The listening session is in order. Thank you so much for showing up. Thank you Alderman. Thank you citizens. This is a listening session for the community, not a debate with the Alderman. And citizen input, whatever you want to tell us, whatever you want us to know, and each Alderman, if you can be responsible for your own notes, and I'll take notes also. And of course Alderman Grah and Alderman Berg will probably take notes. 10, 15, let's have a break for 15 minutes, and then we'll have one hour to go. And if any of the citizens want to talk individually to your Alderman, perhaps during the break or after the listening session, and also feel free to call your Alderman at any time that you want to, we're televised for the benefit of the public. So we will treat each other with cordiality and respectfulness. Any citizens want to speak now, feel free. Or we will wait. It's simply a listening session, Dan. So whomever is here is here. Yes, of course, Barb. Yes, please. The microphone is on, so if you sign your name and your address there and tell us your name and address. My address is 1034 Superior Avenue, Sheboygan, and my name is Barbara Smith. And the only thing that I really have to say, I don't have much to say, is there is a lot of confusion within our community as to exactly where the police station is going to be decided to be. I hear Sheridan Park is no longer an option, but there's quite a bit of people that I speak to at work or in play that say, do you know what are the sites exactly? Really, nobody has any clue as to whether it's the 23rd Street site, which I hear a lot of people saying that that's what they would rather have the police station. That would be a good site that seems to be the one option that the citizens really enjoy. But as far as the rest of the sites, I really have no clue. And a lot of the citizens do not either. And that's all I have to say. Thank you, Barb. Thank you. Alderman Graf, why don't you say that? Thank you. The sites that are available right now, we're considering considering five sites. There's the 23rd Street site, which you already mentioned. There's a site right behind City Hall here that is also being considered. There's one on 15th and Broadway and Georgia. Basically, it's a Vandervaart property. And there's one site down on New Jersey Avenue, right across from the Municipal Service Building. It's where the old drop-off site used to be. And the fifth site is the Pan Avenue and 13th Street. Okay. That makes it quite a bit clear. Thank you. Thank you, Barb. Yes, please. Thank you, Jack. Okay. My name is Jack Lewis. Yes, I have to sign my name. Yes, please. Signature or just print? Simply so we can read it. Wow. Okay. 311 Michigan Avenue. I commend the council and management for this public hearing. I think in my 35 years in Sheboygan, I think this is the second public hearing you've had. And I think the first one had to do with the was very controversial also was the ambulance problem. And that went on for a long time like this one. But one thing, I haven't been going to a lot of meetings because I have a lot of things to do and a little overextended right at the moment. But I read everything I can find and also listen to reports and listen to some of the aldermen that I get to talk to. I don't hear any vision coming out of this body. It may be, but I don't see, I don't hear it. And I don't read it. What I'm talking about is I have the impression that we're thinking of these little sites for today. The only one I see but is not being thought as a site for the future is the 23rd Street site. The police wanted the Sheridan Park, which was ridiculous. It would have been fine for today. But for the future, you don't know where you're headed. You don't know what the police department is going to look like 10 to 15 years from now. And what your territory will be. You could be expanded. You don't know. You can't vision that. And no one is. I'm a visionary. I get myself in a lot of trouble being a visionary. I've been one all my life in the corporate world. I really got in a lot of trouble. But really, I think you have to have a vision here. And you can't think of just today. And assuming that what you have today will not be what you have in 10, 15 years from now. The only site I see that could allow you to adjust to other changes is the 23rd Street site. And the reason is that all that land there and say the sheriff's department doesn't want to share. I mean, they're going to be sharing. One thing I just read about this morning. One of the clippings I had was about evidence room or something where the two departments wanted to share. On New Jersey. Why New Jersey? Crying out loud. If you're going to build on a multi-acre site, you don't use all that site. You can build a facility that will you where you can join your whatever you're trying to put together. I think it's an evidence room. So I think you have to because you could conceivably. I don't know where we are today. I was involved with the Police and Fire Commission for 18 years and president for 17 of the 18, I think. If I had still been there and they came up with the Sheridan thing, they would have heard how we felt about that because that's to me was ridiculous. It was putting themselves in a position where they don't have to expand or share. I think they have to think of those things. I think it's an ideal location in case you have to expand. It's ideal even if you don't expand. But if you have to, you have access north and south where you would be needed north and south. You don't know what's going to happen up to Haven area. You know, you can't picture that today. But whistling straights could be a very large facility area for condos and everything else in the future. But you don't know. You can't see that. But you have a man who owns that area up there who is a visionary. And visionaries sometimes think the same way. And it's possible. It's conceivable. You will see many condos. You will see other things happening with the sewer system. They're by themselves up there. They don't have one. They're going to have to either go to Cleveland or down here. That's their alternative. But he's thinking in the future, quite a ways in the future. I don't see that here. I'm not being critical because I don't sit on your meetings and I don't have privy to a lot of people who know. But if you are not looking to the future, I think you have to. You could have a metropolitan police force, for example. That's crazy now. But it could happen. I've been here 35 years. We have been here 35 years. And this community has changed tremendously in 35 years. And looking ahead, I see things. I vision things. Maybe you're not. But that's why I say, I think you have to really consider tomorrow, not just today. And I think the only site you're looking at that takes you into tomorrow is 23rd Street and no other one.  I've spoken my piece. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Thank you. Anybody else that needs to give us some information? It's good. Thank you, Ed. Otherwise, we'll just wait for you. Yes. My name's Ed Wachowski and I live at 2632 North A. Street. Ed Wachowski, would you spell your last name for us, please? Yes, W-A-C-K-O-W-S-K-I. Just the way it sounds. First of all, I want to applaud you for holding these sessions. And I want to caution you not to believe, because there's not too many people back here, that people really don't care about the police station. I've talked to a lot of people on the street and they are concerned about the police station. They're concerned because they feel that police do need a better facility. What concerns them more than anything is a 17 million dollars. And how you chose 17 million dollars to build a police station. And I've been at a lot of your meetings and I'm at a loss to explain the rationale for that amount of money. But I would ask you to demonstrate the same leadership that you're demonstrating here today by offering people the opportunity to speak for or against the police station. Why not put that question on a referendum? Allow the people, the citizens of this community, who are going to pay that 17 to 40 million dollars, because obviously you know over 20 years with taxes, it's going to be a lot more money. And that's going to be a lot more money on their tax bill. Believe me, people are concerned. And if you want to have people very upset, and they will be upset whether they're here today or not, when they get their first tax bill for 17 million dollars, that's going to be a shocker to a lot of people. And I know a lot of people have said, especially in council, the council members, we're tired of hearing that way till election day and we're going to vote this way, we're going to vote that way, we're going to vote the other way. Put that first tax bill prior to the next election and see how people will react, okay, and they will react and they will hold you accountable. Also, you're destroying a bridge between the community and the police department. Do you think when you pay two or three hundred dollars more on your bill, on your tax bill per year, you're going to really think very pleasant thoughts about the police department? I don't think so. I really don't think so. So I ask you to put the question on a referendum. What do you have to fear? The school board put their 34 million dollar request to the taxpayers. But they did one thing that I don't see you doing and that is they went out and they explained to the public, why 34 million dollars? What it meant to them, not only to their children, not only to the future of Sheboygan, but what meant to them and their taxes. And they did an excellent job of convincing the people that it really was necessary to spend that money and surprise, guess what happened? It passed. Do you lack the ability, the credibility to put that before the taxpayers? Step forward, lead. If you don't, then don't be surprised by the reaction of the people in Sheboygan. And I've heard a lot of people, we're circulating a petition asking for that. And a lot of people from outside the city come to the different concerts and things. You should hear what they say about Sheboygan. Yes, I lived here once, but I can't afford the taxes here. Okay, yeah, I come back and I take advantage of your concerts, I take advantage of your restaurants, but I can't afford to live here. Would I have moved? No. I would have stayed if taxes were where they should be. I thank you very much for listening to me. And I ask that you not let the words fall on deaf ears, because also the word on the street is why come here today?  And the people that I talk to, I assured them that with the new leadership in City Hall that that's not a fact, that you do listen. And I hope you demonstrate that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Edward Kosky. Thank you for your words. We have a few more people arriving.  