The Janesville City Council was approached by two different special interest groups during Tuesday night’s meeting with very different proposals that were however, in nearly identical preliminary planning stages.
Basically both groups wanted to share their ideas and know whether or not to proceed beyond the initial stage. One group, the Janesville Patriotic Society requested the council’s approval and administrative cooperation for the group to further explore a project to move several military monuments from around Janesville and consolidate them in Traxler park. The representative of this proposal was left unceremoniously bewildered with only verbal remarks to come back later with more information. No motion was made to vote on whether the group should proceed or not with their plans.
The second group, represented by two local businessmen also wanted the council’s approval and administrative cooperation for the group to further explore a project to build a new indoor ice arena using taxpayer dollars. Despite a sketchy plan (actually just a letter) and many unanswered questions, they however were treated quite differently as one council member, Russ Steeber, made a motion for an up-or-down vote to assert their approval for the exploratory work and city cooperation. The council then voted unanimously in agreement for the ice arena group to proceed to the next phase of their plan.
It pays to have connections.
3 comments:
You're right. The JPS gentleman was not looking for an endorsement of his plan just like the arena people weren't, but merely a vote of encouragement on whether to continue on with the research. The council's intentions seemed pre-determined from the beginning and discriminated against the JPS idea. Does the council only consider a vote if they already know the results? What's the point in voting? Very sharp observation!
Thanks. That is the point of this posting. It had nothing to do about whether or not to endorse moving the monuments. In fact I have no opinion on the issue except for the double standard expressed by the council towards the two different approaching groups.
Leave the WWI monument where it is and belongs on its original site. Traxler Park has too many problems and its doubtful that the we t & soft grounds could support it anyways.
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