 I am chairing this meeting in replacement for Mayor Vandersky-Wab is to be a not-true-all ratio. So if you can please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. If we can just go around the room and introduce yourself. And some of you are here as neighborhood representatives. So if you could please indicate that. And then if you're just a citizen interested in learning, that's good too. So we'll start over here. Steph. Scott Vandersky, Alderman, Fifth District. Merritt's Group and Deputy City Clerk, working the City Clerk's Office. Cheryl Smith. I am an election specialist in the Clerk's Office. Nancy Merritt. I am a neighborhood development planner. Todd Wolf. Alderman District 1 and also a council president. Very low value Alderman District 4. Dean Degger. Indiana Corp. Neighborhood Association. Marquette Savalio. District 5 Alderman person. Caroline Sorenson. District 8 Alderman. Margaret Arnstrak. I'm just here to listen. Jody Kramer, new member for the Memorial Association. Nancy Norris. Joe Clark. Near North Neighborhood. Alan Murphy. Ellis Historic District. Henry Capito. Gateway Neighborhood. Scott Hanson. Green Park Neighborhood. Grazie Povella from the Green Park Neighborhood. Rob Miller. WSES. Tom Jordan. President of the Greater Neighborhood. So after number 2.1 approval of the minutes of November 7, 2017. Motion to approve the submitted. Seconded. We have a motion and a second. Any corrections, additions? Hearing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. The 3.1 is a featured presentation on the city-wide redistricting by the city clerk staff. So Meredith, it's all yours. Savannah, which one are you? No. I'm serious. Whoa, whoa. Okay, I'm not going to help with that part. All right. So we just put together a little presentation. They asked us to talk about the definition of an older person and then go into what's happening next year with the districts. Because we are going from 8 districts to 10 next year. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. So what is an older person for the city of Shboygan? It's an elected official that is nonpartisan office. It represents a district in the city of Shboygan and takes part in Common Council, which is responsible for setting the government policies for the city. So what are those responsibilities that they have? Their main responsibility is to represent the constituents in their district. They attend Common Council meetings, which happened the first and the third Mondays of the month. They happen at 6 p.m. usually third floor city hall, but our elevator is broken, so they're at the county building right now. And they are part of at least one standing committee. And part of this also, the standing committees there are four right now. There's the Finance and Personnel Committee, Public Works, Public Safety and Law and Licensing. And those committee meetings meet the opposite weeks of the council. So the first Monday will be council meeting. The next week, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday will be one of these meetings. And then the third week will be council again and the fourth week will be these meetings again. So what kind of decisions do they make? These are just a very, very few decisions that they make for the city. Annexations, they approve the budget, development decisions, employment, street repair, signage, all kinds of things. So that's just a very few. I should have brought an agenda for their meetings. They're usually four or five pages long of all the decisions that they make for the city. And this is kind of just a breakdown of where everybody falls, kind of, who works for the city. So the citizens on top, they're represented by their common council, which are elected positions. The mayor of city attorney, city clerk, and municipal court judge is also, those are all elected. And then this kind of breaks down the office of city administrator and then all the department heads that go underneath there. So that's kind of how it breaks down and how everybody's connected. And those are the names of all the people. That's also on our city website if you're interested in looking at it more in detail. So how do those documents become agenda items on the council agenda? We just kept it real simple, but communications from residents is an important thing that, an important way that documents become on the council for them to look at. Somebody has an issue with, there was one just a week ago or so about parking signs. No parking signs or war parking signs or stop signs or things like that. Those are things that would go to council. They would refer them to one of the standing committees. They would look at it and make a decision. So all the persons and department heads submit items for the council agenda also. Resolutions, ordinances, contracts, agreements, and all those things come through our office because we compose the agenda. It's different really depending on what kind of document it is, but typically most matters are going to go through two council agendas. So Common Council is going to look at them twice. The first meeting, the items usually are not discussed, but they are referred to one of the standing committees. So the 16 older men are there, all the persons are there. They bring it to a standing committee and those standing committees, all the sideways head, but they meet opposite weeks and they allow for discussion of a smaller group of older persons. So standing committees are made up of five older persons and they can discuss things in a smaller group. And then those committees make a recommendation to the council as a whole. So that's why they come back to the council a second time where those decisions can be made in a final group can be taken. Understanding committees and all that point out that there's citizens, members, managers, and all just the older. Understanding committees and all that. Understanding committees and all that. So the four standing committees are the ones that are made up of the five older persons. There's also committees that City Plan, other things that are made up, other committees that they're made up of citizens, the city administrator, other people like this this committee that meets. It's not made up of older persons, it's made up of people from the community. So that's a good point. Thank you. So can you speak at Common Council? Yes. You can speak, but you have to sign up in our office what's called Public Forum. Public Forum is optional for five community members to speak before the meeting gets started. Well, right after the meeting gets started I should say. It's a limit of five minutes. Five people can speak, but they can only speak on a topic that's on the agenda. So