Some Updates from Tuesday’s South Milwaukee Common Council Meeting

It was a busy Common Council meeting on Tuesday night, and here’s a quick rundown of what went down.

• The meeting started with an uplifting South Milwaukee Police Department awards ceremony, where Chief Ann Wellens honored officers and citizens for their work in combating crime and saving lives in our city. I’ll have more to post on these stories in coming days.
• The Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of $968,000 in taxable general obligation promissory notes for water system improvements and expenses. I plan on posting more on this on Thursday, so stay tuned.
• The Council also approved, 4-3, increases to several of its fees, including those for bartenders and amusement devices. I voted no on this because the resolution also included a requirement that bars and restaurants obtain a separate $100 annual permit for outdoor seating and beer gardens. I support the fee as it relates to beer gardens, which will essentially act as smoking areas for bars once the statewide smoking ban takes effect in July. This fee will cover the cost of inspecting these beer gardens and the added costs of patrolling them by our police department. Again, I am fine with this part of it. I voted “no” on the ordinance, however, because I disagree with putting the same fee on restaurant owners. Simply, I don’t want to make it more difficult for places like Azteca, Nona’s and the Madison Avenue Market to have cool outdoor dining this summer. And a $100 fee for essentially putting a few tables outside of their front doors is unnecessary — and not business-friendly.
• We approved a South Milwaukee Yacht Club project to add a new travel lift well. Learn more in my previous post on this topic.

We’re also discussing tightening our ordinances when it comes to check cashing businesses and portable storage containers. Stay tuned on that one.

And I’ll close with some good news. We also learned at the council meeting that Moody’s recently “recalibrated” all of its municipal ratings, resulting in new (and better) bond ratings for many communities. South Milwaukee is a major beneficiary of this. Without changing anything on our end, the city now has a Aa2 rating, two steps up from our already strong A1 rating and just two steps below a “best of the best” AAA rating.

The end result of this? We can borrow money at lower interest rates — about a half a percent lower in most cases, simply because of the recalibration.

Being in this position at all is a major testimony to the work of our city administrator, staff and department heads — working in conjunction with elected officials — to keep South Milwaukee fiscally strong and well positioned for the future. Thanks to everyone.