September 23, 2008
RESTORING YOUR WHITEFISH BAY HOME

Among the principal reasons people are attracted to the Village Whitefish Bay are the many fine homes located throughout the Village.  WFB residents maintain their homes well, on almost every block of the Village a home renovation project of some sort is underway. And many residents are seeking to restore original design features that may have been obliterated by non-sensitive modifications in the past.

The Whitefish Bay Library has recently added two books to its collection to aid residents in the sensitive renovation of their homes: As Good as New: A Guide for Rehabilitating the Exterior of Your Old Milwaukee Home

Living with History: A Guide to the Preservation Standards for Historically Designated Houses in Milwaukee

These books were published by the Milwaukee Department of City Development. Since many of the houses within the Village are similar in design and construction to houses within the City of Milwaukee, these guides are helpful resources to anyone interested in renovating their house in a way that will be sensitive to its historic design.

Both books contain excellent illustrations, suggestions and examples to aid homeowners in maintaining and restoring their houses.

The “Good as New” book has a large section devoted to describing the various architectural styles commonly used throughout the City, including significant illustrations of Italianate, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, American Foursquare, Arts and Crafts and Craftsman, Prairie, Dutch Colonial, Georgian Revival, Tudor Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Milwaukee Duplexes and Polish Flats.

There is also a companion book available in this series entitled, "Good for Business: A Guide to Rehabilitating the Exteriors of Older Commercial Buildings."  These three books are available for loan to anyone with a library card.

July 17, 2008
PRESERVING OUR PAST

Last night, at the Whitefish Bay Historic Preservation Commission meeting, three new sites were added to WFB’s inventory of historical and architecturally significant homes.

With these latest additions, 86 sites are now in the inventory. Each site is summarized in a book which is available at the reference desk of the Whitefish Bay Library. We have also been publishing information on each of these sites in periodic articles on the WhitefishBayNOW website. Additionally, articles have been featured in Bay Leaves, the Village’s quarterly newsletter.

The homes within the Village tell some interesting stories -- stories of early residents of our Community.  Our intention, inpart, is to preserve the history of the Village by documenting the history of these sites.  They also reveal an interesting diversity of architectural style and craftsmanship.

Eventually the Commission hopes to arrange for sidewalk medallions for each of these sites, to help readily identify them, and to create walking tours of areas of the Village. We hope that these efforts will increase our sense of history and help tie the community together.

July 8, 2008
A WATCHFUL EYE ON CRIME

One of the things that make Whitefish Bay a great place to live is the relative safety of the community and its low crime rates. However, it’s important that we don’t take our safety for granted.

You may have seen a recent article, which ran in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on July 3rd and also appeared on the WhitefishBayNOW.com website.  I have extracted a portion of it below. 

I wish that the article wasn’t directed exclusively at Shorewood residents, because it appears that this same miscreant has also been working in Whitefish Bay – at least in the southeast part of the Village where I reside.

By Annysa Johnson
Shorewood residents urged to lock up

Shorewood Police are urging residents to lock their windows and doors, even when they're home, after a rash of burglaries in which one family lost the wife's engagement ring and another's cat was killed when it escaped and was run over by a car.

[…]

Shorewood Crime Prevention Officer Kelvin Walton said residents are being urged to lock their windows and doors, make sure they have adequate lighting and remove dense shrubbery where burglars can hide.

"People need to take basic crime prevention steps," he said.

In talking to the Whitefish Bay police chief, I was informed that our Village has been experiencing a rash of thefts from unlocked vehicles.  Perhaps it's the same thieves.   


The bottom line here is that we need to take reasonable precautions to prevent theft, such as locking our homes and vehicles. And we need to keep a watchful eye out to prevent crime.

June 26, 2008
EXPLORING WHITEFISH BAY HISTORY

I recently added a TAB to this website entitled "Exploring WFB History," to allow me to devote more space to the history of our Village.  The first article discusses the early fishing industry in the Bay.  I'm hoping that you enjoy these posts.  

June 21, 2008
STILL DEALING WITH DRAINAGE PROBLEMS 116 YEARS LATER

I enjoy digging into Village history.  Yesterday, while paging through the Whitefish Bay Historical Collection,* I came across an interesting article that referenced a copy of the Whitefish Bay Pioneer from 1892. 

