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The city of Viroqua’s Park and Recreation Committee is forwarding a proposal to the city council that would pursue allowing citizens to serve on the committee.

A proposal to expand the park and recreation committee to include five citizen members was brought to last week's park and rec meeting by Viroqua resident Brian Wickert who asked that the committee be expanded and that the committee hold regularly scheduled meetings.

"Your park and recreation department is the most visible department out in the community," Wickert said. "So, to me this is one of the places you really want to have citizens come in."

Wickert said he first researched the issue last winter. Wickert said he did some research on a number of park and recreation departments in the surrounding communities, and he found that nine of the 11 communities he talked to around Viroqua have citizen committees that help run the department.

Wickert said according to city ordinance, there is supposed to be citizen members on the park and recreation committee and there currently is not. Park and recreation committee chairman Roger Hatlem addressed why there are not regular meetings of the park and recreation committee. "We do have regular meetings scheduled, but Dan (Stalsberg, the park and rec director) and I discuss things and sometimes we decide not to have them because there is nothing to discuss," Hatlem said. "It costs the city 'X' number of dollars to have a meeting because the people on the committee get paid. So, we don't want to have meetings..."

Committee member and Alderman Gary Krause said he is also a citizen, even if he is on the council, as are the other committee members.

"We have as much interest in this community as anyone does," Krause said. "So, why does adding two more people, or five more people, or 10 more people, other than making it tougher to make a decision, what does that add to the mix?"

Wickert said the feedback he got from the other communities was that the citizen involvement is essential to getting things done. Wickert said the city of Mauston has eliminated the city council members on their committee all together. Wickert said the told him the citizen involvement creates a sense of community.

"The energy from our citizens -- we need to bring that to the table," Wickert said. "All of a sudden you have five or 10 more people helping make decisions."

Alderman Terry Noble said he would like to see citizens on the park and recreation committee because there are so many different programs and the more citizens on the committee the more feedback that can be heard on all the various programs.

"I would like to see five citizen members among all those various groups," Noble said.

Stalsberg said there are seven traveling baseball teams and five softball teams and it will be difficult to represent every program.

"The problem we have is that we have expanded the programs to include so many kids and so many families that you can't schedule and please everybody," Hatlem said. "You have so many schedules that you can't please everyone."

Viroqua City Administrator Jeff Gohlke said he would have to look into whether or not the expansion would be allowed under state statute.

"I am not sure you can make citizens of members per say of a council committee," Gohlke said.

Gohlke said in order to make citizens voting members the city may have to make the citizens advisory or recreate the old board of park commissioners and have the council committee give up their power.

Noble said he would prefer to go back to an arrangement that allow citizens and council members to have a vote. The motion to take that recommendation to the city council passed unanimously.

Wickert asked that a subcommittee work on the legality of an expanded committee before it gets to council level.