Economic Development Director 5 year contract, policy body cameras (they are skipping Equal Opportunities Commission and Public Safety Review Board input and going straight to council, ironically, on a resolution that is all about public input – they are skipping the public input) and the new request for proposals for Judge Doyle Square are discussed.
Roll Call – Everyone present.
They have speakers on 7 (supporting, available to answer questions), 11 (wishing to speak)
Verveer separates 2, 8 and 10.
Someone separates number 1 (Economic Development Director)
They approve items 3 – 7 and 9 on a voice vote with no discussion.
Economic Development Director
Matt Mikolajewski is up for his 5 year contract, Mayor says there was a very competitive panel of applicants, and Matt was a clear choice. They were confident in his past performance and his future performance.
Larry Palm asks him what he intends to do in the next 5 years. What issues to you see and where do you see us going in the next 5 years. Mikolajewski says there are 4 main areas of focus, to maintain high level of service, they are a service organization, they handle real estate transactions and regulate and manage the street vending program. They also have significant planning initiatives coming up, the Economic Development Plan, but also the Comprehensive Plan, the Housing Plan and the Transportation Master Plan. They are looking at how they are planning the future economy of the city and identify ways to enhance the community. The remaining two are tax base and jobs. The tax base is 70% of the city’s revenue and they need to continue to find ways to support and grow that through redevelopment, urban infill projects, they have had great success in his time with the city using tools like EPA or DNR funding or our own TIF funding to help facilitate development. Also greenfield development and in light of the planning initiatives making sure that we bring to bear our tools as greenfield development occurs that it is as the highest value at a community standpoint, an aesthetic standpoint and a monetary standpoint. Jobs is also a key area of interest, from an entrepreneurial standpoint they want to support Starting Block and their business expansion and retention effort, especially with the leadership of Ruth Rolich. He wants to make sure that they expand that to make sure the businesses here in the city can expand here. Finally he sees a growing need in the community is recognizing the demographic shift, especially the baby boomers retiring out of the work force and the opportunities that affords individuals. From an equity standpoint if we partner with training opportunities and people in need of work, this community can move the needle in getting people who have been historically locked out of some great family supporting jobs the opportunity to enter into those jobs. Working with Community Development and partners inside and outside of city government he thinks this is an exciting opportunity over the next 10 – 15 years when we will be at a tipping point and he thinks we can move in a positive direction.
Appointment passes on voice vote with no discussion.
Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to sign a contract with Kubra Data Transfer, Ltd for printing, mailing, and online bill pay services for the Treasurer’s office, Water Utility and Parking Utility.
David Gaweneda, the City Treasurer explains that he has been here before and reviews where they are at. They went through an RFP process months ago, they selected this vendor, the contract is to create and print and mail the hard copy bills for taxes and water utility and electronic payments which also includes the parking utility (monthly parking spaces) The contract is broken into three jobs for the three offices. One of the motivators for doing this is when they look at their costs, it costs 55 cents per bill and under this contract it will be a dime so the goal is to shift people to electronic payments.
Lisa Subeck asks about the staff currently doing this work, what will they be doing instead? Gavenda says that the two agencies most affected is Water Utility and Treasurer. Water Utility contracts out the work. The Treasurers office it takes about a day and a half to print on their copiers and the Assessors copier and that staff person that runs back and forth filling the paper really looks forward to contracting this out, since it comes at the busiest time of year, that person will be able to redirect her time to very pressing items.
Mike Verveer talks asks about the credit card fees and the language in the resolution, that it is only for the municipal services part of the bill. Gawenda says that he suggested in the past that that we move to a convenience model but for the three agencies in this contract, the one most impacted is the Water Utility. The Water Utility doesn’t currently charge anything for making a payment on line and this is contrary to the Public Service Commission’s desire that people who don’t pay by credit card subsidizing the credit card payers, so by moving to a convenience fee model that is more in keeping with what they want. The contracted cost is 2.45% on a credit card transaction, so if you assume the average of $50, it would be about $1.25. If you use a debit card, it would be a flat $3.95, but they do want to continue to provide the cost free alternative so if they do an echeck then the city will absorb the costs, they are trying to structure the options so it benefits both of us. If they choose credit card they will pay the cost and debit card $3.95 is the industry standard. On the property tax, there has been a convenience fee, because of the way the property tax is structured, this is a slight reduction, the old fee was 2.5%, now its 2.45%. U.S. banks charged the same % for the debit card users and this will be a real savings for them. And the echecks are also still available.
