Chippewa Valley Times

Hello City residents, staff, and Council Members,

I'm writing to share news from the City of Eau Claire. We are using a new format to send news out. Prior updates can be found here. Take a look at our weekly newsletter to stay on top of what we are working on. Pass it along to friends who can sign up for updates here, and feel free to send me feedback.

CITY UPDATES: Here’s some news from around the city.

Take-Aways from League of Wisconsin Municipalities (LWM) Conference: A number of City staff and City Council Members attended the annual LWM conference in Green Bay this week. Here are some promising practices we learned about…

• Recreation and Community Celebrations: Communities explained how they are helping to strengthen Wisconsin’s reputation as a tourism destination. Onalaska, for example, talked about their effort to create trail connections that allow for a looped hike on their area's bluffs. They are also working to create river routes (see: Great River Landing - Onalaska, Wisconsin (cityofonalaska.com)), and they have installed a self-service kayak rental (see: Watercraft Rental - Onalaska, Wisconsin (cityofonalaska.com). Representatives from the joint City/County recreation/forestry division of Marathon County/Wausau talked about their work on a Rib Mountain State Park Master Plan. The plan calls for addition of camping, a lift, and an extensive mountain biking trail system. They also talked about their work on the Great Pinery Heritage Water Trail (see: Great Pinery Heritage Waterway™ ). This trail is 103 mapped miles of water routes through Lincoln and Marathon Counties, with information about conditions of the river, portaging requirements, and the history of places along the route. 
• Restaurant Incubator: We toured a restaurant incubator called Cannery (see: HOME | The Cannery GB). It’s a space where small businesses have a chance to test their culinary or drink concepts. It can be a way to attract new food options to the city. An organization called Proof (Incubators & Tenants | Proof Incubator) helped start Green Bay’s incubator.
• Green Bay On-Demand Transit: We had a chance to ride on – and learn about – Green Bay Transit. Their system has a combination of fixed bus routes and micro-transit. The micro transit is on-demand (like Lyft or a taxi) and serves areas not served by their fixed routes (see: Metro Transit | Green Bay, WI (greenbaywi.gov))

Another noteworthy part of the conference was that our Council President, Emily Berge, also was appointed president of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities this week. She is pictured here standing back-to-back with the outgoing president, Maureen Murphy who is the Administrator of Mount Pleasant. Emily is also pictured with the Waukesha Mayor, Shawn Reilly, as they shared some friendly competition about population comparisons (Eau Claire just became the seventh largest city in Wisconsin).

Original source can be found here.