Mayor's Community Update - 04/23/2018

Greetings! This week the common council held their annual reorganization meeting. During that meeting, newly elected officials are administered the oath of office. Beginning two year terms are myself as Mayor, and Mike Matoushek, Nancy Vanderkin, and Pete Kaczmarski as alderpersons. Additionally, Jason Westphal was voted Council President. In this role, Jason would serve as mayor in the event of my inability to fulfill the duties of this office. If you are looking to contact your alderperson, you will find contact information on the city’s website.

Following up on our road improvement plan, the council also discussed ways to fund the large number of road projects that need to be done in the city and approved a plan to begin engineering work on the full reconstruction project for Madison Street, from the bridge on North Madison Street to the city limits on South Madison Street. Due to the scope of the project this will likely involve some borrowing. The full plan will be presented as part of our capital improvement budget process later this year.

Finally, staff is beginning work to update our website. Our primary goals of this project are to: 1) Enhance service delivery / online capabilities; 2) Expand citizen engagement; 3) Improve web accessibility and a meet ADA legal requirements; 4) Minimize cybersecurity threats; 5) Branding; 6) Records retention/archival. We have selected MuniCode as our service provider. The full project should be complete later this year. 

Around town, Marsh Haven Nature Center is hosting their Earth Day Celebration from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 22. Due to current weather conditions, the Spring Yard Waste pick-up has been postponed for one week. Depending on weather, the pick-up is now tentatively set to start Monday, April 23, and will end Friday, May 11.

See you around town! ~ Mayor Julie Nickel