Police Powers of a Municipality

The sovereign power of a state or city includes protection of safety, health, morals, prosperity, comfort, convenience and welfare of the public. Police power does not specifically refer to the right of state and local governments to create police forces. The exercise of police power can be in the form of making:

• laws, compelling obedience to those laws through physical means with the aim of removing liberty;
• legal sanctions; or
• other forms of coercion and inducements.

Police powers of a municipality are a major function among various governmental functions. Police power extends to all appropriate ordinances for the protection of peace, safety, health, and good morals of the people. General welfare is a generic term to describe police power.

More Duties

The City Council is the legislative body; its members are the community’s decision makers. Power is centralized in the elected City Council collectively and not in individual members of the Council. The City Council approves the budget and determines the public services to be provided and the taxes, fees and assessments to pay for these public services. It focuses on the community’s goals, major projects and such long term considerations as community growth, General Plan and land use, development standards, capital improvements, financing and strategic planning.

Council Duties

Requests for a City representative at ceremonial events will be handled by the Council President. The Council President will serve as the designated City representative. If the Council President is unavailable, then the Council President will determine if event organizers would like another representative from the Council. If yes, then the Council President will recommend which Councilmember should be asked to serve as a substitute. Invitations received at City Hall are presumed to be for official City representation. Invitations addressed to Councilmembers at their homes are presumed to be for unofficial, personal consideration.

 

The City Manager represents the administrative side of the local government and if requested will attend ceremonial events after first deferring to the Council President.

 

Public recognition is a City Council activity and each Council member should feel the right and responsibility to recognize the residents and businesses for their accomplishments either through a statement at the Council meeting or sponsoring of a resolution.

Attitude

I read an article by David J. Dunn today and saw myself. It was pretty enlightening and I want to be graceful. The myth of the 47% rings true to me.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN INFORMATION

The City of Lake Mills Comprehensive Plan (2008) noted that the City had extraterritorial zoning of the Gundlach site as “Planned Business” and recommended that upon annexation the area is appropriate for “Planned Business” use. The Plan Commission is reviewing the change in zoning from PB – Planned Business District (ETZ) to PB – Planned Business District and will make a recommendation to the Council. The Comprehensive Plan also states that the City will direct intensive commercial and industrial uses to locations near existing and planned arterial roads such as the Interstate Highway 94 corridor, the STH 89 corridor north of Interstate Highway 94, Tyranena Road, and CP Avenue; allow new uses in this future land use category as the City provides appropriate sites for additional commercial and industrial development near Interstate 94 and other major transportation corridors that maximize the benefit of the City’s location within the region and minimize the impact of traffic and other externalities on residential and natural resource areas of the community in accordance with recommendations of this Plan

The Comprehensive Plan identifies three primary areas for economic development and the I-94/STH 89 Interchange is one of the areas. This large area includes much of the land between Tyranena Road and Interstate 94, and some land south of Tyranena Road. The property includes existing commercial uses, redevelopment sites, undeveloped parcels, and residential areas that will transition to commercial use.

The property has municipal sewer and water service available.  The property is also within the City’s Urban Service Area, meaning that all development is eligible to receive the full range of services provided by the City.  

2005 Council Information memo

The state of volunteer emergency services in some areas of the United States is rapidly approaching crisis proportions.  In other places the crisis may have already arrived.  If it is true that the level of protection is dropping drastically because of a shortage of volunteers in fire, then there will be a need to have full-time, professional staffing of these departments. This would be intolerably expensive and result in a dramatic increase in government’s only source of locally generated tax revenue: the real property tax.

Most fire departments employ volunteer firefighters, they provide a public resource estimated to save residents more than 36.8 billion dollars annually[1]. Municipalities should anticipate that volunteer firefighter careers will be shorter than full-time personnel and as a result they need strong recruiting and retention programs in place.

Recruiting is an investment in the future. Retention is the ability to maximize that investment. Successful organizations are those with a strong organizational philosophy about volunteers. It is vital that adequate and appropriate resources be committed to the recruitment and retention of suitable volunteer firefighters. Satisfied volunteer firefighters enhance a community's impression of a fire department making recruitment and retention much easier.

Public officials and Fire department managers need to help volunteer firefighters achieve their goals with the organization, provide the things necessary to make volunteers feel like part of the organization, and help volunteers to impact and influence positively. They have many competing community/individual interests. Make the volunteers experience at the fire department as positive as possible.

Recruitment and retention of Volunteer Firefighters is one of the key issues being addressed jointly by the NVFC and U.S. Fire Administration. The NVFC and USFA have released a report entitled Recruitment and Retention in the Volunteer Fire Service: Problems and Solutions.

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[1] Fire Protection in Rural America: A Challenge for the Future. National Association of State Foresters, 1993.

Day to Day

It is actually not material to day-to-day operations of the City under the Council/Manager form of government which personality occupies the offices of Council President and Council members because elected officials establish policy through their collective, official actions which are then implemented. City government is dictated by ordinances, resolutions, and policies, not personalities. The Charter of the City of Lake Mills sought to avoid the impacts of strong personality-driven systems involving party politics, ward representation, precinct captains, or a strong mayor form of government. It is the collective will of the majority of the Council which governs policy.

Refreshing Event

Civility is much more than just behaving politely, but it is a good place to start. This behavior shows that the individual has a deep abiding respect for others and their opinions. Civility also requires maintenance of self-control, especially in dialogues with others with whom we disagree.[1]

Very good budget study!

 

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[1] Jacqueline J. Byers, NACO Research Division

Formula

The city’s tax base is the total assessments that are subject to the local property tax. The tax levy (as determined by the taxing bodies) divided by the tax base provides the tax rate. It is often expressed in terms of dollars per thousand. The tax rate is multiplied by the assessed value to determine the amount of tax that each property must pay.

