Should be a short meeting, but predicting that is usually the kiss of death. Typing as fast and intelligibly as I can!
Agenda is here if you need to keep up with agenda item numbers.
Consent agenda is essentially posted here . . . so you can check there as well, but they may add things at the meeting. Only one item – paying more consultant fees for Judge Doyle Square – was posted before the meeting.
Mayor Paul Soglin says “Alright gang, the meeting will come to order”. Roll call is taken, everyone here, Eskrich is in the hallway. Palm is absent. Quorum is present. The suspend the rules to take things out of order and to introduce things that are late and not noticed.
Item 1 – Nov 13 World Pancreatic Cancer Day
Shari Carter reads the resolution. The resolution is presented to several people who usually speak to this issue. This year its different because it is World Pancratic Cancer day, this year its November 13th, Friday the 13th, wear purple and post selfies to social media. Passes unanimously.
Consent Agenda
2 – 21 are public hearing items, #6 referred
Extra-majority items are 40, 41, 49, 50 and approved by unanimous consent because they are budget related items.
Additional recommendations
– #38, referred to ALRC again (Madhatters)
– #28, downtown density law
– #67 – Judge Doyle Square item for CDA redevelopment district
Exclusion list
– #52 – Judge Doyle Square Consultant
– #72 – has a registrant (Encouraging the University of Wisconsin-Madison to ensure all student identification cards are compliant with state voter ID laws.)
– #74 – Room Tax Commission, make CCOC the lead committee
Public Hearings
#2 – Moves an alternate (that they have on their desks). Registrant speaks against it, he asks for it to be referred since they introduced an alternate that the public hasn’t had a chance to look at. Let the document get out to the public to see it before you approve or deny it, otherwise what is the point of the public hearing. He hasn’t seen it so he doesn’t know what you are proposing. He is worried about quality of life for residents from businesses and we already have problems like that now. The noise ordinances are confusing and vague and have so many exceptions, he doesn’t want to see that happen with the food processing businesses popping up every few blocks a few hundred feet from houses. He has been burning wood since 1977. He thinks it is important to have wood burning stoves and barbeques but its different to have a meat smoking facility that is short and you can reach. He doesn’t want to see these kinds of things. Refer this and let the public see what you are proposing to do.
Marsha Rummel says she has some of the same concerns. She says it has been referred after alders could meet with staff. When she first say this, she says there was language removed that protected districts. They worked with staff and the alternate is an elegant solution, it leaves the language in the ordinance, but staff says it is an impossible standard to meet. We have to balance urban living and quality of life. The language will be put where it will be a conditional use condition. Staff are hear to answer questions, she hopes they will support it.
Eskrich says Rummel did a good job describing it, but wants Matt Tucker to give “more”. Tucker, Zoning Administrator, says it has to have a commercial component, it allows small industries like Batch Bakery, RP Pasta and others to do production. It adds a district, but continues to allow it where it is allowed today.
#3 – Lucky’s. One registrant available to answer questions. Recommendation is to grant with conditions. Public Hearing Closed.
#4 – public hearing open, closed, no registrants.
Motion for 3 and 4 passes.
#5 – recessed to next week. They didn’t vote on it tho.
#6 – re-referred to ALRC, no objections
#7 – one registration supporting, hearing closed.
#8, #9 – no registrations, hearing opened and closed.
#10 – re-referred
#11 – one registration, hearing opened and closed
#12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17 – no registrations, hearing opened and closed
#18 – Ahrens makes a separate motion.
All of the items 6 – 17 are adopted with the recommendations on the agenda, except Carter separates 7, King votes no on 13.
Cheeks says there was no action on 5. They add that to the motion. Items 7 and 18 are left on liquor licenses.
#7 – Shari Carter asks the owners about the application and the capacity of 99 people, she says this used to be Tony Franks and that can’t hold that many people, how did you come up with that number. The owners says that the fire department came up with the number. Other owner says that was the lowest that there is. Carter asks if that includes the patio. They say the patio is illegal and they have to rezone it to use the patio – it is a moot point. Carter asks if the 99 is for inside. Mayor asks city attorney about codes for building inspection and fire, regardless of what is state here, the occupancy will be determined by those rules. Attorney says the fire department determines the maximum, if they said 99, then that is what they see. Mayor says if building inspection has a lower number it will go down. Owners say that building inspector was there today too. Carter says she will talk to Tucker later about the capacity. Mayor says she should refer to the next council meeting. She says they can go forward with the license and she will clarify.
Mike Verveer says historically the ALRC makes a recommendation, but they can’t exceed code. If the code allows 99, then we could limit it to a smaller number, but if the code doesn’t allow it, its a lower number.
Chris Schmidt says they were counting the whole building, not the 1st floor.
License is granted unanimously.