Verveer asks about the terms of the contract with US Bank? Gawenda says they are our working bank, they don’t have a contract, they were in invited to apply but they did not.
Verveer asks if this contractor would be able to do some other services. Gawenda says he thinks that the Municipal Court may find this set up to be ideal as well, but at this point they don’t want to make the change and Gawenda wants to show them how it works.
Verveer asks about the other changes? Gawenda says IT was busy with the new finance system, but they are starting to work on the parking fees to move them to a convenience model. That might be in place by the end of the quarter. That service is provided by US Bank and they are charging $1.99.
Joe Clausius asks about the echeck, but for debit and credit card covers the costs, but what cost do we incur. Gawenda says that the bank charges .25 per item for ACH items. He says teh .25 compares favorably to credit card or debit card processing.
Larry Palm asks if the check is mailed to the city or the contractor. They will still mail it to the city and they will process it the same, the only thing the contractor is involved in is the online bill payments. Palm asks if we get charged for the paper checks. Gawenda says no. He says they now send an image instead of the paper check, they have efficiencies that way, but it costs them a little more. Palm asks why we get charged to deposit checks. Gawenda says we have a very good contract with the bank that the state has negotiated, they renegotiated last year and the prices were lowered, but they charge for every service, for consumers it can be very different in terms of costs. The costs would be the same but they recoup them differently, they offer other services and make money in other ways.
Denise DeMarb asks about the more people that did automatic payments, they had less time applying the payments, are the city payments automated when they come in. Gawenda says yes, They process those payments and they are entered into the system at the end of the day. DeMarb asks if that will save even more time, or will it be the same. Gawenda says anything they can put through the processor saves time, he says the physical opening of the envelope and pulling out the coupon takes the most time and they won’t have to do that for electronic payments. DeMarb asks about the people who do the work will they have work to fill up the time they save with the efficiencies. Gawenda says yes, and right now they are helping other agencies get accustomed to the new processes of the cashiering system. They are the informal instructors. They have had overtime as a result of that.
Passes unanimously without discussion.
910 Ann Street landbanking
Verveer says last time he asked staff questions they thought the sponsor should be here to speak to it, anything new in the past two weeks. Don Marx says that they thought he would be here, they can explain it from their perspective, but they can’t speak for the alders. Verveer asks if he was planning to attend. Marx says he knew it was on the agenda. Verveer asks if the should table it. They say yes. John Strasser never shows up and at the end of the meeting they take this off the table and refer it again.
Police Body Cameras
Subeck says that she saw on the agenda that Bidar-Sielaff asked for it to come here out of order and she asks why. Chris Schmidt says that it was a matter of timing and that the resolution calls for action in beginning of March or end of February and it was given two additional referrals and that would have it come back the end of March, and that won’t fit the timeline they set.
DeMarb says that this is on a tight timeframe because they want this back to council for the budget discussions.
Palm says they are the finance committee and they are supposed to be looking at the expenditure, which is existing staff resources and $30,000, can you explain what the expense will be. Chief Koval says that they looked at the costs and it was around $10,000 for travel for members of the committee for site visits to see how it looks operationally and talk to constituents in those markets, $17,000 for a consulting service to provide assistance in facilitating and developing and putting together a published product for your review, $1,000 for getting the word out or survey implementation to market the awareness and $2,000 for printing materials. Palm asks about staff time, if they weren’t doing this what would they be doing? He introduces Kristin Roman and she will be the liaison to this committee, she does community outreach and she will be the contact for the chair, she would have to set aside time to make sure the needs are getting met.
