Friends of Klode, Flooding
On Wednesday, the first informal gathering of the "Friends of Klode" group was held. The turnout was very encouraging, attracting 23 people to discuss Klode's past and future, mostly around the topic of the playground.
To review, the current wooden structures were installed around 1993, paid for by donations from residents and businesses, putting the equipment a little under 17 years old.
Last year, the Village removed the parking lot fence and a slide, and installed a structure geared for ages 5 and up with mostly CDBG grant money meant to improve handicapped accessibility of play structures.
This year, the Village again has grant money to spend, and is proposing to remove the structure to the left (east) of the "toddler" swings and replace it with a new structure aimed at 2-5 year olds. (Click picture on right for larger image.)
Generally speaking, these grant funds must be spent by the end of the year. On the agenda for Monday's WFB Trustee meeting is an item to approve this design and send the item out to bid in time for a Fall 2010 installation. Currently, the Klode agenda item is after the flooding item.
To that end, the Friends of Klode have created an on-line survey, which takes about 3-4 minutes to fill out. Please take a moment and share your thoughts on Klode Park. It's very important the group receive feedback from as many park users as possible.
Click here for the survey: http://klodesurvey.questionpro.com
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FLOODING
On Monday, August 2nd at 7pm, the WFB Village Trustee meeting has been moved to the 2nd floor of the WFB Library. Village Hall's elevator is broken (flood damage) and due to the topic, a larger crowd is expected and the library room can hold more people. 160 chairs will be set up. I am uncertain as to whether standing room will be allowed, due to room maximums.
Village staff will present information about the rain event, the flooding, damage to property, our sewer systems, etc. Trustees will question staff, and later open the forum to the public.
I encourage all who come to the meeting to first read the letter the Village sent out yesterday to about 500 homes that reported flood damage to the Village. Click here to read the letter.
In the letter, it firsts describes how that the Village is "disturbed, saddened, and concerned regarding the damage that residents have suffered in these torrential storms." Please understand how true that is.
The letter goes on to describe how flooding locations are being compiled and analyzed by staff, and engineers and consultants will try to pinpoint problem areas and find solutions.
The Village will be reviewing their 5 year Capital Improvement Plan to provide a timetable and financing for any recommendations from the analysis.
For meeting attendees, I would also recommend reading up on the Village's systems, as there is a lot of misinformation rolling around. For example, as opposed to Shorewood, Whitefish Bay does indeed have separate storm sewers that take water from our roads directly to Lake Michigan and the river, depending on where you live. When this 500-year flood hit our area, the storm sewers were inundated.
The Village Engineer will present more detail at the meeting.
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