Dam Repair

The City retained Mead and Hunt to perform a dam safety inspection. The Lake Mills dam is classified as a high hazard dam and is subject to compliance with Chapter 31 of the Wisconsin State Statutes and Wisconsin Administrative Code. Subsection 31.19(2) of Chapter 31 requires the owner of the dam to engage a professional engineer to inspect the dam at a frequency specified for high hazard dams. An inspection was performed by Warren Hayden, PE and Nick Reis. Their report was provided to the Council in the last packet.
The report provides some recommendations for rehabilitation and maintenance of the dam. The DNR has reviewed the inspection report provided by Mead and Hunt and they have established a directive for us to bring the dam into compliance with administrative code. The directive is included in the packet.

Sealcoat

The City of Lake Mills has traditionally maintained its 34 miles of serviceable asphalt pavements by crack sealing, resurfacing, and reconstruction. With this program a street’s useful life was 25-30 yrs. Then the price for resurfacing skyrocketed—up nearly 400% since 1998. Now the budget can only pay for half mile of resurfacing a year, or about 15 miles in 30 yrs.
An aggressive program of sealcoating on streets could almost double the useful life of a pavement. Public acceptance is essential, making it important to address problems of dust, possible bike or roller blade crashes, pedestrian tracking, and loose aggregate on the street and potentially getting into storm sewers.
Key elements used to deal with these concerns include:
1. Determining whether to specify black boiler slag
2. sweeping twice
3. protecting inlets
4. providing plenty of public information
5. careful scheduling
The sealcoating process is completed in five basic steps:
The first step is to make spot repairs to the existing asphalt surface and fill major cracks with a hot, rubberized crack fill material. The larger cracks must be filled because the viscosity and application rate of the chip seal petroleum will not fill the void of a larger crack.
The second step is to spray the liquid asphaltic cement onto the prepared street. The asphalt is applied at a rate of 0.25 to 0.40 gallons per square yard. The purpose of the liquid asphalt application is to seal the entire surface of the street and all remaining cracks. The asphalt also provides the binding material for the aggregate.
The third step is to apply the cover aggregate using a chip spreader. The used both a black boiler slag and a standard pea gravel. The black slag, 100% passing the 3⁄8” sieve, is a finer aggregate and it doesn’t seem to hold as much dust. Being black, it looks better and is easier to stripe. The blacker color allows for more heat absorption in the winter, requiring less salt. The pea gravel is
cheaper and adds more depth to the surface for longer protection. It is very important not to drive on the asphaltic cement prior to adding the aggregate. The asphaltic cement will stick to your tires and spray on to your car, it will also track into the driveway, curbs and garage floors.
The fourth step is to roll the cover aggregate into the asphaltic cement as soon as possible after it is applied. The rolling seats the aggregate without crushing it. There will be some loose aggregate on the roadway after it is rolled.
The fifth step is to sweep the excess aggregate from the street after traffic has driven on the street for several days. With boiler slag, a second sweeping is required after weveral weeks of being open to traffic.
Worry about negative reactions from politicos and residents keeps many public works departments from proposing chip seals on improved local streets. But we have reconsider because the economics are very convincing.
On August 30, 2012 we received quotes to sealcoat streets based on our street maintenance priority list. We received one quote from the Jefferson County Highway Department. I was informed on August 27 by Jeff Hollenberger, sales representative for Fahrner Asphalt Sealers, they would not be submitting a quote.
Jefferson County submitted a quote for chip seal of $1.40 per square yard, and $1.65 per square yard for slag seal. We requested quotes on both seal coating processes because we believe use of the chip seal process in non-residential areas will be more economical.
We accepted the bid from Jefferson County Highway Department to provide seal coating services at a cost of $25,281.05. Funding for this project to come from the Street Maintenance and use of County road funds.

My ethical dilemma between elected officials and staff

Many newly elected officials have an imperfect understanding of the division of labor between council and staff; they may act as though staff work for them as individuals and should be responsive to their individual priorities and the needs of their specific constituents. If a councilmember ran on a platform of clean streets, for example, he or she may believe that the proper course of action once elected is to meet directly with the sanitation director and encourage prompt action. But the councilmember must work through the democratic process with other councilmembers to make clean streets a priority across the city. That priority would then be conveyed to the city manager, to whom the sanitation director reports.
John Nalbandian

Damn Dam

DIRECTIVES:
The following deficiencies must be corrected by the dates given:
1. Benchmarks September 1, 2013
2. Make Concrete Repairs December 1, 2014
3. Perform and submit for review a Dam Failure Analysis September 1, 2013
4. Prepare and submit for review an Emergency Action Plan March 1, 2013
5. Prepare and submit for review an Inspection, Operation and Maintenance Plan September 1, 2013
In order for us to consider a schedule other than this, you must submit your alternative schedule by December 1, 2012.

Another Building Project

The current Parks and Forestry Department is a three-part combination building. The original first section (southern-most portion) of the building was likely constructed in the 1890’s-early 1900’s, although the south elevation with the overhead doors was re-done with new brick many years afterward. The middle section appears to have been built between 1910-1925 and the third section was completed in the 1931 (according to the cast stone inscription above the overhead door). The original building, as well as all of the subsequent additions, were constructed for use by the City’s Light and Water Utility. In the past, portions of the building housed an electrical generator and a pump station (limited reservoir storage appears to have existed in part of the basement and the underground vault on the east side of the 1931 addition). The building is still owned by the Light and Water Utility. The building levels step up towards the north end of the structure with the 1931 addition having a finished floor elevation of +/- 4’-0” to 5’-0” above the floor level of the earlier building. There are no construction documents available for the building.