met with neighbors near the college

Posted by Scott Crevier • Wednesday, May 09, 2012 10:47PM
City Happenings

The St. Norbert and West De Pere Neighborhood Association is a group of homeowners near St. Norbert College who meet monthly to talk about concerns and issues in the area. I was very happy that they invited me to attend their meeting tonight at the De Pere Community Center. I met 6 homeowners and we talked about a number of issues. Some of their concerns center around landlords near the college who aren’t taking care of their properties. We also talked about a few events that happen at the college that impact their neighborhood and streets (i.e. commencement). And we talked about general behaviors of some SNC students.

It’s tricky for me as an employee of St. Norbert, so I’m glad that the college also had two representatives there (besides me).

Overall, it was a great meeting. I’m glad I had the chance to meet these folks, and I hope we always have such open and honest conversations.

De Pere Riverwalk will open soon

Posted by Scott Crevier • Monday, May 07, 2012 11:50PM
City Happenings

This is great news! I commend last year’s City Council for making the bold decision to go forward with this project. We’re still hoping that phase 2 will be financed by donations, but if not, and we taxpayers have to pay for part of the project, it will still bring dividends for generations to come. This will be an absolute gem here in De Pere!

UPDATE: On Tue, May 8, Marty Kosobucki, De Pere Parks Director, gave a tour of the Riverwalk to alderpersons and other city officials. I’m very impressed with the quality of work and simply how nice the Riverwalk looks and fits into our downtown area. Phase 2, which we expect to start working on later this year, will include the viewing pier (300 ft out into the river) and a fishing pier. I’m so excited for this project, and I’m happy that some day my grandkids will be able to enjoy this unique feature on the Fox River!

The Green Bay Press-Gazette sent a reporter and photographer to take a tour with us. They published this story: “Part of De Pere Riverwalk may open later this month“

starting discussions on the 2013 city budget

Posted by Scott Crevier • Sunday, May 06, 2012 11:13PM
City Happenings

Folks, we’ve got a special meeting of the city council this Tuesday night at 6pm at City Hall to start our discussions about next year’s budget. This meeting is open to the public, and I hope you’ll think about attending. If you can’t make it (or just aren’t interested), please at least consider reading the packet for this meeting.

Shaping and influencing our city budget is one of the most important things we do as a council. And when it comes to city matters, it’s one of the most important things you can consider and share feedback about. This week’s meeting is only the first. We’ll be discussing the budget numerous times in the coming months, and you’ll have many opportunities to chime in.

Simply put, I want to know what your priorities are. What should we spend money on? What services are most important? What services aren’t so important? Is it worth raising property taxes in order to keep certain services? Please contact me with any thoughts you have.

May 1, 2012 City Council mtg notes

Posted by Scott Crevier • Wednesday, May 02, 2012 10:41PM
City Council meeting

Just a few notes from last night’s city council meeting.

We approved a plan to allow Sit and Stay Pet Resort on the city’s southeast side to expand. They’ve only been in business 2 years and it’s great to see them grow and, most importantly, to remain in De Pere.

We also took up the issue of a developer wanting to build three small apartment buildings (40 units total) off Bridge Port Ln, plus several duplexes and single family homes. The property is currently zoned for single family homes only. Nine residents spoke to us for almost an hour against the plan. We also heard from our city planner as well as the builder. We discussed many details about the project, and we decided to table the issue and we’ll take it up again at our next meeting.

We voted to approve a beer license for Wally Dogs, a new restaurant on Main Ave downtown. I’ve been to Wally Dogs many times already and it’s great to see Joel and Calvin doing well in their new endeavor.

We talked a bit about activities of the city’s sustainability committee. They’re looking at a number of great ideas to make us a bit more green. I’ve only been on the city council two weeks, and the most overwheliming thing for me is the volume of paper that I handle. I receive a packet delivered to my house every Saturday morning filled with paper. Everything in it is of course very important, but I’m hoping we can move toward electronic versions of the documents. The interesting thing is that we already have PDF versions of a couple of key documents, for example the agenda and packet (supporting documents) from this week’s meeting are available online. We’ll just need to make the packet more usable (converted documents instead of scanned) so that we can easily search them, and we’ll need to change the process a bit.

This is just a quick synopsis of some of the issues we discussed. As always, related documents and videos are available on the city web site. I encourage you to use those resources to find out more about the issues that are important to you.

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