Bike Lanes on 18th Avenue

This is less a county issue, and more of a city issue, but I think it is a positive for our community.  On Wednesday, I stopped at City Hall to see the plans for the reconstruction of 18th Avenue south of Decorah.  Since I live right on 18th, 2 blocks North of Decorah, I wanted to see what the plans looked like.

While there, I found out about an effort to gather private funding for a project to paint bike lanes on a few of the streets in West Bend, including 18th Avenue north of Decorah.  I'm not an avid biker by any stretch of the imagination, but I definitely like the idea.  If they can get everything together, the very wide section of 18th avenue in front of my own house would have a bike lane painted there, improving safety for bicyclists and created a marked parking lane. 

Since it would be privately funded, I see absolutely no negatives with this proposal, and think it would improve the quality of living.

For info on the group that is raising this money, visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/BikeFriendlyWestBend/

Compassionate Conservatism and the Homeless Shelter.

As many of you know, there is a plan being circulated to build a homeless shelter on county land.  When I first heard about this proposal, I decided to view this in relation to the concept of compassionate conservatism.  After reviewing and discussing the details of the proposal, I have expressed my support for it.

What is compassionate conservatism?  It is the concept that our countries social problems are best resolved through a partnership with private sector entities rather than through growing government, and solutions that are focused on reducing long term dependency.  We have a small homeless community in Washington County, and that community is already receiving a substantial amount of county services.  Scott Walker has frequently talked about measuring the success of government by the number of people who transition away from dependency on government benefits. 

Some key details about the proposal so far that led me to view this proposal as one that fits the umbrella of compassionate conservatism:

• 100% privately funded.  The homeless coalition, including partners like Family Promise and St. Vincent DePaul, are committed to providing 100% of the cost to build and operate the shelter.  The only thing they are asking is to build the shelter on county land.
• Fiscal Responsibility.  Final approval by the County, as well as construction of this project will not begin until 100% of the costs for the first 2 years have been fully secured.
• Path Towards Independence.  The homeless shelter would be the first step on a path towards independence, where the rest of the path is already in place.  The average stay would be 30 days, with a maximum stay of 60 days.  During that time, any mental health issues would be assessed, as well as any dependency issues.  Processes to begin recovery would be implemented.  Health needs would also be assessed.  Employment and employability options would also be assessed.  The goal during the 30-60 days would be to stabilize the individual and transition them into a more permanent & sustainable housing option using existing options in the community.  The other steps towards independency already exist within the community, and all of them are privately funded.
• Small Scale.  Because it is designed to be only a short-term, temporary housing solution, it is deliberately being built to be small in scale.  The building will have a capacity of 14 residents, which will enable it to serve approximately 100 people during the average year.
• Integration with Existing County Services.  Currently, the homeless who would be served by this project are scattered throughout the county.  As a result, the county employees who work with these individuals are forced to drive all over the county to reach them.  By centralizing them to a building that is footsteps away from the County's Human Services Offices, as well as the Sheriff's Department, it will improve efficiencies and response time for county employees.
• Increased Supervision.  This project will enable the homeless to be monitored and supervised during their 30 day stay at the homeless shelter.  The lack of supervision that exists in other models limits their ability to achieve successful outcomes.

In my eyes, this fits the definition of compassionate conservatism.  Not every individual will succeed in this program, but success will be significantly improved, and many more individuals will achieve long-term independence from government assistance in Washington County.

I welcome any feedback and concerns on this issue.

Human Services Committee Meeting

This week's human services committee has a couple of significant items on it.

Emergency Homeless Shelter---The Homeless Coalition is a group of local non-profits that have banded together to develop solutions to homelessness in Washington County.  The want to build an emergency shelter for homeless single adults, a need that is currently unaddressed in the community.  They believe they can get the funding for the building costs and operations of the facility.

They are asking the County for use of county land, either through a low-cost lease or no-cost lease.  The site they have in mind is within footsteps of the human services building, which would allow for a strong integration of long-term support with the emergency shelter.

Overall, my initial impression is that this is a good idea with a lot of positives, one that fits within the realm of compassionate conservatism.  I met with two key members of the homeless coalition on Friday to learn more about the program they are developing, and was very impressed.  Since the land is County land, it makes sense to offer the use of that land for a project that benefits the community.

The best part about this project is that they are not asking the County for any money, just use of county land.

