EED recommends county action on housing, childcare

Supporting affordable housing and childcare would become part of Marathon County’s strategic plan, under a proposal endorsed last Thursday by the Extension, Education and Economic Development Committee.

In order to “enhance workplace availability,” supervisor David Baker recommended developing policies to support “affordable, high-quality childcare” and “safe, affordable housing.” He said the EED should work with non-committee county supervisors and various stakeholders to come up with specific policy recommendations by Aug. 31, 2023.

Supervisor Tom Rosenberg questioned what policies the county government could implement to support better childcare and housing.

Baker said he agreed with Rosenberg’s question, but after talking with county officials, he said there are matters of regulation and zoning that could impact the cost of childcare and housing. He said he has ideas to present, which he promised to elaborate on later.

“We may very well determine that we don’t have a role,” Baker said. “That might be the outcome of the discussions, that we have a very limited or no role.”

The committee eventually voted to forward Baker’s recommendations to the executive committee.

n Supervisor Baker requested two future agenda items, including a proposed policy that would allow three members of a standing committee to add an agenda item to the committee’s next agenda by making a written request to the chairman no sooner than seven days before the meeting.

Baker pointed to a pair of recent fivehour budget meetings as evidence of a “breakdown” in the committee system. He said his proposed policy is one way “to improve the functionality of the standing committees.”

Baker said he recently made a request to add something to the agenda that was “clearly within our committee’s scope,” but it was not added.

Baker’s second request was for an educational presentation on the impact of a court opinion, Zecchino v. Dane County, regarding the permissible use of email by county board members.

Corporation counsel Michael Puerner said he thinks the policy recommendation would need to go to the executive committee for discussion, and he also recommended that the educational presentation go to the full county board.

Baker said his goal with both agenda items is to prevent long, inefficient meetings during budget time.

“I’m going to do what I can to make sure that doesn’t happen next year,” he said.

n The committee heard or read updates from the MCDEVCO, the Marathon County Public Library, UW-Extension and UW-Stevens Point - Wausau Campus.