Common Council President (CCP) Steve Taylor posted a piece on FranklinNOW.com earlier this morning looking for everyone's input on the Mayor's proposed 2010 City of Franklin budget. In Taylor's piece, he highlights several topics that could be considered "hot button" issues, including "Weather Alert Siren Systems" (aka "tornado sirens", I'd assume), the Civic Celebration, St. Martin's Fair, and the police and fire departments.
While CCP Taylor touts the Mayor including $150,000 in the budget for a new tornado siren, everything else in his message to residents looks like the city is going downwards. He points out that one firefighter vacancy won't be filled and (at least) two vacancies in the police department won't be filled. Then he brings up that while the Mayor slashed the city support in half for our two civic events (Civic Celebration on the 4th and St. Martin's Fair), apparently the Mayor has the intentions on eliminating ALL city funding for these events altogether.
It's a bit disappointing when it seems like every year our leadership at City Hall finds one way or another to trim away at community building. From this vantage point, it almost looks like they enjoy the current apathy that oozes out of the majority of households in the City of Franklin. It has only been within the past couple of years when bloggers have brought out some community pride and promote some key issues that motivated the community to get together. Otherwise, City Hall provides no such support:
- Community Center subcommittee ends up being deadlocked; money collected via residential impact fees dedicated towards such a center goes nowhere
- Fee waivers that Franklin nonprofits were able to receive to host events in the community were eliminated and replaced with a more complicated "grant" system, and that was really only thanks to one alderman
Now we have the only two events that bring the community together being scrapped of city funding. While the Mayor and council can argue that private funds could step in, I don't believe it will be as much or better than what the City of Franklin has done. Furthermore, the city could use those private monies for important projects that could build the community further, including the proposed YMCA, the Franklin Cultural Arts Center, a community/rec center, an auditorium at FHS, etc, etc. With all the private monies being thrown just to hold up the Civic Celebration and possibly the St. Martin's Fair, expect private donors to claim being "cash strapped" for other projects. Thus, NOTHING moves forward.
For one of the wealthiest communities in Milwaukee County, in my opinion our leadership at City Hall pins us as one of the poorest. First of all, that's very disappointing. Second of all, if they claim the cuts are needed to maintain a 2.9% tax levy, I just would like to know where all the additional revenues courtesy of "economic development" went for the past 10 years. We build dozens of new subdivisions and several shopping centers but yet, after they're built, we can't afford to maintain our police and fire departments at a level they were prior to this development? We can't afford to properly fund and support our only two community events, while other communities have three, four, even five such events a year?
It's unfortunate that City Hall isn't really gauging the community in terms of community benefit, but rather how it benefits each individual in the short-term. Screw the concept of "we" in the City of Franklin, but rather solely focus on the "I" or the "me, me, me" philosophy. How sad.
Make sure to contact your alderman about the proposed budget. If you don't know your alderman, here is a map showing your district.
Steve Olson (District 1): solson@franklinwi.gov
Tim Solomon (District 2): tsolomon@franklinwi.gov
Kristen Wilhelm (District 3): kwilhelm@franklinwi.gov
Steve Taylor (District 4): staylor@franklinwi.gov
Lyle Sohns (District 5): lsohns@franklinwi.gov
Ken Skowronski (District 6): Send e-mail to swesolowski@franklinwi.gov and ask that City Clerk Sandi Wesolowski prints your e-mail and puts it in Ken's mailbox at City Hall
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If you'd like to read and add your signature to the petition to urge Milwaukee County to bring an Aquatics Center (aka mini water park) to Franklin, please click this link.
