And now for something completely different.
Terry Van Akkeren versus Bob Ryan
The Rumble in the Harbor II
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Bob Ryan VS Terry Van Akkeren 2 – Electric Boogaloo
Posted in government, union
Tagged bob ryan, election, recall, sheboygan, terry vanakkeren
Who Is Steven Biskupic?
SHEBOYGAN COMMON COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE AGENDA
DATE: Wednesday, September 14, 2011
TIME: 6:00 p.m. (or immediately following Public Protection & Safety Committee Meeting or any other City Committee meeting)
PLACE: 3rd Floor, City Hall – Common Council Chambers
1. Call meeting to order.
2. Roll Call.
3. Pledge of Allegiance.
4. Approval of the minutes of 8/25/2011.
5. Public Forum on agenda items (no prior registration required – those wishing to speak will be called up from the audience by the Chairman). Limit 3 minutes per person.
6. Chairman’s comments.
ITEM(S) FOR DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION TO THE COMMON COUNCIL
7. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #10-61
A Resolution authorizing the Common Council to engage the services of special outside counsel to represent the City of Sheboygan in the role of special prosecutor with regard to a quasi-judicial hearing.
Attorney Steven M. Buskupic of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP will attend and be available to answer questions from the Alderpersons.
8. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-60
A Resolution authorizing the Common Council to engage the services of special outside legal counsel to represent the Council with regard to a quasi-judicial hearing and authorizing payment for said services.
Attorney Joseph J. Voelkner of Olsen, Kloet, Gunderson & Conway will attend and be available to answer questions from the Alderpersons.
9. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #10-36
Submitting a communication from Milt Storm expressing his displeasure with President Rindfleisch, The Sheboygan Press articles and some Alderpersons asking the Mayor to resign and asking that the Common Council rethink their reasoning and compassion before they make an ultimate decision on removal.10. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-18
Submitting a communication from Mike and Diane Warner stating that they believe that the correct action for the Common Council regarding the Mayor is to allow the recall effort to continue and live by the results of that effort, which will be the will of the people.
11. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-51
Submitting a communication from Richard W. Suscha stating his upset with the press conference that attracted all the news media.
12. Alderman Ron Lade of the city of Plymouth will attend and give a presentation on the process the city of Plymouth used to hire their “Director of City Services ” (Administrator).
13. A discussion by the Alderpersons on the future of the position of Mayor for the City of Sheboygan to take effect after the April 2013 election. A discussion of the merits of a full-time Mayor vs. a part-time Mayor, and a possible referendum on the issue.
14. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-64
Submitting a communication from 14 past Alderpersons and 1 past Mayor stating that the current Common Council should make the hiring of a full-time City Administrator a priority.
15. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-63
AN ORDINANCE amending Section 29-75 of the 1975 Sheboygan Municipal Code so as to add/delete positions in the Mayor’s Office and the Finance Department Table of Organization.
16. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-62
AN ORDINANCE creating Division 5 of Article III of Chapter 2 of the Municipal Code relating to the position of Chief Administrative Officer.
17. COUNCIL DOCUMENT #11-58, passed by the Common Council 9/6/2011.
A RESOLUTION establishing the position of Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Sheboygan.A discussion on the comfort level of the Alderpersons regarding the effective date of 10/1/2011 after our discussions this evening.
18. MOTION TO CONVENE IN CLOSED SESSION under the exemption provided in Sec. 19.85 (1)(e), Wis.
Stats. for the purpose of discussion, deliberation or formulation of negotiation strategies relative to possible collective bargaining agreements, where competitive and bargaining reasons require a closed session.
This closed portion of the meeting will be attended by the Alderpersons and Finance Director, James Amodeo and Tom Rice, the City’s Human Resources Consultant ONLY.
Why are they in the closed session? Amedeo is the proposed City Administrator under the Hammond Accord. Where has Tom Rice been through this whole affair?
Politics people, another day gone, 2 months now, proven incompetence on all sides.