it's not really a random thing if there's something that's important to them on their agenda. They can sign up with us. We'll call their name during the meeting and they get to speak for five minutes. They can also speak at standing committees really, but they have to contact the chairperson of that committee just to let them know that they're coming, what they're speaking on, things like that. Okay, how do they vote? This is a kind of important one, Sue and I talk about it because when you see it on TV it looks like it's not real clear how they're voting. They use Chromebooks and we use a system called Word Docs and so when it's time to vote the clerk opens up voting, which they do a couple of clicks on the Word Docs screen and the older person then votes on the screen and it comes up to the clerk which then gets posted on a board like this so you can see who voted which way. Both are taken individually, calculated and then displayed on the screen for the public to view how each elder voted. That doesn't happen every single time. Sometimes it's just done verbally. Let's get into a little bit more why we're here and then we'll open it up to any questions that you guys might have. Right now, the city is divided into eight districts. There's 26 boards, well that's not completely true. We were just talking about every little annexation that happens between when they take the census every 10 years any annexation that happens creates new board even if there's not somebody that lives there. So right now we have 35 boards but out of the 27 through 35 I think we have two boards that might have people in them but we still have to create a board for any and all annexations. But we don't usually see 26 boards but those are the main boards and after the census the people in those annexations will kind of go into those 26 boards. We'll go back to that. Right now two older persons represent each district. That is wrong. It shouldn't say word it should be district. So we have eight districts 16 older persons. Okay? We have maps over there for anybody that wants to take them and they're colored maps. These maps we got off the county's site and the reason why we can use the county's maps is because the new districts that we have are going to align with the county's districts. So the county has 10 districts for us and we are aligning our districts with them. So you can just click throw them. Well I can kind of say maybe I'll say. On this handout this is an article that Sue Richards wrote for the paper and we have copies for everyone but it goes through each of the 10 districts and then which wards are in each of the districts or which wards will be in each of the districts on April. Okay? We also have a handout over there of what wards are in our districts right now. So it's going to be a little bit confusing I think for people because I know one older person came in and picked up papers to run and the side of the street she lives in is for district and across the street is now not her district which was before. So neighbors might be confused on who represents them right now. So let's just go through what's changing. Okay? We've been talking a lot about redistricting and it's not really redistricting it's more our realignment of what we currently have. Okay? So nothing's really changing except for what district people fall into it. Okay? So there's going to be 10 districts matching the counties. The 20s and this is going to be really important the wards stay the same the polling places stay the same and so that's really important for people to know because that's a big deal and so they were in Ward 1 they're still going to the quarry they're still going to the book for Ward 1 it's the same the only thing that's changed for some people is the older person that they knew might not live in their district anymore and might not represent them so I think that's the most important thing is to people to kind of figure out what district they're in now because the wards changed. What's the district? And now we will only have one older person per district so instead of 16 we're going to 10 come April. Okay what does this mean? I might have talked about this but we'll go through. Wards stay the same polling location and processes will all stay the same so how you voted before is how you're going to vote now but you may be in a different district okay and this is a change for older persons too because the wards that they represented before are not necessarily the wards that they're going to represent now and it's a change for the number 16 to 10 so okay who is going to be on the ballot? All older persons terms are going to expire in 2018 if you're used to voting for older persons you'll know that it's a two year term and there's two per district so one is up every other year okay this is going to be different because right now you're voting for 10 older persons across the city okay if you're in an odd district one three five seven nine they're only running for a one year term okay even districts are running for a two year term so the even districts are going to run for a term of 18 through 20 and then the odd is only 18 through 19 and then in 19 districts are going to run for a two year term so then at that point it will start making sense that everybody's running for a two year term again it's just got to get that first year out of the way okay so that was a lot of information that we went through kind of quick but we are here to answer questions or to point out on the map if you have questions about where you live or which wards do you want me to go through which wards where they were and where they are now what are you thinking what would be helpful what's helpful information let me grab that other sheet you don't have them on your feed at the clerk's office we have a list all the time that will give you the breakdown of the districts the wards who the older persons are their email address their address their telephone number and when their term expires so we have this that we can pass out and when anybody comes and registers to vote we give them one of these in our office and this just kind of helps them know who's going to be on the ballot who represents them in the city things like that okay so this is the present of what we have with it now this is current and this is what it's going to be and that's what it's going to be and you can see then when you compare the two you'll really be able to compare um especially who's an older person and where they where they live and how it changed their district what is the reasoning behind the odd ones running for one year and who's running for two years so we can get them on opposite years running for two year terms