All right? I hope not. Good morning to you all. Good morning, Carter. Could you sign your name and your address and tell us also? I hadn't planned on speaking. I'm glad you're going to. I thought I'd give the young lady time to get her breath. I obviously want to support what Mr. Edward Kosky said this morning. He spoke the truth. Carter, could you tell us your address, please? I'm sorry, 414 Erie Avenue. Thank you. You're welcome. As I said, I hadn't planned on speaking, but I'm trying to give the lady a chance to catch her breath. I really wanted to support what Mr. Kosky said. I have been probably a little bit discouraged by the comments that I have heard from or about some of the alderman, and I don't really want to get into that other than to ask you to take off the blinders and look ahead and think ahead. I think I caught the end of the first to the second gentleman before Mr. Kosky and asking you to look into the future and to think in the future. Where I'm coming from, obviously, is I think that I support the 23rd Street site. Some of the things that have disappointed me is hearing some people on the street that a rumor may have been started, that something was so, and then we find out the truth and it wasn't so, but people have a difficult time changing their mind or accepting the latest amount of information. Yep, we sat here and we listened to all of the presentations by all of the studies and the architects that made these presentations and there were facts that came out and yet they seemed to continue to ignore them and whether that's carried into the council or not, I really don't know, but I think that we've got to get over this blind stubbornness on the part of some of the council members. I think that you've got to serve the public. That's what you are here for and not just play word games, but really and truly speak for the public and for the benefit of the future of this city and that means that you have to take off the blinders and you have to start thinking outside of the box and you have to start thinking ahead and I don't think pulling numbers out of the air is one of the solutions as far as costs and expenses are concerned and this has already been expressed and will be expressed further in the future. There has been for some unknown reason a difference of opinion as far as whether there should be shared services and yet you are continually being advised, told, suggested, implored upon to exercise an open mind and start using shared services and I think that one of the major breakthroughs recently which is in the paper this morning about the fact that the Sheboygan Police Department and the Sheriff Department are now going to join in a shared service in a very real economical and viable way with the decision to have your evidence storage and your police shooting range started at a new location and adequately put together and in a very excellent location with no cost to the taxpayers in purchasing land or buying land and you have the same story essentially now on 23rd Street site so there is a force on one side that definitely wants to share and we have to open up the gates and get to the other side to open up and share also and this council holds the purse strings so you need to spend the money wisely and just picking numbers out of the air is not the solution you need to have concrete information and as a previous speaker said you need to share this information there really and truly is some intelligence leaking into this council and I hope that it continues to do so the public is watching not just a few individuals but the public and you need to perform for the benefit of the public so again I guess I'm saying I support the 23rd Street site for the very common sense of reasons and I hope that you I applaud you for having these open sessions I think I'd like to make another suggestion you might even consider having an open session and or a forum session not only at the beginning of your proceedings but at the end you might find out some real truths at the end also so think about it thank you very much thank you Carter Pauls yes please at the podium name address and then if you'll tell that information to us also my name is Barbara Tushinsky TUS ZYNSKI I reside at 2404 Silverleaf Lane the city of Sheboygan thank you very much I guess I'm here for more answers rather than questions I do have some comments to make we do not subscribe to cable so I don't have the opportunity to watch this these proceedings I'm quite often tied up in other meetings on Tuesday evening so I can't get to some of these meetings but I do subscribe to Sheboygan press and unfortunately the Sheboygan press has not done the optimal job of conveying the discussions that are being held the press has been pushing one particular site there have been times that I can hear information on the radio the next day and realize some discussions that were going on in these chambers that were never covered in the press so I guess what I'd like to do is just try and get some information from some people here um I got one of the some of the articles from the press so from what I understand right now there are is it five sites that we are seriously considering five sites are being investigated yes okay and what kind of information are we using I mean a few months ago and we had the huge political turmoil there was the study from the uh called the Moyer study about the review of the proposed city of Sheboygan police facility there's also the Zimmerman study may I just ask what is the status of this study is this being used to help determine site locations all of the information is being used to determine site locations and some of the other developments are that the the city planning department has been involved and the city engineer department has been involved and the police have been involved so there's lots of input there is also mentioned the paper possible study that would be available to the public today is that available or is it not it is not available okay it has not come to us okay so I guess I'll start from the very beginning um I'll lay it on the line I'm on the school board I have been on the school board for 10 years so I've been through a process of having to make decisions gather input listen to the public and be very well aware of everything he has to go into a sound decision my husband is also a city of Sheboygan police officer who's been here for over 30 years so I'd like to think I might have some more insight into this and some other people which is I think my main focus here there have been a lot of people discussing the issues unfortunately as I mentioned between not being able to see the issues in person listening to cable or getting accurate information from the press sometimes people do not have the information they need our common council members do I can read something the paper as somebody commented here's something on the street and realize that is just a small percentage of the information that's out there so I want to really tell the common council if I may just tell you you don't mind is please figure out what you are doing and why what is the purpose of this building I would like to think the purpose of this building is to create an optimal to be police department to best serve our officers and the support staff and this community in a cost effective manner unfortunately a lot of other issues have been thrown out in the last few years and few months as far as what the main focus of this is whether it's shared services whether it's preserving a certain site whether it's going with people this study was from people who don't even live in the city of Sheboygan there are probably all kinds of political things going on I am not privy to I'm just trying to remind the common council the main focus here should be using the experts who design police departments using input from our police department and our police officers and our police chief to figure out what the needs are and work that way if I utilize the city uh Sheboygan school district we went out to some experts who looked at people who know how to design schools as a board we have some ideas but we're not experts I respect all of you but you're not experts in creating police departments and police buildings the best way to do is to listen to people who know the best I do have some concerns about this study being used to a great extent uh it's based on some inaccurate information I know the shared insight is dead I'm not talking about that but the fact is that they used they were comparing apples to oranges quite often the purpose of this study was its impact upon shared law enforcement services potential so they were trying to create a police department to the optimal effect of sharing services if that is what the common council wants to do in the city of Sheboygan wants then we better be sitting down with a county board and Sheriff Helmke to say do you want to build a building that serves both of our communities and from what I'm hearing that's not the purpose of what Sheriff Helmke wants this is the city of Sheboygan the county's out there why they would possibly build a facility on 23rd street or at the van der Waart site or anywhere else in the city of Sheboygan to serve a large number of services makes no sense they should be out where their public is and people tend to forget that and I don't hear a lot of dialogue between the people that actually use these services whether it's the sheriff's department of the city of Sheboygan or the police officers the police officers had almost no input into this so that's why I'm hoping this is not held on equal ground as some of the other information that is coming out there so my first thing to say why are we building this whether you call the mission statement the goal the purpose what is the purpose for this new police department the next thing would be what are the needs I touched on that briefly are the needs truly shared services I also read the press this morning the idea of sharing the shooting range that makes a lot of sense you can have shared services without sharing a building I think there are a lot of people out there that are trying to be helpful but they don't understand the way a police department works they don't understand the way a sheriff's department works some of these shared services are not going to be very effective you've got a whole different ball game when you've got people working out with something that's 18 miles away and you've got one officer one deputy working trying to patrol a fairly large area where it's mainly farmland versus the city of Sheboygan officer who's patrolling the seats the streets here the dispatching may not work if we're truly looking at shared services can we really investigate what the needs of these individual departments are and talk to the county board talk to Sheriff Helmke and say is this viable the impression I'm getting is it's not but again you probably know about this more than I do and we have to really be careful as far as what the current site is one of the problems with relocating here the city of Sheboygan is that there's not a lot of public parking and there's not a lot of parking for officers now I have to admit I told my husband last night and I'll honestly guess because he's working right now he can't be here I said I don't know how high a priority the common council puts parking for you but in reality when police officers come to work they are putting the life on the line they have to go through a rather difficult job day after day after day I'd love to see some people who are out there discussing this right along whether it's a press off a press reporter remember the public spend time in the police department building I don't think they really realize the conditions of this building it is an embarrassment we have had officers leaving at great rates over the last few years because for 30 years been promised a new police department people need to understand what's going on from police perspective when they talked about the location aspect I it'd be easier for me and my family to have it on the north side be a shorter drive to work you know but reality what happens when a police officer is out patrolling they have to constantly keep coming back to the central location whether it's to book people whether it's to report to their captain whether it's to change equipment whether it's problems with the squad and this is the kind of thing you should be hearing from the police officers and chief Kirk or deputy chief whites not for me by letting members of the public know you may not have the perspective you think you do to try and help make an informed decision such as the referendum issue I have no idea what this is going to cost I would think that if we gather all the information first work with the architects and the specialists we'll figure out an appropriate amount of money I also believe in a representative form of government which means we elected them there are times that referendums are necessary on the school board we cannot spend a great amount of money without you telling us the state of wisconsin put those shackles on us so then a referendum is appropriate if a referendum is appropriate right now we're not I don't know I'm not even certain of the numbers they're banding about for a good police department here so there's 17 million dollars is accurate I don't know sounds like a lot of money to me maybe it is accurate I'm not sure so where do we go from here if you want my two cents as to where I think a good site is I think that if we build here at the city of Sheboygan officers will not have parking that might sound like fairly something fairly minor but when you're out patrolling the streets and you always make sure you take your oldest car because you're afraid of vandalism or problems with your vehicle and you've got nowhere to safely get from your vehicle to your place of work whether you're a patrol officer or whether you are support staff such as a dispatcher and you're getting off of work at 11 o'clock at night the rest of the city workers have a safe place other vehicles parked whether it's the firefighters or the other city workers it's just one of those little things that I think means something to the people involved in this in this decision so I wanted to bring that issue up so for what I think might be a good idea again I'm not an