City seeks downtown rebirth

Council agrees to hire consultant for multiyear revitalization effort

A plan to begin a downtown revitalization effort moved forward Tuesday night with the city council agreeing to seek outside help.

At the regular city council meeting, aldermen approved spending $25,000 to hire Graef-USA, Inc. to provide a park planning and design proposal for the revitalization of the downtown area. While the project will include deciding what to do with the vacant former laundromat lot at the corner of State St. and Wisconsin Ave. it will stretch beyond the .2 acre parcel and encompass exploring other amenities and improvements in the downtown. City coordinator Joe Harris explains the area they are looking at is roughly between Broadway Ave. (Hwy 64) and Perkins Street and from Second Street to Park Street.

Mayor Mike Wellner noted that the city is looking at projects to be done over a period of years. Wellner said the park planning committee met last week and while they had many ideas of what people wanted to see happen, they also felt it was necessary to get help from experts to see what has worked or not worked elsewhere.

Wellner also said he will be bringing to council a proposed change to the committee, moving Harris to an ex-officio role while bringing on city resident and downtown property owner Doug Gasek who has done this sort of work in the past. “It will be a benefit to have Doug Gasek on there,” Wellner said.

Alderman Tim Hansen said he supported the plan, but questioned what had changed in two weeks since the last council meeting where the city had decided to slow the process down. “We wanted to put the brakes on this,” Hansen said.

Wellner replied that it was from the committee meeting last week. “We had all these ideas and we need someone to put it together for us and give us more direction,” he said. Alderman Laura Holmes praised the idea of hiring an outside consultant as a way to help the downtown and help the entire city.

Alderman Mike Bub also spoke in support of hiring the consultant, but cautioned the committee that it was critical for them to set goals for what they wanted to accomplish. For example, he said if they wanted the downtown to be a place to hold street dances and festivals. Another goal may be to attract new businesses or bring in housing. He said without an objective in mind, they won’t be able to figure out what to achieve. He also suggested that, as with the pool project, those involved be willing to visit other communities to get ideas about what works and doesn’t work.

He also praised the plan to bring Gasek on board the committee noting that there are downtown revitalization programs that have grant funds available.

“We need to think big and bold. If we are going to do this, let’s do this,” Bub said.

Alderman Chrissy Weix also spoke in support of hiring the consultant comparing it to a road or public utilities project describing the downtown as basic community infrastructure. “It is still infrastructure, we are investing in an entire area of our city,” Weix said. “It is no different than building a water tower.”

Council members voted unanimously to approve hiring Graef-USA, Inc. to work with the city on the project.

In other business, council members:

_ Received a presentation on the annual report from the Hotel/Motel Room Tax Commission from Sue Emmerich of the Medford Area Chamber of Commerce. Emmerich highlighted the number of events that were cancelled last year due to the pandemic and how they had to start from scratch for other events such as Harvest Days. She also noted the changes in the financial reporting forms to make them uniform for all groups, which had been a request from the city council last year.

_ Approved levying the final special assessments for the Perkins Street road project done last summer. In keeping with past city practice, the estimated cost to property owner was in many cases much higher than the actual cost. The estimates last year were for assessments to total $176,652 while the actual amount being assessed to property owners based on road frontage and driveway apron size is $118,909. Harris explained the biggest variable is the driveway apron size. The city charges property owners one-third the cost of the blacktop, the cost of curb and gutter, sewer and water laterals, 20% of the engineering cost and for the driveway aprons.

_ Approved the annual designation of designated unreserved accounts with carryover money from the previous year’s budget. The city has 17 designated general fund reserves with reserves growing from $1,037,794.19 last year to $1,230,191.70 this year. The biggest increases in reserves are in insurance premium savings, road salt and sand, city recreation funds and public works equipment. There are also designated reserve funds for the refuse and recycling area of the budget and for the wastewater utility.

are going to do this, let’s do this.”

—Alderman Mike Bub about the need to think big in looking at ways to improve the downtown.

FILE PHOTO “W e

need to think big and bold. If we