so if they both ran for two years they'd always be up for re-election at the same time so it's kind of a get bad balance back to it so yeah it's going to be confusing for the next couple of years just making sure everybody is where they need to be but does anybody else want a copy of the current is there a map of the current eight districts we didn't bring a map sorry but we were kept within our office and we do have maps on our website that you can look at would the maps on the website would it be the new ones with the 10 versus the older would be eight or the older we have a new complete map like this one a full map of the city of the new districts on our website if you and we have maps of the current district the little maps that we're handing out here actually have come from the county site because they have them color coded right now for their districts which are our districts now if you wanted to get a large one like that could we get one from we have bigger ones yes but not that big but we have what the engineering department does do that for us absolutely I believe you can purchase one if you want a bigger one like that if you wanted a bigger one oh we can buy one like that from the engineering department or let us know and we can figure that out for you and come through our office that would be fine too because it would be easier to see all the streets I'm the big one yes and that's where we found the little maps to be very helpful for if you live in a certain district that the county had because it was blown up into that's much easier to see than even the 11 by 14 that we have in our office so is the reduction in all the person is this a cost saving measure or that would be an all the person question I think is it I can tell you my personal opinion why I voted for it which was mainly the fact that there were a lot of complaints I'm just giving my personal opinion there were complaints that some elders weren't following through answering calls things like that when you have two elders for a district you're kind of working some people are only calling one versus the other also my personal opinion was not everybody was connected like they should be so I'd rather have 10 people that want to be elders that are very involved and have 16 that are partial that maybe not take it seriously yeah I could have I was one of the folks that was behind behind the idea for a city our size 16 elders is pretty big most cities our size there are fewer elders not universally though as large as we are the county board which now has 25 supervisors used to have 34 it's the second largest county board in the state so we like things big here so the two older district things interesting at the time that we very first started talking about this two or three years ago Bill Waterman was still on the council he was an elder and remember Bill is sort of our informal city historian and he got up and he said here's why there are two elders per district because when this started the elders went out every night and lit the gas lights so you wanted to have two to share the work of lighting the gas lights and there was a crime committed against you you didn't go to the place you went to the elder and then the elder went to the police so that's why there was they kind of felt the need to be two people to share the work so here's what happens so I've been, I'm in my it's been a while six or seven years and the first partner that I had in district four which is wards 13, 14 and 15 basically was just never ever around he went for six months without attending a city council meeting he ended up in jail constituents would try to contact him and they would have no luck the elder that succeeded him was more responsive but he and I took a very very different approach to problem solving so the question is when you go on the city website and you see two elders well who do I call who do I email some people will call or email both some will choose one or another it was the case that often the second elder that was in my district we kind of worked across purposes just because for whatever reason we just didn't communicate that well the elder that I share now is fabulous I love this guy but he and I we're pretty much on the same page as we approach problem solving because that's what we do as elders for our constituents is we try to solve problems you know people call we got problems you try to solve those problems well sometimes Andy will get the information and he'll be working on a solution and then the constituent will say well maybe I'll let her know as well and so I start on my merry path and then I find out that Andy's been working on it and it gets pretty confusing so it's never I can see when you needed to light the gas lamps and you needed to be the person doing crimes were reported you'd want to but this really to 12 of us 12 out of 16 of us voted in favor of this in December of 2015 this really makes a whole lot more sense it's really neat that we're going to be in the same so this each of you will have the same county board supervisor and alder you won't be in one county board district supervisory district and in another alder manic district it's going to be together we think that that makes sense it helps people navigate who their elected officials are what they want from them so we think that that makes sense it'll be small cost savings I get $158 every two weeks and there are 16 of us so if there are 10 of us there'll be some minor cost savings but that's really not the reason that we're doing it we just think that 10 people come together as a group as a more cohesive group they're able to discuss things and a more keep saying cohesive not even friendly but the discussion is just at a higher level because there aren't quite as many people around and then this is in addition to all the stuff that Todd said which is exactly right sometimes when there's so many people you might have a bad alder who's just kind of high like one of my partners just hid for months and we got frustrated about it but nobody really knows so we think that this will be more transparent and more powerful hopefully more efficient but it is Mary pointed this out very well this is a big change there's no doubt about it but do you think it's going to be a good change? so do you think the workload per all the person is going to increase or do you think it will? normally because of the increase of but we've adjusted the committees and kind of blended things a little bit so it's to try to help balance it again if you get the right group working on things that's what we're here for it really is more efficient because we're going to restructure the committees and we are a lot of times alders were