Long Term Solutions for Long Term problems

Year after year, you've heard people say "We don't have a plan!" While others say,"We have lots and lots of plans! We have too many plans!" The sad truth is both are true.

The City routinely spends time and money creating plans for all kinds of things. Just go to www.manitowoc.org and search "plan" and you'll get an idea. You could also look at the Comprehensive and Other Plans page: https://www.manitowoc.org/299/Comprehensive-Other-Plans . What you'll find is too many plans. You will also find we haven't amended or created a new Comprehensive Plan since 2009! Yep, that's right! The last time the City even tried to build a Coordinated Big Picture Plan was about 12 years ago.

Having a lot of out-dated plans isn't good government, but it can be convenient. When someone wants to justify a certain project or expense, they simply have to find the right plan and say that it's in there. Nobody ever suggests that we do everything in all these plans, because that is not realistic. I would ask, what is value of unrealistic plans? Would you build a garage from unrealistic plans?

What the City really needs is a Master Plan that is focused on priorities that have been set by the City Council. That is what our charter expects, and that is what you elected them to do. This Master Plan should have near-term, 5 year, 10 year, and even 20 year goals. Then all those secondary, specialized plans should be reviewed and the ideas in them indexed back to the Master Plan or dropped. The City should also schedule a review of the Master (Comprehensive) Plan at least annually. It would only make sense to do this every summer. That way, the budget is built with the Master Plan in mind. As Mayor, this is what I will do.

I have written at some length about our roads under B so here I will just say that the facts about our roads are inescapable. No road lasts forever, so if you plan for routine maintenance and replacement you create regular, predictable costs. Right now we do fewer roads than our Streets department recognises as needing to be done. That is going to catch up with us sooner or later.

I say, why wait for our streets to hit the fan? The County doesn't. They have a planned rotation to keep County roads in good shape. You could debate concrete vs blacktop, but you can't argue that they don't have a long-term roads plan. They don't blame the State, and don't pretend they can't afford to do it. Road maintenance is probably the 3rd thing most people expect their local government to take care of. The first is Protective Services. The 2nd is Safety and Fire. and the third is roads

To solve our streets problem

Back in the late 70's or early 80's a plan was made with the U S Army Core of Engineers to create a breakwater north of the lighthouse and east of the harbor (by the blue rail). This breakwater was also to serve as a Confined Disposal Facility, or CDF. The original idea was to dredge and fill up the CDF so that it could be topped with soil and create a green space. What a great plan and what a great place for a park. When it is done the the USACE intends to turn it over to the City. (Click here to visit the USACE site.)

So what happened? Government happened. When it started, they expected to fill it with dredging for the next 20 some years. Unfortunately, the money to dredge the river is a battle year after year so they generally get to dredge about 1/3 as often as they would like. So here we are, + 40 years into the project and we are still a ways from seeing complete, let alone converting it into a huge, memorable, unique park that residents and visitors would use over and over again. All because the restricted federal spending means not dredging as deeply nor as often as the plan assumed.

Oh well, right? No. We shouldn't just throw up our hands and say, "What're you gonna do?" When a plan isn't working, you correct the plan. It's really that simple.

Right now, we put our (safe) dredging and some of the dredging from Two Rivers in there (34K cubic yards and 12K from TR at last dredge). What if we offered it to others with uncontaminated fill? A little leg work and we could figure out how quickly this project could finally be done. We might even be able to charge for taking the fill to help offset costs for converting it into a real park.

Instead of waiting for something good to happen, we could make it happen. Let's Make It Happen!

I used to make fun of the lack of progress on the old Mirro site when it was owned my Spiritas (it's right on the old Elect Able Facebook page). When the City took ownership and demolished the property, that was the right thing to do. However, I can't think of reason for it to be nothing but a block of rubble 5 years later, except City government taking their eyes off the ball.

There were no surprises with the Mirro site. We knew when the CIty bought it, that there were environmental issues for the demolition and there would be even more once we got down to the foundation. Now The Boys and Girls Club (a great addition to our community) is interested in the property, and I say "hooray!"

However, the first 1/4 million dollars of investigating ground level contaminants and clean-up is the City's responsibility. Well, of course it is! It would be ridiculous to expect otherwise. Normally, it is the seller responsibility to make a property useable- or discount the cost of any reparations.

Then why has the City waited so long to find out what the level of the environmental issues are? Was someone hoping things would get better if they were ignored? Were they hoping that the testing and clean-up would get cheaper? Everything gets cheaper if you wait. A leaky roof. A loose wheel. Even a chemically contaminated foundation.

I wouldn't be as outraged by this (nor should you be) if the City wasn't ignoring this mess while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase even more property. Let's hope that doesn't need to be cleaned up too!

My point is that with two years of purchase, the City should have had a plan to remediate the property rather than sitting around with their fingers crossed hoping someone would come along and rid them of the troublesome property. That worked for Spiritas, but he had the City breathing down his neck. As a good neighbor and role model, the City should not be asking anything of property owners that it won't do itself. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.

By now you may have noticed a pattern of ideas and notions that the City gets started on but falls short on follow-through. Too often plans and projects don't get re-examined. Progress stalls or, worse, good intentions end up with bad consequences.

The City needs to act to ensure that good ideas don't go wrong and bad ideas get caught in time. Even on challenges I was proud to see us step up and take action on (like Mirro), I get dismayed to see the City move on to something else while work stands incomplete. I don't doubt that it is difficult and inconvenient to get the Mirro property usable, but that's no reason move on to the next new bright and shiny idea.

Another pattern you may have noticed is the tendency to shrug things off with a "Well, there's not much we can do because it's partly the responsibility of the County/the State/the Owner/etc." You should point out that "not much" is different than nothing, which seems to the default. The City can act, and it is the Mayor's job to petition (or nag, or annoy) other government bodies to ensure things get done.

You might say,

"The City's plan is no plan."

The line is funny; the things left half-done or undone aren't.

Elsewhere I talk about a three question test that can help us avoid some of this, but some of it is just good old common sense and follow-through. I think the City too quickly moves on to the next new idea, and often leaves the old ideas to languish, half-done.