A brief recap:  The 2019 spring Annual Town meeting was attended by 8 citizens plus 3 Board members and staff. A motion was made and passed to proceed with plans to build a new Town Hall on behalf of the 4,000+ residents. See Meeting Minutes

The meeting and results went largely unnoticed in this sleepy community, until months later when residents near Town Hall became aware that a variance was submitted for construction purposes. This led to several questions and several Open Records Requests to learn what exactly was being proposed for construction and at what cost.  Soon it became clear to a small group of citizens that our Town Board had paid $200,000 for a set of building plans for a $4 Million new Town Hall.

Word of mouth grew and the FB group "Informed Citizens Town East Troy" was formed as a Community Forum, and the local newspaper became interested. Note that in 2019 our Town Government offered no video/ audio record of meetings, no Social media, and provided meeting notes months after the meeting. 

The 2020 Annual Town Meeting of Electors took place on April 21, 2020, and one citizen and three board members were present. The meeting lasted for 11 minutes in total to reschedule the annual meeting to May 19, 2020. See Meeting Minutes:

There is no 2020 Annual Town Meeting of Electors minutes for May 19, 2020, but there is a special meeting on that date. During this meeting, the 2020 Annual Meeting was scheduled for July 14, 2020 at ETAESD. See Meeting Minutes:

The concerned citizen group submitted a petition calling for a Special Town Meeting of the Electors on June 18, 2020, which was held at the Jim Byrnes Memorial Park Pavilion. 98 residents/guests were in attendance. See Meeting Minutes:

Motion passed by 50/40 to rescind any previous town electorate approval to the Town Board to construct buildings.

Motion failed 43/42 to increase membership of the Town Board to five members.

Motion passed by 50/12 to establish/maintain the town board salaries as is.

The 2020 Annual Town Meeting of Electors took place on July 14, 2020, at the Fire station with six officials and 250+ concerned Town citizens in attendance. gathered to debate the merits of spending $4+Million, the 3-person size of the Town Board and to address the perceived lack of Transparency of our local Government. See Meeting Minutes:

Motion passed 145/86 to increase the elected official’s salaries to $9000 for the Chairperson, $7500 for Municipal Judge, and $7000 for Town Supervisors for the next term starting April 2021.

Motion failed 85/143 to grant authority to the Town Board to build a new Town Hall and Police Department.

Motion passed 119/84 to increase the size of the Town Board from three to five members.

Effectively in 2020, the citizen electors voted to halt the proposed Town Hall construction, to expand the Town Board from 3 to 5 members (Supervisors), and to mandate improved transparency and communication from the Town Board.

From 2020 to present: The Town Board spent over $250,000 remodeling the current town hall to fix up the bathrooms and the clerk's office and also added a well and took care of some ADA entrance improvements at the back of the building.  

The Communication Committee was formed with volunteers after it was strongly requested at the 2021 Annual Town Meeting, to improve communication and transparency to the town citizens.  The Committee had been working on getting agenda packets published and meetings televised and recorded. See Meeting Minutes.

The Communication Committee was suddenly disbanded by Chairman Joe Klarkowski "as mission accomplished" without prior discussion or warning, despite protests from volunteers and Board members during the May 8, 2023 Board Meeting. See Meeting Minutes and Meeting Video (Comments start at timestamp 1:34:07 and Disbanding Communications Committee starts at timestamp 2:44:48)

The Town Board brought a request to the 2022 Annual meeting to spend $200,00 on a new heated police garage. See Meeting Minutes During the Town budgeting session in the fall of 2022 the budget was revised to over $500,000 to build a new heated police garage and at the same time would not consider a study to combine Town and Village police forces to potentially save money.  The Proposal was a study only and the Chairman rejected it. See Meeting Minutes

Motion passed to increase 2023 Town Budget by 12% with an 8% increase of the levy required.

Motion passed 41/10 to Authorize Town Board to increase the amount spent on previously authorized Police Garage from $200,00 to $500,000

The Clerk of the Town suggested keeping meeting Videos for 90 days and then destroying them, but at the same time stating that they would not have time to delete every video after 90 days, which they are. See Meeting Minutes

Chairman caught engaging with County officials to take action against a nominee for Town Board (JS who lost by 1 vote)

The town Police chief issues 16 citations to one resident (JS and partner) on his final day of employment.

The Town Chairman promoted a vote for a new Shipping containers Ordinance based on (1) a complaint (against JS) The Town Chairman also had the town’s attorney draft a Noise Ordinance for the benefit of the residents of Lake Beulah. See Meeting Minutes Specifically page 6 of the Attorney’s Report.

The Town Chairman also had the town atty draft a Noise Ordinance for the benefit of the Lake residents and after they rejected a proposal for a resident to spend approximately 1M to fix up the Double D's property with a music and food venue, after the Lake Beulah Management District and Yacht Club members voiced complaints that this would be a noisy venue on the lake even though music would have stopped by 10 pm on weekends. See Meeting Minutes and the Planning Commission Report on Page 4. Packet Conditional Use Request for W1602 County Rd. J, PA181800001, Cash Bar Enterprises – owner, Michael Erkamaa – applicant (PACKET PAGE 21 of 57 pages) Proposed Food & Entertainment Venue on the Old Double D’s Property. ALSO NOTE: Signed Petition to Deny Conditional Use Permit (PACKET PAGES 22-46 of 57 pages)