By Kim McDarison

The Whitewater Community Development Authority elected Greg Majkrzak as its chairperson during its regular meeting held Thursday.

The board additionally elected Joe Kromholz as vice chairperson.

During the meeting, Majkrzak and board member Jeff Knight received nominations to serve as chairperson, although Knight declined the nomination.

With Majkrzak presented as the single nominee, the board voted unanimously to install him as chair.

Along with Kromholz, a nominee for the position of vice chair was Neil Hicks. A vote to install Kromholz was taken first, with the nominee elected 6-1, with Knight casting the ‘no’ vote.

Zeinert is CDA Director

Board members additionally voted in favor of hiring Economic Development Director Taylor Zeinert to serve as CDA director.

In advance of the vote, a member of the public came to the podium.

He asked the panel if the position of CDA director had been posted as a matter of public awareness.

City Manager John Weidl said that it had been.

The commenter asked the panel how many applications it had received.

The city manager said two.

The commenter asked if the two applicants had been interviewed.

The city manager said they had.

The commenter asked the city manager if he could describe the experience of those applicants.

Weidl said that the city’s human resources manager would be the best person to respond to the question, but she was not at the CDA meeting.

The commenter asked Zeinert to share her experience.

Zeinert said that she was an undergraduate at Carroll University, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh where she earned her master’s degree in public administration. She said while studying for her master’s degree, she took “classes specific to economic development,” and she studied “city management as a whole.”

Additionally, she said, she worked for the Wisconsin Towns Association, which she described as “similar to the League of Municipalities.” The organization, she noted, provides legal counsel to towns of all sizes. She said the association, when last she looked, had 1,250 members. While she worked with the association, she said, the towns asked questions about TIF districts, along with questions about legal matters and meeting laws. She also has served as a paralegal. Among other items on her resume, Zeinert said she worked for the city of Clintonville, where she assisted the assistant city administrator and the city administrator.

“I also have a significant amount of legal experience, municipal explicitly, I worked for two different law firms that specialized in it,” she said.

The commenter said that he was concerned that only two people had applied to the city for what, he said, he perceived to be “such an important position.”

Zeinert was unanimously approved by the board to service in the CDA directorship role.

Update and discussion regarding status of WindUp business competition

During the meeting, Zeinert gave a brief overview of plans then-underway to conduct the final round of the city’s Whitewater WindUp business competition. The competition was held Saturday.

Following the overview and update, Knight said: “There are a lot of proposals here that are not startups. Some are already businesses.”

Knight said he had received calls from members of the public, asking about the inclusion of businesses that were not startups. He asked: “Did we change it or how did it evolve to be everybody rather than just startups?” 

Said Zeinert: “I believe that came from businesses who wanted to expand businesses, who wanted to grow, who had bid that model, and were looking for additional, you know, funds to grow. I don’t want to speak on behalf of the business leaders, or business owners, but I think that we should applaud their effort for trying to …”

Said Knight: “I’m not — there’s nothing wrong with them doing that. I’m asking, where did that change occur? And how? I’m comfortable with where you’re going, but I’d like to know more, I’d like to have things where I know, when someone asks me, as a member of the CDA, I’d like to be able to give people a response.” 

Weidl responded, saying: “I don’t have an answer on that; it grew organically, we didn’t solicit specific businesses to apply or create videos. We did have the … the 19 businesses that showed up were self applicants. I guess the best way to answer your question, we didn’t box anyone out at that time.”

But, he added, “I hear, like going forward, we could say it’s specifically for startups only.” 

“Well that’s how it was originally presented to us,” Knight said. 

Said Kromholz: “Well my only point right now it’s the criteria that’s published. All these businesses met the criteria that was published. So when they made that application for this project they were applied to that fit.”

Weidl said applicants did meet the published criteria.

Said Knight: “I think when we do the next cycle, the university, they need to type out those rules and make it clear so that people, so we get no questions asked where people are concerned …” 

“I think that’s a good point. Let’s get a good criteria,” Kromholz said.