Mike Verveer says this was an operating budget amendment, do you have the language, did it specifically call for a further study? Koval says that ad hoc committee was supposed to do a probative study looking at this from 360 degrees, the pros and cons and subject matter experts and looking at models and what has been done in other communities and they would use this to poll constituents electronically, door to door and in public forums, then they would synthesize the findings in a published report and that would be used, if appropriate, to look at a smaller scale operational component the first quarter of 2016, and if that was the conclusion then it would be his recommendation that they start it in the south police district because it has a smaller group or workers to get get started and it is a diverse cross-section of our community.
Dave Schmiedicke reads the last sentence of the amendment “funding is provided in 2015 to cover the costs of community and (emplyment?) engagement process that are expected to include facilitation costs as well as consult with people who have experience with body cameras to attend and speak at public meetings”
Verveer says this resolution asks for a project manager, to be hired by March 2nd and then states their responsibilities, when you detailed the duties, is that person already hired, is that Kristin Roman? Koval says no, that would be an independent vendor or contractor, he says that the council and mayor will be ultimately leading the foray into this, so that there isn’t a self-fulfilling or hidden agenda nature to the project, if there is to be greater transparency and accountability, he would rather be that this originate from the council and have them state the findings and conclusions and then he would, as the chief administrator embrace those findings and recommendations as the will of a thorough and exhaustive process.
Verveer asks what the expertise of the project manager be, just community engagement facilitation. DeMarb says it is their hope to engage the community using existing NGOs to engage the public (oh shit, they’re hiring Noble Wray, aren’t they!) , that person would also be required to do some employee engagement, and also would be required to pull together and work with the ad hoc committee with what the found and then look at best practices in other cities, looking at what the police department already has in place, look at studies with employees, and pull it together and a recommendation to council. There is a fair amount of work to be done in a short amount of time, this is supposed to be before council before the 2016 budget so that if there is a recommendation to go forward with a pilot, in the south district, they would look at what they would be measuring, because the south district is not like the north district or west district. If, then, it would be something they would do citywide. She says that some of the things that will be investigated in other cities will be to look at what happened, and at open records and the costs and complications of that, it should be pretty exhaustive, the study. Body cameras are timely and in the news a lot and the authors thought it was important to have the study up front to see what we are getting into and how to proceed.
Koval says that he is hopeful that the facilitator will get down into the weeds, not just in terms of the costs, not just the start up, but the operational costs to sustain it over time, because their initial reports, conservative as they might be, that looking at 335 “field practitioners” is eye popping money that we will have to leverage into prioritization of other needs and he hopes those figures are not lost on folks (Stoughton says their cameras cost $700 a piece and we could probably get a better deal. $700 x 335 = $234,500 and, um, it won’t take that much money to travel to Stoughton)
Verveer says the mayor will hire the person, are you confortable that this amount of money will be enough and there will enough qualified people in the community. The mayor is really quiet, but he says he will work with the alders, staff and other to hire the person. Koval says that the break downs were crude adn there could be some give and take between the numbers.
Subeck asks if this $30,000 is well spent or would it be better spent on something more broad looking at our relationships with our community, or something else. Koval says that he wants to make sure his own personal biases don’t creep into what they are looking at, he thinks it is ambitious because he believes the public is clamoring for greater transparency, but cameraas have become his industries latest flavor of the month and are a short term fix to a deep extensive problem and he doesn’t want to oversell the expectations, in terms of achieving the meca of transparency and having accountability, the two are not in perfect symbiosis and that is concern. But, he also believes that if it is the findings, and it is what is best to create additional trust, then he will be the first in line to say strap me up.
