Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Community Equity Advisory Committee of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, held its regular meeting on January 28, 2026, at 6:00 PM. The meeting was chaired by Christopher Pigaro and included staff contact Sarah Olson. The committee approved previous minutes, welcomed a new member, reviewed several ongoing city plans, and discussed potential programming for the newly named Hostahochi Park.
Welcome of New Member: Chase Zimmerman introduced himself as a new Fitchburg resident with a finance and management background and a passion for community service. Other committee members introduced themselves and shared their backgrounds and roles.
Review of 2026 City Plans: Staff contact Sarah Olson presented a list of six city plans currently in development:
The committee discussed the need to prioritize these plans based on timing and equity impact. Members expressed interest in the Communications Plan (Chase Zimmerman) and the Housing Plan (Christopher Pigaro). A proposal was made to form small subgroups to conduct deep dives, and to develop a list of equity considerations for city leadership to use early in the planning process. Christopher Pigaro suggested a subgroup to create a racial equity toolkit, possibly drawing from GARE (Government Alliance on Race and Equity). Donald Dassler clarified that closed sessions are generally not applicable and that subgroups of three or fewer can meet without public notice. The committee agreed to request a timeline of plan milestones from staff.
Hostahochi Park and Community Center Programming: Christopher Pigaro announced that the park was officially named Hostahochi in partnership with the Ho Chunk Nation. With no budget or staffing for programming currently, the committee brainstormed ideas:
Hi, I'm Jeremy Crosby. And I'm Nick Boucher. We're your hosts for the program that's all about your city, Talking Pittsburgh. Every weekday, we pull together the news, events, and information you need to stay on top of what's happening in the city of Pittsburgh. Find Talking Fitzburg on Cable TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, and our live stream on the web. Plus, you can find all our headlines and stories on Facebook, YouTube, and our video on demand service. This is your city. Keep up with Talking Fitchburg and the issues affecting you and your neighbors. Visit Fitchburg WI.gov on your computer or mobile device and select the big notify me button on the left. Enter your email and or phone number, whichever is best for you to get notifications. Scroll down the list and select all the topics you're interested in to receive email or text messages about. You'll be notified every time one of your topics is updated. Sign up for Notify Me. One more way to keep up with your Pittsburgh government. Good evening. Call the order for the community equity advisory committee for January 28th, 2026. And we'll move right into number two, approval of the minutes. And I would like to see if there's a motion to approve the minutes from the December 15th. Meeting approval for the December 15 minutes. Second back. Great. Do I have uh any discussion? All in favor. Aye. Any opposed. Great. Uh motion has passed and those minutes have been approved. Um we'll go into number three, public appearances for non-agenda items, and Sarah just uh confirming we have no public appearances. Great. And we move right into the case. I just want to say I'm I'm here, folks. I don't know if we did attend us, I'm sorry. Uh had some work from down at the Capitol. Um so that's why I'm off video uh just finishing up some stuff, but just wanted to say hello and let everyone know I was here. Perfect. Thank you, all the dancers. Uh we have everyone here for the committee meeting tonight, so that's great. Uh we'll move on to uh agenda item number four A. And uh welcome uh a new committee member, Chase Zimmerman. And we'll we'll go around briefly, start out with Chase and give a brief introduction and uh gave uh Chase some uh uh instructions before the meeting started just to give us something uh some information that he'd like to share with us and we'll follow suit. Yeah, sure. So um my name is Chase Zimmerman. I'm a new Fitchburg resident, so I just moved here in May. Um, but I grew up in Marshall, which is you know pretty pretty close to Madison. So very familiar with the Madison area and whatnot. Um coming from Whitewater where I did my undergrad um in finance and management. Um but I was very involved at Whitewater, really loved um government work and just sort of doing the um committees and finding unique ways to give back and make creative change in your community, and I did that in all different types of ways, whether it was dining or one of the work that we're trying to do in this committee. Um, and so uh when I heard about the opening, I was like, all right, I'm gonna sign myself up. And my fun fact is that I'm colorblind.