TIME FOR CHANGE
19. MOTION TO CONVENE IN OPEN SESSION.20. SET NEXT MEETING DATE: Posted Thursday, September 15, at 7:30 p.m. or immediately following
the Festival Foods Open House or any other City of Sheboygan committee meeting.
21. ADJOURN.
Ald. James Bohren, Chairman
Ald. Eric Rindfleisch, Council President
Persons with disabilities who need accommodations to attend the meeting should contact the City Clerk’s Office as soon as
possible at 459-3364.
Why the hurry good old boys?
Is Bob the Hudsucker proxy?
Posted in Uncategorized
Dog and Pony Show in Sheboygan
Monday nights common council meeting in the City of Sheboygan was one of the most entertaining dog and pony shows I have seen in years. Accounting sleight of hand changed the vote from two-thirds to what turned out to be fifty-fifty with the Mayor breaking the tie.
There are people in Sheboygan who say Council President Jim Gischia worked tirelessly behind the scenes “guiding” former finance director Terry Hanson as he prepared four mystery scenarios of the Fire Department’s future. It is said that the Firefighters made some concessions, yet the paperwork outlining the concessions failed to reach our aldermen. This “oversight” was compounded by our Human Resources Consultant Tom Rice forgetting his copies of the documents at home, as was seemingly the case of the dozen or so firefighters in attendance.
One citizen spoke out against the proposal followed by a pair of firefighters and a former Fire Chief that no longer lives in the area, but may move back when his health fails. The tone of our firefighters was one of fear mongering, lacking in what rational individuals would call facts. It made for good TV for the handful of individuals that watch on our not so public television channel produced strictly for cable TV.
We heard a lot of talking with little factual information with notable exceptions coming from Aldermen Corey Bouck and Jim Bohren. Shortly before the vote Mayor Bob Ryan told us how he was going to Minnesota to check into the possibility of a hybrid fire department, yet was in favor of adding firefighters to allow time for a new plan sometime in December.
Today’s Sheboygan Press has a story on the Mayors trip to Minnesota, and surprise, surprise, Fire Chief Jeff Hermann is joining in on the trip that he seemingly knew nothing about less than 24 hours earlier. According to the story; “the mayor said would take many years to transition to the on-call staff, through attrition as current full-time firefighters retire, instead of layoffs.” How strange that we delayed this move even further by adding additional firefighters.
Checking into the hybrid solution was supposedly the idea of newbie councilman Scott Versey who voted against the proposal, yet ultimately played a huge role in it’s passage. This is just my opinion , but I think Mr. Versey just learned what it feels like to be played like a cheap fiddle. Versey should have abstained from the vote because of his wife’s involvement with Orange Cross ambulance service. Yet Versey, is not the only one that should have abstained, as others have deep ties to the Fire Department.
Am I the only one that thinks it strange that the Mayor is looking into alternatives after the fact, alternatives that his deciding vote pushed beyond his term as Mayor? Can you believe the council voted on an issue without all of the pertinent information? Well I sure can, it’s called politics as usual, and it’s your fault. Bitching about things accomplishes nothing, getting active, and possibly even voting is the only way to get what you want.
Well, your taxes will be going up, up, up, up, up. While your city is going down, congratulations, you may not die while waiting for an ambulance today, you lucky morons.
And my favorite part of this story is that The Sheboygan Pres, your number one source for information in Sheboygan County, can’t delete this message.
Nobody can, because it’s all true.
Posted in Committee, government, union
Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation
The Finance committee of the City of Sheboygan Common Council doesn’t want to give the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation $100,000 of your money unless one of them is appointed to the corporations board. The County is already giving them $100,000 of your money, no other city in the county is giving them anywhere near that much. In fact the only City making a notable contribution is Plymouth and they are dropping a lowly $10,000.
As taxpayers we already paid $millions to move Polar Ware from Sheboygan to Kiel, many more $millions to persuade Sigma-Aldrich to expand in the wealthy Madison suburb of Verona, instead of Sheboygan Falls, where the company already owns land and planned on expanding. In addition we donated the Armory, arguably Sheboygan’s most valuable building, to the group when it was known as the Sheboygan Development Corporation, only to see the group reorganize as the SCEDC within days.
