Menominee Park Beach

Menominee Park Beach is great. As many of you cringe at that statement, consider:

~ The city, in partnership with the UW Oshkosh Biology department, is now monitoring the beach 1-2 times per week for levels of bacterial. The result? This beach has some of the lowest levels of E Coli bacteria in the county. Steps that the city has taken to reduce nesting bird populations and discourage year-round residency of geese may be paying off. Further, steps taken to improve the storm sewer system help to reduce the possible needs to discharge untreated waste into the lake (think Milwaukee). Further, swimmers are notified that the beach is tested and will be closed when potentially unsafe levels are found, with all results readily available from a link on the city's Sustainability website and the Parks website. You won't find that degree of improvement on many other inland beaches in the state.

~ The beach is pretty well maintained. New sand is brought in each year, which is huge (and much appreciated)! Further, the sand is regularly combed and cleaned. The beach house is a significant asset to any urban beach setting, and the condition of Oshkosh's beach house is pretty good. The result is that the city is demonstrating a superior level of management and care of a facility that is generally very hard to manage and care for due to the high level of use, the prevalence of unsupervised adolescents, and the nature of public outdoor facilities.

~ The beach provides a free, outdoor activity for thousands of families each summer. Many of the elder folks in Oshkosh remember a time when the beach was the place to go during hot summer days, with life guards and endless rows of visitors. But if you visit today, you will still see a great diversity of interesting families and individuals having fun swimming, catching some sun, throwing some disc, and relaxing in one of the finer spaces of our city.

Of course, improvements can be made.

+ Swimmers, fishers, boaters, and environmentalists all want to continually see water quality improvement. In fact, every report concerning quality of life and the Wisconsin business environment suggests that presence of quality water is huge. You'll also find water quality as a highlighted goal in almost all city language, including the comprehensive plan, most citizen surveys, and the community's 2013 goals for our water system.

+ Shoreline restoration will help to improve our water quality, as well as improve the fish habitat, as well as deter geese from along the shoreline, as well as improve the beauty of the shoreline, as well as reduce the unnecessary labor spent mowing and edging along the shoreline. This too is listed through municipal language. It is like there is a mandate that is just dangling in front of the city's nose.

+ Landscaping can turn the worst of areas into interesting and attractive islands. For a few hundred dollars, the area South of the beach could benefit greatly from a bit of landscaping. Maybe around the beach house too. This would further demonstrate the pride that the city has in maintaining their facilities and improving the health and beauty of our city.

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Oshkosh Community Bike Program

The Oshkosh Community Bike Program is up and rolling....They now have bikes ready to be distributed. They are also accepting donations of bikes to be repaired and distributed. Here is information about how to access the program:

Process for obtaining bikes from the Oshkosh Community Bike Program
- At the present time they will not be using a voucher system.
- If you are a social services worker and have a client that you are working with they will consider them "prequalified". If you have a worker, talk to them about this program.
- If not they will have to go through an interview process for qualification under WINR and federal poverty guidelines.

Contact by email for the program: either ocbp.winr@tds.net or ssagmstr@aol.com

You will then be contacted to set a date for an appointment. Qualified individuals may choose any bike available; we have 20", 24", 26", and 27" and many styles. They will fit the bike for you and make repairs for free or a nominal fee. All orders will be filled on a 1st come first serve basis and bike availability.

Currently they are holding store hours on Monday's and Friday's - 8 am to noon and Wednesday's 1 pm to 5 pm. Please do not just stop in - you must first contact staff to arrange an appointment.

All juveniles should come in with a parent/guardian/worker.

The bikes are available at no cost to the client, but if they (or you or your agency/organization) can afford to contribute $5.00 to $35.00 to the bike program it will help them to expand the program. When you leave with the bike it will have a City of Oshkosh bike license and be registered. In the future they would like to add bike helmets, bike locks and back packs as funds allow.

The site is also available for youth and adults to volunteer, for community service, and as a work site (provided you are paying their wages!). If anyone is aware of any funding to keep the program going let Steve Sagmeister know.

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Oshkosh = Unsafe for Bicyclists

The ONW has been following a very recent story of an auto driver failing to yield at an intersection and proceeding to smack an elderly bicyclists in my neighborhood. The lady hit is still being hospitalized, though there is uncertainty about whether or not charges will be filed.

