8-10-26 Village Board — Minutes

Village Board Meeting Minutes August 10, 2026 On August 10, 2026, President Mike Brusberg called the Village Board meeting of the Village of Brooklyn to order at 6:30 p.m. Trustees present were Jake Bachim, Frank Seitler, Christian Allen, Mike Gehrmann, and David Berland. Trustee Todd Klahn was not present. Pledge of Allegiance. No public comments. President’s Report – Brusberg thanked Spilde and Roberts and Justin Sullivan and any other members of fire/EMS and public works who got called in to work after hours last Monday when there was a spill in the village. He thanked them for the quick response, and if leaving anyone out, thank you. Thank you to poll workers for their work tomorrow. Berland made a motion to approve minutes of July 22. Bachim seconded. Motion carried. Brusberg abstained. Gehrmann reviewed invoices. Kuhlman explained Pellitteri didn’t receive last month’s check, so we stopped payment and rewrote it. We also voided the US cellular bill from last month, because the switch to T-Mobile happened mid-month, so the payment was to T-Mobile. Gehrmann made a motion to approve bills as presented. Bachim seconded. Motion carried. Oregon School District resolution – Brusberg explained we received a resolution from the school district about being transparent with information being put on the tax bills regarding portion of school district taxes used for charter schools, parental choice or special needs programs. There are a few options to consider. Similar to what Martin Shanks from Village of Oregon summarized, we can direct the village staff to do a feasibility study of adding the information, request the school district do the study, put inserts into the tax bills at school district expense, or take no action and decline the request. It’s not a question of whether we’re willing to be transparent, but the tax bill has a lot of information, and if you look at the points from county treasurers, there’s some problems adding information. The school district didn’t provide any examples of what to do, nor did they provide whether they want a year over year tax information or a one-year snapshot. Berland is in favor of transparency, but it’s a complex subject. If the school board wants to do it, the school board should investigate. Berland would push it back to school board, because this is their initiative, and they need to figure out how to share the information. Brusberg asked if the school district reached out to the counites themselves. Gehrmann said it would be great information saying how it was spent, but it's something the school should provide, and it’s hard to do in a straightforward way. He would hope they provide something for all the villages and towns that go to the school district, so everyone has the same information. It should come from the school and what they would like to put in the tax bill. Bachim agreed. Allen asked if they want it reflected on the tax bill, there’s a lot to fix. Berland said the county prints the bills, so they need to convince the county. Allen said they’re better off posting it, than putting it on the tax bills. Kuhlman explained the counties have a hard time fitting the necessary information already, and it’s a whole software program rewrite to get the information to fit. Bachim said the school needs to do their own thing. Gehrmann thinks that’s a great idea. Berland said they can’t expect the municipalities to do what they want done. Frank said they’ve had questions on where the funds are going and they want to take the pressure off of themselves and move it onto someone else. Brusberg thinks it’s more broad. If you think about the referendums recently, there’s been one for facilities and administration and a business as usual operating budget, and it behooves them if they’re going to break out those three and see the detail for the other 90% of the cost. Seitler doesn’t follow as closely as he used to, and he’s all for transparency, but thinks it should be on them and not us; we’re not the ones to say it Brusberg made a motion that we as a board are in favor of transparency but would like further clarity from the school district with specifics on how we should proceed with something like this; specifics meaning either how would they suggest the tax bill be broken out, or how would they lay out an insert that would have to be district funded. Berland seconded. Brusberg amended his motion to add the third option is we don’t do either of those, but we offer them the opportunity to include it in the newsletter which we do after the finalization of the budget as well. Berland amended his second. Motion carried. Library event at Legion Park – Kuhlman explained the library wants to hold a concert at Legion Park of the 1st Brigade Band on September 19 for about an hour. They’ll set up on their own and people can sit in the shelter or bring their own chairs. They don’t need anything else. Bachim made a motion to approve the application for Dane County Library Service for the use of Legion Park on September 19, 2026 at 2 p.m. for their concert. Berland seconded. Motion carried. Bachim made a motion to approve the temporary alcohol license for the Sno Hornets and Sno Blazers Labor Day Weekend event. Gehrmann seconded. Motion carried. Hotel Street Anchor Club – Brusberg said Allen and he talked with Jason Marshall in April and discussed the issues. There’s been multiple phone calls since then. It was left that Marshall didn’t like any of the ideas, and he wanted to get a secondary opinion from Ronnek. Brusberg checked in monthly, and we haven’t heard anything. We need to make a decision. Marshall wasn’t a fan of putting a ramp in, and that was one way we knew for sure of dealing with the water. There is one lip edge that will cause water to pool, and