What a weird week – at the same time they’re trying to kick homeless people off the steps of the city-county building, they are throwing open the doors to give millionaires, millions more. Taking the minimal safety away from those who have the least and giving away our tax dollars to those who need it the least in a gross game of Casino Capitalism. Email your alders on Judge Doyle Square! The votes seem close! Show up on Tuesday if you can stomach it.
Counting the votes
This is always tricky as many hold their cards close to their chest, others are more vocal – here’s my best current guess:
NO – Ledell Zellers, Marsha Rummel, Sambah Baldeh, Rebecca Kemble, David Ahrens (that list look familiar to you?)
? (leaning no) – Barbara McKinney (voted yes as Board of Estimates), Amanda Hall, Zach Wood, Paul Skidmore
? (leaning yes?) – Sarah Eskrich, Sheri Carter, Larry Palm, Steve King
YES – Mike Verveer, Shiva Bidar, Chris Schmidt, Denise DeMarb, Mark Clear, Matt Phair
Abstaining – Mo Cheeks (President and CEO of Exact Sciences sits on his board – i.e. is his boss)
They need 11 votes . . . Yes and leaning yes are 10 votes – they also need one of the leaning no votes. I could see it going 13 – 6. I could also see it going 8 – 11. I’ve also heard, but I don’t believe it, that Mo Cheeks is thinking about not recusing himself this time. I think he has more integrity than that.
Where does your alder stand? Here’s a list of 10 questions to ask them! (allalders@cityofmadison.com – put in your address so they know if you are a constituent of theirs, they will pay more attention)
1. $12M GIFT for mostly existing jobs – If we have $12M to create jobs, couldn’t we find a better way to do it? And use the funds more wisely? Why are we GIVING Exact Sciences $12M for jobs? It looks like there are few jobs being created and mostly just retaining existing jobs that could just stay at Research Park in Madison since they just bought more land there.
2. Paying $1.1M for $11M+ land. Why is JDS buying the parking ramp and land on the block with the Municipal Building for $15M and then we are giving them back #13.9M? Essentially buying land worth $11 – 12M for $1.1M. Great deal if you can get it! $1.1M would buy one hell of a day center if we could get that deal for the homeless!
3. Parking spaces for 50 cents per day! Why is JDS renting parking spaces for $.50/day, yes 50 cents! per day? And then being required to rent them out at market rate? I’ll also take that deal, we could pay for a lot of homeless services and pay for renovations of the day center with that! The city is paying about $20M for their approximately 600 parking spots to replace the parking ramp. JDS will pay us $4M in 27 years.
4. Wait 8 more years for Affordable Housing! If the TIF district was closed we could get $4M for affordable housing, its a huge part of the Mayor’s plan to spend $20M on affordable housing in 5 years. Where will that $4M come from now, or will we have to wait 8 more years?
5. School district to pay interest on their own money? If the TIF district were closed, the School District would get around $9M. Now, instead the City will borrow $10M for this project and then pay back the school district and the school district will pay interest on their money – other wise they’d have to wait 8 years for their money, along with the affordable housing that the school districts need.
6. Who cares what the public thinks? Read here about the closed session meetings. Unlike what usually happens in Madison, there was no public presentation about the project or the proposal and no public input on that presentation. Unlike what usually happens in Madison, this only got referred to one committee for discussion – 2 other committees found ways to get it on their agenda, but their input isn’t part of the information going to the city council tomorrow. Unlike what usually happens in Madison, nearly every meeting was held in closed session – meaning the public was not allowed to see or hear what was going on – we were kicked out or the room. From this quote, seems like Judge Doyle would be rolling in his grave over the lack of sunshine on this issue.
7. No rules for millionaires! (Just people without homes) Read here for the shredding of the TIF policies, there are an unprecedented 13 exceptions. Why bother having a policy? They’re giving them 5xs more TIF than typical projects – 499% of the TIF, instead of 50%
8. Wasn’t this about a hotel and New Parking Ramp? Um, the two losers in this deal seem to be the hotel (not enough rooms) and the parking (built pretty substandard to rush to be on the timeline Exact Sciences wants.) We could have more underground parking (if there were time) and then there would be more room for more rooms in the hotel, but apparently, this is no longer about a hotel and parking . . . which means . . . will we need another hotel?! for Monona Terrace?
9. What if Exact Sciences goes belly up? No personal guarantee? And what about the problems at the Edgewater? This all seems risky. Exact Sciences has alot of competitors our there in the market and some have already asked the FDA for permission to do their blood based test for colon cancer. If this all fails, who will be held responsible, there is no personal guarantee, just the one from a single purpose LLC which will be shielded from lawsuits if it fails. And then, the Edgewater didn’t exactly go well for its contractors, how do we know we won’t have the same problems again?
10. Where will people park for 17 months?
I hear a lot of ideas, none seem realistic to me. There doesn’t appear to be a real plan. 600 extra cars trying to park downtown with major construction going on . . .
Can you say Boondoggle? Will your alder be voting for this? Ask them! (allalders@cityofmadison.com)