expert on this vandal art seems to make sense it's a central location you've got a lot of land that's my personal opinion I discuss this briefly with my husband I'm not representing the police department 23rd street I can't figure out what the story is behind 23rd street I think there's a lot of conjecture I personally feel something's going on with the county that they want to get rid of that piece of land whether it's accurate or not I'm just saying for myself I'd be as careful as we can with that piece of land I don't think it's the best location why we'd want to be on that side of town well we've got so many people to the south side as far as response times because of something major is going on or the department is running short and you've got people down here at roll call you'd rather have your officers distributed so they can more evenly get to the location wherever the problems are vandal art seems to make a lot of sense Pennsylvania from what I understand reading the paper if that's accurate you've got people already who are developing that property I don't know if that's fair to them I have no idea if that's a good idea I don't know if there are other locations you're truly thinking of and haven't come out of this I would recommend not considering this current site there also been discussion about trying to use I think it's the police garage or having the police garage relocated excuse me and having some of the worked on the squad somewhere else I don't think again people realize how often we have problems with squads somebody respond to a call the sun transmission goes the engine goes things happen these vehicles they take some pretty hard abuse well you want to hear from you heard from me thank you but thank you may I ask so now where does this go how much input have you as a common council I know it's on community the whole now which is that what you call yours community the whole I think it's terrific I'm really pleased I have to admit I'm not certain why we don't have a larger representation of common council members here today whether morally filtering in as the morning goes on I'm not certain so now you're going to take some of this input and you're going to get your study correct and you can discuss it is it Wednesday evening Wednesday evening will be another input session a listening session from the citizens it's a listening session on Wednesday again what is your timetable when are you thinking about making a decision as soon as possible as quickly as possible within a week or does that mean within the next six to ten months does anybody feels if there's some information they need to still get before they can make a decision I'd like to hear from more than Ms. Mondome or anybody mind okay okay and again the decisions you can make are only as good as the data that you get so this data has been collected from people in city planning department heads etc and the studies yes and the architect that's what we're waiting for right now lots of information coming in and we'll share all of it with the citizens of Sheboygan when the original study was done I believe it was by Zimmerman they spent a fair amount of time talking to police officers since that point I'm not certain how much time has been spent since we've narrowed down some of these locations have we talked to people not just the police officers the other people have we spent time talking to people we're going to work in this building that's what happens again if I may use the school board we had a pretty good idea of what a facility should look like then go to the experts then you start to narrow it down and then you go back to the people who use the building so the last few months we have had the specialist sitting with a teacher saying where should the bathrooms be what's the kind of lighting what are the kind of colors what's going to be an effective manner to create the best environment for learning and for our staff which will then help our community I'm hoping that this is the kind of thing we're going to be doing as we start to narrow this down talking to people actually utilize these services and get some input from them is that going to be a major component or not we have all of these studies that have been done in the past and we also have the information from the police officers now yes and as you said the police officers had great input to the previous Zimmerman study which is also being looked at now in which Zimmerman is also analyzing for the new information so Zimmerman has all of that information from the police officers yes is Zimmerman then considered kind of the the main architect are they are the ones we're using for making life decisions we have the contract with Zimmerman okay so we're still utilizing their services okay thank you and I am hoping to sit around for another few hours and listen to a lot more people talk please do thank you Henry would you sign in and also tell us your name and address sure my name is Henry Capitello and I live at 1619 North 38th street in town Sheboygan the reason I'm here though is because we well the company that I work with owns the building here in the city of Sheboygan and we do pay quite a bit of property tax first of all I'd like to thank the alderman that are here because I feel that you felt that this is an important issue and you need to hear from the citizens of Sheboygan here and again I thank you for taking the time to be here a lot of you probably do know me already and you know that the majority of the time that I come to the council floor is because of fiscal accountability and to make sure that our elected officials are looking out for the taxpayer okay and the reason I say this is because as a nonprofit you know we really can't afford a lot to pay for property taxes and we have paid for since we acquired the building we continue to pay I don't think there's any other nonprofits within the city Sheboygan that do pay property tax that's a whole different issue but one of the reasons that I think that you or one of the main focuses that you should be looking at is making making a sensible decision on the money that you will have available to you and the reason I say that is the trend now from the federal government I mean in everything that you look at the federal government is is sending less money back to the states a prime example there's an article in the paper today in the Sheboygan press where homeland security funds last year were 37 million this year we are going to be receiving 10 million dollars now that is a dramatic drop in the money that we would receive from the federal government and that's not only in that category but in a lot of the categories that states receive money back it's less and less money if you look at what the trend at the state level is you're looking that they're now looking at passing legislation that would limit the amount of property tax that could be raised within a municipality and the reason they're doing that is because they feel that the taxpayers need to have some kind of relief and when you're looking at this keep this in mind that you're getting less money and from the federal government from the state and the the amount that you'll be able to raise the debt load that you already have it's my understanding that the 17.1 million that if if this is what you're going to be spending that that would bring you up to your your limit of 3% you would not be able to do any more borrowing that literally just there's nothing that you can do then you know when you think of this and you think of how much money you're going to be spending keep in mind that that's what's going to happen there there may be some other things that you may want to do and I would say one of the priorities may be when you have the police station is hiring additional police officers I mean where are you going to get the money to be able to hire more police officers if you're already at your debt limit already I was here for the last two years when I remember there were two police officers that you were trying to get on and there was a freeze on hiring and how long it took to get a police officer on the street if you're looking at at that and going through that same problem I'm thinking keep that in mind when you're looking at the cost that you're spending because um you need to have police officers out of the street and as much as the city is growing that's one of the issues that I think you're going to be looking at and when you have a bigger facility that might be one of the the other things you look at the different sites that you have I think that you look at what the costs are associated with that and like I said for fiscal accountability my recommendation would be that you keep that in mind and that be one of the driving forces behind the selection of a site you know the taxpayers are paying the taxes that are going to build this facility and if you're looking that they can't afford it you know there are certain people that are on fixed incomes that are just right now you look at the price of gas you look at heating fuel I mean it's just absorbing it so if you look at the site for example the van der Veidt site apparently that's 19 acres 19 acres when I remember I think when the police department was here Captain Kirk was here and you were looking at Sheridan Park the size of what they were looking at I remember it was first four acres and then now all of a sudden it was feasible to build at Sheridan Park which would have been less than that and then all of a sudden now for whatever reason you're looking at a site that's 19 acres which is almost if you're if you're looking at it five times the size of what you originally had anticipated what is the rationale behind that you're looking at that you know there was concern about environmental issues at the 23rd Street site well I would imagine the van der Veidt site probably has the same issues that you may look at right now the present owner of the property is responsible for any contaminants that are there the minute that the city takes possession of that property you are now liable for that for the cleanup of that property you're the ones that are going to be spending the money that it's going to take to clean that property up in addition I think that that would mean an additional 1.7 million dollars for the acquisition of that property versus like the 23rd Street site which to me when you when you have such limited dollars and you're looking at at being more cost effective you're going to spend another 1.7 million dollars more on a site versus another site and again I don't know if I'm correct but it's my understanding that the 17.1 million does not even include land acquisition doesn't include the land acquisition so if that's true how much is that site going to cost the city in addition to the 17.1 million there's talk about two million dollars so does that mean now that instead of 17 million you're up to 19 million dollars those are some of the issues that I think that that site in particular are are alarming when you're looking at the the cost that you have associated with that versus some of the other sites and sure you know if if this if the city council was was was saying well you know we're looking at that site because you know what we want to do a lot of shared services we're going to do everything as much as we can with the with the sheriff's department with with the county but you know what I don't think that's true because I read in the paper today where you now are going to be looking at shared services with the shooting range but apparently it's going to cost the city and the county 850 thousand dollars to build a new building to house that facility in and I thought I was under the impression that when they were talking about the police station that that shooting range was already built into that cost and that was in there if it isn't then I would imagine that if you're going to spend 850 thousand dollars on this new facility you should be reducing the cost of the police station by at least that amount because you now do not have a firing range in there unless you're going to have an additional firing range in there also these are some of the things that you look at and if you're looking at shared services I think to the taxpayer when I think of shared services I think savings to the taxpayer not more money to the taxpayer I think the concept has been reversed here where you're looking at shared services and it's going to cost us more money I mean that just doesn't make sense why have shared services if the taxpayer is going to pay more money for that service you know you you