Jim Fitzhenry
The Oshkosh Northwestern
Box 2926
Oshkosh  WI  54903

To the Editor:

There's been some controversy about what did or did not happen at the City Council's March 27th closed meeting regarding the 100 block. Here's my recollection of what occurred.

The Council had already seen in previous closed sessions both Ganther's and another proposal; the purpose of the closed meeting was to decide which proposal, if any, to put on the agenda for the April 10th Council meeting.

The alternative proposal was quickly rejected: the statement I recall was that it was "just another office building" that would have relatively little impact on the downtown. No one spoke up to champion that development. No vote was taken, although from the discussion it was clear what the outcome of a vote would be.

Then we discussed the Ganther proposal. Several comments, referring to the proposal's combination of office and residential uses, were that this was exactly what we wanted. I believe I was the only one that raised any questions about the proposal whatsoever.

After considerable discussion about the details of the proposal, we voted. It was not a formal vote -- no motion was made, no second was asked for -- but it was a vote nonetheless. Indeed, although I don't recall whether it was Wollangk or Dell'Antonia who made the statement, I do recall the question "Are we ready for a vote?" being asked. All those in favor of the Ganther proposal -- everyone except me -- raised their hands.

Dell'Antonia, noticing my hand wasn't raised, said "And of course, you're opposed," to which I replied that I was still undecided.

When asked about a vote by the DA's office, no one else recalled one occurring. Let me suggest why that's the case: I was the only one therefor whom the vote held significance. I suspect that just about everyone had come into that meeting expecting the Ganther proposal to be chosen.

The vote outcome for everyone else was unsurprising; it only affirmed what they already new; it was therefor easily forgettable.

For me however it was important: it told me that I was in the minority, probably only a minority of one. And my recollection of it was reinforced at the April 10th meeting, when I was greatly surprised by Melanie Bloechl's change of heart. I knew from the closed session that she had never expressed any doubts about the proposal, so her speaking out against it at the Council meeting came as a complete surprise to me.

So my answer to the first controversy is, yes, we did vote.

The second controversy regards whether or not we agreed not to speak to the press. After the vote to select the Ganther project was made, someone -- I think Melanie -- raised the question about breaking the news story to the press. It was generally agreed that Ganther should make the announcement; if we were contacted by the press before he did, we were to refer them to Dell'Antonia, who as Mayor would answer for the Council.

There was no vote taken, although again, since no one objected to that arrangement (I think the question was asked, "Does anyone have a problem with that?", to which no one replied), you could interpret it as a verbal agreement, as Melanie does. I don't think anyone expected Ganther to delay as long as he did before releasing the proposal to the press, and there was no agreement not to speak to the press about the issue. But we did in effect agree that no Council member would break the story on their own.

In retrospect, taking advantage of the 20/20 hindsight that I now have, the Council and City staff made three mistakes at that meeting -- not egregious enough to be illegal. The first was holding the meeting in the first place. We had already been fully informed about the two proposals; no new information was brought up on March 27th. Both proposals could have been released to the public, both put on the April 10th agenda, both voted on by the Council. It is not entirely clear why we had to select one over the other in closed session.

Second, since we did take a vote, we should have done so formally: motion, second, roll-call vote. Indeed, that really should become the Standard Operating Procedure for all closed session decisions -- including any decision to not bring forward any particular proposal.

Third, we should have established a date at which, if Ganther had not already made his proposal public, the City should release the information to the press. It seems to me to be altogether appropriate for the City to give the developer the first shot at taking his proposal public. But the City does have a responsibility to its citizens, to provide them with information on public issues in a timely manner.

Giving Ganther 4 or 5 days to air his proposal would have been reasonable; letting him hold onto the details until the last moment was not. We should have established April 4th as the City's release date, and informed Ganther that he could go public on his own any time he wanted to, but told him that if he didn't contact the press by the 4th, we would.

So that was it: we used a flawed procedure to make a flawed decision about a flawed development that's probably not going to occur. Nothing criminal, but a lot of lessons we had better learn from.

M.Kevin McGee           
1244 Wisconsin St               
Oshkosh  WI  54901      
231-8630 (home)
424-7155 (office)
mcgee@uwosh.
 
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