Please feel free to print or pass on this invitation to your neighbors.

 
Meijer

Meijer’s – High Standards Lower Prices – is their moto

In the Beginning… Where did it all start? Greenville, MI, 1934. It’s the Great Depression, food is scarce, and Hendrik Meijer meets the needs of a small town with a small grocery store and fair prices. Jump to 1962 and Meijer is pioneering the first supercenter, which now offers a complete one-stop shopping experience, from Grocery and Health and Beauty Care to over 40 other departments including Fashion, Automotive, Home Decor, Pharmacy, Electronics, Pets and more…
Where Are they Today… With over 190 stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, our company continues to handle our business based on the simple philosophy that lead Hendrik to start this business in the first place, “…take care of your customers, team members, and community… and all of those will take care of you, just like a family.” Here at Meijer, we aren’t just about business… we are family; having been family-owned for 75 years, our commitment to higher standards and lower prices comes from our family to yours.  – from the Corporate WebPages of Meijers Stores.

Now Meijers is proposing to build it’s first store in the Milwaukee area, right here in Franklin.

According to Alderman Steve Olson who is the First District Alderman, Meijers is proposing to build there first store at the corner of Hwy. 100 and Loomis road commonly refer to as the Crossroads, Meijer  will be holding a public information meeting next THURSDAY evening. This meeting will be  in the Community room at Franklin City Hallnt they plan to present their plans for a proposed grocery/department store.

The current plan is to hold an open house format from 5:00pm to 8:00pm allowing citizens and interested parties the opportunity to view the plans, meet representatives from Meijer and their architects, ask questions and voice their comments.

They also plan to hold a short presentation of the project at 6:30pm.

This is one of the first positive steps that is being taken to build taxable property that resides in the Franklin School District and improve what is considered a blighted area.

This will NOT be an official city meeting it is an opportunity for the community to meet representatives of what we hope will be one of our new community businesses.

But no … This is Franklin and Mayor Tom Taylor may be slowly losing his political power on the Franklin Common Council.

Instead on a 3-2-1 vote Ken Skowronski was NOT reappointed to the plan commission on the Mayors recommendation. The vote was Alderman Steve Olson and Alderwoman Kristen Wilhelm voting no, AlderVisor Steve Taylor abstained. Alderman Ken Skowronski, Doug Schmidt and Tim Solomon all voted YES.

Since appointments require 4 affirmative votes and with AlderVisor Steve Taylor’s abstention the Mayor was unable to break the tie.

As I well know, Council rules say that all non-reappointed members terms automatically expire 60 days after their scheduled expiration. This would give Mayor Taylor the time to appoint someone new.

In a later appointment to the Zoning Commission another Mayoral appointee went down the tubes for the lack of a second to the motion to appoint the Mayors appointee.

Who will the Mayor appoint now?

Hacked is defined as unauthorized access to computers and computer networks. A hacked account is one that illegal software is ingested on the users computer giving access to another user to control their account.

As an update to yesterday’s posting Former School Board Vice-President Calls Franklin Bloggers Cyber Bully’s – Especially Current Board President Janet Evans!  on WAG The DOG is now being accused by FPS Board Member Jeff Traylor of “hacking” his FACEBOOK account.

If technology challenged Traylor had not been napping during one of the boards presentations on Keeping your Children Safe on the Internet, he would know that FACEBOOK is an open source web page. Anyone who has access to FACEBOOK can read Jeff Traylors page along with the responding comments his “friends” make on his original posting unless he has the grey matter to secure it. So in reality, he as a  Franklin Public School Board Member is posting negative things about another board member which makes it an issue for the Board of Education ethics and policy rules. If he continues with this behavior, it is a real possibility that he could face a censure by the Board of Education.

As for the weak apology Jay Weber made this morning on his show, he basically said he did not want to get involved in Franklin Politics as Trayler in a phone call to Weber insisted he has actually a fiscally responsible member and has been integral in cutting the Franklin Public School System budget. Traylor is taking credit for the reduction in budget for the 2011 -2012 school year.  In addition he claims to support Scott Walker and is a fiscal conservative. My comment to that is, if Jeff Traylor does not want to be perceived as a tax and spend liberal, why did he support both WEAC endorsed liberal candidates Don Petre and John Paul Thompson?  Why didn’t he support a KNOWN fiscal conservative like Janet Evans? Why did he vote for School District tax increases in 4 out of 5 of his years on the board?