When Juan Perez was still Mayor of Sheboygan, I asked him who was in the secretive organization called the SDC. Juan informed me that he was indeed a member, but only because he was Mayor. Juan also politely informed me that he couldn’t tell me who belonged because it was secret. A week ago I saw a tweet from a woman saying that she just finished working on a website for the SCDC and I searched for and visited the site.
It was no surprise that the board was comprised of a who’s who of Sheboygan’s wealthiest individuals, most of whom don’t reside in Sheboygan, and many who represent corporations that have either reduced their employment levels in Sheboygan significantly or moved out of the City complettely.
Posted in government
Does God Wish He Was Glenn Beck
The other day a friend of mine told me about a book published in 1944 that points out that powers that be intend to expand government at the expense of the private sector. I said I would read it, and I will, I’m just wondering what about this is surprising.
Glenn Beck is pimping the book on his show 
Posted in government, library
Quit Bitching
It’s strange that when you try to enlighten the masses, those in power deride your efforts as anonymous and hurtful. You can offer ideas, but nobody’s listening. You can however run for office, if you win, you’re no longer an idiot, you are an esteemed colleague.
SheVegas is looking for candidates for upcoming state senate races. Nobody’s unbeatable and pretty much anybody with a pulse is eligible. We not only encourage anybody that feels like running to go for it, we will do our best to help anybody that sounds like a candidate of the common man. If we can’t find candidates we’d like to help, we might join the fight ourselves.
We are not Fox news, we do not believe in fair and balanced, we believe in right or wrong. Fat Jack the Junk Man taught us the importance of getting off the fence, thanks Jack you are truly missed.
There are never two sides to a story, there are infinite angles, we grind them down to the facts and display them when possible.
Posted in government
City Hall Could Be So Small
Walk through City Hall and try finding somebody that’s in charge of anything.
Good Luck
Posted in government
Feeling Minnesota
It’s more than likely that the City of Sheboygan will expand the size of the Fire Department based on numbers that the public has never seen, council members don’t understand, and are very likely inaccurate, if not complete bullshit.
When we first heard of the plans, pretty much everybody agreed that we could get by with one less station. After hearing more discussion on the matter we came to the conclusion that three stations were more than enough to cover our fine city, is it just us?
But don’t worry, word has it the Mayors looking towards Minnesota for an answer. We like the fact that he’s looking into Minnesota’s hybrid mix of paid and volunteer Firefighters, yet are stymied by the fact this is hush hush stuff. The big votes coming Monday night and some funny accounting may allow them to add four firefighters with money that was somehow just floating in this years budget.
Remember: it’s not if your house will burn, it’s when!
We’re calling shenanigans on this one.
Stop the Presses – Start the Enlightenment
A journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. His or her work is acknowledged as journalism.
A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. [1] Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time. “Historian” became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century at roughly the same time that physicians also set standards for who could enter the field.
Actuality is the term for film footage of real life events, places and people. Unlike fictional films which use actors, scripted stories and artificial sets, actuality is a record of real events as they unfold.
Documentary evidence is any evidence introduced at a trial in the form of documents. Although this term is most widely understood to mean writings on paper (such as an invoice, a contract or a will), the term actually include any media by which information can be preserved. Photographs, tape recordings, films, and printed emails are all forms of documentary evidence.
Open government, always the goal, never the reality.
SheVegas is dedicated to opening up our government in an attempt to enlighten the masses. Our moral compass is strong and our information is based on a mountain of facts. We have friends in low places, live in the community, and share our history. In return we get the community talking, you know we do.
Our goal is to create a grassroots organization dedicated to open government and community enlightenment.
We have been called “obstructionists” by those attempting to promote hatred, and stifle discussion on our community. This is our community, our elected officials are chosen as representatives, yet act as experts. We have been following what matters and have a bit to say on a few issues, we hope you agree, or disagree, our goal is to start the dialogue, add information and create participation.
In the future we will be hyper covering issues as they pass through committee. It will be fun to compare agenda’s, minutes, and reality.
Expect us to get belittled by many, yet joined by more.