the thought was if we had a grinder, we could grind that small lip out and that way the water will fall away better. Brusberg’s suggestion is to move forward with not doing any major work except for grinding that lip out, but he doesn’t know other’s thoughts. Allen said the lip, he doesn’t know what was or wasn’t for spec, and it’s not a public walkway. It’s in the alley and abuts that. That should have been poured flush so water can get over a lot easier. The sidewalk itself, we’re waiting on Marshall. The problem is not going to get worse. We can sit on it. We wouldn’t get it under warranty, so there’s no real reason to do it now. Brusberg said it was all done to codes and there was no negligence. Allen said assuming they shovel and salt, it should be fine. Bachim has seen on other properties, a saw cut made and even the saw cut does help, but saw cuts are ugly, and if it’s next to a joint, it may not be in the right spot. It’s worked well. Seitler said he was trying to think of other options, like leveling. Allen said if we can find a company willing to do it with a grinder and get the ridge off, grind back 6-8 inches, should take care of lip and flatten it off. Bachim asked if there is some point we come to a limit. Berland said this is it, we’re done. Brusberg said we produce a letter and ask him to sign off on it. The letter would be he’s accepting it. Gehrmann suggested having public works find someone to get a price and get it done. Allen said he can almost guarantee there are other areas in the village that there are trip hazards on sidewalks, so we could add other spots instead of just that one alley spot. He said it might be easier to get a contractor to do more than one spot. Bachim said if we find the size of the job is being an issue, we could find one or two on main walkways. Gehrmann said we could ask public works to check public sidewalks. Allen added if we group 3 or 4 for a contractor, it be might be easier to do it. Bachim said they will discuss at public works next Monday. They will think of a couple of spots nearby. Brusberg made a motion to move forward with the only adjustment being in front of the Anchor by their alley, to look into having a contractor come in and do a cup grind of the slab that’s slightly off. As part of this action, he’d also like a letter be provided to the owners of Anchor, number one, asking them for sign off of us completing this work on their property, but also number two, highlighting the fact that sign off not only allows us that ability but also removes us from further remediation efforts tied to the Hotel Street project. In addition, the third component of this is to allow the public works committee to seek out from public works director and other members of public works if there are other areas of the village that need to have similar type efforts done to try to get better pricing from similar contractor. Seitler seconded. Motion carried. Grass section of Hotel Street – Brusberg explained that there is a section in front of the residential house in the terrace that is grass right now. There are two options: one is to replace it with grass, and that’s the least costly option. The second option is to concrete over it, but it is residential there. There’s probably a third to represent the middle ground, you could astroturf it. Berland said there’s a fourth option of doing a weed cover and river rock. Bachim said he’s a fan of concrete and then it will be done forever. Gehrmann is in favor of concrete. Brusberg thinks less is appropriate. Bachim said the homeowner also has to clear it then with concrete. Kuhlman relaying that Klahn is in favor of concrete. She also added that putting in grass will be covered under warranty. Brusberg suggested doing the warranty work with the seed, and we can revisit it in the spring. Bachim agreed to seed it again and see what happens. Bachim made a motion to reseed the grass area on Hotel Street under warranty with pinned straw mat to prevent erosion washout. Gehrmann seconded. Motion carried. Sidewalk survey == Berland went back to sidewalk survey questions based on last meeting. He incorporated everything we talked about but thinks we have scope creep by trying to both ask who should pay and should we do anything. He still doesn’t think question 3 should be in there and to remove the comparable considerations if it was up to him. Allen thinks taking 3 out wouldn’t hurt. As much he’s curious who does or doesn’t want sidewalks added in the areas that don’t have it, figuring out who should pay for it and figuring out how aggressively we should replace sidewalks is the foremost question. Gehrmann thinks if you ask about the cost, he thinks we’re going to have two answers -- I want great sidewalks and I don’t want to pay for it. Allen said that’s what taxes are for; it pays for the roads. Homeowners don’t have to pay for their street. Bachim said when our taxes aren’t based off that already, now we’re adding more taxes, and so it’s where to find the money. Brusberg thinking of striking question 3. Allen said otherwise it's a well-worded and educational survey. Are we handing out at the election. Brusberg thinks you can take it out because of the first section. We can weave in the village has already completed an assessment of existing sidewalks and where repair, replacement and installation is needed, so they know that’s something we’ve already done, and that gives more comfort about question 3 being removed. We need to be careful to not ask leading questions. Berland said we would take out 4th section of considerations if remove question 3. Brusberg can be removed with that little bit of addition we have of why the village is asking for input, so they know a comprehensive study has already been done. Allen said covering the hurdle