These will be questions he will face from voters if he seeks re-election next April!

All this pent up anger shows up on the evening after the Franklin Public Schools Board of Education voted to replace both Larson and Traylor. This should never have been a surprise when more conservative board members were elected the past two elections in a row.  In reality, what has gone forth is local bloggers have brought to light the follies of the former President Deb Larson and VP Jeff Traylor.

A regular reader here at WAG THE DOG brought the posting that comes directly from Jeff Traylor’s FACEBOOK page. Please see the last posting by Deb Larson (former Board President) as she refers to current Board Vice President Tim Nielson.  Note his reference to newly elected Board President Janet Evans as he says “I have been Cyber Bullied for 5 years while I have been on the school board buy (sic) 4  bloggers from Franklin now. and now the 1 that is worst is now school board president” 

My question for Mr. Traylor …. Is this what you want a blog on the Franklin Public School site for?

Today Jeff Traylor posts this about conservative talk radio show host Jay Weber on Talk Radio 1130 discussing how there is a movement of conservative board members being elected (and he specifies Franklin) and  that are showing up in more school districts. One correction Jay, Janet Evans, Board President is in her second term receiving the highest amount of votes from the Franklin electorate in the past decade. She has been bullied by the current and past, liberal, tax and spend board members for the past three years including Jeff Traylor.

Here is the Podcast of todays show

You can listen to  Jay Weber at 6:45am tomorrow morning making an apology to Jeff Traylor at least that is what board member Traylor says.

So I ask you is Cyber Bullying the act of writing about your disgust with politically ELECTED School Board members that do not respect the wishes of those that elected them.  Would it be better it we kept it all hush hush up so members like Traylor, Larson and Klein could actually bully their fellow board members at meetings.

Next came the nominations for VP. as Tim Nielson was nominated by Linda Witkowski and naturally Deb Larson nominated Jeff Traylor.  Again in a 4 to 3 vote Jeff Traylor went down in flames to Tim Nielson who then became the Board’s Vice President.

The final unanimous nominations resulted in the election of Mellisa Klein as Treasurer and Linda Witkowski as the Board Clerk.

So here are my personal observations. Both Larson and Traylor were angry having to give up the power on the board at the highest level.  Especially Jeff Traylor who stormed out of the meeting immediately after the meeting ended. This is the beginning of the end of a board that is not responsive to the voter, the taxpayer and the parent. But instead one that is going to make the administration, especially Dr. Steve Patz, earn their high pay making sure that they answer to the board rather than the other way around.  To quote the former liberal blogger from Franklin, Greg Kowalski when I spoke to him this past April 3rd election night. He said ”this may be beginning of the NEW New Day members on the School Board”. Kowalski was referring to a term he coined and used for then newly elected Franklin Aldermen  four years back when Kristen Wilhelm and Steve Taylor began their Franklin political careers.

So now is the time to watch what happens next. It is their time now for the more conservative board members make changes so that they become more responsive to tax payers.

Here is the Video of tonights vote:

If I were to speculate on who voted for whom for the President and Vice President position, I would make this my guesses:

For the BOA President:

• Voting for Janet Evans : Janet Evans, Aimee Schlueter, Tim Nielson and Linda Witkowski.
• Voting for Deb Larson: Deb Larson, Jeff Traylor and Melissa Klein

Then for the BOA Vice President I speculate:

• Voting for Tim Nielson: Janet Evans, Aimee Schlueter, Tim Nielson and Linda Witkowski.
• Voting for Jeff Traylor: Deb Larson, Jeff Traylor and Melissa Klein

Hey one last interesting thing about tonights meeting. As a future subject for a future topic at a Board Meeting, Jeff (I can’t stand Bloggers) Traylor stated he wanted to discuss a FPS Blog site on the District Website. Just earlier in the night when the Board voted for the ”Paper of Record”, Traylor was the only one who voted NO, he asked why couldn’t we use our District Website for that too! He was told by Dr. Patz, that that was not legal!  What’s that all about?