Subeck says that based on how this is designed, tney are only looking at cameras or no cameras and is this the best way to do this. Koval agrees, there are cop cultures and then there are MPD cop cultures and he likes to think they march to a different drummer and what may be needed right here, right now in Cleveland is a hoot and a holler different from what Madison needs, so he thinks the council is sensitive to that, he thinks the symantics in the resolution that they are willing to go beyond that and that this isn’t a done deal, an inevitability and they are looking at it open minded and considering our unique community in Madison. He is not threatened by it, he welcomes it. Subeck asks if he is referring to the cameras, Koval says that he wants others to look at the study besides him so that its not crabby Koval again, Debbie downer on cameras. That is not what he wants this to be, he jsut wants people to go in eyes wide open with due deliberate speed and understand that he doens’t want to overstate and over sell the expectations of what cameras will bring, as long as we all understand that, his role is fulfilled.
Joe Clausius says he is a sponsor “on here” and he wants to reiterate that he is going into this to proetct the police department as well as the community at large. Koval appreciates that because when they first put in the dashbaord video there was some push back from staff but they have come to find out that they more often exonerate the officers against false allegations or claims.
DeMarb says the reason that they put forth the resolution and asked for the money was to have a robust community discussion, there are many things to be taken into consideration, on the surface and in the news they seem like a good thing, that we will know what happens all the time, but in fact we need to understand what this means for victims, HIPAA laws, minors, open records and videos that can be put on youtube the next day. There are many things that we need to understand and we need the community to weigh in on this, the use of body cameras is a shift in our community and maybe Madison is ready for that shift and will embrace it, or maybe Madison won’t. This is to have the robust discussion with the public and within the force, because moving from one type of policing to another is very different to the officers wearing the camera. This is why there is a resolution to have that discussion and not go right to the debate and that is why they need an independent person managing the project and not put that burden on our own police force.
Subeck says she is not sold on cameras as a solution, and she has listened and watched and the folks coming to testify against the cameras are african american, low-income, people of color more broadly and that is different than other communities that rushed to get cameras as a solution in their communities, but she is not sold on the fact that they did it and the more they discuss the less she is sold on this solution and when she hears them talking about this resolution, it still sounds like it is a foregone conclusion that we will get cameras, the way it is talking about it. DeMarb says it isn’t. Subeck says she keeps arriving there the way it is being discussed. She says that in addition to the privacy issues, it doesn’t appear to be the panacea to what we are looking for, she was in New York when the Eric Garner grand jury decision came down and there was a whole lot of video, people could see what happened and that was still the decision, this doesn’t change anything, that has to happen on the relationship level and attitudes and value level and she appreciates the efforts made there, cameras seem like an easy fix, this is $30K just to study and would that money be better spent in the long hall on improving the relationship between our officers and our citizens, she is comfortable going forward with the study assuming that it is not a foregone conclusion and she is hopeful that they will discuss alternatives and look at relationships and how police and neighbors interact and inter face. She will vote for it but it is with trepidation and hope that body cameras are not a foregone conclusion and that they will take the time to determine whether there are better ways to do this.
Koval says that having worked with the alders, DeMarb and Bidar-Sielaff, their authenticity is to go in eyes wide open and he really appreciates that this is going to be door to door polling and doing this at a grassroots level, he says that as they are talking about this Assistant Chief Randy Graber is out in Washington talking about embracing greater inclusivity in our immigration policy of those working and living in the shadows and we already have a precarious balance in looking at what law enforcementment in their countries of origin and how is that going to exacerbate things here locally. There are a lot of issues and there is a whole lot of money out there, so it might not all be on our shoulders and we might be in line for some of that money, we might not have to bear the entire brunt of the start up costs.
Palm says that they got in this first and there are still other committees that will be discussing this (NOT! They are skipping over EOC and PSRB. It would be natural to assume that, but not in this case), but he still has questions about the money, this is a lot of work for $17,000 and he is concerned about the line that says that “community policing” is in there too, but it isn’t talked about elsewhere, you could have a project manager that is discussion cameras and a committee that is looking at cameras and community policing and you aren’t hiring someone to look at the community policing. How does that work in reality.