doing things that staff could have done much more quickly and much more efficiently people could always complain to the alders that could bring things to a committee so we're actually going to streamline to three standing committees we're going to each alder is going to be on one standing committee but we think that we're really streamlining stuff and just looking at making things more efficient the other thing that I'd say to that is there was a lot of thought put into the restructuring of the committees to see which committees aldermen need to be responsive at in which committees could really be citizen driven committees so there was a lot of committees that went to not having an alderman on them where in the past when there was 16 aldermen there was an aldermanic representative on just about every committee there was and at one time there was 57 committees so that number has now shrunk down to I think right around maybe 37, 38 committees and probably a good 15 or 20 of them have aldermens have been taken off of the committees so it's really staff and citizen driven they're important stuff they're talking about it's not at the level of maybe having that input at the aldermanic side but I think if there's a need that has to come out of that it always can go to the council and be referred to a standing committee as a kind of a backup but that whole kind of restructuring and vision of not having aldermanic representation on every committee is going to help in the workload of the new 10 elected people can I say just one more thing and then I will absolutely share that to me one of the main reasons to do this is that if you are in a district with two alders and they vote differently essentially you have not been representative because it's a draw and I mean husbands and wives do that all the time but you know with the marriage you can handle it but you know on the council you know I I from my football that's why it's supposed to be time so I think that to me I forgot to mention that that's just a big reason is that we would cancel our votes out and that was just so that the people of the fourth district really didn't have a say because I voted one way and Joe Josey voted another way I have a question that is probably just a city's question confused looking at the counties supervisory versus this in the case of the cities we had in the city we have a district in wards in the counties what do we have is it like townships and districts or how's it I'm pretty sure it's just the districts okay with that being the case matching them now okay so we have eight districts just in the city how many total districts are there in the county 25 so in there how many how many county they did one per 25 so there are 25 supervisors one for you so this doesn't say who our district supervisor is in any place the county sites this is where we got the maps from and the map if you go to your district on a county site it tells you shows you a picture and gives you some information and then you can click to see the maps that we printed off today too okay so the city is covered by eight individual districts and then the remaining 17 are there will be 10 yeah yeah yeah right now we're eight and that's I think we're eight until April yes could you clarify again about the elections the district numbered with odd numbers will be running again 2019 the odd districts are running again and I think that so our eight districts this coming year ten districts I know but right up until April they're still represented by their eight districts and their two older persons even though people are going to be voting for their new districts and one other person and that's the confusing thing so changing our maps and everything on our website isn't current information until April after the election when new people get sworn in and that doesn't happen until the middle of April so I think that that's really it's good to be educated on this and what's happening because it's very it's different for people yes this is very good because representative of the neighborhood bring this information to our neighborhood association which is very very useful but they still don't understand though so the odd numbers are going to be rerunning in 2019 and the odd numbers the even numbers will also rerun in 2020 but in 2020 everybody's going to be running odd districts will be in odd election years and then even districts will be in even number okay but then there will be a moment when all districts will be running at same time for the same amount of time or not the only time that all districts are running on the ballot is in 2018 in 2019 which is an odd year the odd districts were running for two years 2020 is an even year the even districts were running for two years 21 odd for two years 22 the even so the only time that everybody's up for election is just to get this process started is in 2018 exactly and then in 18 the even ones will be for a two year period to get on the even cycle and the odd ones will be on a one year one year term to get on the odd cycle does that make sense? yes so when this was brought up by I think the memorial neighborhood raised the question about having this presentation and originally we were going to wait till after the holidays and then it was decided to do it now because if anybody in the neighborhoods have an interest in running for election you have until December 31st or whatever the date is okay okay yes if anybody has interest in running and to fill those 10 seats the papers have to be taken out and returned to us by January 2nd it takes a little bit especially if you're new to fill out those papers because you have to get signatures from your constituents so and those have those signatures and those addresses need to be verified in our office so we tell people to hopefully get them in earlier than January 2nd so we can verify them and if there's anything missing or anything incorrect they can go back out and get another signature and bring it back so that their papers are good to go but it's 5 o'clock January 2nd the deadline you need 20 but not more than 40 so a lot of people will get 30 so that if a couple of them aren't right or somebody wrote on the wrong address or something that person doesn't count but there's enough there to make the 20 so yeah that's what we're working on right now and it's good to have this meeting now too because there are older persons that are going out and getting signatures and so we're sending them with the maps with the old districts with the new districts in case people have questions also because somebody might say well you're in this board you don't work without me and it could be confusing so we want to send them as much