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HomeMy WebLinkAboutWeekly Newsletter Date: June 23, 2011 To: Mayor & City Council From: Mark A. Rohloff, City Manager WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Subject: MAINTENANCE OF LANDSCAPED MEDIANS 1.: As in previous years, we are beginning to receive complaints from residents about the condition of landscaped medians, particularly those that are at or near the entry ways into the city. I know that Council members occasionally receive similar types of calls, so I wanted to briefly explain our responsibility for some of the medians in question. The most common complaints we received are to mow the medians on gateways into the city, particularly those on STH 21 (Omro Road) west of USH 41, and STH 44 (South Park Avenue), th south of 20 Avenue. Neither of these medians are in the City of Oshkosh; they are in the Town of Algoma, and because they are on state highways, they are maintained by Winnebago County under contract by the Wisconsin DOT. Unfortunately, the DOT has been reducing funds to counties for all maintenance (including snow removal) on these highways, so the county has cut back on maintenance of these areas, to as few as 2 mowings annually. This makes these medians particularly bad during high profile events such as Country USA and EAA. Our Streets Division reports that medians on both STHs 21 and 44 were moved this week, but this may result in high grass around EAA. This problem has become an annual ritual. Meanwhile, the city has assumed the responsibility for the landscaped areas of our new roundabouts. We tried to keep the landscaping in these areas to a low maintenance minimum, so as to ease the burden they place on our already thinned out Parks crews. Our crews have already been out this spring doing routine early season maintenance. We have also alerted the DOT to the condition of some new plantings that did not survive the first winter and must be replaced by the contractor. These new responsibilities have placed an added strain on the parks crews, and any additional cuts we experience as a result of state aid reductions will impact our ability to maintain these areas in the manner that everyone expects. Councilor Cummings asked if perhaps we could engage the assistance of community groups to “adopt” these new areas, much like the “adopt a highway” programs. This is certainly something we could pursue, provided that these groups follow certain safety guidelines that are required of anyone maintaining areas in the public right of way. Weekly Newsletter June 23, 2011 Page 2 OCMS TO RECEIVE NATIONAL AWARD 2.: Our Oshkosh Community Media Services (OCMS) was recently informed that they are to receive a 2011 Hometown Video Award. This national program awards video programming in 20 categories, and received nearly 1100 entries this year from community television centers around the United States and Canada. More than 65 access centers assisted with judging, bringing together more than 300 volunteer judges to review the entries. The city received an award in the “Community Events – Professional” category for its coverage of the Oshkosh Holiday Parade. Several other OCMS programs were also considered for national awards. Congratulations to the entire OCMS staff and its supporters for the national recognition they will be receiving and for the quality programming they bring us every day. CITY CENTER HOTEL DELINQUENCIES THREATEN LICENSES 3.: City Code requires that annual licensees are up to date in the payment of all taxes before an annual license may be awarded or re-issued. Our Finance and City Clerk staff have reported to me that the City Center is delinquent on hotel taxes dating back to February 2011, and are also behind in their real estate taxes. Additionally, they have not complied with several new regulations governing pools that may result in having their pool shut down. As a result of these delinquencies, City Center Hotel can not be issued any licenses that may be up for renewal, particularly its liquor license. Their hotel tax delinquency may also result in them having their hotel license revoked. Meanwhile, my request for City Center to provide me with information so that we may review any possible request for public assistance went past a deadline without a response. Even if they had complied, we could not consider public assistance when they are delinquent on taxes. Without their compliance for a request to provide necessary financial information that I have been requesting for two years now, I can no longer recommend any public support for this project until a more responsive ownership group is prepared to work with us cooperatively. PLANNED DEVELOPMENT OVERLAY FOR CONVENTION CENTER AREA: 4. In the aftermath of the recent rezoning on Ninth and Koeller, and in discussions about the uncertain future of the City Center Hotel, Community Development staff pointed out to me that, unlike the recent rezoning