Maybe Jeff will become a blogger on FranklinNOW too!

1) Can a Milwaukee County Supervisor at the same time hold the position of Alderman in the City of Franklin?

2) Can a Milwaukee County Supervisor at the same time hold the position of Acting Mayor in the City of Franklin?

As expected City Attorney Jesse Wesolowski pronounced it legally OK for Alderman Steve Taylor to keep his 4th Alderman’s position, Common Council Presidency and Acting Mayor (when Mayor Taylor is indisposed). In short he said it was Legal, nothing more, nothing less.

Here is what citizens,  the Alderman and the Mayor had to say:

Bob Swendrowski (Former Mayoral Candidate and Whitnal School Board member,Citizen Comment):

I know you don’t want to see me here. I am here regarding item G3 Compatibility with the office of Alderman and County Supervisor ect.

I just wanted to give you a brief history of people who had dual positions as elected office, one was Kathy Arciszewski who was a Village Trustee for Greendale also a County Supervisor. Over her years of service there were a number of conflicts of interest which she dedicated a lot of her votes to. Was it to Greendale or the county side? Another one was Don Almquist who was a Greenfield Alderman and School District Official. Same thing happened with him.

So first of all Alderman Taylor, congratulations on being elected supervisor. But I personally believe being involved in politics for 30 plus years before I decided to step away from it. I don’t see how you can actually commit 110% of your time to both the positions as a County Supervisor and as an Alderman in your District and representing the city of Franklin.

Yes you are dedicated to the City of Franklin, but again the amount of appointments you’re going to be having in Franklin on committees, as a County Supervisor, granted you are going to have support staff with the county being paid 30 to 35 thousand a year. But again where is your dedication? Is it to the residents of your district and to the city of Franklin? What’s going to happen when it comes down to road widening? What about Highway 100, Franklin and Hales Corners? Where are you going to stand on these issues? Are you going to favor Oak Creek and Hales Corners over Franklin? Or favor Franklin over Oak Creek and Hales Corners?

It is my suggestion sir that you seriously take a look at resigning your position as Franklin Alderman, President of the Common Council and Acting Mayor when Mayor Taylor is not available. 

You have to make a commitment, a commitment that should be one or the other. YOU CAN NOT BE BOTH! If you want to do the job justice, make a commitment to one.

I would urge the Aldermen to support a move to ask for his resignation as an Alderman in the City of Franklin. Let someone else take that job over, making a commitment to the people of his district.

Alderwoman Kristen Wilhelm:

Well…. I am satisfied with that answer (referring to the statement City Attorney Jesse Wesolowski made declaring there was no legal reason Alderman Taylor could not hold all offices) without going out and giving the City Attorney more work. I don’t see the necessity for a motion when we have our answer here this evening unless anything else changes and he should then bring that back to us. I am also aware that legal council is available to council members and should something come up, members that have different seats should be able to get legal council to get a judgment if there is a conflict of interest, prior to any meeting votes.

I guess we already have sitting on the planning commission one member who works for the Metropolitan Sewerage District, we have one member who works for the County sitting on that board as well and this hasn’t come up about that issue. I am going to guess the City Attorney opinion here would apply to those individuals as well.

I know the Alderman is one that will do much more and already has done much more that just showing up to meetings that than the previous 9^th District Supervisor. So we are already ahead of the game. I’m pleased to have some Franklin representation and I guess I see that he is dedicated and until I see he is putting on weight, from sitting around doing nothing. (Chuckle) I’ll wait to see he can’t pull off all of these duties.  He should be given the opportunity to fulfill his duties as people elected him to do and I guess I will leave it at that. Thank You.

Alderman Ken Skowronski:

When you are representing three faces of government and you representing three government bodies in a county wide item….the city Attorney says its legal but there is more than a legal item here. There is a morale or morality issue on who are you going to represent, TRULY REPRESENT in issues that could be contentious, could make a difference on financial items, could make a difference on items that have been kind of laying dormant that has to be done. I have a very uncomfortable about that. You can’t be a master to three communities and three government bodies and three government positions. I will leave it at that and will reserve my judgment.