look at some of the other items that you have in there you have the the municipal garage that you're you're looking that's going to be handling for the police station that's going to be part of it it's my understanding that there's four maintenance garages within the city of Sheboygan right now and in the sheriff's department has apparently their own also I mean if you're looking at shared services why not look at combining that and doing that as a shared service and and eliminating the cost or maybe just eliminating that cost from the police station and utilizing one of the the uh the maintenance garages you already have uh it's my understanding that that that taken item alone is two million dollars if you look at eliminating that and and using one of the existing facilities sure you may have to upgrade it you may have to do some more things but you're saving two million dollars to the to the cost of the construction of the police station these are the items that I think that you should look at and if you're looking at for cost effectiveness I think that definitely you have to be working with the county I I think that that's one of the main main issues and I think what I would like to see and and maybe that you can incorporate in this is um you know there's a lot of taxpayers here the city of Sheboygan has taxpayers that pay county taxes and they they look at their money being spent and then they say boy I'll tell you we need some people that really have some common sense there because our elected officials for whatever reason keep spending and spending and spending the department heads are looking that they they want a new new item and that's one of the things that that that they're going to put in their new budget I think that if you're looking at at items like that you you you need to to look at what's going to save money to the taxpayer and the 23rd street site alone if you're looking for example the the money that you're going to be getting from the firing range if the county is willing to give you that five hundred thousand dollars and they were talking about three hundred thousand out there in a tradeoff and they're going to put that into shared services well now you're getting five hundred thousand dollars in addition to that if you put the firing range in there and it's all going to be incorporated in the police station and it's not going to be a whole different facility and you're going to have officers that are going to to that uh that uh facility there and I think that you're going to get more more more services that you could look at that you could share and as as a taxpayer to me when you're looking at spending two million on a site that right now is on the property tax rolls and is generating taxes property tax for the city and now you're you're looking at a site that the county owns that is not on the tax rolls and is not going to cost the taxpayer any more money common sense may tell you that that might be one of the areas that you look at because it's going to save money for the taxpayer and if you can negotiate and I know I heard some of the the the council members that and I know it probably is frustrating being in meetings and and realizing that there's talk about shared services and then um it doesn't seem to materialize but I think that if if you're looking at saving money and really doing things on shared services I think that you really should sit down with the county and not only the department heads I my recommendation is that you get some some citizens from from the city and the the county that can be there and that can give their input also on how their taxes are being spent because they're concerned about the cost of the the taxes that they're paying and it when you're looking at a department head or an elected official that may may not be their top priority so I'm thinking that if you want to hear from descending voices that would be a good thing to get people on there um as for the other site uh the the one on Pennsylvania Avenue as the previous speaker said there's people that are developing that's another property it's on the property tax rolls I don't think you'd want to take that off especially if it's being developed by somebody and they're going to be increasing the value of their property and it's going to be generating property taxes for the city I don't think that's one of the issues that you should be looking at is removing property off the tax rolls so that side I think would would not be a good site um so now you're back to um the I think the Broadway site is one of the other ones that you're looking at but that again you have that's another uh property that's on the tax rolls that you're going to be taking off that's going to be reducing the uh tax revenue to the city so what I would say is when looking at all of this keep in mind the amount of money that you're going to be spending and the cost to the taxpayer and to think in the future because what's going to happen when you reach your limit on borrowing and what's going to happen if if all of a sudden there is an emergency where you have to borrow money um I know that when the person that represents the city here for on the on the uh the your bond rating one of the concerns that they had was your reserve funds on hand and your debt load that you had and that could affect your bond rating if you keep borrowing the way you're borrowing if you keep spending the way you're spending and not keep a handle on it I think that what will happen is your bond rating will be affected and what will happen is it'll mean more money to the taxpayer because those loans that you have out there are going to be requiring additional interest payments and the city has strapped it as as it is for money to come up with additional money I don't think you can do that so when you look at this and you and you look at the sites keep in mind the amount of money I know at times you maybe lose sight and and uh everything is is going through there and people just want to vote for what's what's what's there but when you think about it and you think what it's going to cost you and it's going to cost the taxpayer and what it's going to cost in the future for other things that you will not be able to do those are the things that I think that should be critical in your your selection process here and keep that in mind because again I'm thinking that priorities are that you should have some funds set aside just for the hiring of police officers just like you have money set aside that you that you have there that might be something that you may want to look at and this could be in the cost savings that you save on the police station I would recommend that future instead of having to scrimp for money to be able to put a police officer on the street that you should have a reserve fund specifically targeted for the hiring of police officers and that that should be that should be left alone should not be used and there you could use that with your cost savings on the construction of the police station so with that I thank you for for the time and again for your willingness to come here and listen to to us taxpayers thank you thank you Henry and yes you taxpayers that believe me our finance committee chairman Jim groth is watching the dollars very closely we take that into consideration all the time and when it comes to the seventeen million our intention is it's going to be less than that and it's going to cover everything and it'll be very difficult to get Jim groth and the finance committee to agree to spend that much money well I know so that'll give you some assurance and vehicle cooperation good idea thank you Henry I just wanted to say to it it's 17 million dollars and that's a cap that that we set the council set and approved it doesn't mean we're going to spend 17 million it's a cap that we put on it taking into taking into consideration everything that may be there but we've already asked for certain things to be done like downsizing and and other things that we are looking at not spending the 17 million dollars but there again it was just set up as a cap so we knew where we were going because we don't know exactly how much the new police station is going to cost until we get all the estimates in until we know exactly what's going to be built with the new police station and so forth so we've got a lot but in order to to put this out to to set what we may borrow we had to to come up with a number and and based on Zimmerman's estimates again the Cadillac was I believe like 15 million dollars or 16 million dollars and a lesser one oh thank you the the Cadillac was 16 million dollars and a lesser police facility would be about 14 million and even that's going to be cut down okay well my concern is and this is a proven track record for government is when you set a limit for government and for not to go over they usually get right up to that limit and they don't step over but they stay at that limit so that's the concern that I would have but I know Alderman you have been very very resourceful on holding the line this past year I know that fiscal constraint and I'm hoping that you continue with that Alderman Graf and I the voters out there definitely want to see that and I know that you have made your efforts over this past year and I commend you for that but definitely you have to hold the other elements feet to the fire to make sure that that you you definitely hold that to the the most reasonable cost that you can and that means in every avenue even on when you start looking at selecting the the the contractors and holding them to what they're going to what they're going to have to make sure that if you're going to have some overruns to make sure that there is minimal as possible and if somebody says well I'm going to come in and I'm going to build this at this cost or I'm going to provide this service at this cost you in your own home if you had somebody come in and did work for you and then all of a sudden they said well you know what it it cost me double the amount that what I told you was going to cost you would probably have you know have a bird thinking well how can you think I you can well I think that goes for the city too I think that you need to keep track of the money that's spent there and to make sure that if somebody comes in and says we're going to build it for this amount that you hold them to that amount and other contractors and and not just be so readily say well okay we'll pay the additional dollars thank you Henry thank you and we citizens of Sheboygan we who live in the city limits and pay these taxes we know very well that we have a giant job we taxpayers who live in the city limits are not wealthy people we are not flush with cash and we support this city it's our money who runs this whole city the streets the sidewalks the police the fire the everything thank you Marilyn can I can I give you a 30 second parting shot because I have to be somewhere do your you you people are far ahead of where we were 30 years ago when this thing came up we face some extremely fat egos in the county and city the sheriff the police chief the county government the city government and we and the whole thing just blew up you are hundreds of miles ahead of where we were 30 years ago keep up the good work really you're on the right track thank you would anyone else like to give us some information yes could you sign in and with your name and address and also tell us your name and address okay my name my name is Neil Altman and I live at 24 12 north fifth street I live in Sheboygan most of all in my life my concern is this I think we the people that run the city I think we have to have a vision of where we're going and kind of look ahead and look at some and we look at these sites okay and not too long ago we were looking at a site where the motel imperial was and we were so quick to want to pick up that property and use it and now it's being developed into a a nice office building which is going to give us some nice tax revenue okay I think what we need to do now there's also a property the Vandervaard property is a lot of lot of land okay but look at it visually in the future 17 acres or 19 acres would build a lot of housing on that property and we would be giving a potential tax base okay and even the 23rd street site I work at Valriff what if they decide they want they own property next to that what if they want to expand okay they could buy that property okay the Sheboygan clinic may decide to expand in fact I understand they might they might even build a new hospital it may not even be in the city limits but we would have to save