Fitchburg City Meeting on Senior Center and Recreation Department Merger - August 13, 2026

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Good morning, everyone.

Good

morning.

Are there any additions or deletions that we want to make?

If not, we can make a motion to approve.

Second.

Second.

All in favor.

Moving right to the um public appearances for agenda items.

We're as we talk about merging the

uh

senior center and there's the rec department.

We're looking for input, so we do it the right way.

Um so I'll toss it to you.

Okay, well, um, I want to welcome Jana and Thinger for zooming in today from Beaver Dam.

Um Beaver Dam was one of the first uh senior centers recreation departments to merge that I was aware of um, you know, within our bigger, larger community.

And so um we had a conversation way back when uh when I first uh took over the position, and uh but it's good to sort of you know, now that we're in it a little bit is to have Janna share her experience of what that looked like um with that merger and um I I gave her some some questions to think about, you know, the pros and the cons and everything, but welcome all of your questions to her today.

So just gathering information as we move through this, and I invited Dave and Chad to listen in as well, and then afterwards um Chad's gonna be talking about the rec department, and then thank you for zooming in.

He's out of town.

So um so yeah, so you've got the floor, Jana.

All right, thanks a lot.

Um, so I'm Janice Stevens.

I am the recreation director for the city of Beaver Dam.

Um I have worked for the city of Beaver Dam twice during my career.

Um, I was hired as the senior center director for the city in 1996.

Uh my husband and I moved here.

We were living in Madison at the

time.

Um, moved here for that position, and my husband was working on a second degree to be a teacher.

So um the location worked out well, and we weren't sure if we were going to stay in Beaver Dam for

long,

um, depending on what happened with his career uh path, um, or if we would be here for a long time.

But um here we are, 30 years later.

Um, my husband is a teacher at the high school in Beaver Dam.

And um, as I said, I was hired as the senior center director in 96.

I worked in that position for three years, um 96 to 99, and then um I was hired as the parks and recreation director for the city of Beaverdam.

And um, I should mention that I do have um a um uh bachelor's degree in psychology.

I was planning on um pursuing a uh a master's degree or higher in that field, but then um when I was in college, I started working for the Monroe Park and Rec department and was uh and enjoyed it so much that I ended

up

um changing my career path and got a master's degree in parks and recreation management.

So that's what brought me into the field in general.

And in Monroe, I was um had the opportunity to work with uh recreation department programs as well as senior center uh programs.

Uh

the

senior center was part of the rec department uh back when I worked for for the city of Monroe as a seasonal employee.