An act of God?
Or a stormwater management problem?
Those green Servpro cleaning trucks have been all over the neighborhood for the last couple of days, and the bad news for Oshkosh is that some scientists predict that we will be getting a lot more of the kind of intense rainfalls that we saw last week.
The question that city leaders (and all citizens) should be asking is: Are we adequately prepared?
I've just sent an e-mail to the mayor and a couple of other council members to see if they have plans to investigate this issue.
4 Comments:
I've heard about more flooded basements this year than in all the years I've lived in Oshkosh. No wonder that insurance rates have risen. Whether a particular individual has made a claim or not, we're all paying now. This problem does make me wonder if the city and its citizens are adequately prepared.
Here's the response we got from Frank Tower, the city's deputy mayor:
I attempted to send the following out a couple of times, but it appears it didn't go. If this is your third copy, I apologize:
I'll forward your question to David Patek, our public works director, along with Dick Wollangk, the city manager. I suspect we'll discuss the storm and our continued plans for stormwater management during some portion of the meeting. Keep in mind that no system would have been able to deal with the nine inches of previous rain along with the additional four with a reasonable cost.
As to posting on the 'blogspot', I would use caution. Correspondance such as this is subject to Wisconsin's open meetings law. I have no problem with others knowing my thoughts; however, I don't know what the site or server owner's terms-of-use would be with regard to receiving a letter from the Wisconsin Attorney General requesting a transcript of all comments related to this, or other similar 'blogs'.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
--
Frank Tower
ftower@ci.oshkosh.wi.us
Oshkosh Common Council - Deputy Mayor
Two comments about Frank Tower's reply to your question.
The answers you've requested from city council members are not subject to Open Meetings laws, as Mr. Tower stated. They may, however, be covered under the Open Records Law. There is a difference between the two and perhaps he is not real knowledgeable about those differences. Any person wanting to file a request under the Open Records Law are welcome to do so, but they must specify a time period as to when they want records from. Their request cannot just be open-ended.
As to whether or not the Attorney General would request a transcript of all comments related to such blog postings, I can not imagine why she would need to submit such a request. After all, they will be right here online for her or anyone else to see. That is another reason why such postings may not be covered by the Wisconsin Open Records Law. They are hardly private exchanges when they are posted in a public venue such as this.
This is a wonderful idea. Keep up the good work.
I didn't want to take the time to register an account yet, but I will. There is another side to the stormwater flooding issue. Besides storm water management issues are development and sprawl issues. As communities grow and expand, more houses, garages, driveways, streets, businesses, parking lots create greater runoff problems and contribute to greater downstream flooding.
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