that clinic they would probably need additional land so we should be looking at properties where maybe they're not going to really you know there's not a potential for a tax base I think one of the places we could definitely use right now I believe the property on 13th and Penn Avenue I think is an ideal property not only is it closed it's actually centrally located it it's close to city hall it's also close to the courthouse I believe the optic lines right run right down Penn Avenue to the courthouse you have existing buildings within that block okay that probably with a little cosmetic work okay would be fine for evidence storage there's actually some there's a gasoline uh storage there maybe the city could go buy and get buy gasoline wholesale and save us some money okay but what I'm saying is we just have to I think we have to have a vision of what's good for the city and because we can't expand to the north and south to add to tax base it's hard because we can't we can't annex everybody we'd like you know and make it one big city we can't do that um so we have to look about developing uh within the city okay and uh I think we should look at probably the 13th and Penn Avenue site would be my my thing and also if you uh right now if you and after this meeting you want to take a walk what you do is you walk down here to our workers park it's the most beautiful park in the city but there's a lookout place there and you just look out to the west and I'll tell you what what you'll see is you'll see some buildings where the weeds are eight foot tall okay you'll see some buildings that haven't seen paint in 20 years the green building uh looks like a palace compared to some of these buildings now if we were to build in that area uh we could clean that up and perhaps even to the north of it where the old seed company is and some of those older buildings uh maybe somebody would follow suit and start building in those areas as well because it would be near the police department my only other thing is just have vision and and move forward and have vision look ahead what's best for the city and how you can do it okay thank you thank you Mr Altman did you sign your name and address on that tablet there thank you we've had some good comments we've had some good input we'll be taking your break in 11 minutes and this is being televised so the citizens of Sheboygan know that we are here that we are listening and then also remember Wednesday evening another citizen input right here we'll listen to what you have to tell us and I'm hoping Alderman Jim Graff will be there because I hope to go to Chippewa Falls everybody's going to just sit here I'll talk again all right Barbara Tezinski go right ahead thank you I uh these have been really good comments I got a couple of questions uh now they know we're on tv wonderful thank you so maybe we can get a couple of questions answered as I said I apologize for not being as familiar with this as I should be but the previous speaker has brought up some things I'd like to have answered maybe other people who are not as familiar I think many people here are very familiar with this uh can we consider purchasing part of a site the vandervaart what is its situation if we only need four to seven acres will they sell off part of it do we have an answer on that I don't know we received a letter we received a letter from them that's being presented to council that um mentions um that they'd be willing to sell 15 acres okay and as yet we don't know if they'd sell any less than that or not but what's going to happen with this letter is going to be sent to the committee of the whole and then we'll have them come in and give us a presentation similar to what the county gave us two weeks ago or a week ago a presentation and um that's where the status of that is so I know they in their letter they also said something about keeping the office building and another building but I will prepare an idea oh well it was in our documents here um they said something about it's a thank you corporate office and sales center but the potential could be if you know politics hardball they know we want the land they want to make sure they get rid of 15 acres the city of shaboy can then own some of that land in the future develop either for city use or to private developers correct for housing or some other is that a potential perhaps okay um another question in the past there was discussion with the 23rd street site there was going to have to be possibly a land switch and money put out what is the status of working with the 23rd street site 23rd street site is as originally agreed upon by the original building use committee and we haven't gone further than that we're simply going with the original tentative agreement and information from the first time around there's a few weeks ago I think there was a um I don't know what you call the motions that you make uh to say can we please reach out to the county and find out exactly what they're doing have there been greater discussions have you gotten more in depth with them or where does that stand right now it as the original agreement that's where we stand with them right now that's all just okay yes that's they were here monday and I either I missed it in the paper I've been out of town for a while did they say much one way the other did they change the discussion of the tone it's the only change that was somebody said what is the agreement maybe if you can just refresh your memories well there's they passed passed an agreement on the the county board by 26 to and I don't know if it was four or six or something like that but um that agreement was to to um sell us the um the land and what I can remember and uh in turn for that um it was like $300,000 was the cash basically at that particular point and the only change thing changed with that is that instead of paying out cash they would allow us to to put that into a trust for future um shared service development and so um and they'd match it but um the other thing is that there's a parking lot over on seventh and pan that the city currently um owns and they would like that for future expansion of the parking at uh at or near the um courthouse the city had offered that to the county as part of the original agreement but we still are a little bit up in the air as far as what kind of costs there might be to develop at sites with conflicting information from Zimmerman and from Moyer correct all that information is coming but according to our um by Tom Holden it it should be minimal according to the soil tests that they've taken already uh they don't expect anything uh major okay thank you oh i'm glad you're here thank you Alderman Sakali i'm glad you're here hello and good morning Tom Lubner 1333 Clara no Tom Lubner yes thank you would you spell it your last name please le u b and er i'd just like to say that um i'm in favor of where the place is and i'll expanding this i know we need a bigger police station but 80 000 square feet that's probably 15 times what they're using now what we need is a bigger police station needed it for years we do not need a police palace thank you thank you for your words Wednesday evening seven o'clock any citizens who want to speak again or citizens listening to my words now you're invited to come and give us information give us your opinion we're talking about the site selection for the police station that's what our discussion is right now or that's what our listening sessions are about right now site selection for the police station in four minutes would you like to speak in these next four minutes all right yes please Henry i just have one question now the uh the microphone please now is the 80 000 square foot facility is that etched in stone or are you looking at maybe that it could be less the reason i say that is to give the the people in the gallery and also people at home concept of how big of a building an 80 000 square foot building would be our facility which is the old anorized home st. Nicholas hospital that spans the entire block from 10th street to 9th street that building is five floors and that's 92 000 square feet so if you're looking at a facility of 80 000 square feet imagine how big our building is and your building is only going to be 12 000 square feet less than that so that is a tremendous building that you're looking at um you know the size of that so that can give the viewers at home an idea of how big of a facility you're looking at that's a very good eye picture I thank you and of course not 80 000 square feet yes Barbara thank you for indulging me that's what i was trying to figure out the 80 000 is that from the the moyer report because i'm trying to figure i've got the page here which says it'll be noted the finding of overall building size is approximately 80 500 gross square feet as compared to the 2002 study which suggested 59 70 59 000 where does the where does 80 000 figure come from the 80 000 originally came from the kimmy report and then was tacked on to by the excuse me the 80 000 square feet originally came from a kimmy report from like 2002 i think or something like that and then um then also the Zimmerman report brought out 80 000 using 80 000 square feet and that was from the there were 15 police officers that sat down and were interviewed along with chief Kirk and they came out with a list of of what they'd like in their new police state facility and that added up to 80 000 square feet thank you and I remember one of my other previous questions um enlightened the potential for the shared range now was that range or somebody had a really good point if we're going to be creating this range will that then be subtracted from this site uh is that a cost savings or what happens with that i'm it would be subtracted from that site because um it did have it i had to range in originally but um i don't know how much of a cost saving it's going to be except that it would not be part of the cost of the police facility um bill stephen you're going to give us some information right because we're not debating with the public right it kind of goes back to the the same thing with the 17 million at this point even in finance we really we talked to the mr staban ash from Zimmerman and he gave us different you know proposals on what he thought but exactly what you said you know in that 80 000 was the evidence storage police range we've always felt they had a lot more room there for municipal court that even the people who wanted the municipal court thought we don't need all the room that they're giving us so after we select the site and really nail in the building then we can decide okay what do we really need and what you know you want to you do want to look into the future so you're not building another one you know it's outdated in 15 years but on the other hand you've got to figure out what's right what we can afford and what's really needed so it goes back to what Alderman grouse said yeah the 17 millions there because we don't we don't we haven't had the the minutiae the detail yet to say well no we only want to do 13 million because we don't need five million dollars worth of this because we don't know what that is because they haven't documented in small detail yet for us so as we take things out we'll have an idea but because of the procedure we had to have a what limit we could possibly be bonding for we're not bonding for 17 million we're giving ourselves the right to bond for 17 million at some point in the future you know when we actually set the bonds when we know what's going to cost then we'll know what what that number is going to be but we have no idea what that is right now thank you alderman stefan oh it's a guy and we're gathering information today so part of the rules are no debate but go ahead I was not going to debate okay good madam chairman good I was just going to say the same thing that mister stefan was going to say concerning that was not put in that was included in the 80 thousand was the was the shooting range and evidence storage thank you thank you very much it is 10 15 let's have a 15 minute break see you back here whoever wants to be back here in 15 minutes okay listening session is again in order we are at the council chambers listening to citizens give us their views their opinions regarding the site selection for the police station we've had a number of people give us some good information is there anyone now who would like to say something uh yes I know this gentleman lean onto my or would you give us your name and address we are on television so please speak into the microphone thank you I hadn't planned on