What caught my eye were some quotes that seemed all too current:

  • "More cellars with water in them are reported from the rains of Sunday and Monday."
  • "Drainage is the great problem to be settled at the Bay.  It is surprising the amount of water that falls in so limited a territory.  The slope of the country is toward the river but there are no water courses for carrying off the water."
  • "During heavy rains ... people think about drainage and lay plans of what they will do to prevent a recurrence of the inconveniences of wet cellars. ... As soon as it is fair and warm and dry again, they forget all their troubles and go in for enjoyment while it lasts."
  • "It is going to be impossible to live comfortably at the Bay until something has been done to provide water courses for the water that falls in a heavy rain."
Certainly we've done a lot over the years to solve drainage issues, including the installation of an extensive storm sewer system.  But as evidenced by the storms earlier this month, and the resulting basement flooding that many Whitefish Bay residents experienced, we need to do more to address the issue.

The responsibility for maintaining the storm sewer system, of course, resides with the Village.  We will be reviewing the system to see if it can be made more effective during excessive rains. 

Meantime, there are things that we can all do to help alleviate the situation.  The Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage Commission offers some suggestions.  They note that, "We each use about 65 gallons of water a day.  If all of MMSD's 1.1 million customers used just 10 gallons less on a day with heavy rain, we would reduce the risk of basement backups and sewer overflows by 11 million gallons."

They offer the following tips to help use less water and avoid excessive flooding:

  • Do the laundry tomorrow if there's heavy rain today
  • Take shorter showers
  • Turn the water off while brushing your teeth or shaving
  • Install high efficiency plumbing
  • Fix leaky plumbing (a leaky toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day)
  • Plant a rain garden
  • Install a rain barrel (see my May 22 post, below)

*  A marvelous collection, located in the Whitefish Bay Library, which includes the “Mimi Bird” files.  The referenced newspaper was quoted in the Whitefish Bay Herald, July 24, 1952.

June 20, 2008 Update
COURTLAND PLACE ROAD CONSTRUCTION

Paving activities along Courtland Place have been delayed due to weather conditions


The Village engineering staff reports that roadway work has been held up by the storms and excessive rainfall of the last several weeks.  The road bed has been excavated and the stone placed.  The curbs have been formed and the concrete pavement will be poured next week -- weather permitting. 

The road bed will then need to cure for an estimated 7 days before traffic can be permitted on the new road.

The work obviously has caused considerable inconvenience to adjacent property owners since they are unable to access their driveways. 

The Village Engineer indicates that to keep the dust down the contractor has a water truck on site daily.


May 22, 2008
VILLAGE CLOCK

Question:  If a broken clock is right twice a day, what is right eight times a day? 

Answer:  The Whitefish Bay Village Clock, which interestingly enough displayed different times on each of its four faces -- until this last week. 

Repairs have recently been completed and the Village clock now displays the correct time!


For the last several years the Village clock has been an icon of the problems with the Silver Spring business district and the Village's deteriorating infrastructure.  Hopefully the clock can now become a symbol of the momentum that is underway to improve the Village. 

This last week the Village board authorized the solicitation of proposals to recruit businesses into the Village.  In addition, the Whitefish Bay Business and Professional Association plans to file a petition for the formation of a Business Improvement District (BID).  A business improvement district is a public-private partnership in which businesses in a defined area (in this case, the WFB Silver Spring business district) elect to pay an additional tax in order to fund improvements.

With these developments, and the previously approved Tax Incremental Financing (TIF), we should have the tools in place to bring positive change to the Street. 

The Community Development Authority continues its visioning efforts to help define the future improvements to the Street.  Finally, the plans for streetscape and other infrastructure improvements are moving forward.

May 22, 2008
RAIN BARRELS

I finally got around to installing my new rain barrel, which is hooked up to a soaker hose that waters our flower bed. 

We got our rain barrel from the MMSD Rain Barrel program for $22.  I believe they have since raised the price to $30, which is still a great bargain. 


Above is a picture of our installation, located next to our air conditioning condenser. 

Why should you consider installing a rain barrel?  Quoting MMSD, "Rain barrels help slow down rain runoff so it can drain naturally into the ground. That helps us keep excess water out of sewer systems and keeps rain runoff from collecting pollutants on its trip to nearby waterways."

It's also a fun project and helps to keep our garden watered.  More information, as well as an order form, is available  at:  MMSD Rain Barrel Program.  Additionally, the folks from This Old House have a great video of an installation that works well.  It can be accessed at:  This Old House Rain Barrel Installation.