Koval says that there will be a learning curve to show how we are decidedly different or distinct to get them grounded in what the community expects, and they will have to spend some time in our neighborhoods and with the gang unit but he thinks that the community will speak resoundingly about what they want.
Palm says the project manager will talk about body cameras, but the committee will talk about everything else, so who is writing the report, is the project manager going to write on body cameras and the committee writes on everything else?
Mayor says he is getting to the heart of the matter, he says the question, which we didn’t hear at the time, is what is our objective. Is the objective body cameras? I hope it is not. Is our objective building trust between an outstanding police department and the community, that might be it. Or is our objective to record every encounter between the Madison Police Department and the public so if should there be an incident that includes an officer using force, it is there for the whole world to see. Those are all very different objectives, and he is not sure as to what they are, he hopes they get to some resolution as to what that is because that then determines the nature of the discussion.
Palm says there is a committee here and he says he appreciates the designations here, but should the Police and Fire Commission be involved here. Koval says that their statutory role is fairly regulated in terms of hiring and firing and he thinks that is beyond their scope. Palm says that if they will be disciplining based on information received from a camera, should they be part of the discussion about they will use that evidence. Koval says that is out of the purview. (Attorney Mike May is vigorously shaking his head in agreement with Koval)
DeMarb says that there are two other committees that will be seeing this and . . . (someone says something off camera) . . . oh, there isn’t? Alders seem confused, several of them seem to think it will go to Equal Opportunities Commission and the Public Safety Review Board.
Chris Schmidt says that in order to meet the timeline it has to be adopted at the next council meeting, in order to hire the manager by March 3rd (so they have someone picked out already). He says that to send this to two more committees will delay it if they don’t adopt it. DeMarb says that she thinks they will adopt it tonight. Schmidt says then it won’t go to those committees, not this resolution.
deMarb says that she doesn’t think that they know everything and there are finer points to be worked out, that they understand what they want to have happen, and she thinks it is in the therefore be it resolved line, we want a timeline and specific community engagement, on policing and body cameras, they want work with city employees and do the research of best practices, and they want a report. When they are talking about the project manager and they will be specifically engaged with the NGOs when it comes to the ad hoc committee they will turn over the findings and the ad hoc community will take it from there with the best practices and our police department and what is happening around the country.
Palm says he will vote for it here because this is the BOE, but if it is not referred to the other committees, especially the Equal Opportunities Commission, he will not vote for it at the council. He thinks it is disingenuous to talk about having a dialogue with the community and then one of our key players and our committee should be reviewing this.
Subeck agrees with Palm and she is lost at where the process went wrong here, but this is not something she has seen that do, bypassing committees to get something through quickly and while she understands this is time sensitive, but this is not an emergency.
Schmidt says that he doesn’t know why or when the referrals were added, he was just brought in as the traffic cop once they realized that this would not come back to Board of Estimates until the end of March. He says there is a fundamental conflict there because he believes the EOC doesn’t meet until March, one of the two, maybe PSRC, won’t meet in February, so it is up to the body whether we do this on time, but certainly there was not enough communication about what needed to happen when when those referrals were added.
Passes unanimously on a voice vote.
After the meeting I asked if they were taking this up at the council on Tuesday and the answer was yes, since they are lead and they acted on it, it will go to the council on Tuesday, bypassing the EOC and PSRC. We’ll see if that changes in the next few days after further discussion, but that was clearly Council President Schmidt’s intention.
Judge Doyle Square
Deb Archer, lobbyist for the Convention and Visitors Bureau sent a statement, but wants to talk to the hotel element of the project. She says that there are elements that the studies say are important to move the needle for Monona Terrace, the most important being the 250 room block and the RFP says that the hotel will be 250 rooms, but not a block, and that was critical to grow business. There are also references to a national flag, that is great, but she wants them to add the word “convention” in there because those are different flags. She also says that the amenities, like restaurants, there are things convention planners and attendees expect, room service, convention access, meeting space, those are critical. The last is the proximity to Monona Terrace, it seems to allow the hotel at bock 88 or 105 and clearly the study showed that block 88 was the one that would meet the needs and she wants them to consider this while they are making that decision.
