A Talk with Mayor Daley Elect
On Tuesday April 6th the votes in the City of Oconomowoc decided it was time for a change at the top. 3 term incumbent Maury Sullivan was replaced by Jim Daley. Recently Jim spoke with me about his vision for the City of Oconomowoc. The turnout for the election was higher than other “off year” elections with 27% of the residents casting their votes.
Q: Were you surprised by the turnout this past Tuesday?
Mayor-Elect Daley: You know our campaign thought we had a very strong message. The need to focus on our downtown and allow responsible development and responsible growth in our community –these are issues that are important to Oconomowoc. We were very optimistic going into the election but the turnout and the margin of victory were at levels that exceeded our expectations. I think it shows how strong the message was.
Q: What is your first priority when you take office?
A: Mayor-Elect Daley: The first priority is to stop the bleeding from the commercial and retail level from the downtown. Both the downtown areas and the Pabst Farm Development need the community’s attention to move forward and build support. We need to be business friendly but also protect the community’s interests at the same time. The downtown revitalization has to be the #1 priority and I think to do that what we need to do initially is to work on fees, the bureaucracy and the red tape that makes it less desirable for business to come to Oconomowoc. I want our city hall message or mantra to be Oconomowoc is open for business. We are here, we are aggressive and we want investment dollars and businesses in our community to serve our citizens. With the economy being how it is, all communities are in an extremely competitive status of trying to draw quality business into their environments and Oconomowoc right now is making itself very uncompetitive. The proof of that is there for anyone to see if you drive in downtown.
Q: What are your thoughts on the Fowler Lake Revitalization Project?
A: Mayor-Elect Daley: From my understanding of the project, it was the result of a lot of compromise from a lot of different parties and I want to dig deeper into this to make sure that 
it’s not the “left-overs” of compromise. I don’t question that the Fowler Lake waterfront needs to be addressed. My concern for a project this big is that it has to be done right and I don’t think this can be a fast track item. This is the kind of project when we are talking about pristine lake frontage we should really be looking at this long term in a forward planning manner. I don’t want to address Fowler Lake for what is good for tomorrow, rather what’s good for the next generations. It is an immensely expensive project which I think its time has come but it needs to be done right. I think there are some issues with the current proposal that need to be refined before we move forward
Q: The high speed rail stop in Oconomowoc has garnered much attention. Rep Joel Kleefisch recently introduced legislation regarding the high speed rail. What are your thoughts on this issue?
A: Mayor-Elect Daley: First of all I don’t think the high speed rail is an affordability issue as much as it is a priority issue–should we be spending our money on this as a community? Every dollar we spend supporting one project is a dollar that we are taking away from supporting another one, unless we are interested in doing things like raising taxes, which I am opposed to. When we look at the high speed rail, The Kleefisch bill is a very legitimate bill. I don’t think his intention is to straight up kill it (high speed rail). What Kleefisch is saying in his legislation is that we have a lot of questions that we would like answered before we can support this as a state. I think he is right in that. What I said in the campaign is that this is an issue of ridership, and my understanding is that there is not a dependable study that has been done to date that is going to show what the ridership is going to be plus I think there are a lot of issues that could potentially decrease the ridership. The number one issue is where the Madison terminal is located. My understanding is that right now it is slated for the Dane county airport and I think out of the people that I have spoken to there is absolutely zero interest in traveling to the Dane County Airport. Now if that was a downtown Madison or accessible downtown stop I think that would increase the likelihood of people in our community willing to jump on the train, go to Madison for, say a Badger game or walk down State Street. When we are looking at the Dane county airport stop that strands the rider from the rest of the Madison community and the rider has to either grab a cab or a bus– it is just those additional layers of inconvenience that will affect ridership in an extremely negative manner.
Mayor Elect Daley will be sworn into office at the April 20th Common Council meeting at 7:30pm located in the City Hall.
Posted by: 
Glenn Hanon
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