HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May your 2008 be filled with family, joy, luck, health and wealth.

Merry Christmas!

Packers 7, Bears 35

What a disappointing game. Nothing looked good on offense, defense or special teams. Let's all hope this was a fluke but sure doesn't seem that way lately.

Pun-tacular!

Thought you might laugh!
The ability to Make and Understand Puns Is the Highest Level of
Language Development. Here are the ten first place winners in the
International Pun Contest:

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The
stewardess looks at him and says, “I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion
allowed per passenger.”

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and
says 'Dam!'

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire
in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you
can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.'
The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm
positive.'

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a
root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were
standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament
victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office
and asked them to disperse. 'But why?', they asked, as they moved
off. 'Because,' he said,' I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an
open foyer.'

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them
goes to Spain , they name him 'Juan'; the other went to a family in
Egypt and is named 'Ahmal.' Years later, Juan sends a picture of
himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells
her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her
husband responds, 'They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen
Ahmal.'

8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so
they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone
liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across
town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good
fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged
the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist
hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town
to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed
their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop.
Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent
florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time,
which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also
ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd
diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is
so bad, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by
halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns
to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make
them laugh. No pun in ten did.

We All Sure Hope that Abbott Builds and Soon

From Kenosha News "Pollocoff said having the $1.5 billion complex built in the village would be a good return on the $6 million to $8 million investment. The village already has spent $17 million to obtain blighted properties and install some sewer and water lines up to the Abbott tract." 20 years or less to pay off bonds is a long time and a lot of interest but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. We've heard many times it won't cost the taxpayers any money and I sure hope so. How much money did Village invest in Lakeview Corporate Park and what has been the payoff? I think we should see these numbers as it would help people understand what this type of investment has done in the past and what it can do in the future. Village really needs to get the Kenosha News behind it if they want to keep rolling along unscathed. Why the short meeting notice? If they could wait this long, what's another couple of weeks? Let's put it all in the open now.

UW-Whitewater Wins National Championship!

Congratulations to the Warhawks. 31-21 winners over Mount Union Purple Raiders. The third time was a charm. Nice job and way to show class. No personal fouls versus the three MU received.

Bain Station Road Railroad Crossing

I take it that the meeting with the Railroad Commissioner didn't go well last week since the Village is requesting residents to call and write the Railroad Commissioner:

http://www.pleasantprairieonline.com/utility/news/newsitem.asp?NewsID=497

I think it is a good idea. In fact, I think the Village (and you) should request that some of the lesser used railroad tracks be turned over to the Village/County and converted into bike trails. Works both ways doesn't it?

New Garbage Collection

The Village has decided to switch to an automated garbage collection system like they have for recycling. I hope the lids stay down on windy days and that the garbage doesn't blow out when they dump the containers into the garbage trucks. I also see they default you to the most expensive service if you don't fill out and return forms stating otherwise. Maybe they should call each household and find out what they want as we already know how good residents are at seeing, and responding to, Village information. Or perhaps they can review how much garbage they collect at each household for the next few weeks (see next item). Another question, how will they know what service you signed up for when they collect your garbage? Some type of scanning system and computer to say whether someone has unlimited service or not? Should be interesting.

Icy Street--Not Good

My street this morning was a glare sheet of ice. Someone just missed my mailbox last night and crashed into the snowbank around 9PM. I noticed the street was a big sheet of ice on way to work this morning as I pulled out of my driveway. I was barely able to stop at the stop signs even though I was driving extremely slow. Where were the salt trucks? They were salting in the rain yesterday when the roads were fine. Sure hope the school buses made it OK on the icy roads this morning. Why the delay in salting this morning knowing the cold was coming last night??? Not a bang up job and I'm sure Village residents were upset.

KNews

There sure has been a lot of controversy lately, and animosity, between the Kenosha News and Village staff/Trustees/President/Administrator. Can't wait to see what happens at the next Village Board meeting. I guess the bottom line is that both need to make sure they can back up their stories with facts. Don't say anything that can't be backed up with irrefutable evidence. Interpretation and intent are too easy to dismiss but hard facts will always win the day.

Taxes

Village increase on my tax bill was 5.6% and KUSD was 5.1%. I thought Village was supposed to be less than KUSD? Sure glad the referendums didn't pass. What will next year look like with the big housing slowdown? What is state law; 2%? I sure hope the Board and staff are planning ahead behind the scenes for a big reduction in new money for next year as I didn't see anything about future in budget discussions other than money for roads.

Village Board Meeting Minutes

The Village has again refused free offers of DVD video and audio to post on the Village's website. "Too expensive" is all they can say but offer no real proof that they ever looked into any reliable cost estimates. Clyde Allen said $175,000 dollars but presented nothing to back up his claim. No one else offered anything even close to that figure based on discussions with media and IT representatives. The Village Board voted to post audio only for now. "Baby steps" said Mr. Serpe. The Village wants to be a leader, then take the steps necessary to post video online. The Village has said they will eventually also post presentation materials. These presentation materials should be available before the meetings so that residents can review and have a chance to comment during Citizen Comments before the item is even discussed by the Board. As far as Meeting Minutes, great CYA by Mr. Pollocoff. He said that minutes wouldn't reflect what was actually said because of Robert's Rules only recognizing who the President has given permission to speak. Read through the last few years of meeting minutes and you'll see a lot of instances were this wasn't followed. Why the new explanation Mr. Pollocoff?

HQ moving to Pleasant Prairie?

Interesting to note that the Corporate Vice President for Human Resources for Abbott Laboratories recently purchased a million dollar home in Pleasant Prairie. He's moving from Libertyville (next door to current Abbott HQ) to Pleasant Prairie. Does he know something the rest of us don't? Interesting.

Road Plowing

The Village did another fine job of plowing the roads. They must have gone by my house six or seven times. The roads were really bad and one can see that just from the number of crashes on the Police Incident Log (mostly non-Village maintained roads--looks like County knocked down at least 3 mailboxes on 39th Avenue between 116th and Russell Road). Now if we could get the County to take better care of their roads within Village and get people to move their cars off the street and far enough into their driveways, then the Village wouldn't have to re-plow, thus saving us taxpayers money. Come on people, move your cars!