Franklin Today

Bloggers unite behind Schwartz

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a growing amount of support towards Don Schwartz for Milwaukee County Supervisor from Franklin bloggers. On FranklinNOW, Kevin Fischer discusses Schwartz (and only him) as an alternative solution when there's an opportunity to criticize one of Schwartz's opponents, Franklin Common Council President Steve Taylor. On his blog, Bryan Maersch displays a big banner that is similar to campaign ads on area news websites as well as a campaign website that supports Schwartz. I am curious to know if Schwartz's campaign paid for the spot or has any knowledge of its existence on Maersch's blog.

Forward Franklin EDC member's application missing from city website's packet

For the past couple of meetings, the city has begun what hopefully will be a positive norm of uploading the Common Council's agenda packets to the city website for public viewing. This has been a significant leap forward in terms of open, transparent government and the city should be lauded for this particular effort. However, unfortunately, it appears that an online Common Council packet is not complete for the public's viewing.

Restaurants desired for Southridge, as decided by you

Last week's news of the future of Southridge generated quite a buzz. So much so, that this website and Facebook page collaborated with Citizens for Community Development in creating a poll asking you, the readers and fans of this site, what you wanted to see in terms of restaurants. Further promoting this and truly making this a success, Greendale Village President John Hermes informed me that if we decided to send over the data, he would forward it onward personally to Simon Property Group. Simon is the owner of Southridge and the largest mall operator in North America.

So the polling began, and everyone had a restaurant of choice. In one week, over 2,500 votes were cast, and over 50 restaurants were named as choices. But only one restaurant could take top honors as the "most desired". See who it was below:

New E-Paper launches in Franklin

Earlier this week, two Franklin residents began what is being coined as an "E-Paper" for the citizens of Franklin. The Franklin Independent Journal, "penned" by Fred Keller and Basil Ryan, launched the site with their results an open records request they did on city administration. While both Director of Administration Mark Luberda and Director of Finance Calvin Patterson were subject of the requests, at this time only Patterson's wage and benefits are posted.

If you wish to know what our Director of Finance makes in terms of wage and benefits, go here.

As for the contributors to the Franklin Independent Journal, a brief background on both might be worthwhile. Many of you likely know both Fred Keller and Basil Ryan from their names being mentioned past and present. Keller still is putting up posts on his blog, Battle Joined. Ryan is perhaps well-known in Franklin for being a former alderman in the 4th District and the target of a recall in the early 2000s, where he was defeated by Pete Kosovich. Ryan also ran against Mayor Tom Taylor in 2008, which ended with the mayor winning re-election.

Due to both of them being strong advocates for open government and transparency, it is expected that the Franklin Independent Journal will feature tons of open records requests. It's expected that some of those requests could turn up some interesting results, as Ryan is known for having detailed information on the backgrounds of many Franklin issues.

All-in-all, it's probably a site to keep tabs on as we move forward in discussing Franklin politics. It'll be interesting to see if the Franklin Independent Journal truly stays "independent", or if the site slowly moves to a position that's strongly against those currently in leadership positions at Franklin City Hall.

Franklin Notification System is now operational

Thanks to the Common Council taking additional steps to ensure public safety, now you can receive alerts on various issues on your home or mobile phone. The city's Notification System has launched and any interested residents can sign-up here. From the city website:

• The Franklin Notification System offers a second tier of emergency notification.
• To receive this potentially lifesaving Tornado Warning service, each household or business MUST SIGN UP for the service by registering their phone numbers, cell phone numbers, or e-mail addresses.
• The system also allows each individual to sign up for notices related to Declared Snow Emergencies and unexpected changes to the garbage and recycling service.  In the future, the City can add more special-notice opt-in groups as important issues surface.  (This type of notice will only occur between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.)   
• The City can use the system in conjunction with its 911 database to notify residents of significant public health and safety issues such as a chemical spill or potential hazardous condition in the water supply, etc.
• This is a FREE service.  There is no cost to join or register and you can unsubscribe at any time.
• Registration information is private and will not be sold to or shared with other vendors.
• Registration is FAST and EASY!

The good news about this service is that it can take on many more issues per resident demands. As parents already know, Franklin Public Schools also has a system set-up for alerts and notices related to the schools. This has been very successful in keeping parents informed on issues related to their child's school.

Poll Results on Collective Bargaining

Our poll was rather up-and-down since it kicked off 2 Saturdays ago. With that said, though, the poll shifted significantly after the state legislature approved the Governor's Budget Repair Bill in the middle of last week.

The question: Should collective bargaining limitations be removed from the Budget Repair Bill?

You responded:

YES: 42.8%

NO: 57.2%

Greendale's Village President discusses Walker's bill

Earlier today the Greendale Patch, an online news-media site recently launched, posted an article discussing the thoughts of Governor Walker's Budget Repair Bill from the mind of Greendale Village President John Hermes. You can read his perspective on the bill by going to this link. According to the article, Hermes notes that Walker's exemptions of police and firefighters in the bill amounts to "55-60 percent of potential benefit savings" in Greendale's budget.

If/When Mayor Tom Taylor decides to weigh in on this issue, Franklin Today will post his remarks here.

February City Updates from Alderwoman Wilhelm

KW e-Newsletter 2/2011

Common Council packets for everyone to view?

That's what the residents of Brookfield are able to do. The City of Brookfield has their council packets uploaded and allow the viewer to go to specific portions of the packet if their only interest is with a certain agenda item. Check it out for yourself - here's the agenda for their meeting on Tuesday.

Speaking with City Clerk Sandi Wesolowski some time ago, I got the impression that she personally would love to have something like this on Franklin's city website. It not only saves taxpayer dollars on paper, but also on staff time relative to open records requests or other matters that might information from packets. It is unknown if the city is working on putting packets up on the city website for public viewing, last we heard of anything the Technology Commission is doing it was on the matter of revamping the city website itself. Technology Commissioner Bryan Maersch was the individual that brought residents the latest TC updates, and perhaps he could shed some light on this matter, as well. 

With a council that has stated time and again its dedication of being transparent, something like uploaded council and/or commission packets shouldn't be much of a chore, especially since it looks like staff already does it for commissions. The Trails Committee agenda & packet I uploaded on Friday was provided to me by city staff.

Scott Walker's donations from "South of the Border"

Working on a story about campaign contributions to political candidates from Franklin, I downloaded the July, 2010-continuing reports from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board's website from Wisconsin's "Big Three" in the gubernatorial race - Tom Barrett, Mark Neumann and Scott Walker. What I didn't expect from this was to be amused by politics the day before Walker's campaign event at St. Martin's Fair tomorrow morning.