The Opposite of Transparency

On February 18, 2024 the Shorewood City Council, along with key city staffers, held what they referred to as a “retreat” at the Shorewood Community & Event Center. This was essentially an all-day work session to discuss strategic priorities and several other key topics including:

• General Fund
• SCEC Special Fund
• Capital Funds (Park, Equipment, Street, Community Infrastructure)
• Enterprise Funds (Water, Stormwater, Sanitary Sewer, Recycling)

What made this different from any other work session was that it was structured to discourage public attendance and the ability to review the meeting after the fact.

• Calling it a “retreat” makes the meeting sound private and exclusive.
• Having the meeting on a Tuesday, starting at 8:30 AM makes it inaccessible to most people.
• The change in venue to a small, closed, off-site room, is intimidating and inconvenient to anyone who wants to observe.
• A 7 ½ hour meeting discourages almost anyone but the participants.
• The meeting was not made available via Zoom in real-time or video recorded for viewing after the fact.

At the regular City Council meeting on February 24, staff presented for council approval a one page summary of the “retreat” minutes. One page for more than a 7 hour meeting! (view on pg.11) To her credit, Councilmember Digruttolo asked that staff generate a more comprehensive set of minutes for approval at the next meeting.

The revised minutes for the “retreat” (page 3 here) are an improvement from those initially submitted, but raise many questions, particularly without any video or documentation to reference. It seems unlikely that these discussions were held without any documents or slides being presented, yet nothing was found after a search of the city website. Now, obtaining access to these documents will require a formal data request, a process that is time consuming and definitely not user friendly. Shorewood Data Practices Policy.

Minutes for these meetings are not meant to be a verbatim transcript, but without a video record, the generic language used here does not help. Phrases like, “participants discussed”, “participants proposed” and “participants debated” obscure rather than enlighten. Who said what? Which individual took which position on the debate?

The answers to these questions are of particular significance when looking at some of the important topics discussed.

General Fund

Finance Director Jeanne Schmuck presented projections that show a potential budget issue by 2030. The documentation with the assumptions and variables that led to those projections should be easily accessible to the public. There apparently were “participant discussions” about this and other important financial considerations. The details of each elected official’s position is not available.

Capital Funds

“Participants debated” the use of bonding. A debate indicates there are differing viewpoints on this. What are they and who holds each one?

Enterprise Funds

The troubled Water Fund was the focus here. Residents should be interested in how each elected official felt about the following:

Base Water Fee: Develop a proposal for implementing a base water fee or infrastructure fee for all residents, including those not currently connected to the water system.

Based on the plain language in the minutes on this, evidently there is some thought to charging ALL residents for municipal water, whether they are a customer or not.

Also:

Point of Sale Policy: Create a policy for mandating water hookups at the point of sale for properties, including potential financing options for residents.

It appears that the city is moving ahead to force residents to connect to and become a paying customer of the municipal water business when they sell their home.

As readers can see, a lot of important discussion and consensus occurred during this “retreat”. None of it is directly visible to residents. What should have been multiple, open, televised, accessible meetings, was done in exactly the opposite manner. SCA has consistently objected to this annual meeting and will continue to do so. (last year’s article)

This type of meeting is the opposite of transparent and should never happen again.