By Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza

Here at the city, we are constantly trying to make sure we are as accessible as possible. After all, we are your employees and we want to make sure you know what we are doing on your behalf.

To that end, I’ve come up with a little idea that might help. Our meeting agendas are posted in several locations before the meetings, but not everyone sees them. Rather than you reading about what has already happened, this column will highlight some of the things that are coming up in our meetings. As always, I’d love feedback on ways to improve this, so please reach out via stevenspoint.com and send me an email or even a quick call.

City Standing Committees – Monday August 9 at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room at 933 Michigan Ave.

Personnel – Our Transportation Manager, Susan Lemke, has recently retired from the City. We thank her for years of dedicated service and wish her well. Because of the retirement, we’re evaluating the structure and duties of the management team. We’ll have a Reorganization request to consider. We also are always trying to do more with less and that leads us to a request for reclassification for to positions in our Economic Development Department as well as consideration of a stipend pay for those who acquire additional related (and approved) professional certifications.

Finance -Dealing with everything relating to money, this committee will have a presentation of our 2020 audit results, a review of the 2020 budget variations and discussions on the 2022 City budget planning process. We will also be discussing the sidewalk continuation project and how that gets funded, awarding a bid to remove the former Maytag laundromat on Business 51 and accepting a proposal for our regular revaluation of assessed properties in the city. Finally, we will have a closed session to discuss a developer’s agreement for a possible project in TID 10 (general downtown area).

Public Policy and General Government –Alderpersons changed the name recently from Public Protection and this deals with everything that doesn’t fall under another committee. A short list this month with a few events needing consideration. 212 Fitness is asking to serve alcohol outside the normal area for an event on August 28. Street closing requests for the Pointoberfest and Blubber Run on September 18th, Give & Live Better 5k run/walk on August 28th and the 5th annual Purple Ribbon Walk on October 1st. We will also be discussing updates to our public participation plan for Community Development Block Grant Funding.

Public Works – We will have a presentation from AECOM on their recommended design for the Business 51 project. This is going to be the largest project for the city in a lifetime. We’ve had several public input sessions and this will be an update to the progress. As we start finishing up our scheduled project, we may have money left over. We use that money for additional streets projects and this fall we will be doing some additional paving. We’re considering approving the project at a cost of just over $236,000 from American Asphalt. We will also be considering a speed limit reductions along north Division Street leading up to the roundabout. Right now, it goes from 25mph to 35mph and down to 15mph. The proposal would keep 25mph until the 15mph zone at the circle.

Most meetings happen on Monday evening, but not all. All of our agendas, along with documents related to these items can be found at stevenspoint.com or our mobile app. You can find the meetings live streamed or after the fact on 105.9 WSNP-LP, our cable access channel or from our website.