6th District Alder ISSSSS Running

Sorry I gave some people cause for alarm with my headline yesterday . . . and yes, Rummel is running! By way of apology, here’s an email from her, just yesterday

I’m seeking my third term for District 6. I’m honored to represent so many active, thoughtful and smart people in one of the most progressive districts in the city. I hope I can count on your support for another two year term on April 5.

The highlights below give you a sense of the active experienced leadership I have provided. I enjoy working with neighbors and local businesses to make our district the best place to live and work. I appreciate the opportunity to serve and I hope I can count on your support, Please let me know if you will publicly endorse me. If you are able to make a contribution, please send it to Friends of Marsha Rummel, 1029 Spaight St #6C Madison 53703. 772-4555. I don’t have an opponent currently but the deadline to get on the ballot is Jan 4. I’d love to attend house parties to discuss issues of concern to you, our district and the city as a whole. Contact me if you’d like to set that up or want to help in other ways-

I’ve dealt with a lot of issues in the last two years, large and small. Here is a partial list.

After the disastrous loss of trees on Spaight St in June 2009 during a street resurfacing project, I became concerned about our lack of tree protection policies. City Engineering and Parks staff convened a work group to look at improving practices to protect street trees, better communicate risks to residents, revise the tree specifications during street reconstruction, and establish penalties for negligence. As a result of this review, the Board of Public Works strengthened provisions in Section 107 of the Standard Spec book and I codified these protections in an ordinance.

High Speed Rail took a lot of time this year as I tried to represent property owners who had concerns about connectivity between neighborhoods, street closings, the loss of trees, the impact on the Yahara Parkway, the WisDOT process and downtown impacts of the station as well as those who welcomed the possibilities of commuter rail connections. Rail presented opportunities in addition to the threats: moving the rail for Central Park, quiet zones throughout the corridor, synergy for the Madison Public Market proposed for Government East, and improving the intersection at John Nolen/Blair/Willy. Like most of you, I am stunned by the shortsighted attitude of Governor Elect Walker with the cancellation of HSR. The loss of high-paying construction and operations jobs and the missed opportunity to create rail connections between Madison and rest of the Midwest is a stunning setback.

Plans for Central Park continue despite the death of high speed rail and the now dashed hopes we could move the rail lines. The good news is that the city will be able to purchase property from Research Products that will increase the footprint of the park between Brearly and Ingersoll. As part of Phase 1 implementation, the city hired Seattle environmental artist Lorna Jordan and was recently awarded a $50K NEA grant for to help pay for installing her work. She will be back in town in Feb and March to help collaborate in the vision for the new footprint. We will still need to deal with street closings proposed by Wisconsin and Southern and continue to petition the Office of the Commissioner of the Railroad to allow us to add an at-grade crossing at Few St. The Madison Skatepark Fund recently launched its campaign to build Madison’s first skatepark in Central Park. The Central Park Task Force, of which I am a member, will continue to meet and plan the park with the input of neighbors and other interested parties.

In September, the City Council agreed to purchase Union Corners for $3.3M using landbanking funds. The funds include $60,000 for a community engagement process. A lot of developer, city and neighborhood effort went into the McGrath plan but the market crash made the plan for a dense condo development unrealistic for the foreseeable future. With the help of the SASYNA council, Friends of Union Corners and City Planning, I will launch a series of stakeholder meetings to discuss what we would like to see at Union Corners to help inform potential developers. Meanwhile the French Battery bricks have been secured.

The Mayor added $5M to the 2011 budget to the land banking fund for a second year. The Council approved a resolution to purchase the Don Miller parcels on the north and south sides of E Washington as well as the Schappe parcel on the south side of the Avenue. The Don Miller parcels offer a unique location to achieve our employment and residential redevelopment goals on both sides East Washington Avenue, it represents the first step in the evolution away from a suburban oriented highway development to a more sustainable and urban live-work employment district. The purchase of the Don Miller site using land bank funds follows years of planning and discussion involving the adjacent neighborhoods, Capitol East businesses, alders and other stakeholders on how to grow and green this historic commercial and industrial corridor.