Priority-Based Budgeting---We will be discussing the programs related to human services that were rated in the lowest quartile with the priority-based budget.  The goal of priority-based budgeting is to examine those programs and consider changes that will reduce the cost the county occurs.  Options may include staffing changes, users fees, identifying grant options, reducing the scope of the program, or any other logical solution.

As I looked through the initial results, I saw something unusual.  The human services committee spends 26% of the county budget, and the list of low-priority items totaled about 140 programs.  I was expecting about 25% of the programs on that list, roughly 35 programs, to be human services programs.  Instead, only 8 programs from the human services department made the list.  I think that speaks to the importance of everything that the Human Services Committee does.

Night Meetings---2 Votes Short

At today's county board meeting, I took a bold step.  A proposed ordinance would move the county board meetings from 9:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.  I proposed an amendment that would instead move those meetings to the evening at 7:00 p.m.  Supervisor Kelling was quick to step up and second the motion.

I have heard from many of my neighbors regarding the desire to move meetings to the evening, to increase public access to our proceedings.  I am working to try to make that a reality.

I knew going in that there was fairly strong support for night meetings.  While the amendment was 2 votes short, it was closer to succeeding than any previous attempt at making night meetings permanent.

The fight on this issue is not by any means over.  Instead, there are a lot of positives.

1.      I now know for sure that I have 10 other Supervisors who definitely share my view on night meetings.

2.      Three of the other Supervisors who voted in favor of this motion were on the executive board, including Mike Bassill, Tim Michalak, and Kris Diess.

3.      I also know that, if our rules would have allowed for an amendment to move the day of our meetings to Thursday, the amendment might have picked up another vote or two.

4.      Most importantly, the old guard knows how close that motion was, and can guess that the days of meeting during the daytime, away from public scrutiny, are coming to a close.

I plan to look at options for bringing this up again next summer.  Worst case scenario, we might pick up a vote or two in the April 2018 election, depending on how those elections go.

Theft of County Funds

Yesterday, I was notified by County Board Chairman Rick Gundrum that there was a theft of County Funds.  This afternoon, County Administrator Josh Schumann sent out a press release, which has been reposted on Washington County Insider at this link: http://washingtoncountyinsider.com/2016/07/washington-county-victim-of-wire-transfer-fraud/

This incident is still being investigated, so the information I have is heavily limited until that investigation is concluded.  I basically don't know any more than what is in the press release.

I want to apologize to everyone in Washington County that this happened.  Anytime something like this happens, an apology is due, no matter what precautions were in place.  I can imagine that each of the other 25 County Board Supervisors was just as surprised and dismayed as I was at this news.

I am gravely disappointed that something like this occurred, and that our county government failed to prevent it from occurring.  While many precautions were taken, they simply were not enough in this instance.  Rest assured, changes will be made to reduce the likelihood that this will occur again.

When I was first elected 3 months ago, I sought to be an advocate for responsible government.  That hasn’t changed, and in this case that means ensuring that additional precautions are taken.  While the county will never achieve perfect security to protect our financial resources in this digital age, we need to take the most reasonable and prudent steps possible.

I have submitted a request to the County Administrator, specifically requesting that our digital security be audited by an outside firm on at least an annual basis.  This will help to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence of an incident like this.  I will also be encouraging the County Board Supervisors who are on the Administrative Committee, as they oversee our Finance Department and I.T. Department, to make sure the funding is in place for these audits.  I also know that Josh and he County’s financial team are working to put other safeguards in place to further reduce the likelihood of another theft of this nature.

I also want to look at the positives from this incident, including:

1. This could have been much worse than it was. I say that not to minimize what happened, but to recognize that there was the potential for this to have been much larger in scale. We have been a fiscally sound county, with adequate financial reserves. While this theft was significant, it was not anywhere close to being as catastrophic as it could have been.
2. This appears to have been found relatively quickly, within two weeks. Many times, a seemingly isolated incident is a test, to see if the theft will be detected. If the theft is not discovered, the thief will return and begin to escalate the theft levels. One such incident at a previous employer persisted over 4 years. That didn’t happen here, because the incident was discovered so quickly.
3. Our response to this incident was quick. Immediate safeguards have been put in place to prevent these particular hackers from using the same tactics to return and victimize our County Government again.

I apologize again to all of the taxpayers of Washington County for this unfortunate incident, and hope the perpetrators are brought to justice..