The 3 Principles and Policies the City of Shorewood should adopt in 2025

1) FULLY ADOPT DEMOCRACY

• All Public Meetings Must Offer Zoom Participation

• The City Should Strongly Promote and Reward Much Greater Diverse Resident Participation in Meetings and Government

• All City Data Should Be Made Easily & Rapidly Available Upon Request to Residents at No Cost.

• Remove any fees for any resident’s electronic data requests unless there is a direct commercial value/purpose to the request. Charge significant fees for outside data requests of a commercial nature.

• All City Council & Commission Meetings Should Begin With Scheduled Open Unlimited Dialogue With Any Residents Wishing to Participate

• All Residents Should Be Regularly Surveyed and Polled About Priorities, Needs, Issues, Opportunities and Feedback

• The City’s Operations (Spending, Data, Planning, Issues, Rules, Codes, Priorities, Events, Activities and Services etc.) Should Be Transparent, Open, Accurate, Complete, Easily Understood and Accessible By All

• Citizens & Commissions Should Become Skilled Advisory Groups Focused on Achieving Specific Consensual Objectives & Priorities

• The Entire Community Should Contribute to and Be Asked To Approve a Master Plan with Consensual Top Line Objectives, Priorities and Principles

• Regularly Evaluate the Effectiveness of All Staff Against Objectives/Priorities/Principles, Establish 2 Staff Members as Empowered Problem Solvers (SOLVERS) to Effectively Solve Resident & Community Problems – Avoiding Unnecessary Use of Council & Commission Time & Resources – While Documenting and Reporting to All City Officials Their Actions and Results – And Serving As Direct Liaisons to The Council and Commissions To Enable All Council Members to Be Fully Informed Without Violating Open Meeting Laws

• Invest in more and better activities, programs and facilities for seniors, disabled residents and children. POLL THE CITY RESIDENTS FOR NEEDS AND PRIORITIES. Be willing to develop physical resources outside of the City borders.

• Make all City communications, data and activities more accessible, open, resident-centric (designed to satisfy resident wants and needs).

• Manage the City as 4 Sectors (NW Island, West, NE, SE)

• Require staff (SOLVERS) to do simple 1 page max public justifications for significant spending and decisions based upon priorities, guidelines, objectives and principles. Staff should never lie, mislead, be mal-informed, fail to provide excellent service and post reviews, refuse to answer public questions etc.

• Create a new master plan for natural resources and make it happen – trees, habitat, streams, wildlife, parks, and recreation. Use newly formed commissions and local expertise.

• Create a new comprehensive plan using new input from residents – with clear priorities for timeframe and spending.

• Help small businesses after soliciting their input – signage, marketplace, contracting locally, prioritizing local residents etc.

• Produce quarterly reports to the residents about progress against city priorities and objectives. DASHBOARD.

• Push more decisions down to a highly trained “SOLVER” staff and focus the council and commissions on strategies, priorities and serious oversight.

• Remove all unnecessary restrictions on free speech signage during and outside of State mandated election periods.

2) FULLY ADOPT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY & EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT

• Return $1,000 to each taxpayer from excessive City savings by mid-year 2025 Consider reducing taxes and spending as an objective for 2026.
• Reduce unnecessary spending – contractors, contracts, projects, equipment and even staff. Evaluate all alternatives, costs, options and better practices. Avoid contractors when at all possible and reasonable.
• Rigorously pursue grants, donations & partnerships
• Fully Investigate Bolton & Menk for Possible Malfeasance and Overcharges.
• Reinvent City Engineering. Issue a temporary Moratorium on Bolton & Menk until the investigation is complete

3) FULLY ADOPT HEALTH & SAFETY PRIORITIES & BEST PRACTICES

• Issue a temporary moratorium on all pesticide use, major projects, density plans, City water projects, ordinance re-do’s, new bylaws and contract renewals until THE NEW CITY COUNCIL can get ahead of the game and fully understand what is best for the City under a clearer vision.
• Add automatic speed warning & ticketing machines, new control signs for dangerous intersections, one way streets to make biking and walking safer, and flashing lights controlled road crossings across 19 at Minnetonka Drive. Find a way to make some roads specifically bike and walk safe routes. Ensure every intersection is safe!
• Investigate paving and repaving to evaluate quality and proven best practices. Apply far better practices with quality oversight and warranties.
• Make sure all residents know what the police are doing, who they are, where their time is spent, crimes stats, where there are issues and complaints, and what all residents want police priorities to be. Same with Fire. Conduct private interviews & testimonials. .
• Make sure drinking water is tested, filtered and safe. Make sure no one including the City, is contaminating drinking water or the ecosystem.
• Fully test and disclose water quality issues. Do not force any resident to give up private well water or charge them for CITY OR PRIVATE well water. Do not force any resident or developer to adopt City water unless there is a clear and present danger or unless they agree to pay all of the costs of City water to the extent that the City water system is safe and of high quality, and sustainable economically.
• Ensure all residents know what is added to the City water system (i.e. fluoride), what contaminants have been found in City water, and what steps and costs are associated with improving the quality of City water,
• Provide comprehensive water management to avoid flooding, home damage, depletion of essential water flow and contamination. Get data on existing problems and potential problems. Solve the problems.