After an exciting year for the village, Brookfield is ready to close the chapter on 2023 and get ready for 2024. There’s a lot to look forward to.
The Landmark caught up with Brookfield’s village president Michael Garvey about what he’ll most remember about the last year, and what Brookfield residents can expect in the months to come.
This interview took place in early December and has been edited for length and clarity.
What 2023 events in Brookfield stuck out to you most?
The outdoor activities, the excitement about our business districts, and some of our local gatherings. We had our Music on Grand Boulevard series with attendance of people of all ages. It was so exciting to see the crowds out there, and people say they can’t wait for next summer. But it’s not just about the music and entertainment: It also does a lot for our business districts as it brings people in from out of town to see what we have to offer in Brookfield.
Another one of the really exciting things we did last year for the first time was the Intelligentsia Cup bike race, which was a massive undertaking. We worked with our friends at Cycle Brookfield and it was another tremendous showcase for the village of Brookfield. We had so many visitors from outside of Brookfield, including international visitors, who got to see our beautiful village.
What are you looking forward to in 2024?
There are a lot of important initiatives in the upcoming budget that might not necessarily excite the average person, but myself and the village board are excited about them. That includes what we’ll be able to do in terms of additional personnel to provide better services to residents, major infrastructure upgrades and improvements, and capital equipment and economic development issues. We’re going to be doing another million dollars in street work and lead water service replacement, which doesn’t sound glamorous, but it’s a safety issue. We’re just doing the solid things that we believe village governments are supposed to be doing.
On top of that, we’re still going to have some fun.
How so?
We’re working on hosting the bike race again. We hope to improve our offerings to the public in terms of even better concerts in the park, Music on Grand and other events where we could pair with the Chamber of Commerce. We have a world-class farmers’ market thanks to the Brookfield Chamber of Commerce and we look to continue to support them and make it even bigger and better next year.
We’ve of course been talking a lot recently about climate change. What sustainability efforts can we expect from Brookfield?
We’ve joined the C4 collaboration group with other suburbs. We want to look at everything through the lens of our responsibility and our desire to be more sustainable, looking out for the future of our planet. So, we’ve asked village staff to incorporate ideas of how particular projects and initiatives can be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. That’s a goal going forward for this year: framing each issue and seeing how it affects our movement towards that goal.
We also want to continue to work with other communities, and through region-wide and statewide initiatives, to become more sustainable. There’s everything from our economic development department encouraging green-type developments, and projects like rooftop gardens and bioswales. We’re looking for any future building projects that we have on village property to have a sustainability goal or outlook on it when it’s feasible.
Are there other issues that are top of mind as we move into the new year?
We always look at what our main responsibilities are as elected officials, like providing excellent police and fire protection, and making sure we have safe water sources and that the streets are in good condition. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making Brookfield very bike friendly, and have other transportation options, and made improvements along Salt Creek including the new canoe launch. So, we’re trying to make ourselves very environmentally friendly and attractive in that area.
We think it’s going to be an exciting year for economic development. We have some major projects that are in the planning stages or early approval stages. We purchased a building that we plan on using to create one of our first community parking lots, and the board specifically asked that as we design and build that parking lot, we make it a model example of how we want private parking lots to be built in terms of landscaping sustainable design.