KUSD Meeting on Bike/Walking to School

Tomorrow night at 6 PM (2 hours) at Kenosha Municipal Building (Room 202--625 52nd Street) is a meeting (Safe Routes to School--Grant) to discuss future walking and bike trails/paths for kids and KUSD (sampling of six schools, doesn't include Pleasant Prairie or Somers schools but hope to add more in the future).

Your Thoughts and Ideas

OK folks, let the fun begin. Here are just a few minor items that have been suggested or criticized lately. Get your two cents worth in while you can.

Traffic Circles: some say they reduce accidents and severity, others say they clog up and are ineffective. Who's right? County and State will be installing soon at an intersection near you!

Suggested that a committee or meeting be formed to discuss neighborhood issues with POA/HOA Boards and interested residents such as was recently seen with Snow blowers and Noise ordinance. There will probably be more issues with newer developments by older homes, RVs and boats in driveways and streets, snowmobiles, ATVs and dirt bikes/go carts in fields, ponds--detention and retention issues,...etc. What else? Muskrats in retention ponds cause damage--look at ponds in Village Green for multiple muskrat houses.

Why not have a Q&A site for residents to ask questions on Village web page? Or more FAQ's listed based on previous Citizen Comments questions and the Village's response?

How about Village alerts based on e-mail from Police or Fire if there is an issue your area of the Village? More Neighborhood Watch groups and communication I believe would be a good idea. We had one NW presented at one of our POA meetings by PPPD, and people signed up including people outside of our subdivision but the Village never followed through.

Village has put more information on website lately but how about some actual examples of a process or cost savings or bid process? I can look at budgets but one doesn't get a real picture. I've also been to budget discussion meetings but too dry for the average person and type was so small on screen that you couldn't read anything. How do they determine and what are RFP's and RFB's...etc?

Seeing more and more developers coming to Village asking for extensions on their developments. Some of these are next to proposed Village Green downtown area. Will this further delay downtown development? I guess extension requests are a sign that development is slowing considerable. How will this affect tax revenues and existing developments with no or few new homes adding to tax base but still having to run services to developments if even one home in them? Also, apartments are converting to condos--what are the pluses and minuses?

What about finances? Mr. Allen talked about Prairie Family Days being a financial drain at a recent Board meeting. How much of a drain? What are costs involved and budgeted? I think involving more citizens is a good idea but people have to realize that money is tighter than it has been in the past and may need to scale things appropriately. Anywhere else that money can be saved or revenue generated?

OK, so I started the ball rolling. Some may scoff at what I've written but I want to hear from you what constructive things you have to say and your ideas. Please don't say "let them do the job they were hired for" as this isn't a business with promotions based on job performance and this isn't a profit driven enterprise. Here's your opportunity to chime in with ideas. Let the Brainstorming begin!

Village versus Railroad Commissioner

We received two letters from Railroad Commissioner in response to ours sent to him protesting closing of Bain Station Road. The Railroad Commissioner recommended to the Village in November meeting that both Railroad crossings on Bain Station Road be closed. The Railroad Commissioner also recused himself from further efforts in the matter due to potential conflict of interest and appointed a lawyer to evaluate and make the decision after the Village protested Railroad Commissioners involvement as being biased. Should be interesting to see what happens. Stay tuned.

Giants 23, Packers 20 OT

DAMMIT!!!!!!!

Village Cafe

Was another nice turnout for the second Village Cafe meeting to gather information about the future downtown area. Three conceptual plans were presented and residents were allowed to comment. In addition, housing and commercial styles were presented and commented on. I asked that all three conceptual plans be put online for others to see. In addition, people can get a handout with the building ideas and make comments about each until Jan. 31st.

All-in-all, I don't believe the residents were thrilled with any of the three plans. Most want to see less housing and more green space with better roads and walking and bike paths. People wanted to see more commercial. I think the next meeting will be very interesting as the developer is supposed to distill down all the comments and ideas into a plan. We all know the developers are out to make money so we understand the housing density but this is the Village's downtown, not the developers. Please consider making comments and reviewing plans if Village adds online.

One other item of interest, but not under Village control, was that most don't want to see traffic circles.

Tornado Help

http://web.mac.com/lakegenevaballoon1/WheatlandCommunicator/PageOne.html

Many items needed. See above website. Not sure if Kenosha has anything similar.

Tornado Victims Fund

Donations of Money
for
Victims of the Wheatland Tornado
Checks made out to:
Town of Wheatland Fund
Benefiting Tornado Victims
www.mibank.com
24616 75th St
Salem, WI 53168
(262) 843-2366

Village Cafe

Don't forget to participate and Village Cafe Thursday, January 17th 2008:

http://www.pleasantprairieonline.com/utility/news/newsitem.asp?NewsID=539

http://www.pleasantprairieonline.com/_media/news/Invitation%20Cafe%202.pdf

There is a large chunk of undeveloped land at the Northeast corner of 39th Avenue and 104th Street (HWY 165) that should also be considered as part of this development. This would be a nice addition to current downtown area and would allow for better connection to bike trail and areas east. Otherwise, who knows what will happen with this nice chunk of real estate.

Pleasant Prairie Needs More Participation

Nice to see seven residents wanting to be on Silver Lake Village Board. I really like the reasons given and these should serve as a wake-up call for Pleasant Prairie residents, in general:

From Kenosha News article:

• Newcomer candidates said there is no burning issue igniting their bids for election, they just want to be involved.
• Candidates are pleased more people are showing an interest in serving their community.
• People have a "strong interest in seeing if they can do things differently, or better."
• The public wants to be involved in the decision making.
• It is good for the public to have a choice of candidates and believes the field contains a wide range of ages and backgrounds. The more choices people have the better off they are.

Amen as there only a few that ever show up for Village and Plan Commission meetings or have enough guts to run for office. Perhaps others are involved in the other committees and meetings? I know a lot of people attend Village cafe meetings but where are they for the County cafe meetings that drive the whole process? Regardless, more participation would benefit the entire Village of Pleasant Prairie instead of leaving everything up to the few. Then the residents wouldn't have to worry about videotaping or audio or Kenosha News as they would hear and see it all from the horses mouths.

ULine--Welcome to Pleasant Prairie

Nice to see a new company coming to Pleasant Prairie and actually having plans in place. No secretive meetings or bravado required; just this is where we are going to build and what we are going to build. Didn't need to involve Village at all as they worked through Developer. The owners mention Abbott as having an influence on their decision; maybe they can get Abbott to commit to some real plans?