By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
The East Troy Village Board spent much of the June 27 meeting talking with members of the East Troy Community Development Alliance and community members about creating a better working relationship between the village and the group.
There has been some tension between some board members and CDA members after the May 16 board meeting where discussions about the village’s expectations of the CDA and how it reports its progress got heated.
It was decided at the May 16 meeting that the two groups would sit down in a roundtable discussion at the June 27 Committee of the Whole meeting to work out the issues.
After taking care of a few agenda items June 27 in a regular meeting session, which included approving the bid to rehab Well 6 and the mobile home park permit for Meadows Development, the board adjourned to the COW meeting for discussion.
After gathering around the tables CDA President Paul Nyffeler read an opening statement prepared for the meeting by the CDA board, which outlined the organization’s stance on what its responsibilities were, some it its recent successes, where it was headed and what it expected from the village.
“So, the ETCDA feels that the Village Board’s role should be to work with the ETCDA to make the process of locating and maintaining a business here easier. We believe that we can be a great resource to the village for the direction on policy, resource allocation, infrastructure improvements, community vision and to be the leaders in bringing this area together as a community,” the opening letter read in part.
“We’re looking to arrive at a common set of goals,” Nyffeler said after reading the letter.
Trustee Matt Johnson said he was uncomfortable with government getting too involved with business development.
“I get nervous when government is looking at what to do for business,” Johnson said. “That’s what the chamber and ETCDA is for.”
Johnson said that while he appreciated the first- and second-quarter reports the CDA had provided for the meeting, detailing its activities in the past six months, what he would really like from the organization is to give the village recommendations on how to improve things to help businesses, since they were on the ground and heard what problems people were experiencing.
The CDA members told the board they were focused on keeping businesses in East Troy and working with them to make the experience of being an East Troy business a better one. To do so, they are looking into forming some sort of “concierge” service to help existing and new businesses work with the village when doing things like expanding or bringing a business to the area.
Johnson said he liked the idea as it would also provide the village with feedback on how to improve services.
The CDA is also working on getting its “Operation East Troy” program up and running to get community feedback from about what people want East Troy to be. CDA board member Ted Zess pointed out that neither the village or the CDA had gone to the community to ask what it wanted for the future.
The CDA members told the board that while attracting new business to East Troy was something they were committed to, they felt it was vitally important to build relationships with businesses that are already here and might need their help.
“It’s natural to want more and new businesses to build the tax base,” CDA member John Jacoby said. “Every measure of success is more and new. But every business that leaves or thinks of leaving is a failure.”
The discussion continued for a quite a while with ideas about village infrastructure improvements, perceptions of government and possible incentives for businesses being shared.
When the topic of where to go next came up, Village Board President Randy Timms said “I asked that 45 minutes ago” and Jacoby took offense and said so. When Timms apologized and attempted to reword his point that he felt it was time to move on much earlier in the evening, Jacoby said Timms’ comments were indicative of the communication problems plaguing them. Then Jacoby packed up and left the meeting.
Trustee Scott Seager suggested a Village Board members join the CDA and said Timms would be the ideal choice since Timms’ expanded job duties were in line with the CDA’s goals. However, Seager acknowledged there was tension between Timms and the CDA an maybe someone else would be better. Former trustee Linda Kaplan served in that role before she left the board in April, after choosing not to run for re-election.
Trustee Dusty Stanford said he wanted to see more of the reports like the one the CDA prepared for the meeting and that the group should be “bragging” about what it’s doing after Neffeler admitted it wasn’t in his nature to do that.
Nyffeler said they were fine with that because communication was vital for the entities to be able to work together effectively. Quarterly COW meetings such as the one Monday night were suggested as a way to keep the lines of communication open.