I participated in the neighborhood review and city approvals of two quality infill projects in District 6 – at Blair and E Main and Baldwin and Willy and worked to prevent two ill-conceived projects. I helped organize a group of east side residents who worked for two years to create eastside dog parks at McCormick and Demetral. I’ve participated in the planning for Madison’s first Neighborhood Conservation district.

I am seeking solutions to revitalize the Schenk Atwood biz district by other means than making Winnebago a two-way street and have convened a group of stakeholders to review the proposals of existing plans that call for a Town Square at Schenks Corners. This effort will inform plans for future Atwood street reconstruction and help revive the the Winn-Atwood business association, Reconstruction of Division, Riverside, Fair Oaks-Atwood-Maple and the future Willy St project has activated neighbors and business owners to work together to create streets for all users that utilize the best practices for stormwater management, traffic calming/safety, and place-making. Our neighborhood has raised the bar for constructing sustainable streets in the city.

I’ve been working with neighbors and city staff to plan improvements for BB Clarke shoreline and Hudson Park beach. I initiated a change in the zoning code to allow the East Side Farmer’s Market to locate in the parking lot of the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center. In the annual budget process, I have supported increased funding for community services, keeping Metro affordable and providing adequate staffing in the Streets Dept. I want to continue to work on sustainable economic development, jobs at family supporting wages, affordable housing and the enhancing the arts in District 6.

In my first term, I was involved in a group of stakeholders to find a new east side site for Well 3, abandoned because of industrial pollutants in the water. We were not able to find a suitable location. In 2009, the Water Utility convened a Citizen Advisory Committee for Well 8 and eventually staff and the group realized the answers were bigger than one well. The Water Utility received a grant from the US EPA in summer 2010 and hired Black and Veatch to look at the water demands on the east side and to figure out what to do with Wells 7, 8, 15 and the replacement for Well 3. This will take until 2011 to complete. We now have a Citizen Advisory panel that has evolved into an east side Umbrella CAP work with Water Utility.

The Edgewater process sent alarms throughout many Neighborhood Associations and among residents concerned about the integrity of the committee approval process. Others were concerned with the $16M in TIF for a luxury hotel. The collateral damage of this project has resulted in cynicism and distrust among a swath of neighborhood activists who were shocked to hear Mayor Cieslewicz’s criticisms about ‘unelected, unaccountable, and undemocratic’ citizen committees and the need to ‘fix’ a broken process. Many thought the Edgewater, like it or not, was not the typical project but in fact an outlier, and not something that should set precedent for the future. I spent hundreds of hours on this project as a member of UDC and on the Council. I voted against the project overall but did successfully push the developers to make improvements to their proposal. It is still not finished, the agreement on public access component still needs to be approved by the city.

When the Mayor announced in his State of the City speech to the Rotary in June his intention to seek the recommendations of business and labor to review the development process, I decided to organize the first of two Neighborhood Summits. I invited every Neighborhood Association contact in the city’s database, my fellow alders, commission members involved in the review process, and city staff to discuss how to insure that neighbors and alders had a place at the table in the process. On July 31, over 100 people representing NAs all over the city convened in a church basement on Atwood Ave. We asked attendees how they could be effective participants in the development process, what was working in the existing process and what changes would they recommend. The notes for the July meeting and the follow up Neighborhood Summit to review the EDC recommendations held Oct 23 were forwarded to EDC and are in legistar.

The recent Council discussion on the future of Overture and the decision to privatize the performing arts center was wrenching. I wished a more public solution had prevailed- to keep the workers public and the management subject to public oversight; and to establish a reserve to provide for the capital costs of maintaining the building. But the timing of the debt retirement created a rushed situation. I came away with a deeper understanding of the importance of leadership.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Marsha