The Whitewater Common Council met Tuesday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss multiple topics related to the city. New members were welcomed, the city manager provided several updates, and a community member brought up traffic light issues. They discussed the Walworth County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan, a request by the Whitewater Police Department to purchase new equipment, and discussed the outdoor warning siren.

Walworth County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan was discussed at the meeting through preparations of natural hazards, flood insurances, and disasters ahead in the future. It was resolved that they will be using the Walworth County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan from 2022 to 2026 while they may have to do revisions over the next couple of years as it takes place in Whitewater. 

Police Chief Dan Meyer presented a new device that is called the Guardian Angel Safety Light, which is used to help give visible lights to officers at night when they are pulling citizens over to provide better lighting for them in dark settings. 

“This is another LEA Grant purchase request. To recap, our allocation was just a shade over $44,000. We have $31,297 and 44 cents still available for spending on that. So really the purpose of these is to help officers be more visible whether they’re doing a traffic stop, doing a tavern walk, whatever it may be just to help them be more viability in dark hours and in addition there is infrared lighting if they are doing an area search or flood of lights a drone can help search them out,” said Meyers.

The Common Council had an election for Aldermanic Districts 1, 3, 5, and a council member at large. They were sworn in as official newly elected members at the meeting. The Aldermanic District 1 elected member is David Stone, Aldermanic District 3 is Brienne Dicholt Brown, and District Aldermanic 5 is Neil Hicks. The Council Member at Large is Lisa Dawsey Smith. There were nominations for James Allen as the WAFC sub committee Chair. 

There was a community member who had an issue to bring up to the common council that is happening in Whitewater with the stoplights at the intersection of Prairie and Main Street being dangerous lately. 

“I was wondering if it was possible for the city of Whitewater to look at the stoplight at the intersection of Prairie and Main Street when classes let out, I know right around lunch hour as well around the 4:30 time frame. The traffic backs up onto the Prairie Street sometimes as far as Heide Hall then makes turning off Lot 12 on campus extremely dangerous, as well as the students trying to cross the streets up on Main Street. Sometimes this is due to the fact that the cars will line up and if the front car going southbound on Prairie Street doesn’t move up and the cars on the left then it would also pile up. So I was wondering if you could do something about that especially with it being extremely dangerous,” said Brian Schanen.

The City Manager John Weidl provided several updates. The Whitewater Community Foundation Civic Summit had a recent meeting with some council members to discuss residential fostering community engagement and marketing of Whitewater. They talked about the dry conditions in the environment with the red flag for possible fires, and the fire department working at the Whitewater Unified School District on the mock car crash. City staff are taking down the ice skating park rink at the Big Brick Park, a new Whitewater Arts Alliance project is being put up, and two new police officers have been signed on: Ryan Aldrich and James Garcia. Steve Hatton has resigned from the role of Finance and Administrative Services Director.