The Silver Lake Village Board agreed in principal Wednesday to a consolidated committee structure proposed by new village President Bruce Nopenz.
The current structure of seven Village Board committees had some overlap, Nopenz said at Wednesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. Instead, he proposed a new set of three committees:
- A committee combining the current Finance, Legislative & Administrative and the Economic Development committees.
- A committee combining the current Police and Judicial and the Emergency Government committees.
- A committee combining the current Public Works and Buildings and the Parks, Public Lands and Library committees.
The village also has a General Welfare Committee but it was not discussed Wednesday.
Nopenz said he decided to re-structure the committees after seeing that the current committees often had nothing to report at village board meetings.
“There’s enough going on in the village, there should be stuff to work on,” Nopenz said.
Other board members seemed willing to allow Nopenz to try the new configuration.
“Give it a whirl,” said Trustee Roger Johnson, a former village president.
Nopenz will come to the board with new names for the committees and chairman and members at a future date.
I was under the impression that if a board member is not the head of a committee then he/she cannot put items on the meeting agenda. This is a rule from a while back.
If the new committee structure is implemented then we should probably change the rules so any trustee can put items on the agenda. If we have 7 board members and only 4 committees aren’t we creating a situation where 3 of them can never put items on the agenda. This seems to negate a lot of their power.
Overall the idea of consolidating committees if fine with me. Let’s just make sure we are not silencing 3 of the 7 members. That would be unfair.
Maybe they are already considering this but thought I would bring it up just in case.
Remember when West of the I used to print comments that readers could submit, and folks could actually read? If you are reading this, go figure!
Took two days to get my last one to post. By that time the story was so far down the page it was a wonder if anybody bothered to go back and read it.
Another indication that our new board is functioning together quite efficiently! President Nopenz has the leadership ability and qualities that will bring our board members TOGETHER, to work for the betterment of ALL. It’s going to take time, but I believe Mr. Nopenz will provide a steady hand in steering our village towards calmer waters. He has his “nonbelievers”….for sure. But as each of the initiatives put forth by the board starts to become reality, they will slowly fall by the wayside. These are exciting times for our village!@
I think the Public Works Committee needs to address the lack of implementation of our public works employees being cross trained as firefighters. This would greatly INCREASE our ability to respond to emergency calls in the village during the daytime hours, when most of our firefighters are not available(working their full time jobs….out of town!). This would ENHANCE the positions of our PW employees, not diminish them!! I believe they would appreciate the chance to provide even MORE valuable service to our community.
They need to get on board and “join the team”. Changes are coming, embrace them.
How do you force someone to fight a fire who doesn’t want too? I would think that would be a major hazard in itself. I know I wouldn’t want some one with no interest in being a firefighter showing up at my house fire. That’s like telling hiring a plumber to run your electric! Fireman are a certain type of amazing individuals who have a want and a knack for what they do… You can’t force that upon just anyone just bc they happen to be a convient fill in.
@Please explain. Simple. The job posting for the public works crew members hired INCLUDED the requirement that they be active members of the fire department. This would alleviate the daytime staffing problem when our firefighters are out of town at their full time jobs(not in town, like our public works crews are.). If the new hire does not have firefighting experience, you TRAIN THEM. How tough is that concept to understand? Virtually ALL of our Fire and EMS/Rescue folks are “cross trained”….you know, work a full time career job, then work/volunteer as firefighters, EMTs, Rescue. Public works balked at the plan and have refused to cooperate.