New town hall open house attracts few residents
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
The Town of East Troy hosted an open house June 11 to give the residents the chance to learn more about the proposed town hall and ask questions and not many people showed up.
Town of East Troy Chairman Joe Klarkowski put the attendance at two- to three-dozen residents. In contrast, the June 18 special meeting called by the electors to slow down/stop the new town hall project, had more than 90 people in attendance.
Klarkowski said he was surprised at the low turnout for the open house.
“Twenty-three people signed the sign-in sheet, but I know there were at least five to seven people who were there whose names weren’t on the sheet, so I’d say conservatively, we had 25 to 36 people who came to the open house. It was really disappointing. Only six left comments.”
The open house ran from 3 to 7 p.m. last week Thursday and while it was sparsely attended, Klarkowsk said the township received some good feedback.
“There were two people who said, ‘Just build it, it’s about time,’ six people said build it, but watch the dollars and have more multi-use spaces, one person said it was a major overreach in size and scope, two people said build it, but use bonding instead of along, one person said ‘not now’ and to keep it under $4 million, and one person said, ‘no, no, no, what we have is great,’” Klarkowsk said.
Some residents just wanted more information.
“I’d like to find a way to support this, so we need to understand it,” said Scott Kosteretz, who attended with his wife, Linda.
For the most part, people who attended the meeting asked thoughtful questions and offered suggestions, Klarkowsk said.
“What I’m hearing is that people want a smaller project with less bells and whistles,” Klarkowsk said. “No skylights, look at combining with the village for Police Department space, strip it bare to save money.
Special meeting held
The matter has enough people upset that several hundred residents signed a petition last month to call a special town meeting of the electors. The meeting was Thursday night at Town Hall in the park pavilion.
The elector-called meeting was open to the public and the new proposed town hall was discussed, among other things.
See next week’s edition of the newspaper for more information on the special meeting and the outcome of the votes to stop the new town hall construction process.