Mayor Tom Taylor:

I think it is pretty clear the city attorney has done massive research on the subject. I am hoping the newspapers will get the story out so that all of us do not have to answer this 10,000 times, the question about how is that possible.

I still have, and Alderman Taylor knows this, as we went through the campaign, I still have reservations and I’ll tell you why.

While it is legal and he can do what he wishes to do, I do see some potential conflicts of interest as to which master do you serve and would site recent negotiations with Milwaukee County and the 19 municipalities on the EMS/Paramedic contracts. In the fact the County Board of Supervisors cut the funding in half, municipalities across the entire Milwaukee County were very upset about that. I was the leader of that revolt so-to-speak and I know firsthand. We have had an issue with North Cape Road for I don’t know how many years. I don’t think anyone driving down North Cape Road would not agree that that road needs repairs. We have been trying to get Milwaukee County to do that and they keep moving money in different directions.

We could have a situation where Oak Creek is asking for 13^th street to be repaired. Hales Corners is looking for dollars and we are still looking for the money for North Cape Road.

So that is very difficult.. Maybe Alderman Taylor can walk the fine line, but I think it’s going to be tough and I think there are going to be times where it is going to cause chilling effects on the Council. Especially in the times when we need to go into closed sessions to discuss negotiations on things.

The city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County went after the Kohls Corporation. It hit all the newspapers. They were willing to cough up 125 million dollars to bring Kohls to their city. We are going after Kohls and continue to go after Kohls so there is another conflict of interest.

And as much as the municipalities, the county, and state do not like to get into completion, it is competition and its fierce completion. We fight over positions whether it be engineering positions or city clerk positions in trying to recruit the best. There could be conflicts of interest when we go into collective bargaining negotiations, Oak Creek may want to settle with its firefighters for X amount of dollars and benefit level, were in direct competition with that. Milwaukee County might enter into its negotiations with its unions, sets a pattern.

Zoning restrictions….We had a plethora of zoning issues or zoning WARS with Milwaukee County, it’s just a fact of life.

Park Properties, We have tried to secure land with Milwaukee County and continue to do so. We also ask for land to be placed in surplus with Milwaukee County.

The one that every one remembers is the 76^th Street, the county, would say or promise that package was going to be 70 – 30, I am sorry 80-20, and then without consultation to anyone, unilaterally change the policy at the County Board level and change it to something more like 70-30 which for the people of Franklin, we’re all looking at millions of dollars as an impact of that and that is another situation where we have been after the county to repair that road for …… 12 years! And every time we change County Executive hats we get different answers on what’s the status of 76^th street so……..

Alderman Taylor and I, we did have discussion during the campaign, he knows full well that I had a strong position on this subject and I’m bringing it forward. I hope him well. I think he’s very bright, I guess your now Second Chair on the County Board or Third Chair and will be appointed to many committees. I would offer my services to him if I can, I do have some experience down there. But I would just ask the Alderman, ahhh County Supervisor, to weigh things that are coming up from the citizens and I think it’s tough and I think you do your job well in both aspects there won’t be a problem.

Alderman Tim Solomon:

 I’d just like to weigh in and I this is a little….

I realize there may be conflicts of interest. He may have to recuse himself in some cases. Some very tough cases, where we would obviously like his input. He does a very good job; he’s a conscientious hard working you man. I would think that if he finds he can’t do it, a month or two or three down the road, then he’s probably going to have to make a choice.

But until then, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Let him move forward and wish him well in both endeavors.

Alderman Doug Schmidt:

I would concur with Alderman Solomon.

I think that there may be a perception that there is some potential of a conflict of interest.

I think we are very fortunate at this point that we have someone who is an ally of us sitting here opposed to the other county supervisor who was missing in action. . At least we will gain some benefit from this. I think we should proceed and see how it goes.  

AlderVisor Steve Taylor:

Well I appreciate the input from my colleagues and it’s not surprising what was said from each one of em, so I’ll leave it at that.

We have two people that show up to the meeting asking me to go away, that doesn’t surprise me either.