(?) Is representing the Board of Directors of Monona Terrace, he is the chair and Monona Terrace has been very successful when it was built despite operating on the fringes of the convention business, they have been operating with weddings, smaller conventions and the real sweet spot is the 400 – 600 person conference, it is more profitable and productive and so when they found the possibility of another hotel for the Judge Doyle Square process they were exciting and put together an ad hoc committee to deal with their recommendations so you knew what they were interested in. They drafted a letter too, the highlights are that the hotel needs to be in close proximity and provide a block of rooms, ideally 250 or more set aside to serve the demand they have. Name brand hotel to add to downtown Madison being a destination, a sales team and reservation system, meeting and casual gathering spaces the compliment but do not compete with Monona Terrace, i.e. lounges and a restaurant, small meeting rooms. Increasing the number of rooms will allow them to get more conventions.
Peter Rickman, he isn’t there representing anyone and isn’t in support or opposition just for information, he is there because of the crisis of low wage work, which causes poverty and income inequality and racial disparities, he doesn’t think he needs to convince them on that, but to offer some insights to make the most of the opportunity here to create family supporting jobs and not subsidize working poverty here in Madison. He sees to flaws in the RFP, the first is that without standards or ability to do something about their working conditions, hotel workers suffer from low wages, they are looking at median wages under $10 per hour. With in the RFP section the living wage ordinance will not cover the workers in the hotel. He says that with the city investment, there is a real possibility that people will organize unions and that might lead to labor unrest that will impact the city’s investment so a best practice is to have a labor peace requirement in the RFP. It is technical and complex to make these requirements.
Verveer asks Rickman, he was involved in 1999 with the hotel and they negotiated labor neutrality at that time and his recollection was that the RFP was silent on community benefits, and they didn’t have a lviing wage ordinance yet. He wants to know what the importance is to include language beyond the ordinances at the RFP stage. Rickman says that there are laws on the books, the language included and it has evolved and matured to include the operator. The lviing wage ordinance should be included to makes ure they know that they are accountable for it. He says the langauge in the ordinance isn’t as clear as he would like and they should be clear that this applies to the operator. He says going beyond the ordinance, hotel workers suffer some of the highest injury rates for their type of work, it is common for hotel workers to organize unions to address concerns, the living wage is $12.61 right now, but in Madison you need a minimum of $18 – $25 to afford Madison. The lack of a labor peace agreement, subjects the city to labor unrest (strikes) and that is a common thing. He says if they include it, they won’t make policy preferences but they would protect the city investment.
Verveer says that what is proposed tonight doesn’t provide community benefits, but they negotiate these things later, and why do we need to go beyond that now? Are we putting developers on notice that we might have a strong interest in going above and beyond the laws on our books. Rickman says that they are not going much beyond the laws, this is something that is common place, it is a salutatory choice in public policy. The reason to put it in the RFP process instead of negotiating later is that it guarantees it, that the city’s proprietary interests are protected.
Verveer asks about the TIF financing that applies to the parking, not the hotel, have you thought about what implications that has, does that provide less of a hook to require community benefits. Rickmann says that is a question about if this would be pre-empted under the labor law pre-emption and he doesn’t believe it would be because the city has a proprietary interest in the whole of the project, in the parking revenues, in the rent in office space and revenues in the hotel and the operation of the municipal building. He says there is a legal basis, a conceptual basis in that labor unrest would disrupt and impact the city’s interests.
David Ahrens says that he doesn’t understand the labor peace requirement. Rickman says it can be basic or extensive, depending upon the will of the policy makers. The city is not involved in negotiating labor peace agreements, that is between the other parties, but the city is allowed to protect its interests and require one. It says to the developer that they need to guarantee there will not
be a strike, picket or boycott to protect the city interests. It is then up to the developer and labor organization to specify the terms. Those are relatively standard and straightfoward.
Ok – gotta go to work . . . sigh . . .
