The Whitefish Bay Village Board Monday set a tentative timetable for making a decision about the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s plans for renovation and expansion of the Karl Jewish Community Campus.
After receiving the Plan Commission’s report, the board determined that the members would read and digest the material by the next board meeting, scheduled for Jan. 6, and then decide what, if any, additional information they needed.
Depending on the kind of information sought, the board would gather it in January and perhaps early in February. The board would then schedule a meeting some time in February with the campus plans as the sole item on the agenda; discuss and evaluate all the proposals, information and arguments; and vote on its decision.
Jay Roth, executive vice president of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, the largest of the seven Jewish organizations headquartered on the 27-acre campus, said afterward that the setting of the timetable “is good. We need to finish. We think that if the board will view the information objectively they can see merit in the plans, and we can begin planning our future, which we’ve put on hold for two years.”
Moreover, Roth said, “It is important for the Jewish community to get a resolution” of this matter. “There are other projects waiting … on the result of the Whitefish Bay process.”
Two trustees, Scott Beightol and Kenneth Berg, expressed disappointment that the Plan Commission, after some six months of studying the proposals, did not present a more strongly worded report recommending approval or disapproval of the campus plans.
The commission last week instead declared that if the Village Board approved one of the two alternative proposals presented by the federation, it should do so only after a list of conditions was imposed and issues were resolved on such subjects as traffic, noise from the proposed outdoor swimming pool, construction of parking lots and the esthetics of the building designs.
Trustee Ted Matkom and village president Kathleen Pritchard, both members of the Plan Commission as well as of the Village Board, said that the Plan Commission members were too divided on too many issues, including whether they had enough information on some matters, to give a consensus view of the entire plan.
If anyone on the Plan Commission had tried to “make a strong motion” about the proposals, “we would have been there a long time,” said Matkom. Therefore they felt it would be best to “pass the baton to the board and identify issues for review.”
The Plan Commission did make two positive recommendations: that the board review MJF’s Plan A, which would locate the proposed outdoor swimming pool on land that the MJF would purchase from Whitefish Bay; and that the board move toward “expeditious resolution” of the proposals “because of the schism in the village” over them, Matkom said.
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