speaking today but it seems to be so a lot of questions about misinformation and that there's not enough information out on this thing my name is lean with the mayor junior I live at 1015 Logan avenue and I'm a member of the friends of shabuagon parks this research took me into uh when they decided to destroy this historical site uh and do a lot of things there's a ton of information in a place that we share with the rest of the county that's a public library just a block from here there is no excuse for not saying that you do not have even if you don't subscribe to cable television a newspaper an article that I read this morning two o'clock in the morning was about the original report from the chamber of commerce I got that off the website but you can also get the same thing off the library the library for inches computers for you to use there's all kind of machines there you can go and go all the way back to the 1800s if you want to that's how I found some documents many years ago there's a ton of information out there if you really want to know the information it's there instead of somebody asking you questions I suggest that the press especially is very helpful in it because when they come up with a story like it they'll always have a little side on that if you want to read this report click here that gives you every report that's been brought to this council except the ones that have gone through the closed sessions there are no minutes in closed sessions okay so out of a approximately 80 meetings that I've heard about for so many years I can only find 46 which are all in this book right here and about 37 of those were closed now the reports that from the different from the original chamber commerce the kimi report and the report that our staff just did an amoy report and the one that just was done by our own in staff here in the city are all in this paper all you gotta do is ask for it you can either do it if you have a computer you can do it to to there or you're the library use our computers belongs to all of us okay now we get to the sites we've made a police station so I moved to the city in 1964 since then we've done a ton of things in this city to the improvement of this city is great but the one thing we haven't built was a police station this thing was obsolete when I moved here it's still obsolete it does not make sense to build another station that's too small for expanded services you'd build an obsolete station that's what you're doing now that the 23rd street site I mean the uh Sheridan Park site is off the books which was my main goal but this police site seems to be the big drawback here because either they don't want to share a site with the county or we don't want to share with the side with the county eventually what's going to happen is that the state will mandate that you do it you won't have any choice you have to have a site that's big enough to expand if you own my personal opinion as to where this thing should go I say put it out by the detention center that would save a lot of gas the the fiber optics is an obsolete system everything now has done through cyberspace and cameras which our police don't have on their cars as I understand that's how far where how far behind we are on that we're willing to put a taser in a policeman hand but we don't have a camera showing why he's using it this is the type of thing that we're way behind on we need to look a little a little pass our nose into the future and what's going to happen 50 years from now we can't go east we cannot build west they don't want us in the north part of the city so the only place we can go is south I therefore think building the station even further than Georgia or the Broadway sites is even better we do own some land out at the industrial park not very much that's left out there but we already own it my second site my choice would be the 23rd street because as a part of this county we already owned that land the contamination issue is a mute because there's tons of grants out there to cover such issues like this I'll give you a good example of this the blue harbor project we clean most of that up with federal grants thank you thank you mr. run to my art yes hello would you sign in and give us with your name and address and also tell us your name and address okay David Fransen 2414 north 31st street I'd just like to say that in recent memory we've built how many new firehouses one on the north side one on the south side and there's talk about building one on the fire south side we've expanded South Business Drive we're remodeling Michigan Avenue and as a taxpayer I can't understand what seems to be the problem with the police department we seem to have money for all these other projects and as soon as you talk police department everybody goes we can't do it school board had a referendum on new schools what a year ago we've got new schools going up projects going up I think the people of Sheboygan no matter where you put this police department we'll live with it a year after it's built there's not going to be a discussion anymore where where it should have been or where it could have been it's going to be there and I think the longer we keep the laying prices are going to go up I think somebody whether it's through a referendum through the board find a site build it and get it over with thank you thank you mr. francer good morning could you give us your name and address sure good morning to the comma council mayor uh john burner 1919 broadway everybody has good points here this morning and all of them should be weighed to project a cost on a building it's hard to do today because if you've got china we got concrete that's going to china our steel is going to china our scrap steel is going to china so it's pretty hard to project what a building is going to cost because nobody seems to know and every time you have a flooding or something on the west coast or a disaster in florida that's more building costs supplies go up once in a while you go and try to find plywood it's supplying demand it goes to wherever the most people want it so I can see extending what a projected police station would cost because uh there's no guarantee what the price is given in one month the next month it's going to be there it could be higher and uh another point is uh we look at chariton park as historic site camp randall the field there was basically a historic site it was uh fairgrounds uh park and then later during the war it was a training space for the the armies there during the confederate and union war and later on became a stadium uh but it's still remembered I look at chariton park it is a memory our police station is a memory here the city hall is a memory here and uh historical site you can make a historical site and preserve it by building something like a police station on it we're talking now of a smaller police station I'm not happy with chariton park being a location but looking at all the different things that have come in front of this common council it still turns around and becomes a number one site even though you took it off the roll so to say 23rd street and Mr. Montmire said the state someday might project that we're going to have to share everything or part of everything that's looking into the future and seeing government uh you can't base the future on what government does not in my lifetime I think things the way our government is so far in debt no you're talking about two different people the police sheriff got state patrol too it would be nice to have them all in one building but they work different areas they do things different their training is a little different one deals with with areas in a colony others deal with the city state troopers deal with highway and their training is a little different they have a basic training that fits all of them but their responsibilities are different so I don't know how you can project everybody in one location this is going to be a hard decision for you people and uh 17 million to people is a lot of money a lot of money to be spent and now you're talking about dying downsizing before when I was insuring the park you needed more area uh I just don't know what to say uh both both are hard you know how can you make a decision each one has their point of view of each one or the other but shared services I don't know I I can see they're sharing services now and basically that's about all they're going to share there is never going to be a sheriff and police station together I I don't believe it'll ever work communication system I don't see together that is completely different two areas they're basically doing the same thing but it's different um and then agreement with the colony they said that was an agreement that was a tentative agreement because 14th street was still up in the air it was an agreement it was a tentative agreement it's no different if I go into a car dealership and say yeah that's fine I'll shake your hand I'll be back to sign the paper if I don't come back to sign the papers doesn't mean I own that car that was a tentative agreement if I change my mind I don't have to go back so it was just a tentative agreement handshake does not make agreement I don't think that hold up in any court at all I watch judge shooting so basically uh good luck I there's a lot of people with different views and I think the the people in Sheboygan should have an input I don't like organizations like the citizens of Sheboygan because that's a group a group of say maybe a tenth of the population speaking out for the population I wish more people here would would get involved get up here and talk and it's to a point like this gentleman just said just build the thing people are kind of fed up I thank you thank you Mr. Barner listening session need input or hoping for citizen input on police station site selection good morning good morning could you sign in with your name and address and tell us your name and address first of all I'd like to apologize for my appearance I didn't intend to come here this morning you look wonderful I I'm dressed for work at home so my name is Carl Addy presently a county board supervisor may we have your address please 1440 south 22nd street thank you for those of you who have followed my political career I think this is one of the very very few times that I appeared before the committee the whole early council the only time I remember is when I appeared to ask the city to support the building of the band shell and at that time I spent five years of my life every Friday night meeting with the committee trying to raise the money to pay for the band shell unfortunately in the still bothers my consciousness today we ended up $2,200 short so I had to come back to the council and ask them if they would pick up that $2,200 which they did and after being at the band concert Wednesday night and the concert last night I thank the mayor pres and previous mirrors for continuing to support the music in our our city I think that band shell has paid for itself time and time again in what is provided to our community I spent 19 years of legislature 16 years on the county board 20 years as a police and fire commissioner so I I've been involved in politics in one way or another for a long long time I didn't really want to get involved in this issue but I think there are some issues that have to be addressed I do not think Sheridan park was a place to put the police station I know they placed the firemen have talked to me they they don't agree they they like that I don't think there's an ideal place and yet every place that she boring there's not a place in she boring where you can't get from one part from that area to the next part of the city in less than five minutes no matter where you put the police fire or fire stations so I don't think that's really the main issue I think the issue has to be the concern of the taxpayers I know from being on the county board for all these years that the county has talked for years about moving the highway department to a more central location and so as you look at the long-range planning for the city of sheboygan I think that whole county property can be utilized at some time for shared services we're talking about the record storage we're talking about communications neither one can't understand why we can't have a separate communications communication center for the entire county to me it's probably not going to save a lot of money but it's going to save some money it stands to reason one unit is going to be less cost costly than two units I think we got to get our our pride out of the way our biases out of