Waukesha committee asks city attorney to draft ordinance to let clerk issue routine licenses, reduce monthly meetings

The Waukesha City Ordinance & Licensing Committee voted unanimously Monday to ask the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would let the city clerk issue many routine licenses and reduce the committee's regular meetings to once a month outside of May and June.

The measure, presented by the committee chair, would authorize clerks to issue a range of routine items (extensions of premises in routine cases, class B licenses, private alarms, taxi permits and similar items) when departmental reviews raise no objections; denials or matters flagged by departments would still be forwarded to the committee for review. The chair characterized the change as an efficiency move to reduce the time applicants and staff spend at committee meetings.

Committee members debated where to draw lines. The chair proposed a three-tier approach: "strongly related" alcohol offenses (multiple alcohol-related offenses within five years, homicide or injury by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, and crimes against children) would still trigger an invited appearance before the committee; "review only" cases would be those with single or less-related offenses; purely traffic violations and other minor infractions would be handled administratively unless departments raised concerns. The chair noted that failure to disclose prior offenses on an application would trigger review and a reapply fee.

Members also discussed sidewalk-cafe permits and extensions of premises. A clerk present told the committee that, to her knowledge, the city had not recently denied a sidewalk-cafe permit and that the multi-department review process (engineering, planning, police) would remain in place even if clerks issued routine permits. The committee agreed that new extensions of premises should continue to come to committee for review rather than be approved administratively.

The city attorney had reviewed the memo and "preferred that we be completely black and white" in trigger rules, the chair said; several committee members pushed back in favor of retaining some discretion so applicants would not be unnecessarily required to make public appearances. "People make mistakes and... people deserve a second chance," one committee member said in support of discretion.

After discussion the chair moved to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance incorporating the changes described in the memo, with two clarifications made on the record: extension-of-premises requests (new expansions) should continue to come to the Ordinance & Licensing Committee for review, and alcohol-related traffic offenses (for example OWI) should be treated explicitly as alcohol-related events in the draft so they are not auto-approved. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

The chair said any change would require codification in the municipal code and the regular ordinance-reading process; committee members noted that codification would require the usual readings before the common council. The committee did not set a firm timeline for the attorney's draft; the next procedural step is the attorney's preparation of the ordinance language for later committee and council review.