on Ninth, the area around the Convention Center and City Center Hotel site does not have a Planned Development overlay assigned to its Commercial zoning. Even though long range plans have identified the site for its current use, the issue of a Planned Development designation never came up until recently. Like Ninth Avenue, the downtown riverfront has significant importance as a transitional zone, seeing that it is the gateway to the North Main Street commercial corridor and is also seen as a gateway for boaters entering Oshkosh from Lake Winnebago. With the importance of this site to the overall downtown area, the land uses of the entire riverfront will hinge on the success of this area to attract visitors. The value of a Planned Development overlay to this area would demonstrate to prospective owners along the riverfront and downtown that we committed to making this area successful. It also sends a message that the city will be expecting a high level of quality to any development that may wish to be considered for public assistance. Towards that end, I have directed Community Development Director Davis to initiate the process to add a Planned Development overlay to the Convention Center area. This th issue will be brought to the Plan Commission at their July 5 meeting, after which it will be scheduled for a public hearing with the City Council. Please contact Mr. Davis if you have any questions regarding this matter. Weekly Newsletter June 23, 2011 Page 3 AMBULANCE BILLING CHANGEOVER 5.: Council recently authorized the switchover of our ambulance billing services from a Texas company to Lifequest, a firm based in Wautoma. While the changeover has been a positive one internally for our staff, our residents have encountered some problems during the changeover. Although Lifequest was not required to service accounts prior to their contract, they agreed to assist in these collections to make the changeover as seamless as possible. During the changeover, we have encountered some problems with accounts that had not been managed properly, resulting in many problems of varying degrees of inconvenience for our residents. We knew that something was wrong this week when our Fire Department began to receive a flood of calls about problems with uncollected accounts from people who had wanted to pay their bills, but were not billed properly. These problems have been known to occur when a billing firm gets dumped in favor of another firm. Lifequest has been working with our Fire Department to resolve these issues, many of which are legitimate concerns brought to our attention by our residents. Should you encounter any problems, please have the residents contact Lori in our Finance Department, who is logging in all of the complaints and referring them to Lifequest so that they may be addressed. If you have any questions on this issue, please feel free to contact Fire Chief Franz. MENOMINEE PARK TRAIN OUT OF SERVICE FOR REPAIRS 6.: Parks Director Ray Maurer has reported to me that our 1972 amusement train engine “blew” out on us last week. Parks Operations Manager Chad Dallman has identified a vendor that recently rebuilt a similar but older engine for Wausau/Marathon county parks. We will be hauling it over there this week. We are hoping that the vendor can get to it ASAP, but we are not certain if the train will be back in th time for Sawdust Days and the 4 of July holiday. We wanted Council to be aware of this situation in case you receive any comments on the train’s conspicuous absence from the park’s activities. If you have any questions, please contact Parks Director Maurer. KUDOS FOR SNOOZE AT THE ZOO 7.: Please find attached one of several complimentary comments we received about our recent “Snooze at the Zoo” family camping event that was held earlier this month at the Menomonee Park Zoo. We had over 100 residents participate in the event. Thanks to Jenny McCollian and the staff at the zoo for their efforts with this successful event! MEETING SCHEDULE 8.: Among the meetings I have scheduled for the week of June 27 include the following: On Monday, June 27, I will be meeting with EPA Region V staff to discuss an order they recently gave the city regarding sewer system backups. We have been informed that several other communities in Wisconsin and Region V have received similar orders and inquiries, so we are working with our colleagues in these cities to jointly prepare to address EPA’s concerns. On Tuesday at 7:30 AM, Mayor Tower and I are meeting to go over Tuesday’s Council agenda. On Wednesday, June 29, at 7:30 AM, I will be attending an OAEDC meeting. On Thursday, June 30, at 7:30 AM, I will be attending a strategic planning session with Chamco. On Friday, July 1, I will be out of the office on vacation. I will only do a newsletter next week if there is a sufficient number of items to report. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding my attendance at these meetings. MAR/jab