I just want to tell you that I spent the last three months, knocking on doors and everything that came outside my district besides the 72% of the vote was that you better keep doing what you’re doing. As this point in time I have made no decision on if I will leave, when I’ll leave and when I get to the decision at some point and that’s when I tell you I am going somewhere. But in no way shape or form would I put the city in jeopardy or the County in jeopardy. We have the best City Attorney in the state; we have corporate council downtown at the court house, and if there was an issue that came before this body or the county board, at that time I would make a decision to abstain. If it was a closed session, which I cannot prevent from being in I would remove myself so…. In the mean time I am going to do what I do best, serve the residents of the 4^th district and I will have the new 9^th Supervisory District. I think I have been down there pretty much every day this past two weeks. Which my staff is telling me is more than my predecessor has been in the previous year.

So I appreciate the input and I take in consideration where it came from and we’ll just leave it at that!

 Bottom Line folks is that AlderVisor Steve Taylor doesn’t really care what anyone thinks. He legally won both offices and don’t expect him to give up his Franklin duties in the near future. After all he did quit his day job and bought a new car!

I wonder if he has a staff member drive him around?

Over the past several days, FranklinNow blogger Kevin Fischer has pointed out the highlights found on  Milwaukee airwaves, with conservative talk show host Mark Belling’s criticism of the soon to be AlderVisor. Fischer wrote how Belling questions Steve Taylor’s presumed conservative stances on  three blogs. In these blogs Fischer is calling into question Taylor’s actual intentions on one of his first votes as a Supervisor for the new County Supervisor Chairmanship. Belling states, Taylor has committed himself to voting for liberal Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic.

Mark Belling on Franklin’s Steve Taylor: An “obnoxious sellout to conservatives” – (3/12/2012) FranklinNOW

UPDATE: Mark Belling on Franklin’s Steve Taylor: An “obnoxious sellout to conservatives” – (3/13/2012) FranklinNOW

What does Steve Taylor do now? – (3/14/2012) FranklinNOW

Top this all off with what is coming up at the next Common Council meeting on Tuesday April 17 at 6:30pm.

Here are two of the Council Agenda Items that will discussed at the meeting on Tuesday night:

Mayor Tom Taylor has requested that the City Attorney address the two following questions:

1) Can a Milwaukee County Supervisor at the same time hold the position of Alderman in the City of Franklin?

2) Can a Milwaukee County Supervisor at the same time hold the position of Acting Mayor in the City of Franklin?

Next item up for Council Action has been a request to act on the following Advisory Referendums that passed in the April 3, 2012 election in the City of Franklin.

With 7,453 total ballots cast, the Franklin Board of Canvassers certified the following results:

Question 1: Do you support compensating the position of Milwaukee County Supervisor at a level that reflects the position being considered part-time in nature?

Yes  - 5,542      No – 1,089

Question 2: Shall the size of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors be reduced from the current number of eighteen (18) supervisors to nine (9) supervisors?

Yes – 5,830     No – 856

 So folks given that none of the Alderman or the Mayor supported Steve Taylor in his run for County Supervisor, it sort of goes without saying that they may be looking to wiping Steve Taylors sh*t eating grin off his face. He is going into a den of “seasoned” politicians who love to wipe their posteriors with the likes of Taylor. I really look forward to his close knit relationship he has developed over time with County Supervisor John Weishan of the 16th District. I am sure there will be snickering by his fellow Supervisors when he brings up his memorable days as Alderperson in the La Crosse or as the President of the Goosetown Neighborhood Association.

But I am sure the AlderVisor (thanks Rachel Ann) will be telling the Common Council that he can juggle Alderman, CCP, and Insurance Salesman for CountryFried.

Will Steve be Restrained at Meetings?

On April 25^th at the regular meeting of the Board of Education, both Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter, the peoples candidates, will be sworn in as board members and a reorganization of the board should occur.  

Next comes the next tough part, that is, the election of Board officers. As many of you know, Deb Larson has pretended to lead the board as President and Jeff (what the heck is financial responsibility?) Traylor has been her second in command as VP of the board.  

With a shift in paradigm (you know the one where Superintendent Steve Patz makes the rules and the board just nods their heads) to one where Dr. Steve Patz needs to justify his requests before the Board of Education who then discuss, approve or deny his requests.  