the way and let's do what's right for the taxpayers you've got the highway department office buildings that could be utilized probably for communications probably for record storage I don't know how close you want the record storage is to the courthouse whether that makes any difference but I think long-range planning it seems to me like the highway 23 or the 23rd Street site is a logical place to consider I'm not saying this is the only place you consider but to me I like to think I look at common sense approaches to problems and a common sense approach to me is to take a very serious look at at the 23rd site not only for the police station itself but for ancillary services that are also going to have to be provided in the future and so that's my request to you is that you take a long-range view of looking at the possibility of using not just the four acres but that whole area in a way of shared services with the county and we know that the state and federal government are insisting that we do more in the way of shared services there will be more mandates coming down that we do that and I think this is a good place to start thank you thank you mr. adi lots of good information coming from citizens Wednesday evening seven o'clock Alderman Jim gromp will be in charge of gathering the information from the citizens going north to visit my sister us three sisters together are traveling north for a little mini vacation to our mother's house even though mother isn't there any longer but that's where we're going yes of course mr. montemayor i did like to say that this police station is very important to the city we need it very badly but it's it has no higher priority than our public work people and all our departments in this city you know the guy that drives a snowplow in the winter he's just as important as a police officer as a fireman you got to remember all these jobs for a platform and our people are there by choice we don't draft people into our police department a fire department which are very dangerous jobs as well as public works people or the person that cleans up the beach every day thank you thank you mr. mayor would you like to say anything to us thank you Alderman Berg we'll see you Monday can i talk yes please john go right ahead john burner yes there is one other thing you know everybody like i'm a murder memorial day the military we're all appreciated of the military the people in the military and i was in the military when you join up you make certain sacrifices and i look at being not in the military their sacrifices citizens have to make once in a while whether you like them or not and we were talking like i said i'm not happy with the park being chosen at one time but sometimes a sacrifice needs to be made just like the people serving in the armed forces sometimes these sacrifices are hard the city has a lot of parts and i'm not saying doing no do away with our parks because i think they're a very important thing but sometimes there has to be a change in something and it's a hard decision i'm i wouldn't want to make it because i'm on both sides i see both aspects of it do or don't do and then you look at the aspect of where else how big we're going to look into the future how much expansion you can't look into the future you can assume what's going to happen that you can't foresee if we all could foresee heck my life i'd probably be a millionaire now there's no way you can foresee what's going to happen you anticipate what's going to happen and sometimes that doesn't even work out but i know being in the military you do make a lot of sacrifices you don't basically have a home your family moves from area to area just overseas duty people at home do contribute and i'm not saying anything you know but i'm saying that people as civilians sometimes have to sacrifice just like people people that are protecting people i thank you thank you mr. Bartner mayor perez yes thank you madam chair i guess i better explain why i didn't have anything to say i think that this is a session that is strictly for the public to come to the common council committee of the whole and address their concerns and perhaps even ask questions which they can get answers to later but this is a time for the people to talk to us so i felt that it was inappropriate for me to make comments and try to muddy the waters a little bit with my opinions or my concerns about the best location for the police site i am pleased extremely pleased although it's a smaller crowd that i anticipated i am extremely pleased with the people who have turned up and addressed us ensured their concerns this is what shaboygan is all about is getting the community involved so thank you very much for being here with us today thank you mayor perez i realize i left my paper here okay barbara tizinski one last shot go ahead may i ask this is this going to 11 30 that's what the paper says that's correct yes however long something else to keep talking huh yes well you get one more turn okay because i do have a few more questions if you would mind indulging me and we may or may not be able to answer them and if we're not able to then your alderman can answer them for you go right ahead thank you um i had some people voice concerns about safety of the police department and the idea that when people are brought in as suspects they quite often interact with the public and the potential or possible victims and i asked earlier if there is a time frame if a decision is made can you give us some general idea of what they have told you as let's say a decision is made in three months and a site is chosen how much more work has to be done as far as environmental testing groundbreaking how long does the actual process take do we have a rough idea is around 18 months from groundbreaking or do you have any idea at all at this point is a two preliminary your alderman does have a tentative timetable about groundbreaking and and hopefully completion so and i don't have that information in front of me right now okay because i'd ask that this could be a give and take question and answer here and i guess things have kind of changed for whatever reason that uh so the answer is just not available or my alderman i think my two alderman or older people are right here so may i ask if they have an answer do you have the information with you no okay so it's two preliminary park site when they originally were discussing that i thought it was the first um going to be like oh seven or it was even going to be completed okay so i don't think we're looking at anything real soon i mean it's going to take a little while okay as long as we have some ideas i think some people are concerned this is just going to drag out and drag it out and drag out and then people feel that it could not be done because we dragged it out for so long and something else comes to the forefront thank you you're welcome alderman graph i just just to add to that right now there is a petition being circulated that if that gets enough signatures that's going to put a delay on anything that we do because we have to then um then if i believe it calls for a referendum on the issue which would be at our next scheduled um election which would be in april of 2006 so until that referendum would be acted upon our hands are tied basically uh if that's the will of the people good morning angie your name address angie beimal 1822 north fifth street sheboyga i just got here at 10 30 so i don't know what happened before but i thought this was going to be more of a an informational meeting as far as comparing the sites and the cost of the sites and things like that i wanted to get that kind of information because i know now this vandervaart site was put on as one of the sites and nothing was ever managed mentioned as to how much they wanted for their land and i thought it would be nice to have a comparison of all the sites as far as cost and acreage and accessibility is there such a thing being drawn up or we are now we're waiting for Zimmerman to get information back to us about the five particular sites more details money wise so forth and so on and our city engineer and our planning department have given us their information regarding perhaps cost acquisition the land but we're still waiting for Zimmerman and they'll have that information to us very soon i'm saying within a few days so we're waiting for that information yet okay well then i think we can make a better decision if we get all the information as far as cost we want your opinions thank you sign my name okay thank you thank you angie beimal yes mr. adi i just like to comment i'm opposed to referendums you people are elected to serve us you people have access to all the technical information that is needed the general public does not have all that information i think you people based on the technical services that you have available to you should make the decisions and make them in the interest of the taxpayer there are times when referendums are justified but in issues like this i think you people because of the technical information that is needed to make the proper decisions are the ones that just make that decision the general public that come to me they because of my background they asked me well what's your opinion on the police station they don't care one or the other and they haven't really looked at the issues the way you have and i have looked at it more than most people so i'd say if it comes to decide on referendum i would choose that you not have the referendum if it's your choice to make and make the decisions based on your technical information and knowledge and whether i agree with that or not i will accept it because you have been elected to make that decision thank you thank you mr. adi i think the particular referendum is going now is if they do gather the signatures it's compulsory we don't have a choice about having the referendum or not i spell my name for you again but i can only spell it once edwikowski we know who you are please go ahead thank you regarding the referendums as you guys brought it up since i'm one of the people that are circling circulating that referendum petition i want to apologize to you the city council for delaying any decision you may have to make regarding the police station because obviously you're moving very swiftly you've been talking about it now for what two years and we're talking about delaying it to april you can make a november you can make it whenever the petition really is to give the people the opportunity to confirm your decision or to say your decisions a bad one what's wrong with that you know i don't know whether you watch tv when i was a kid i watched tv and saw a very famous person called lee majors he was the six million dollar man paid by government funds i want to congratulate this council because you have surpassed that with one of your individuals we now have the 17 million dollar man on city council okay and that will make us famous i want to say just end and i'm not going to ramble on because i have a habit of doing that but i want to hear this loud and clear we cannot the citizens of this community afford another 17 million dollars worth of debt and to pay for that on our taxes a gentleman spoke here and said doesn't care where you put that police station it'll be forgotten in a year no way hosé it's not going to be forgotten in a year because you're going to remind everybody annually okay when they receive their tax bill you do whatever your leadership qualities demand that you do but i will tell you this and end by saying we cannot afford the city cannot afford another 17 million dollars of debt and i would love to take your credit card away from you have ken king come in here explain to you what fiscal responsibilities all about thank you for letting me speak for the second time thank you mr mokowski perhaps someone will quickly gather something at the john michael kohler art center and then come over here and speak with us one day evening at uh no there's a committee of the whole first on monday monday at five fifteen no five forty five five forty five committee of the whole we'll do some housekeeping and perhaps we'll have our information from Zimmerman that we can perhaps eliminate some of the sites perhaps that's what we'll find out with committee of the whole at five forty five on on monday evening yes please go right ahead good morning uh alderman and older persons i should say uh my name is john molatter at 2406 north 28th street thank you mr molatter please i'm glad you're here i guess my concern mainly is not as to exactly where the new police station should be but we're