Trustees Focused on Village Manager Search, Sewer Issues

The Trustees have been putting in lots of hours lately, meeting four of the last five days.  

Most of the time has been spent interviewing Village Manager candidates. From a personal perspective, while my wife wasn't pleased with being a single mom this past week, the process was one of the most satisfying issues I've been a part of during my term on the Village Board. I believe we had several home-run applicants, and I'm honestly excited for one of them to take the helm. 

The "big" news at the regular meeting came from our sewer consultants, Donohue, who explained their report would be delayed until late fall. There are no residents more discouraged than the seven Trustees with this result. 

The explanation, which I will simplify, is that Donohue used the sewer "model" that was created 10 years ago and updated it, but when they received the resident surveys (a very solid 50 percent return rate) and tested the model versus actual flooding, the model didn't work, and needs "calibration."

 How do you calibrate?  You buy/rent flow meters and scatter them around Whitefish Bay's system and wait for some rain events that yield data. Donohue suggests this could take all summer, but if we "get lucky" and have a wet month, the report could come quicker.

 I often get comments about how long "fixing the sewers" is taking, which begs the concept some think this massive problem can be solved quickly. It can't.

Remember, in 1999 and 2002, we had studies, and we executed the recommendations. Whitefish Bay probably flooded "differently" due to the many fixes, but we still flooded.

(Please remember, with nearly two times the rain in a shorter time span in 2010, fewer homes were flooded in 2010. In 1997, 4.7 inches of rain fell in 10 hours with 919 basements flooded. Last year, we had 8 inches in 6 hours with 810 wet basements. That indicates progress.  Not enough to combat a historic rainfall, certainly.)

These are enormous engineering projects for the village, and it shouldn't be surprising that they take time to research, and three to six months to "engineer."   I hope people understand that when you have a nine month research project and add another three to six months to engineer, that these project(s) will begin in 2012. 

That being said, we DO have $5 million in capital projects slated for 2011, which do include storm and sanitary sewer projects.

 Two things I can guarantee:  

1. These projects will be expensive. 
2. They will take longer to complete than everyone wants.    

 We will persevere.   

And to note, citizen attendance at Monday's meeting was a far cry from last year's sewer update meetings. The Trustees are there, every time, and this is remains our #1 priority.