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HomeMy WebLinkAboutweekly newsletter Date: January 6, 2012 To: Mayor & City Council From: Mark A. Rohloff, City Manager WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Subject: STATE BEGINS PROVIDING WEIGHTS & MEASURES SERVICES TO OSHKOSH 1.: As I've previously reported to Council, staff was working with the State Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) about temporarily providing weights and measures services to the city following the retirement of City Sealer Bruce Luedtke in December. We have been informed that DATCP has approved our six month contract to begin providing this service effective January 1, 2012. By state law, cities over 5,000 in population are required to provide weights and measures/city sealer services to their communities. We have been aware that DATCP has been providing these services to many municipalities, and when we were informed that DATCP would only charge us $16,000 for the first six months of 2012, we felt that the price for this service was reasonable enough that we should at least investigate in the short term. The Inspections Division will be responsible for managing this contract. However, there is minimal coordination that is required between the weights and measures program and other city development services, so there should be few, if any, coordination issues. DATCP is not in a position to guarantee that they can provide this service in the long term, and we want to make sure that this arrangement is satisfactory so that consumers in Oshkosh know that devices such as grocery scanners, gas pumps, and other scales are being reviewed for accuracy on a regular basis. We will evaluate this program after three months and determine if this is something we wish to pursue in the long term, or look at other options to provide this service, including recruiting for Mr. Luedtke's replacement. If you have any questions regarding our change-over to this program, please do not hesitate to contact me. SIDEWALK SNOW REMOVAL 2.: I am aware that Council Members received e-mails and/or phone calls from residents this week, inquiring as to why the city was removing snow from residences that had not cleared their sidewalks within the required 24-hour period. The residents raising this issue felt that because of the expected mild weather that we experienced later this week, they would be able to rely on Mother Nature to remove their snow since melting of the snow was inevitable. Public Works staff is often faced with this question from various members of the public who question why the city would enforce something that would be addressed through the natural process. This calls into question whether or not the staff is using "common sense" in administering this rule. I have often shared this same concern with Public Works staff and have asked them to provide as much common sense approach to their problem solving with respect to snow removal. I believe that Public Works staff does this on a regular basis. Weekly Newsletter January 6, 2012 Page 2 As a reminder, staff does not actively pursue snow removal enforcement. Rather, we remove snow on a complaint-only basis. This means that if residents do not have a concern regarding an area that may, in fact, be in violation of our ordinance, we do not pursue those areas. The only time that we ever unilaterally enforce the ordinance is if one violation is brought to our attention, and we observe similar violations of sidewalk snow removal in the same area. In the case of complaints this week, it was brought to our attention by a disabled resident that he was unable to properly maneuver on a sidewalk in a given residential area. This disabled resident called in a number of properties that had not cleaned their sidewalks. In other words, there was a legitimate case in which the lack of snow removal was causing a resident to be unable to use our city sidewalks. In those cases, we do have an obligation to make a reasonable accommodation for a disabled resident. As a result, we did, in fact, enforce the snow removal ordinance on residences that had planned all along to let Mother Nature do their work later on this week. This is just one example of the thought process that staff needs to go through when we are administering this snow removal ordinance. Although we do not get this type of information with each and every snow removal request, we have to take each complaint that we receive as a legitimate public safety concern, and must enforce the ordinance as described. In reality, a 24-hour snow removal requirement ends up becoming more of a 36-48 hour waiting period by the time staff receives and investigates a complaint. While I understand that some people felt that Mother Nature would take care of snow removal within 72 hours or less, we are faced with trying to make reasonable accommodations to any and all residents who bring these safety concerns to our attention. I hope this information is useful to you as you receive additional inquiries and/or complaints regarding snow removal through this season. If you have any questions regarding our administration of this policy, please contact Assistant Public Works Director Steve Gohde. DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS & UPDATES 3.: Other items I'm enclosing with today's Newsletter include the latest edition of the FOCUS newsletter, published by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, which features an article on state budgets for 2012. Insofar as minutes are th concerned, I'm enclosing the following: The minutes of the December 14 Landmarks th Commission meeting; the minutes of the October 4 Police & Fire Commission meeting; the th minutes of the December 13 Traffic Review Advisory Board meeting; the minutes of the stth December 1 Museum Board meeting; the minutes of the December 14 Parking Utility Commission meeting; and the meeting notice, agenda and background material for the January th 10 Traffic Review Advisory Board meeting. I'm also enclosing is the latest issue of The Wisconsin Taxpayer, which features an article on total taxes in 2011. The last item I'm enclosing is the final 2012 city budget document. Under separate cover, Human Resources is providing information from Carlson Consulting in anticipation of Wednesday's Work Session. TH MARTIN LUTHER KING BANQUET ON JANUARY 16 4.: As you may know, the th annual Martin Luther King Banquet is scheduled for Monday, January 16, and the city has acquired a table. Are any of you (Council Members and/or Department Heads) interested in attending? Please call Jackie as soon as possible if you plan to attend (236-5000). Your dinner choices are Chicken Marsala or Vegetable Medley (vegetables over rice). Jackie needs to know your preference for dinner when you call to make a reservation. Weekly Newsletter January 6, 2012 Page 3 th UPCOMING MEETINGS 5.: Meetings I have scheduled for the week of January 9 include the following: On Monday, at 7:30 a.m., I will be attending a meeting of the Chamber Governmental Affairs Committee. I will be joined at the meeting by Assistant City Manager John Fitzpatrick and Consultant Charlie Carlson, at which time we will provide a brief overview of the Classification & Compensation Study. On Monday, at 9:00 a.m., I will be th meeting with Mayor Tower to go over the January 10 Council Agenda. On Monday, at 3:00 p.m., Transportation Director Chris Strong and I will be meeting with Council Member th Poeschl regarding options for future transit funding. On Tuesday, January 10, at 10:30 a.m., I will be meeting with Mark Morelli of Habitat for Humanity. On Tuesday, at 1:30 p.m., I will be meeting with the state staff person from DATCP who is being assigned to the City of Oshkosh for our weights and measures program. On Wednesday, at 12:00 noon, I will be attending a meeting of the Wisconsin City/County Management Association here in Oshkosh. th At 12:00 noon on Thursday, January 12, department representatives and I will be participating in a webinar sponsored by the International City/County Management Association. The webinar subject is performance management, and the city will be participating with ICMA and member communities on developing performance management measures that can be used with each of our participating communities. This will help fulfill some of our goals for our strategic plan. If you have any questions regarding my attendance at any of these meetings, please do not hesitate to contact me. MAR/jdc Enclosures