Pritchard Era Comes to an End

After nine years as village president, Katie Pritchard has passed the gavel off to .

It is impossible to say how many hours Pritchard has put in over the years, but she said she counted more than 900 scheduled meetings.

“Very few meetings were an hour; some were three,” she said. “If you take 900 times three, that’s a lot of hours."

That doesn’t include special meetings, phone calls, e-mails, her weekly meetings with the village manager, her monthly coffee visits with residents and other special circumstances that arose along the way.

Overall, she said she spent an average 20 hours per week on her village president duties, but she said it was more of a reward than a chore.

Some of her more rewarding accomplishments include the creation of the Business Improvement District, which was formed three years ago and has since taken ownership of the retail scene. The Community Development Authority, the Historic Preservation Commission and the Environmental Advisory Commission also were established during her tenure.

Many of her accomplishments required intergovernmental cooperation, such as the Shorewood annexation deal that paved the way for the Oakland Avenue Cornerstone development, the expansion of the that is partially in Fox Point and the Bayshore Town Center that abuts Whitefish Bay’s border.

“It’s kind of the border pieces that we’ve been able to manage pretty well I think," she said.

Pritchard’s ability to reach across the bargaining table helped to clear up some border tensions, especially in Glendale, where City Administrator Richard Maslowski said intergovernmental relations were tense due to Bayshore.

“Katie brought a sense of calmness to the table. Her high degree of civility resulted in myself and other Glendale officials gaining trust in her, and as a result, our programs with Whitefish Bay have continued to grow positively these past nine years,” he said. “We were able to discuss openly all issues that we had. We found that we had much more in common than we had not in common.”

Shorewood Village President Guy Johnson said he worked with Pritchard on the North Shore Fire Department Board and the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council. He said he also worked with her on the Cornerstone development annexation agreement, which he said was interesting and complicated.

“She did a great job, and I wish her the best,” he said. “I look forward to working with the new Village President Julie Siegel, too.”

As village president, Pritchard served on the North Shore Fire Department Board, where NSFD Chief Robert Whitaker said she brought a cooperative spirit to the table.

“She’s very active in Whitefish Bay, so she brought a strong sense of community involvement to the fire department,” Whitaker said. “On the board level, she brought a true belief in working together to come to reach an end result. When there were issues at hand that affected seven communities, that could often be a challenge, but she always emphasized doing the right thing for all the communities. She was very vocal about that."

There was also some intergovernmental work that may be less noticeable to those who do not follow village affairs, such as a number of consolidation deals. In her nine years, she has overseen the formation of the consolidated North Shore Fire Department, consolidated water services, the Shorewood-Whitefish Bay Health Department and most recently, consolidated dispatch with six other North Shore communities.

“There are a lot of areas where I’m not sure a lot of people realize that deals have been reached to allow shared services that result in reduced rates,” she said.

While Village Board meetings were often tense, especially during the emotional flooding hearings last summer, Pritchard said she never took it personally. She said some residents called her after meetings to apologize for what they had said.

“It’s important to listen to people and be empathetic of the situation they’ve been put through,” she said. “But it’s also important not to blame.”

Now that she has stepped down from her post, Pritchard will continue to work 60 hours per week at her work running a nonprofit, The Planning Council, which does research and evaluation about health and human services in nonprofit and governmental sectors.

With an additional 20 hours of free time per week, Pritchard said she will continue to watch village affairs unfold from the sidelines, but she does not have plans to take on any new projects other than enjoying her free time.

“Twenty hours a week, I’ll be fine,” she said. “Maybe I will have time to ride my bike or work in my garden. Those are some of the things I would like to do.”