Remember efforts two weeks ago by some Franklin Common Council members to reduce the number of tables at Kayla’s Playground failed and we were supposed to believe that a delay tactic until the next meeting was purely in the interest of gathering more info and saving the taxpayers money?

The next meeting is this Tuesday. City of Franklin staff has studied the matter and has come back with this recommendation to the Rhodes scholars on our Common Council.

The cost per table for 12 tables would be the same as the cost for 6 tables.

The original amount of tables proposed would not crowd the playground area.

The picnic tables are needed because there has been an issue with patrons bringing food into the playground. Given that there is ample space on the patio and thee is a known need, Staff recommends that 12 tables be purchased. Fiscal notes remain unchanged for the previous Common Council meeting.

The recommendation of city staff, seen on page 70 of the informational packet sent to the Common Council for next Tuesday’s meeting is to authorize  the purchase of additional site furnishings  (6 regular picnic tables, 6 ADA picnic tables, waste receptacles and concrete bollards) for the patio adjacent to Kayla’s Playground from Wausau Tile in the amount of $11, 593.00.

Barring further stupid games from the Council the proper move on Tuesday would be to vote YES to the original proposal from April 19 to buy 12 tables.

Thanks to the usual obstructionist suspects on the Council, the city wasted time, energy, and effort.

I am being criticized for votes taken by the Franklin Common Council at its last meeting regarding Kayla’s Playground…for merely writing about what happened.

Because I wrote on my blog I also included my opinion. That’s what a blog is. Commentary.  I base my commentary on the facts I have at hand, what I know.

Sadly our locally elected officials and many folks on social media don’t know the difference between a blog and an ordinary newspaper article.

Folks, this isn’t tough stuff. The Council met. Their meeting was recorded. The audio was placed on the city’s website. I listened to the audio. And then I wrote about the discussion and the subsequent votes on an item to improve Franklin’s incredibly popular project, Kayla’s Playground.

And then one alderwoman played la stupida.  Kristen Wilhelm, clearly on the record for all the world, or at least Franklin, to hear did something incredibly dumb.

She blamed the messenger. That would be me. She never names me in her countless attempts on social media to cover her posterior. I am referred to disrespectfully as “this blogger” or “a friend of the mayor’s.”

Kristen, I have a name. I’m a private citizen residing in Franklin. Not to mention I’m your constituent. You kinda work for me.  Even though you lost my vote a long time ago, you still represent me.  You may not like it, but it’s true.

I’m not an elected official. I have no ability to cast a vote at a public meeting. I have no taxing or spending authority. What I do have is a First Amendment right. I can write. And that bugs the hell out of Wilhelm and others. They’d prefer nobody pays attention or says anything about their shenanigans.

I didn’t vote to reduce the number of tables for visitors to Kayla’s Playground.

I didn’t vote against the original recommendation to have 12 tables at Kayla’s Playground.

I didn’t suggest a delay in what should have been a simple exercise to improve Kayla’s Playground.

I didn’t use a phony excuse of fiscal conservatism in my defense of delaying the improvements. Kristen Wilhelm is, as Johnny Carson once described, “to the left of mayonnaise.” She’s not fooling me and many others that the save her butt delay tactic was because she’s such a good friend of the taxpayers.

The fact is Wilhelm and others on the Council have tried everything possible to throw thumb tacks on the road to Kayla’s Playground because they didn’t get their way. The mayor did, and since they despise the mayor they don’t want him to succeed in any way possible, and that includes tables at a park. They think people don’t get it but they do. They are wise to this petty garbage.

So go ahead. Blame the guy with the keyboard. Keep making yourselves look entirely foolish in the process. In the end, you are the ones accountable.

And speaking of Kayla’s Playground, let’s end on a very nice note.