Planning in the Fox Valley has undergone four stages to date. The first attempts at
planning were done at the private level. At the end of World War II, a joint Neenah-Menasha
Chamber of Commerce committee of six, financed by private donations, was set up to discuss
planning. After nine years the entire committee resigned in July, 1954 to emphasize the need
for an official planning body for the entire region.
On May 3, 1956, nine of the fourteen municipalities from Calumet, Outagamie and Winnebago
counties became charter members of the Fox Valley Regional Planning Commission, organized
under Section 66.30 of the Wisconsin Statutes as the first regional planning commission in
the State of Wisconsin. The commission, representing the second stage of planning in the Fox
River Valley, was to be a deliberative body with an executive committee to manage business
and act as a steering agency. A planning director and consultants could be hired and 40% of
the costs were to come from private sources. The rest of the money would be assessed to the
members proportionately by population. The commission provided a consultant service to the
municipalities and attempted to develop a master plan for the area. In the first two years,
little was accomplished because of internal conflict. In 1958, the structure of the
executive committee was reorganized to include the executive heads of the municipalities
instead of simply representatives of the municipalities in order to facilitate communication
between the commission and the local governing bodies. However, development was still slow,
apparently because the commission officials believed that it had no power under the general
cooperation authorized by Section 66.30. In March, 1960 the Articles of Agreement were
amended. Reference to funding from private sources was deleted and a method for allocating
costs to commission members was provided; members were to be assessed a proportionate share
based on their equalized valuations.
A series of eight reports and studies brought together information on which recommendations
for zoning and planning could be based.
The culmination of the whole planning procedure was the publication in December 1962 of a
final report entitled A Comprehensive Plan for
Wisconsin's Fox Valley Region, 1960-1965. The apogee of the final report was the
map which set forth the various land uses for the region, the general location of
thoroughfares, parks, schools, libraries and police stations. (Note: See John E. Stoner,
Intergovernmental Organization for Planning: A
Case Study of the Lower Fox River Valley Area Wisconsin, 1969, p. 21.)
In January, 1963, a planning director, Eugene E. Franchett, was hired to implement the
plan. For the next three years, the commission with a staff of three (director, assistant
director, and secretary) carried on the advisory role outlined in the reports.
The Fox Valley Council of Governments, the third stage in regional planning in the Fox
River Valley, had its roots first in the demand for a change in the commission from an
advisory to an operating body, especially to be able to hold property and act as a
multi-purpose service district, and second in the influence of Washington, D.C. Under the
Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, up to two-thirds of the cost of certain
activities conducted by councils of government would be provided by the federal government.
The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 provided that applications
made after June 30, 1967 for federal loans and grants to carry out planning projects should
be submitted for review to an area wide planning agency which was composed of or responsible
to elected officials of local units of government within whose jurisdiction the agency was
authorized to plan. Franchett realized that the planning commission, because its membership
included the chief elected executive officials of the local units, was already close to this
requirement, however, the majority of the commission were still non-elected citizen members.
Franchett recommended a revision of the Articles of Agreement to form a council of
governments in which the majority of the members were elected officials and the leadership
would be shifted to them. The planning commission unanimously approved the revision in
April, 1967 and referred it to its municipal members. On June 29, 1967 the Fox Valley
Council of Governments was established as the successor to the Fox Valley Regional Planning
Commission.
The transformation from a commission to a council did not significantly change the
purpose, the nature of the work or even the organization. The Washington stimulus speeded
up the work and intensified it, and because of the availability of larger sums of money,
much more was done. (Stoner, op. cit., p. 38)
Both the regional planning commission and the council of governments were active in parks
acquisition planning, school siting, adoption of regional building codes, zoning, and
expressway implementation. By 1969, the staff had grown to sixteen.
Attempts to coordinate the Fox Valley Council of Governments and a competing organization,
the Northeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, which encompassed the counties in
the Wolf River drainage basin, failed. Although the functions of the two did not conflict,
one being concerned with conservation and recreation and the other with urban development,
friction continued between the two groups. In 1972, they were succeeded by a new and larger
commission, the East Central Regional Planning Commission, the fourth stage to date in
regional planning the Fox River Valley.
