EDITORIAL: City to public: This is none of your business

Open government and transparency are not mere talking points, they are requirements for service to the people by their elected representatives. By their actions in approving the sale of public land for a townhouse development after a series of closed-door meetings and no public discussion, the elected representatives of the City of Port Washington declared themselves exempt from those requirements.

In those closed sessions, the mayor and members of the Common Council came to an agreement to sell the developer the land now occupied by the police and fire stations as a site for 20 townhouses. The approval of the sale includes an arrangement in which the land could essentially be donated to the developer by the city.

The acceptance of the offer was made official with a 6-1 vote at the May 26 Common Council meeting. The action was preceded by four closed meetings over the past seven months but not a single discussion in public meetings.

One of the unfortunate consequence of acting out of the public view is that it gets a promising development off on the wrong foot. The future use of the police and fire station site is important to Port Washington as an opportunity to turn public land into taxable property in a way that adds to the vitality of the city center. Taking the first step toward that goal in repeated closed meetings is an invitation to look askance at the result.

The city received three proposals from developers, but never presented or discussed them in an open meeting, leaving residents with no idea why their elected officials decided their choice was the best option for the city.

In an attempt to avoid conflict with the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law, Port officials took advantage of an exemption four times that allows closed meetings for some types of negotiation.

The Wisconsin Justice Department’s guide to compliance with the law warns against questionable use of the exemption, stating that it is “restrictive rather than expansive.” The guide instructs that the burden to show that a closed meeting qualifies for the exemption is on city officials and that a simple assertion that it will involve bargaining issues is “inadequate.”

The reason given by an alderman for the closed meeting preceding last week’s approval of the land sale, that “it was a financial discussion with our administrative staff making a recommendation to us,” does not meet the law’s standard for a non-public meeting.

When asked for his explanation of why the meetings were closed, Mayor Ted Neitzke said, “We followed the administrative lead. We followed the process that was laid out for us.”

Ultimately, the responsibility for compliance with the law falls on elected officials, not hired staff or the city attorney, a contractor who does not answer to the public.

The job of elected representatives is to make policy, and it should be the policy of the City of Port Washington to do the public’s business in public, not behind closed doors because it was recommended by city staff.

The development of the police-fire site required a high standard for openness because it involved the use of valuable land owned by public. Its sale to private owners in an agreement that will likely result in little or no net payment to the city in particular warranted public scrutiny.

Under the terms of the agreement, the developer will pay the city $465,000 for the 1.56-acre downtown site at the intersection of Wisconsin and Jackson streets. In return, the city will reimburse the developer for the cost of moving and burying power lines and demolishing the police and fire stations. According to an addendum to the purchase agreement, that cost could exceed the purchase price. Because the reimbursement is capped at $464,999, the city would then be paid $1 for the land. Ald. Michael Beaster, the only council member to vote against the agreement, referred to the arrangement as “gifted land.”

In the final analysis, that incentive, especially if it had been openly explained to the public, might well be viewed as a necessary move worth its cost to help add a $16 million property to the city tax rolls. But now it just raises questions.

However attractive the townhouse development may be to city officials, it should not have been given initial approval without informing the public of the reasons it was chosen, without a justification for the land subsidy, and without giving citizens the opportunity to comment on the decision in open meetings.

As the transformation of the site from police and fire headquarters to homes for new downtown residents goes on, there will be other decisions to be made by city officials. Is it too much to ask that they make them without further insult to the public and with doors open?