Over the years, the City of Ripon established a number of commissions with the purpose of providing input the elected leaders.

At tonight’s 6 o’clock meeting — the open session will be held in the Council Chambers, 259 N. Wilma Ave. — City Council is scheduled to look at eliminating the Community & Youth Commission and the Historical Museum Commission.

An amendment to the ordinance on “Commissions,” in going forward, would also require staff to draft a lease with the Ripon Historical Society to continue operations of the museum located at 430 N. Main St.

Mayor Leo Zuber recently contacted both the Historical Museum Commission and the Community & Youth Commission to determine if eliminating these commissions would have the same type of benefits.

In doing so, he discovered that the Community & Youth Commission often lacked a quorum for their meetings due to a decline in volunteers, and that the Historical Museum Commission overlaps responsibilities with that of the Ripon Historical Society.

Based on this feedback, Zuber requested staff draft changes to the Ripon Municipal Code by eliminating commission per council’s consideration.

This isn’t anything new.

Other organizations over the years have also been established that ended up duplicating many of the functions of the commissions, in turn, causing confusion since many of the City Commissioners also serve on the other entities’ board.

The most recent example of this occurred in 2015 with the Senior Center Commission and the Friends of the Senior Center both conducting meetings involving the senior center.

Council, in order to eliminate the confusion and overlap of responsibilities, eliminated the Senior Center Commission and since then has looked to the Friends of the Senior Center to provide input to the City Council regarding senior center matters.

The feedback received after eliminating the Senior Center Commission has been positive.

By eliminating the Historical Museum Commission, Council, upon the recommendation of staff, would then be asked to draft a lease with the Ripon Historical Society to continue to operate the museum.