of who pays for the sidewalks and how aggressively we should replace them is a good start to finding out where we should add them. He thinks dealing with the ones we have is pretty important. Brusberg said after additional comments, he thinks it would be good to put it in bolded letters -- as a reminder, the village board meets on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month where sidewalks have been a frequent topic. Please watch the agendas and please attend, as the board is seeking opinion from the community. Gehrmann stated Madison, Shorewood, Verona, Cross Plains cover full cost of sidewalks. Brusberg said if we say taxes are going to be going up because we’re adding a maintenance of sidewalks option, we’d get people to show up. Another option is for all of you who have disrepair of your sidewalks, you’re going to have to pay to get that resolved. So you’re going to get 40% of the village to be angry at that point. Berland is thinking ahead to saving a little bit at a time so you don’t have to pay a large amount at one time. A little bit of tax increase means you don’t have to pay $12,000 at one time because the sidewalk is in disrepair. Brusberg asked if we’re allowed to increase the levy. Kuhlman stated only if have a project and borrow funds. Bachim asked if it falls under public transportation line item, thinking about grants. Brusberg mentioned we spoke with Olivia from Green County Development Corporation, and she’s going to look into things that might help us in the village. We talked about other public facilities and how we struggle with grants. So maybe grants might be out there. Kuhlman said an option would be to figure out overall costs, and take to Ehlers to estimate out how it would affect people’s taxes over the course of years. Brusberg said a third phase could be a public meeting. Brusberg made a motion to approve the survey with the edits discussed. Bachim seconded. Kuhlman asked if it will just be available at the November election. Brusberg confirmed just on election day, with a QR code and have paper copies available. Motion carried. AC replacement at community building – Bachim said he was striking out on calls with everyone on vacation before school. He has calls out, now that the temp is dropping. He doesn’t see the urgency at this time. He’s working with Spilde on a few other things with the community building. Bachim made a motion to postpone action on AC replacement at community building until we get further bids, and hope to have by the 24 th meeting. Berland seconded. Motion carried. Clerk’s report – Financials for month of July. She combined the park and recreation bank accounts into one account. Deposits for the month of July were $166,100.41, and of that $40,961.94 was second installment of shared revenue and other state aid payments. Withdrawals were $294,701.73 and included $80,000 prepaid back to Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. We ended July with a balance of $2,543,444.27. She recently had a phone conversation with Ehlers about the investments. A few longer-term items were coming due, and she confirmed we want to keep them in longer term. She also asked them to add some additional funds for longer-term investing in the sewer equipment replacement fund. The primary election is tomorrow. We have Brooklyn Night Out next Tuesday in conjunction with food trucks. She’s contacted everyone coming and gave them a map of the areas to set up. We have the library coming, about 12 organizations, sheriff’s departments, fire/EMS, Sno Hornets and public works. Spilde will be there to help coordinate setup. Clerk’s office will be closed next week due to annual clerk’s conference in Green Bay. We talked with Olivia from Green County Development Corporation, and she sent some grant information for community building and parks. Board of Review is after the next board meeting. We have one objection so far, and it was sent to the assessor. Planning & Zoning Commission – Lot 30 on Second Street - Brusberg said after a lot of deliberation and after seeing a letter from Rob Roth, our zoning administrator, the Martinsons decided they will move forward with a conventional split, where both houses will fit facing the street, with a shared driveway between them. We will need to do rezoning because the degree of frontage will be smaller by shifting to high density which is 70 feet frontage. Conceptually Planning & Zoning is in favor of what they recommended. Allen said we were trying to work with them to get something in the back, but it doesn’t match the neighborhood, and there were problems with sewer and water and slope and emergency vehicles getting to the back. Brusberg said no action is needed by the board. The Commission would like to recommend a new citizen member named Riley Buol. Brusberg made a motion to add Riley Buol to the Planning & Zoning Commission. Bachim seconded. Motion carried. Fire/EMS District Commission – Brusberg reported the last meeting was on July 15. The chief of operations Mason Barber, left the department to take on another career opportunity. They provided the oath of office to interim fire chief Justin Sullivan, who’s been a long-time member. The rep from McMann was there as part of the rfp process with a series of questions posed to the board members. In addition, they moved forward with amending the holiday policy but there was no action needed on employee manual, and there was no action pertaining to the tender. Chief’s report said Dane County is shifting to a new reporting software. They have phased out the building maintenance company they used in the past and are shifting to a new one. Next meeting is on August 19. Bachim made a motion at 7:30 p.m. to adjourn. Berland seconded. Motion carried. Linda Kuhlman, WCMC, CMTW Clerk-Treasurer