hearing all of this shared service business i'm familiar with some shared services at one time the police department had their communication system fire department had theirs two older persons here that are no longer with us guaranteed us a million dollars in 10 years in savings i haven't seen the first dollar the first thing that happened is the fire department had to train the uh communicators after 40 hours they walked away with their head spinning they said we had no idea as to what your department does they come one had combined it uh within about three months the eight hour shifts went to six hour shifts for the telecommunicators the stress level had gone so high that these people could not handle it even now you'll find that there's going to be calling people because it's that tough a job we're talking combining services with the county i don't think we have to go too far just go 30 miles or 38 miles west one of our former alderman was a city planner was in charge of much of what happened in fond du Lac uh they combined the sheriff and police department uh if you'll go to fond du Lac now you'll find that the new police department is built on the north end of main street separated it didn't work uh most of the things that have been brought up as far as combining services have all been tried privatizing snow plowing god what if you ask what that was privatizing garbage collection that type of thing again things it's all been tried and it doesn't work so you do have some major decisions to make here but i don't think combining these places for the sake of saving dollars is going to work again i'm not concerned where you put the police department but i am concerned that you've selected a possible dump site i can give you a very good example when the city planner wanted to build three 15 story towers in shibuagan when he first came here that entailed doing with the fire station on the corner that meant where is that going to be relocated the only available land was ninth in alabama have no so a study was done by miller engineering and uh the report came back that you hit water at six feet and you're either going to have to pound pilings or put in a mat foundation neither which is suitable for a large building i had a request from one of the people on the school board as to whether we had actually done a survey i said yes um you're entitled to it it's a public domain and i will forward this to you complete which i did two years later the school board elected to build on that site and then suddenly the headline in the paper said oh my god we have to pound pilings and it's going to be another three quarters of a million or just a little more and we heard nothing from the taxpayer so we're encumbered in a lot of things that were slipped here i i've spent a lot of time in this council chamber since 1960 and one evening the superintendent of schools came in and said i would like to have you pass this ordinance and suspend the rules and the alderman looked at each other and said what are we doing and the individual said we're going to build a new building where and what and to suspend the rules we don't want to do that well he said the equipment is on site for to start digging tomorrow so i'd appreciate it if you move this along the alderman had no alternative what are you what are you going to do uh just a sad situation in miscommunication who is running the city where did the dollars go and as far as the police department i'm sure they've got some designs and what their needs are uh why we haven't been sued as one of the previous speakers brought up is beyond me when you have criminals walking through your lobby to go to the bathroom and uh that someone hadn't gotten loose and uh ended up hurting someone who would have indeed filed a lawsuit on this we could have built a police station much larger so i think there's a lot of things that we have to take a look at but be careful with the combining of services because it's all been tried and most of it hasn't worked or it's been deleterious to all of the departments involved and again uh the site that you select i hope is something that doesn't entail dump sites or reclamation and all of that because it does become costly and there's no guarantee thank you thank you mr. mollacher alderman mayer did you want to say something yes thank you madam chair i just wanted to ask um now that we're in these tentative negotiations with the county for the new jersey avenue land or have we basically taken that site off of our list for a possible police station or we we're just kind of all up in the area we haven't taken that off okay yeah let's let's hopefully let's do that soon okay alderman graff yes the evidence storage the the oh okay for you refer that purpose well if i may the document that was being referred to shared services is in your council agenda again this uh for monday's meeting because we have to refer to it's called the law committee of the county board because they um they oversee the actions of um of the sheriff's department and so forth so that's the committee that we'll be looking at and discussing um sharing that facility with them with the the city and then from there it'll move to um they have a property committee also i don't know the exact title of it but then it has to move into that committee and so forth so it hasn't gotten to the county yet to that document has not gotten to the county yet thank you alderman graff hello again mr. mollacher go ahead my name hasn't changed that's right but again it's speaking of shared services if uh you consult chapters uh 59 through 62 of the state statutes you will find that cities counties towns villages all have their own individual units in the state statutes so before you would spend a great deal of time attempting to combine services it had best be looked at by the city attorney and answer all of your questions for instance combining police and sheriff's department the sheriff is elected the police chief is appointed by the police and fire commission two completely different entities who's going to run it is that a flip of the coin and if so is there going to be a request to change the statute to allow that so this involves a lot of things and talk about cooperation the fire department was uh instrumental in the mutual aid program that's in vogue now there's 22 volunteer departments in the county and one paid department so we put together a document that was given to the chiefs to take back to their individual councils and boards to be approved as to what services would be shared and it worked out very very well over many years the town of sheboygan would come to our stations pick up educational materials to take back to their people that went through their schools and different things like that uh the drafting pit that was shared with other departments who were allowed to come in and draft and recertify their engines uh when the federal government came out with the hazardous materials program no one department would be able to finance that major a project so we came up with the idea if all of the departments would be willing to bring two of their people in for training we could end up with at least 44 trained people who would remain on call in the event of a hazardous material incident it worked very well so we're we have shared services we have worked with them they've worked with us when preangie burned all it took was a radio call to our headquarters to bring people in and they were there immediately and without their help we we wouldn't be worried about some other buildings so shared services work out very very well but uh be careful what you share and who you share them with thank you thank you mr. molatter lots of notes now let's see if i can read them i can't i can't i have a feeling no one's going to show up in the next 11 minutes but we'll be here mr. altman all right the name is the same the time has changed that's all uh we've been here a little while uh i just want to elaborate again i think because sheboygan i mean we can't expand to the east we basically can't expand to the west we can't really expand to north we have some expansion we can do to the south so what we need to do is most of the larger homes that are being built in the area believe it or not they're being built in the townships they're not being built in the city so what we have to do is make sure that the properties that we do have here okay that have potential for building okay that we keep those properties okay for building housing and so forth and use uh properties that do not look like they have a great future uh you know like uh the site i said before on 13th and pen the only thing that's gotten there since i can remember uh and i lived in that neighborhood from 1947 to 1965 the only thing that went up on that immediate property was a billboard sign there's nothing else been put there so so that's all i have to say thank you thank you mr altman it's been wonderful to see that the citizens who've come this morning as far as i can tell pretty much all have spoken to us and given us their opinions and their ideas that's good to see the more citizen involvement the better the community the more the citizens own the city the better the city is altman mayer thank you madam chair i'm just going to relay a message from one of the citizens that is here today and he had a suggestion that possibly we could build on the south side and the north side where the schools are put in satellite stations seeing that we are having problems with liaison officer money and um so i'm just relaying his his suggestion thank you altman mayer oh go ahead yes thank you madam chairman uh this is somewhat off message but it is a commercial for uh the public works meeting which will be held on thursday july 21st at 5 15 and that'll be at the morning side terrorist retirement community on 12 31 isner avenue we'll be conducting a regular murray meeting but we'll also be taking up the improvement of the isner avenue corridor and there will be some time then for questions and answers from the citizens in response to plans for the future of the isner avenue area thank you thank you altman berg if isner avenue is going to be addressed that probably means city county also state uh correct uh dan hind who is the chair of the uh town of sheboygan has expressed an interest and will either be there himself or will have some representation and i do believe that there is some money in the state budget that senator libham has placed in there that would assist and to free some of the costs of uh of improvements thank you altman berg it must be 95 degrees thank you altman for turning out i'm glad you're here listening taking notes putting new more information into your head mayor wan perez thank you madam chair never waste a minute of time if one of the alderman up in front uh perhaps you would like to uh inform the community that they're still able to contact their alderman with concerns uh by means of a communication and what the committee what that what the process is with respect to that communication this is not the only opportunity that they have nor will it be wednesday that they have to address the committee of the whole or each respective alderman they may do so by writing a communication to them thank you alderman perez alderman alderman perez promoted thank you mayor yes of course citizens contact your alderman they they will take the information from you they will give information to you if you ask them questions telephone email whatever means you have to get in touch with your alderman thank you mayor for reminding us citizens you're invited to the council meeting on monday this coming monday day after tomorrow seven p.m. here in the council chambers come listen find out uh even a little more information about what's going on and of course we'll be on channel eight seven o'clock monday evening common council meeting committee of the whole 545 and a whole evening of information for you citizen monta mayor would you bring me that that sign-up sheet that's on the podium there citizen the most important of all of us thank you thank you alderman kiddison thank you alderman steppin thank you alderman mayor thank you alderman sagali thank you alderman radki thank you for coming and helping and listening and alderman oh my goodness jim groff and alderman eldenberg oh my goodness yes and alderman danberg with here as well yes thank you and thank you president of the council vice president of the council thank you for having this meeting yes of course we should absolutely we should alderman steppin my cell phone tells me it's 1130 so i'd move that we adjourn