knowledge and stuff that they can use I think another reason it's good to have the meeting now sooner rather than later some neighborhoods have talked about inviting their current representatives and anyone else in their district and having a forum, a discussion with the neighborhood about all of them's vision and thoughts and all of that and I think that's a really interesting approach and I encourage all neighborhoods sitting here to consider organizing something like that with your own representatives you know the number of aldermen are being reduced so there's going to be some competitive districts so it's good to hear from your representatives so there's even more time before the election to organize that sort of thing How many people are actually taking on papers? I wish I would have brought that but there are Anyone in district 8? Call me tomorrow No I know we're going to have a primary in at least as long as people, they've taken out papers but they're not official official until those signatures come back so I know we're going to have a primary probably in at least two of the districts which means there's three or more people that have taken out papers for those districts District 2 and District 10 for sure District and three and three so two, three and ten right now at least three people that have signed up to run for that seat we haven't gotten the signatures back from everybody yet so if we call your office we can get the names we have them all written down I should have brought them so when there's a primary that happens in February 20th so if there's not more than two then there won't be a primary for that district for all their persons there might be a primary for a state office or a county office but not for that and then in April everybody will be on a ballot So when you say that the most likely primary for at least three of the districts it means that there are new candidates for those districts in addition to the previous older persons well District 2 currently this new district I don't know if you saw this paper but it has three current older persons and so the thought is that signatures aren't back but that one has three District 3 there is a new person so there's the two current ones that would represent that and District 10 we have one current older person there's three out here but two new people in addition to one current but it is also possible that current older persons are not going to recombinate that sense we've had some non-cannibacy it's called non-cannibacy papers where they come in and say absolutely I'm not running and that is public information so if I contact you to have that information absolutely any other questions I think there is so this sheet is really helpful too because it tells you where to go to register to vote and everything else it gives you all the dates for the election for the coming year the ones in the fall also it has our number on it so if you have any questions on any of that you can certainly call us we will find the answer okay other questions those of you that are on the mayor's neighborhood leadership cabinet I think it says future meeting date to be determined but I thought at the last meeting we decided one it was January 16th it is so it's January 16th it's yet to be determined where it's going to be but we'll get that out to you as soon as we find out we talked about an idea earlier through sheeps do you appreciate sheeps do you appreciate sheeps I ask a sheeps you can call her that is there a question yes I have another question when I look at these all the person if we were calling could we find out what war do these older persons live in because the wars in the districts overlap now so that someone who may be in one war at this point is going to be in a different district in the future so it happened I was district one I am district one but I will be if I get elected when I get elected I will be district two what were you which were I will say I am in ward two but district one originally went over in my example I get it my example so I'm currently district four and I cover warrants 13, 14 and 15 I'll be in district three which covers warrants 11 and 13 so I will only have two warrants they'll be bigger but 11 will be a new war for me it will be a place where I haven't knocked on doors and things like that and your associate in that war is Amy Ross which district will he be in now if Andy decides to run we would be running against each other because he also lives in district 13 and district four so he would be running in district three representing warrants 11 and 13 because you confirmed though that to be to qualify for candidacy you have to be resonating the district to correct right, so if I were in district if I lived in district 15 I would be running I would be running in a different new aldermanic district so for me my example is even a little more confusing so I represent district eight I represent district eight in the new district I'll represent district eight so right now I represent warrants 24, 25, 26 and I'll represent warrants 24 and 22 next time 20 20, 24 but I don't the other alderman in my district I won't be running against any incumbent because my counterpart lives in war 26 so we're further enough apart so that there isn't any you know, competitiveness and there are some districts that are older person less than this point district nine we have somebody that turned in papers for district nine we have one person that turned in for district nine but that's not a current older person it's somebody new so people are interested in running even against me you know, there are certainly opportunities now it'll be fun more fun any other questions if not, go ahead I was just going to say it was a very educational presentation a lot of information was covered and it was covered very well I didn't know what to expect but I did get all of the information and you did a fantastic job telling us so you are the new the new so you are the new the new the new not yet but you will be right? January the new city the new city right here, thank you so I guess what we would do is as best of you guys understand this if you could take this back to your neighborhood association boards, and we at least communicate that in as we run into people in the public, if they've got questions or concerns and can't answer them, send them to the city clerk's office, first floor city hall, give them a call, whatever, and we'll try to answer it, but I think this is very educational for us to take that into our respective neighborhood associations. So with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. For a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, we are adjourned.