Board and Committee of the Whole (CoW) agenda review #
Let’s start with a village website criticism. Suppose I wanted to put links in this note that sent you to the agendas with a single click. Well, I can’t, because the website doesn’t do that. Permanent URLs to content have been a best practice in web development for as long as web development has existed. Instead, here’s what I have to do to tell you how to find the documents:
- Go here - https://caledonia-wi.gov/agendasandminutes
- Click Agendas
- Click 2026
- Click 05.19.2026
- Click View
Then…
- Click Committee of the Whole
- Click 2026
- Click 05.19.2026
- Click View
Board #
Quarry #
There are 6 resolutions on the board meeting agenda, one of which is the blasting permit renewal for the quarry on 3 Mile Rd. Between now and Tuesday, I will try to dig up as much history on this activity as possible. I found this article from 2020 if anyone is interested. Going out on a limb, I suspect that detonating explosives in a residential area has been controversial in the past. I don’t know what our obligation is as a village to keep renewing this permit. I don’t know what the complaints have been since the last approval. I don’t know what the oversight is by the village. There’s a lot to learn before Tuesday. If you are in the immediate area and want to talk my ear off about the history, please contact me. And if you want to speak your mind at the board meeting, please show up for public comment. It’s at the beginning of the board meeting, shortly after the 6pm start.
Website #
Yours truly is going to get his very own special committee to work on fixing the thing, to the degree we can given that it is a commercial product and will be constrained by its available features. If any member of the public would like to participate in any way, let me know.
Closed session (again) #
2 of the 3 topics for which we went into closed session last time are on the agenda again for closed session: TID 5’s lakefront property and TID 6’s multi-family development at N Green Bay Rd and Four Mile Rd. The conversations last time were robust and the closed session lasted quite awhile. The same could happen again, or it might not. I would bet on a lengthy closed session.
Reminder to everyone that closed session is used for these two topics because talking about the deal terms publicly would disadvantage the village in the ongoing negotiations. Once we decide we have a proposal that we want to vote on, that discussion and vote happens in the open. The potential to vote on what we discuss in that closed session is on the agenda in case we get to that point on Tuesday.
CoW #
The Committee of the Whole follows the board meeting. After the usual and brief committee updates, three items in Continuing Business look interesting.
First is “Using village hall for community functions.” We should figure out how to accommodate this, in my opinion. It’s the public’s building.
Second is “Review Teleconference Policy.” I’m hoping this is a misleading description and that it’s really about livestreaming the public meetings, maybe even about public remote participation (eg giving public comment remotely instead of having to attend the meeting in person).
Third is “Discussion on Committee of the Whole Structure.” We started this discussion in late April. We decided to re-establish some committees we used to have, eg Finance, and need to continue to discuss the overall structure. Saying “the board should do more financial oversight” is the easy part. Figuring out the precise mechanics of who, what, how is next.
Over/under on duration #
2 hours 15 minutes
My first two meetings have been 3:15 and 3:45. Small win if we keep this one under 3 hours, I guess.