The Oak Creek City Council has decided against expanding the number of hours alcohol can be sold at grocery, liquor and other “off-premise” stores.
Check out the story here.
You’ll recall that the South Milwaukee City Council in December approved allowing liquor sales as early as 6 a.m.
And check out these other local headlines of note:
- Caterpillar CEO Blasts Illinois Business Climate, Quinn Once Again On Defense (Huffington Post)
- Two Challenge Michalski For Aldermanic Seat (Oak Creek Patch)
- Oak Creek City Clerk Candidates State Their Case (Oak Creek Patch)
- Janet Halfmann Releases New Book, “Home In The Cave” (South Milwaukee NOW)
Also, South Milwaukee NOW has published a new police blotter. Among the incidents: a snowblower theft and broken garage window in the 200 block of north Chicago Avenue and a burglary in the 200 block of Montana Avenue.
South Milwaukee Blog 
Question: I see you posting so much more information regarding Oak Creek than South Milwaukee…so I am wondering……
Has the City of South Milwaukee put together a communication plan for the ‘Walmart Project”? In the private sector when an idea is being sold to senior leaders or a major capital investment project is being proposed to the Board of Directors a very detailed communication roll-out plan is developed.
It appears to me that the City of South Milwaukee leaders are the defensive mode with this project and not on the offensive side of communication. Has anyone in the city government thought about having a public meeting again— so questions can be answered without citizens having to beg for their questions to be answered during a common council meeting or during a CDA meeting? I understand that city meetings have procedures and protocol that must be followed, but so many questions remain on the citizens mind in South Milwaukee regarding this development. Many of my neighbors feel like their concerns are shut down without a blink of the eye. You can try to send your questions in emails to the city, but as we all know so much is lost in the translation of an email. I recall the President of the South Milwaukee Common Council saying this is not Madison. This is not Madison this is the good old USA where citizens can ask questions openly.
I know you can send questions to Kyle V. and to others on this project. That is great, but has anyone thought about a more cohesive approach to getting answers to their citizens questions?
As anyone thought about stepping up and putting together a formal communication tool for the city to follow. It seems so unprofessional and arrogant that the citizens voices can not be heard in an open forum. I keep telling folks you are public servants and it is your job to answer any and all citizens questions. You have taken on this role to serve. I get a feeling that the city leaders are tired of the questions. We can all agree to disagree on this development and it only makes good sense to have an open formal communication channel for the citizens voices to be heard.
In my small opinion, the city leaders have an attitude as we don’t care what the citizens think and your questions are not of any great concern. They are committed to the development of this project and I applauded them for their commitment. Lots of political capital, resources, and time is at risk if this project is not developed. Concerns still remain in the community if this is the right project for the city……
You are a reporter and a business journalist correct? What are your thoughts on having a communication plan that is respectful of the community needs along with the city planners goals?
Just a thought:
Why not have a public town hall meeting every three weeks to address difficult questions and concerns regarding the Walmart development?
Has a communication plan been developed for the Walmart project? If such a plan has been developed can a copy of this plan be out on the city’s website?
I ask these questions because I attended a CDA meeting and finally after begging to have a question answered around the finances of the TIF projects –I finally have my questions answered regarding the ROI of this project (by the way it took the outside financial consulting professional to answer the questions along with Kyle V face to face communication). So I am sure many other individuals like myself have questions that need to be answered that cannot be answered in an simple email.
Sometimes as a leader you have to put yourself out their for difficult questions…..
This question is not directed at you personally. I am just overall wondering why hasn’t more thought gone into the idea of how do we sell this idea to the community when so much opposition was raised to this development project. And maybe you can’t sell anyone on this major development, but at the very least their voices will be heard.
Lynn: Thanks for the comment, and for reading. You make a number of points in the post, and I’ll try to address some of them.
As for posting Oak Creek news, I usually post it as part of my regular headline roundups, thinking that readers care about more than just what’s happening in South Milwaukee, but also in the broader South Shore area. The rest of my blog is almost always South Milwaukee-focused news (news you probably can’t get anywhere else). Making the Oak Creek posts easier is that they have a daily online newspaper in Patch, giving me regular items to link to.
To your other points …
I guess I don’t see how a public meeting on Walmart will help much after the fact, especially one as often as every three weeks. As you point out, there are other avenues to get questions answered, including our city engineer and individual aldermen (including me). You can also contact our CDA director, Danielle Devlin, or our city attorney, Joe Murphy. Both have been deeply involved in the project and can answer even the most detailed of questions. There is also an opportunity to ask questions about any topic not on the council agenda before every council meeting. I’d also like to think this blog is a resource of information about this project.
I also think that a lot of difficult questions about this project have already been answered, or maybe lack answers (as they may simply be a matter of opinion). This project has been on the drawing board for more than 15 months and seriously debated since September, and I heard from countless local residents with arguments both for and against the development. In deciding to vote the way I did, I tried to consider as many of those arguments (and facts) as I could. And that’s what made the vote so difficult — I sympathized (and agreed) with a number of the points made by the opposition, but none of them rose to the level of killing the project, in my mind. None could overcome a belief I still hold three months after the vote — that, without Walmart, this land would sit vacant, and still contaminated, while we waited for another developer to come along. So that was the choice in my mind: Choose an acceptable project that adds $14 million to the city’s tax base or watch the weeds grow at 222 North Chicago Avenue.
Additionally, I like to think I have put myself out there to face difficult questions, and criticisms. This blog opens the door to that, and I welcome it. As a former journalist (I now work in communications at MillerCoors), I think it’s important to keep lines of communication open, and improve how we communicate with our residents. I have said publicly that our communication could have been better on the Walmart project, including holding more public comment sessions earlier in the process. We can improve in this area as a city government, and I hope to be a part of that continued improvement. It’s important to me, and you.