I believe there will be fewer occurrences of  hidden discussions under the pretense of closed door rules where board members are not allowed to discuss the outcome of their deliberation of issues.  

The direction of the board may also be to slow down the move toward a building referendum and actually get  real community discussion that is not one sided as the so called World Café meetings produced. Listening sessions or surveys have been more fruitful in getting community input but it is not the “directed  input” that Superintendent Patz and Company wanted. Input where they could control the direction, along with their Architects for the necessary outcome of massive building of facilities.  

I recall the community inputs sessions that were held for K4. Even though the majority of the input was not to go ahead with K4, Steve Patz tried to go forward with it until state funding of K4 came to a halt due to the economy. 

Our board, administration and parents must come to the realization that 75% of our population do not have children in the Franklin Public Schools. Many of which are just making ends meet, whether they are elderly on fixed incomes, or have faced cuts in their jobs and pay.  

I have read on the FranklinNOW the few that are making the comment that if you don’t like the fact that it could cost you $200 to $800 more per year in taxes then you should just get out of Franklin. Others say that people who come here will be influenced by our schools. I say, imagine that we have an influx of people moving to Franklin that have children that will go to our schools. When we do build new facilities, you may see those building costs increase into the thousands rather than the hundreds of dollars. People who move to Franklin with children should be checking, how are our students performing, not how incredible do the schools look.

Statistics show that performance, of the education of our children is not tied to facilities; it is tied to our educators, how they inspire and teach our children. We do have a high percentage of graduates going on to higher education and being successful. Just check out the FranklinNOW sometime and look at all the kids from Franklin on the Deans list of various universities. 

Please consider attending the Board of Education meeting on April 25 at the Franklin Public Schools Community Center, 8255 Forest Hill Avenue at 6pm and watch the change start in the City of Franklin Public Schools.

NEXT PHASE: Replace the following Board Members….

Deb Larson - Replace April 2013

Jeff Traylor - Replace April 2013

Melissa Klein - Replace April 2013

NOTE: Do not write in names for Write In candidates unless you really have the votes to back it up. It just clogs the process as the poll workers have to manually record those and it does not make a political statement as no one but the poll workers see it.

Waiting with me for the results, were School Board candidates Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter, along with liberal blogger, Greg Kowalski (who was Steve Taylor’s eyes and ears at city hall while Taylor drank with his friends at Mulligans) and our very own Verify the Recall spokesman, GrandSons of Liberty leader, Larry Gamble, who by the way, is also a poll worker. Some interesting conversations did ensue at the encampment waiting outside the City Clerk’s office. Many of which, I have promised not to write about

The first set of numbers were tallied and input into a spreadsheet by around, 10:00pm which encompassed the first two districts, showing Aimee and Janet commanding a firm lead.

Since I had to get up early and work today, I left City Hall about 11pm with the results of the 1^st, 4^th and 5^th district counts entered in to the spread sheet tally which showing Janet Evans in first place along with Aimee Schlueter in a solid second place. Considering that the major networks projected Mitt Romney as the winner of the Wisconsin primary at 9:00pm, I felt that with 50% of the vote in, I could go to sleep with 50% of the vote showing the above results was a pretty safe bet.

When I got up this morning the results for the 2^nd, 3^rd and 6^th districts repeated last nights results.  I talked to Janet Evans this morning and she did not get home until about 2am this morning. She still went to work by the way!

Congratulations to not only to Janet and Aimee but to all the residents of the Franklin Public School district. We WON! Especially a big THANK YOU to those residents that took it upon their individual selves to spread the word to their friends and neighbors that Don Petre and John Paul Thompson are NOT the kind of people we want to represent us on the Franklin Public School, Board of Education.

I look forward to the same grass root effort in eliminating Deb Larson, Jeff Traylor and Melissa Klein in next April’s spring election.

Unofficial Results:

Franklin School Board (2 seats)

100.0% reporting

Name                                       Votes            Vote %
  
Janet M. Evans (inc)      3,102           34.0 %
Aimee Schlueter               2,700           29.6 %
Don Petre                             1,948           21.3 %
John Paul Thompson  1,377           15.1 %

Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter