate and are done in closed session are things that you shouldn't talk about.
Right. There may not be an absolute prohibition on talking about them. However, different things that occur or discussed in closed session may or may not be it may be against the interest of the city for you to discuss them.
And as a fiduciary, as an officer of the city, you may have that obligation not to do things that would damage the city in that regard.
So it's not quite an absolute prohibition on speaking what's in closed session, but it is what's not in the interest.
This discussion about whether some of these items that you're talking about tonight can be in closed session.
It's really been difficult. We don't have, we just, the open meetings law is very restrictive on what reasons you can have a closed session and go into closed session.
And we haven't been able to visualize one of those appropriate reasons out of the discussion
that was coming up tonight, so we haven't been able to do that for tonight.
But yeah, the general rule is it's a should more than a can't.
And in terms of what we can talk about, I don't know that we should talk with one
voice.
I do not agree with everything that, surprisingly enough, that Alderperson Byrne may think that
we have different opinions, we represent different parts of the city, and we should be talking
and discussing things from those perspectives. We do not have to agree all the time. We
do not have to speak with one voice. The mayor speaks for the city, and I would
argue maybe the council president would speak for the council but we also are
allowed to have our own opinions and to issue our own statements. I would not
want to see any of that crimped or put an edge on because we're afraid to talk
about something.
That's all.
Thank you.
And anybody else?
No, no, no, you're, oh yes, Jason
Cole-Propos, your hand just went up again. I think that just the last comment, I think
that the concern that I have, and I won't speak for all the women cool, but it sounds
like that she has is the closed session discussion. It's easy to say, okay, it was
happened in closed session, we can't discuss that.
The problem with it is, is the resolution was passed
in open session and a statement then came out.
And the expectation then is, how do you,
and at what point are you able to defend
your decision for supporting that?
And what can you use then in open session to support it?
I think that's where the issue comes out.
If it was something that was clearly in closed session,
like what we talk about with TIFFs,
when we talk about TIFFs and those are bargaining things
and staff then goes back and negotiates with the developer.
That's an obvious one because we're not having
that discussion then or passing something in open session.
So I think when we have something that is discussed
in closed session but then a statement
or a resolution comes out of that,
there's then gray area related to how
and what for when and how do we then respond
to questions related to why you supported that.
And I think the easy thing to do is just not respond to it.
Oftentimes though, a lot of our residents get very frustrated when we decide just not to respond.
I would like to let you know that if we fail to give you that clarification when we're in that close session about what's appropriate to talk about and what's not,
I invite anyone to do to call me as necessary.
If you have questions about it, I can try to help you walk through that.
it may never be easy with it. I'm available if you need that.
Concerned. If you have that concern.
I appreciate this discussion and I appreciate hearing your different perspectives on this. I guess I'm going to take something back that I was looking for a very simple answer to is we've received publicly several letters from the police officers association challenging us to do the things.
I, we have not made a response.
Mayor has responded on behalf of the city and tried to clarify, and I guess I need to know from you folks.
Maybe I'm being a little dull about this.
If you expect a response from the council to some of the more provocative statements that have been lobbed at us.
And I don't have a quick picture that I understand the discussion about what we talked about.
I was looking for a little bit more direction, I guess.
Dennis is the spokesperson for the city. I don't have that status.
And to the practicality of talking to each and every one of you,
it's difficult to accomplish and probably inappropriate in some ways.
But I feel like we've been challenged publicly by these letters and haven't made a response.
When I started this out, my response comes on being a parent, being a teacher, is to not
respond to what were some fairly bullying statements.
So if you're going to just leave that there and you're comfortable with where this discussion
is gone, and we certainly can arrange, we have a gender setting coming up on Thursday.
there's obviously a desire to have some direction
here.
If a TAN will just set a committee level for information, that's fine.
Maybe you want to reach out to me.
I'm not completely comfortable with the fact that there hasn't been a response from the council
about the different press releases that we've been seeing.
If you all are comfortable with not making a response,
or Nikki certainly can make her own. I guess I need a little bit more conversation or direction
on that. So, we'll leave that there for tonight or we can keep going on this topic. Heather?
Sorry, couldn't find my button. Well, I mean, if we're going to sit here and have a
festivist airing of grievances over how this is being handled, I'm not entirely sure how
I or council are supposed to respond when there are public statements being made by the Peace
Officers Association trying to directly tie me to violence at Officer Men's House.
And not menacing words, directly saying that. I'm not sure how to respond to an open records
request for three months of every email I've sent out of my city email. How do you respond
to that? Who responds to that? Because that is not something you can respond to. That is
literally intimidation and bullying tactics that don't warrant a response because all
a response from me is going to do is going to feed that.
And it's going to make it
died down a little bit. And I have concerns that now that we're probably talking about
this, it's just going to go right back up again. My name's going to be out there again
and mentioned again. And people are going to be threatening to show up at my house with
guns again. So I'm not sure how we're supposed to respond to these things when all it is
is intimidation and bullying.
And I don't have an answer. I know we have access to staff. If there's staff
guidance that we should be accessing, Alan or Jim or Melissa, I'll kind of throw
this back at you. If you folks don't want to, this needs another forum to have
discussion. I'm sensitive to your being out there, Heather. I am. And no, I don't
I don't think anybody wants to draw attention that's needed to inform,
re-inflame things.
Right, and I'm fully open to private discussions about this, but if we're talking about how
these are emails that all of council have gotten, everybody has seen emails where they're,
I was in New York and I was being directly tied to the People's Revolution and saying that
I was a participant in what happened at Officer Mensa's house.
Everybody saw that. No one reached out to ask me how I felt about it, if I was okay with
it, what I needed.
Heather?
Mm-hmm.
Is this still going on?
It is still going on, John.
I'm done.
I mean, I just felt like if we're going to say, if we're really going to just discuss
how we're supposed to respond to these things, I think we just really need to be
honest about what we're supposed to respond to. So I just felt compelled to share
my experience. I can yield the floor. Thank you. I'm gonna hold this
discussion on it. Obviously this is something that I feel like this is
something that needs some more attention and we'll figure out how to handle
that and reach out to people and so we get a little bit more clarity on this.
so I get more clear to you, you know, Craig.
Go ahead, Craig, yes, Bill?
I still don't have anything to say, Kathy.
Okay, I'm sorry, your box lights up
and I think that means you're gonna speak.
All right, let's move to the third,
which was Jason's comments on the ad hoc committee.
Jason, will he just want it?
The presentation at the beginning touched on that
and gave some what they're working on
and a little bit of an idea of a timeline
And that's kind of what I was looking forward to hearing.
So I think that kind of covered the topic.
But in general, I've also been hearing about, you know, people,
lots of emails coming in that we put it on the agenda to disband it
and that ad hoc committee.
And that was not at all why I put this on the agenda.
It was to hear some status updates, what they're working on,
you know, if they're meeting and able to work on some of those initiatives.
because we did hear stuff about certain individuals on the committee or who's
talking to who or you know so it's like what what's the status we heard they got
I think I wrote down like five or six things that they're working on or
suggesting that we work on the study that's going to happen which is
obviously something that you know in a timeline five months for that study so
I'm I would encourage that that ad hoc committee to stay intact until say
that study is done and there's a response to it or acknowledging the content is completed
for that study and goes on to the committees for discussion that we invest in these people
and we make sure that they have the tools and the ability to attend, get the information
they need for the meetings, this ad hoc committee and participate to the fullest and not
just cut its life short just to move on from it because we have those five ideas
or whatever I think we need to carry those through and was not encouraging to
like bring us up just to disband it for the record so I do appreciate the update
tonight and I don't know if anyone has anything more to say about that but
that's what I was referring to let's see anybody else now I have something to
Go ahead, Craig.
So we actually had a meeting of the ad hoc committee yesterday.
And so I'm glad there's a bit of an excess here.
Again, there's the vacuum of no council meetings for a bit.
Obviously that committee is a an arm of the government affairs committee.
And so making sure those topics kind of track back I think is important.
And I think we kind of covered that last night and some other discussion in the ad hoc committee.
I talked about the extension of the CPSM review with the particular topics in mind.
There are kind of some topics that the council had raised to the ad hoc committee that are related to that, including things like overall strategies for using resources, are they all within the police department is a coordination with other departments, etc.
I will tell you though, to the point that that was just raised about the potential of disbanding the ad hoc committee.
committee. There were some pointed comments from members of the committee that I agree
with, that it would ring very hollow if we as a council or the government affairs committee
as a committee of the council, not just invested in these folks and setting up this committee,
but we actively looked to include members of the community beyond the council's demographics,
the council's, you know, typical participants to help us see, you know, what we might need to look
further at. I mean, similar comments earlier when we were talking about the overall equity plan,
but it was a plan of discussion last night, and I'd encourage anyone to go back and review
the comments from the committee in that regard, because I think they're especially
appointed, and we should think through those, where those committee members minds are at
as we continue to ask them to serve the city.
Heather, is that your hand up?
Yeah, thanks. I feel like this is more than I've talked.
I feel like this is more than I've talked in the last two and a half years I've been at council.
I just, I sit on the ad hoc committee as well and I know that there's been some rumblings about,
or rumors I hope, about wanting to disband it.
And I just want to be clear that the conversations we're having are robust.
the members of the committee, every single one of them are respectful. They are there in their free time.
Some of them are not TOSA citizens that are there because they genuinely are committed to making Wauwatosa a better place for everyone.
And I know that it can be really easy for people in authority to smear the character of individuals and try to remove them.
I think that that might be a really good excuse to not participate in the meetings.
And I hope we do see that Wauwatosa PD is ready to sit at the table with us so that we can actually move forward together,
because I think we could do a lot of good work.
The people that are on there are really committed, and it would be a shame and a show of hypocrisy if we were to disband it
before even letting them start getting any traction.
So I'm excited to be on that and I'm excited to see what we can do. Thanks
Thank you
Did I see a hand Jason? Oh, bro. I
Didn't have my hand up, but I can comment. Oh, okay. I can. Oh, you're just in your camera. Yeah
I don't feel pressure to it if you don't
I will I I
Went back and watch today the conversation that we had when we created it
There's a couple of observations I have based off of why it was created.
One, it was a good example of why these Zoom meetings aren't an effective way of making policy
or making decisions because it was extremely hard to follow with different members commenting
and making motions and comments that aren't on the committee itself.
Don't blame anybody, but it was extremely hard to follow what was actually decided that night.
But a couple of comments that I thought were interesting I'll bring up is, one, there was
a comment by an alder that this would be a commission or an ad hoc for about a three-month
period.
And I don't know if that's the right amount, but it was a comment that was made and quite
frankly we're at that three months already from when it was created at the end of June.
The other comment that Alderman Wilkie made, which I think is, I completely agree with now,
but it wasn't taken, taken, taken heat of, was that we would kind of structure it,
take some time to structure it and then bring it back so that we had a better idea of what was
actually approved and what was built into it. I think the problem with what we did was we kind
of hastily put it together without like a true structure of who's going to be on it,
one's going to meet, who's going to kind of make decisions. And so it took them a while to really
have an effective meeting. And I listened to the meeting last night. I thought the meeting went
very well. My concern, though, with what was discussed last night at it is there's two topics
that, in my opinion, can be sent to government affairs to have discussions and then move
down to the Common Council. And one was related to the body camera policy and one was related
to the citizen complaints. And my biggest concern with the ad hoc right now is it's going to
blog things down more than anything. Like I think there was good feedback related to
the body camera discussion yesterday. But I think that feedback can be used and then
sent off to government affairs so that we can have a discussion on it. If we consider
that we want to have like the body cameras implemented by the end of the year, like
We're at a pretty tight timeline of having the ad hoc look at it at least one more time
in a couple of weeks, and then sent off to committees to have discussions.
So my encouragement to kind of the committee members, and I've shared this at least privately
with at least one of you, is like, we can't allow that to kind of be the black hole for
some of these topics.
So if we can find some efficiencies of, okay, here we go, we're going to, we
had these two topics, we had good discussions on them, we need some feedback, but
that feedback and then be presented to the committees
and then the Common Council for approval.
I think that would be an effective use for that ad hoc.
I think it's good that the study
was approved last night at that meeting.
Like I think there's a benefit to that study.
I supported the funding for it.
But my biggest kind of long-term concern with it is,
it's gonna slow all of these topics down.
Because, like we saw last night, there's follow-up that needs to happen from those items
that were there. And it's just one more session of meetings that we're going to be bypassing
before the Common Council has a chance to then have their discussion and finally approve
some of the policies that are there.
Thanks, Jason. Looks like Nancy?
Yeah, and I want to say that I agree with everything Alderman Kofra said.
As someone who originally suggested the idea of the ad hoc committee, I've been a little disappointed
because my expectation was that that committee would start to filter through all the suggestions
that had come forward in the past months.
things that were so many different topics that if council committees took
them on directly it would just bog down all the rest of the business the
council needs to handle. The problem is it shouldn't be bogging down the
specific discussions that the committee is having. They should be
providing a structure that gets all the different topics related to equity
you know, into process referred to the best committee for future discussion, having good
discussions so that they can recommend things to the committee so that we can actually work
through all of these different things more efficiently. And I think if there's one thing
I've been frustrated by, it's the fact that this is a topic I have experienced in,
I'm very interested in, and I've basically been closed out of the entire conversation.
So I think it's time to come up with a more distinct process, more distinct topics, let
the ad hoc committee structure that, but then make sure it's being referred to the proper
committees for action.
Thank you.
Jason, look, I see your hand up, is this from before or is this an add-on?
I just wanted to kind of wrap up with apologize an elder woman cool for
The other
Resolution that I thought she was referring to that actually people
Referred to it as her resolution when we did put that one out in July. I know it was a mis
Interpretation, I thought there was another one it was people's misinterpretation of what that resolution was or who it all came from
So I apologize. I do say the elder or the mayor had put out that he welcomed a meeting with council
president city attorney and the city administrator with the WPOA. I did not know that was happening
already or that, you know, so I'm glad that's happening and glad there's communication on those
couple items. I just wanted to backtrack and apologize. But thank you. I think this discussion
though has merit hearing or people stand hearing that maybe some closed session with, you
You know, legal advice might be good, all the things that we talked about, the updates
and people hearing where they are with the ad hoc, because it was hastily put together.
I agree.
I did want structure and things like timeline would have been identified in that, so it
would be understood by the public more clearly maybe.
But now that we have it in place and we have these people picked out, I think we should
cautiously decide when to terminate it so that we don't wreck relations too
hastily as we forward it. Thanks, Jason Heather.
Thanks, I promise this will
probably be the last thing I say. Just to be clear that part of the reason that
what we discussed yesterday is being postponed is because we didn't have a
representative from the police department to answer our questions
directly. So all of our questions had to be collected to then be brought to the police
department, which is not the point of the ad hoc committee. The point was to have a direct
representative to answer our questions in real time so we could move these forward in a more
timely fashion. And I don't, it's my understanding that any other older person can show up
at any of these meetings and speak out and have their voice heard. I don't think
that anyone is trying to shut anybody out of these meetings. So, Alder Woman Walsh,
If you are inclined to, please show up at the meeting and share your views on these things because we need a variety of perspectives as we're discussing them.
Anybody else?
Well, I'm going to just wrap this up and it's getting to be close to 10 o'clock.
I mean, this has been a very useful decision or discussion tonight, rather.
I have a few takeaways, the biggest ones being the conversation about having executive committee
or how to handle the meetings, the pre-meetings we had over the summer or where to go with
that.
And then the topic that we talked about, the how to say things or what not to say or
how to get the advice from our legal staff.
So got a couple things to flush out here and I will do that and you know free to
reach out with me if you have comments about tonight in addition to this.
But otherwise thank you for this. This has been very helpful. Mr. Dubinsky, I see
that you joined us. I hope things are well and we'll depend on you
when you're ready to reactivate your the third item that we are not going
discussed tonight. So thank you. Thank you.
Have a good evening everybody.
Thank you.
Thanks Kathy.