So, Main Street Oshkosh has decided to issue charges. This accident is yet another in the continual stream of bicyclist injuries at the hands of auto drivers in our city. Somewhere, accountability and action needs to begin:

1. We charge the folks at city hall responsible for community development for failure over the past 20 years to develop safe and functioning bicycle routes for residents and visitors of our city. While communities across the state were implementing avenues to promote healthy, sustainable transportation alternatives such as bicycling, the city did nothing - going as far as paying to develop a plan that was, at best, ignored.

2. We charge the elected officials on our city council over the past 20 years for their absolute silence and utter lack of leadership on this issue. Our poor bicycling environment has been a topic of conversation during election year for at least the last 7 years, with candidates talking good on it, and failing to ever take action - about as reliable as a broken clock. In the realm of sustainable pedestrian traffic options, useless is about the best word you can come up with.

3. We charge the Oshkosh Police Department for not taking a more active role in promoting bicycle safety - primarily focusing on driver education and enforcement of bicyclist rights on the road. In most instances throughout the municipal roadway, bicyclists have the full right to the road equal to auto drivers, yet there is blatant disregard and ignorance concerning this matter, and it comes down to a responsibility of our police system to monitor and protect these rights.

4. We charge idiot drivers who don't know what they are doing, and who aggressively fly through the city without concern for bicyclists, children playing by the road, speed limits, or for other drivers who may be driving at a leisurely pace. You are the unwanted cancerous mole on a pig's ass that stains our city with your stupidity.

5. We charge the DOT for their unsustainable roadway growth agenda that seeks to run 4 lane speedways through the middle of every city while eliminating the potential for bicycling, slow traffic conducive of a neighborhood, and roadside greenery that creates a warm and welcoming street scape for pedestrians (such as that overwhelmingly supported in the Vision Oshkosh survey). Their "take our money only with our rules while we ignore local challenges" is not for our city, and in most cases we're better without it. For anyone who supports local control of our community, here is your opportunity.

6. Finally, we charge the bicyclists in the community for their passive avoidance of all things important concerning the matter - attending meetings, organizing campaigns, writing letters, talking to candidates and officials, working on campaigns of candidates who genuinely support pedestrian safety, and for making a long-term impact on the future health, safety, and sustainability of our community. Take 30 minutes out of your week and volunteer to make our community better.

For a small glimmer of positive word on this subject, residents, professionals and municipal staff are nearing completion of a strong bicycle plan, that if implemented, will make Oshkosh one of the premiere urban bicycling communities in our state. May we all push hard for its adoption and implementation.

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Oshkosh and backyard chickens

It is always important to ensure that the laws in place serve a valuable purpose, and are not just there because of past streamlining and oversight. This is often the stance of conservative folks who champion a less-restrictive government: eliminate the rules that invade on an individual's life without significant cause for such rules.

This is also the position of local food advocates pushing for the right to raise chickens in their residential back yard: get rid of the ordinances preventing the safe and responsible keeping of hens. A growing number of communities across Wisconsin are permitting the raising of hens (female chickens) in urban backyards, including Green Bay, Madison, all of Pierce County, and others. La Crosse, Eau Claire, Racine and Milwaukee are looking at permitting backyard chickens as well.

I spent last weekend in St Paul, MN at my brother-in-laws. He and his wife are raising 3 hens in their yard. This is obviously a dense urban area - which made me think "if they can do it there, it shouldn't be a big issue in Oshkosh". So I asked a few questions about the "Backyard chicken movement" and learned the following:

~ Roosters are almost always prohibited due to their loud noise. Anyone growing up with chickens knows than hens tend to be very quiet - sort of like a cat, and exponentially quieter than dogs.

~ Hens are prohibited from being butchered on residential plots in almost every city that permits backyard hens.

~ Urban backyard chickens are usually raised for their eggs, generating an average of about 1 egg per chicken per day throughout about 9 months of the year.

~ Cities issue permits, similar to Oshkosh's current pet license - in which a small fee ($10 - $50) is paid on an annual basis for approval to keep hens.

~ Numbers are usually limited (4-10 hens per plot), with a required chicken coop

~ Limited numbers of backyard hens do not pose health risks to individuals - a position supported by the Racine city health board as well as Extension poultry expert Ron Kean.

An excellent paper examining 25 urban settings that permit backyard chickens (available here) examines the best practices for developing an ordinance for a community to ensure that nuisances are avoided while protecting the health of the chickens and the neighborhood. A citizen petition from La Crosse calling for approval of 5 hens in residential zoning can be found here.

