Permanent Solution to Village’s Facility Needs
We are off to a good start with a well-publicized and well attended Town Hall meeting held on January 7th featuring Williams Architects, whom we hired only to help and give guidance in our research to determine space needs, accessibility issues and other requirements for evaluating the best solution to our facility needs. Those attending found the meeting to be educational and informative and asked meaningful questions. We now start the task of investigating and studying various building and location options together with budget considerations and financing. We will then hold another Town Hall Meeting and follow that with a Village wide survey to receive resident’s feedback.
Enhanced Communications with Residents
Major progress was made in 2022 with the launch of the Wayne Police Department Facebook page. The Wayne PD Facebook page provides invaluable information on traffic, safety and how the department is proactively engaging with residents and homeowner associations and has over 630 followers. We encourage all residents who have access to Facebook to join the page.
We also continued our progress in 2022 on making agendas, Village Board meeting packet materials and other meeting agendas available to residents by way of the Village of Wayne website. We encourage residents to visit the Village website to view and obtain copies of that material.
We are also working on two other initiatives that we hope will be completed this Spring. The first is to enhance our existing website to make information more readily available and easier to navigate. The second is to restart the Village of Wayne Facebook page to provide residents with another platform to receive accurate answers to their questions.
Continued Improvement in Traffic Enforcement
We had great progress in 2022 with reduced accidents at Army Trail and Powis (less than half of the 2019 total) and a significant increase in traffic stops due to the Village Board’s decision to increase the budget to support our new Police Chief’s efforts to hire full time officers and bring staffing back to pre-pandemic levels. It has paid off, but this is an area that no matter how much you improve, you know there is always room to do better, and your Village Board and your Police Department is committed to being even better in 2023.
Continue Modernizing the Village Code
Modernizing the Village Code is a lengthy process that involves public hearings to obtain input from residents. Your Village Board is committed to continuing that process. Your Village Board’s efforts have resulted in four revisions over the past year. Most recently were amendments to the Home Occupation Ordinance to prohibit certain activities that would infringe or impose undue hardships on their neighbors. Last year we updated the Garage Ordinance to add additional flexibility, this was probably the most requested change by residents to reduce the need for zoning appeals. In addition updates to the accessory building and fence ordinances were completed. There will be additional changes proposed throughout 2023 to modernize the Village Code to make life easier for our residents and improve enforcement where necessary. All residents are encouraged to visit the Village website regularly to keep informed about these efforts.