GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Tuesday night’s Green Bay city council meeting had zero tension, bickering or interruptions…and finished in 21 minutes – all unthinkable things if you attended or followed any of the meetings in the weeks and months leading up to last month’s spring election.
“I think people are really focused on the work,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich.
Genrich came out victorious April 4th, defeating his opponent, Chad Weininger, by about 1,508 votes. His victory came despite 8 of 12 city council members attending a press conference in support Weininger the night before the election.
Shortly after the win, four council members, including two who were at that press conference, met with Genrich in hopes of getting on the same page. The council members were Mark Steuer, Brian Johnson, Bill Galvin, and Craig Stevens.
“We have some divisions on council, some conservative and some liberal, and we just kind of reached out to the mayor and just said you know what, congratulations on your victory, hard fought victory, but I was looking for more transparency, cooperation, and keep us in the loop a little bit,” said Steuer.
So far, so good, according to those who were and weren’t in that meeting.
“I think there have been significant improvements in communication and involvement between the two branches of government,” said Brunette.
“Just more email communication from the mayor when there are events in the community that affect the city. HE has been inviting city council members to these press conferences and that has been much different than the past, so that is a very positive development.”
“I’ve maintained open lines of communication since my election a little more than four years ago to the first term and I’m absolutely going to continue that into the second term,” said Genrich.
“Sometimes you just have to get back to basics and I think that is all I was trying to look at,” said Steuer.
If things continue this way moving forward, both sides say they believe the more cordial and quicker meetings could be here to stay.
FOX 11 asked both Genrich and Brunette for their top three goals moving forward. Both included public safety and economic development.
Brunette also said keeping partisanship out of local government, while Genrich mentioned more specific projects like re-locating the downtown coal piles, construction of the Shipyard, development at land donated by JBS, and bringing passenger rail service back to the city.
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