Benefits of backyard chickens include: An immediate connection to your food source; healthy affordable source of protein; a sustainable food source requiring almost no energy that consumes grains and vegetable scraps while producing valuable compost for the garden; and more.

UW Extension even has a publication out titled the Guide to Raising Backyard Chickens. A group in Madison has a nice website dedicated to urban chickens as well.

I believe Oshkosh currently prohibits the keeping of chickens, per ordinance code that restricts domesticated farm animals. Someone at the coffee shop thought this had just changed recently, although a brief Internet search did not reveal any such news. A Main Street Oshkosh prediction: by April 2012, residential zoning will permit at least 3 hens in the city of Oshkosh. Based upon the current city council composition, I can see guaranteed two votes in favor, with a real potential unanimous support. The largest hurdle will be to get folks to think beyond their own childhood experiences - the "I didn't have chickens so therefore no one should". With an effective education campaign, it should be relatively easy to demonstrate how this is something very common, practical, and beneficial in communities throughout the US (and obviously the world).

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Schools and Pesticides

A few weeks ago, my daughter was arriving at her summer education program administered by the Oshkosh Area School District, when it was noticed that grounds crew were applying pellet fertilizers/pesticides to the lawn. Several kids ran through the lawn barefoot (coming for gymnastics), while others walked through the spilled pellet piles on the walkway. Smaller siblings were also stumbling along through this, which brought up the idea of these kids later putting their shoes in their mouth - something obviously very common among small monsters.

Anyway, it appears as though schools throughout the state of Indiana are now going to be required to reduce and closely monitor all chemical lawn applications, including ensuring no children are present during application time. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune about the new regulations, "Pesticides can interfere with a child's development, trigger asthma attacks and cause other respiratory problems, she said. And some of the pesticides and herbicides Indiana's schools use to kill insects, rodents and weeds contain suspected carcinogens."

Beyond the health benefits of such regulations, reductions in the use of chemicals have saved school districts $6000 - $10,000 annually due to reduced purchasing of unnecessary chemicals.

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Cory Chisel August 13

CORY CHISEL - Friday, August 13, 9:30pm
Becket's Restaurant ...1 City Center (Jackson St. and the Fox River)
Tickets: $5
All Ages

Check out CORY CHISEL on MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/thewanderingsons

More info about the SMOKE FREE SOUNDS SERIES:
http://wibettersmokefree.com/

Cory has a great sound, and is a great guy. This even receives the Main Street Oshkosh Seal of Approval.

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KittenPalooza in Oshkosh

Message received from the Oshkosh Area Humane Society:

OAHS has so many kittens and cats looking for homes they are holding a second Kitten Palooza this Saturday, July 24, from 11 - 1 pm. at 1925 Shelter Court, Oshkosh. You can't beat the prices! Kittens are already spayed/neutered, feline leukemia tested, litter box trained and cute, cute, cute! No same day adoptions but they are worth the short wait to take home. Use the extra time to kitten proof your home! Save a life, adopt from the Oshkosh Are Humane Society.

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Community Garden Resource

Several folks have contacted me concerning resources for community garden development and promotion. Oshkosh is now home to at least 4 public sites, with more expected in the next 5 years. This growing movement is the result of a renewed interest in healthy activities, healthy and affordable food, valuable family learning activities, and care for the environment.

One of the finer resources on this subject is the American Community Garden Association. Their site includes a wealth of publications and how-to guides, in addition to a newsletter sign-up.

I will be working with the city of Oshkosh and UW Ext staff over the next few months to develop a nice little website as part of the Sustainable Oshkosh site to help keep folks informed and involved.

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Why it matters

Talk has resumed about redistricting our state legislative seats, including who should be responsible for the creation of the districts. Anyone that has checked out the 53 Assembly District is familiar with just a bizarre shaping of an assembly district - and one that is very hard to effectively campaign in. We've also heard quite a bit of talk in the past 4 years about County Board seat changes, as seats are randomly sought for elimination by a loose coalition that isn't a strong supporter of decentralized, neighborhood representation.

Why does redistricting matter? The Brennen Center for Justice assembled a list of some of the most obsurd abuses of legislative power - no surprise Texas and Illinois are spotlighted. Check it out here.

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$25,000 Match for downtown beautification efforts

According to the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation:

The OACF has pledged $25,000 for downtown beautification efforts - provided the community can raise $50,000 by September 15.

The $25,000 matching grant will help provide new benches, bike racks, flower pots and other amenities when Main Street re-opens later this year. Main Street has been closed since March for reconstruction, and is tentatively scheduled to re-open in late-October.

