Whitefish Bay Week in Review: March 27 to April 2

Election Day is Tuesday, and Patch has everything you need to know about the candidates running for School Board and Village Board.

In case you missed it, we have condensed the election coverage articles and other top news stories from this week into our Week In Review column.

The Whitefish Bay School District has some important decisions ahead in the next three years, and the three candidates for School Board have different opinions on whether the board would benefit from experience or a new voice.

Whitefish Bay voters will make that choice in Tuesday's election, as attorney Anne Berleman Kearney, a political newcomer, is challenging six-year incumbents Marie Greco and Jim Phillips in a three-way race for two board seats. Terms are three years long.

Whitefish Bay Patch sponsored a candidate forum with the four write-in Village Trustee candidates Wednesday night at the Whitefish Bay Women's Club.

Write-in candidates William Demet, Andrew Martin, Lauri Rollings and Brenda Szumski weighed in on sewer fixes, budget cuts, communication improvement, police consolidation and business development on Silver Spring Drive.

Patrick DeGrave, a municipal administrator who began his public sector career as a police officer, was named Whitefish Bay's village manager Monday. 

The Village  Board met in special session to approve DeGrave's contract, which includes an annual salary of $105,000. DeGrave is expected to start his new job May 2. 

DeGrave earned a slot among  for the position when one of the finalists, Denise Pieroni, accepted another position in the midst of the search process. 

DeGrave served as Oak Creek city administrator from 2006 until the council voted not to renew his contract in 2010. DeGrave has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at Concordia College and consulting.

State Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) said Tuesday she is considering running against Sen. Alberta Darling, should a recall election happen. She said she and former Rep. Sheldon Wasserman are both considering the Senate bid, and the two of them are trying to figure out who the best candidate would be. Wasserman lost to Darling in 2008 by 1,000 votes or 1 percent of the ballots cast.

Consultants hired to draft a comprehensive study of village storm water and sanitary sewer operations plan to finish the report in July, not October, as projected at last week’s Village Board meeting.

Donohue and Associates consultants originally expected to be finished with the study in April, but to allow time for new, more accurate rainfall data to be collected to calibrate the sanitary sewer model with actual rainfall conditions.

At a special Village Board meeting Monday, Donohue engineer Steve Stricklen said the projected delay until October was based on faulty data gathered from a weather station at Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport. The airport had only recorded about one-third of the total rainfall, he said. After inputting data from another weather station, near the Bayside Police Department, the existing model results more closely match the measured flows.