September 5, 2017 Whitewater Common Council brief

Kimberly Wethal, Editor-in-Chief

Tuesday’s Common Council meeting included the discussion of a new timeline for the 2018 city budget and postponed the discussion about a contractual agreement pertaining to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s use of public streets to a different meeting.

The Finance committee, who develops the city budget, asked to do public reviews of all departments, under the requirements that the departments would know ahead of time they were being reviewed and the departments be present for their review so questions could be asked of them. Hatton also asked that the meetings be worked around to accommodate any necessary reports that could affect a decision.

Doing reviews of departments would split what is usually one step of the budget process into two: the monetary portion of the budget would be presented the first week of October, and the supporting narrative would follow later that month after a review of the departments.

The board unanimously supported the idea.

The discussion about UW-W’s use of public streets for parking was set to be a closed session, but was postponed. UW-W has changed their regulations for parking this year, with one of those changes being that parking meters on Prince and Prairie Streets have been removed and are now purchasable with a permit, much like other parking on the university’s campus.