"As a foundation for the community, we believe it's critical that we continue to support downtown redevelopment," says Eileen Connolly-Keesler, President and CEO. "Local residents routinely emphasize the importance of beautification projects. These improvements will help make Main Street even more inviting, driving more traffic to local businesses."

To support downtown beautification efforts, please submit donations to the Main Street Beautification Fund, Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, 230 Ohio Street, Suite 100, Oshkosh WI 54902. You may also donate online at www.OshkoshAreaCF.org.

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Oshkosh Storm Water

Since this weekend the city and surrounding countryside has received too much rain. Much of the rain has picked up soil from farm fields and construction sites and has made it into our local waterways. Here area a few photos. Top: Sawyer Creek overflowing its banks. Middle: Sawyer Creek delivering its huge sediment load into the Fox River. Difficult to see because of the glare. Bottom: Runoff from road construction on Saratoga Ave. after a normal rain on Sunday.

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2nd Annual Garden Walk this Saturday, July 17

Join the Oshkosh Garden Club this Saturday, July 17 for the second annual Garden Walk. Proceeds benefit the Taking Root Fund of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation.

Tour six local gardens from 10:00 to 4:00. Tickets are $8 in advance at the local Stuart's Landscaping and Garden Center, or $10 at any featured garden the day of the walk.

Visit here for more information about the garden walk and the Oshkosh Garden Club.

Visit here to learn more about the Taking Root project - a massively ambitious tree planting project of the Oshkosh Community Foundation.

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Kaukauna takes lead in Water Conservation

In continuing our trend of posting information on municipal water conservation programming throughout the state: the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) is reporting that they have approved Kaukauna Utilities to expand their already active water conservation and efficiency programs.

According to the PSC:

"The utility intends to offer rebates to customers who purchase water-saving dishwashers and clothes washers or who install WaterSense labeled products, including toilets, showerheads, and faucets. Kaukauna is also the first in Wisconsin to offer a $500 incentive to builders who construct homes that meet the WaterSense New Home standard. Commercial and industrial customers who install water-saving measures may also be eligible for customized incentives of up to $1,000."

For more information about Kaukauna Utilities’ water and energy conservation programs, visit: www.kaukaunautilities.com

This is yet another example of a community in Wisconsin demonstrating pro-active, sustainable management of their natural resources. The way to implement something like this is relatively simple: water rates are increased by 1/10 of one cent ($0.001) per block of water usage (such as a gallon or cubic foot) - the actual increase varies based upon the established incentive goals.

This added revenue is restricted, per state regulations and the agreement established through the PSC, to fund such conservation measures as low-flow showerheads (which have the increased benefit of reducing hot water usage, thereby saving residents on their energy bill) and low-flow toilets. The expanded developer / builder incentives that Kaukauna has put into place are impressive, and something that serves as a valuable economic incentive to smart development.

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NEW Partnerships for Employment presents: Project SEARCH

Emailed received from ArcWinnebago:

NEW Partnerships for Employment presents: Project SEARCH

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Thursday, August 19, 2010. 10am - 12pm at Clarity Care - Oshkosh, 424 Washington Ave, Oshkosh, WI 54901

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Project SEARCH a collaborative model to provide employment and education opportunities for individuals with significant disabilities. The program is dedicated to workforce development that benefits the individual, community and workplace. Project SEARCH was launched in the private sector in 1996, utilizing guiding principles that were adopted by the American College of Healthcare Executives. In part they issued a policy statement that reads, “...healthcare executives must take the lead in their organizations to increase employment opportunities for qualified persons with disabilities and to advocate on behalf of their employment to other organizations in their communities."

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Project SEARCH currently has over 140 sites in 42 states with both private and public employers as well as the UK and Australia. Project SEARCH serves people with disabilities through innovative workforce and career development.

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Project SEARCH is a one year, high school transition program which provides skills training and work experience for young adults with disabilities ages 18 to 21. Through this process, we educate employers about the potential of this underutilized workforce while meeting their human resource needs. The ultimate goal upon program completion is competitive employment utilizing the skills learned on the internships and throughout the program.

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Register ASAP or by August 4th ~ Seating is Limited! To Register Please Contact: Darci Vickman at Darci.vickman@wisconsin.gov Please contact Darci at least two weeks in advance if you need accommodations.

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NEW Partnerships for Employment is a coalition of stakeholders (individuals, employers and organizations) who seek to build and support sustainable partnerships focused on improving community employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

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