#18 – Ahrens moves to have a condition that they can’t sell single cans, must sell 6 or more. (Hey, Guiness is sold in 4 packs!) Denise DeMarb asks what happened at ALRC and why it wasn’t limited there. Mo Cheeks has a question for staff but they aren’t here. Shiva Bidar says that this wasn’t brought up at ALRC, but she wants to make sure the language is consistent with other licenses. Mike Verveer says that the issue of limiting packaging sales didn’t come up at the meeting, it probably should have. They talked to the owner before the meeting, they had a neighborhood meeting, there is a conditional use, the owner agreed not to sell less than a 6-pack, they just didn’t have that info, this is very routine language. Ahrens says it was discussed at Plan Commission and the owner agreed to this at that time. They had 3 or 4 community meetings on this. They agreed to beer, wine and 6-packs only. Cheeks says this is a common practice, but how do we determine this, are there guidelines about which neighborhoods we decide to enforce this in, or is it a gut-check decision. King says that he drinks cider, most of the ones he was looking at was in 4-packs, are we taking into account the modernization of selling alcohol, should we refer this. WE should hear about the product mix, are we accounting for the industry. Bidar says it is usually no single serve, that is why she wants to have consistent language. She is not sure if the clerk could get that language, or refer to ALRC. They don’t have a strict formula, but for most convenience stores, they tend to have this condition about no single serve. The alder weighs in about if they want that condition, but it is usually is requested by neighbors and alders at the meeting. Mayor says there was a time when you had to take beer out before 9 or buy elsewhere, but as more businesses started selling packaged items and there were issues where people were not as experienced with selling alcohol, then that is when it got added, or if they thought underage drinkers might be frequent buyers or with people with substance abuse – he just got a text from Mr. Woulf that says they limited it for people were frequently intoxicated, that is where they did it. Barbara McKinney asks if there is consistency in putting these restrictions on licenses, shouldn’t we look at this. She is not sure why this is before the council. Alder King says that they use consistent language and they have rationale for it, he asks that it be put on the table until they get the consistent language. Someone has it, Ahrens withdraws his original motion and “no sale single bottles or cans of beer or fermented malt beverages”. Mr. Woulf texts the Mayor again, most of the conditions were reactive, they are trying to be proactive, they are starting to be more consistent, banning all single serve might be illegal, so they decide on a case by case basis. Bidar says “thank you Mark”
Motion passes.
#19 – re-refer, recess public hearing, send back to plan commission. Motion passes.
#20 – re-refer, recess public hearing. Motion passes. Chris Schmidt asks if they should just put this to sleep (Judge Doyle Square), mayor says refer. They do.
#21 – Valleyview Rd – one registrant, motion to grant with conditions and that passes.
#52 – Judge Doyle Square Consultant
Andy OlsEn asks them to reject the contract. He says its a public matter, not personal. This should be about if you like someone or not. This firm has been given ample and generous opportunity to work on this. This will be extending the contract 1 day after the deal collapsed. He thinks people will ask why you would continue with this debacle. He is concerned about due diligence, the Isthmus article laid out how he checked in Exact Sciences, he knows better than to check with someone with a vested interest, the council was poorly served by the advice that resulted, as was the public. He’s been to a lot of these meeting, he has been to a lot of meetings, when Mr. Austin was challenged about his sunny projections, he didn’t respect criticisms and blindly dismissed them. The city needs to be well-served, the council needs unbiased information.
DAvid Ahrens says he asked for this to be excluded, this is not a personal issue with George Austin, he has great charm and sensibility and this makes it difficult, he is a talented and gracious individual, but given what has happened to date, its worth looking elsewhere. He doesn’t want to get into JDS 1, the hotel a year ago or the due diligence. His basic issue is that his approach belies the notion of what we hire a consultant for, the purpose is to collect a broad range of information for us to evaluate and make a decision. It’s not to promote one point of view over another. This was clear from the outset that before we had any opportunity to view the 4 proposals, that it was decided to go with one option. The consultant defined the direction. We asked for a hearing or presentation, then there was no time for that. They couldn’t negotiate simultaneously with more than one developer. The issue is what we expect from consultants, do we want to be given one choice or a full series of facts so we can make choices. He worked in the legislature and they still have the fiscal bureau and legislative council, they give you two sides to the issue and several choice and more information. The legislator can make an adult choice at that point. AVA Consulting hasn’t taken that approach and he doesn’t think that serves them well.
Chris Schmidt says he was concerned about the noise coming into this meeting. They are responsible for the process and we should have given them criteria where they could say no, but they were directed to get to yes, but it was unacceptable. We didn’t ask for the right information, maybe we should in the future. The city attorney told us not to negotiate with more than one developer at a time. Mr. Austin acknowledged the concerns, he may have given rosy answers, but he took his direction from us. This isn’t about the consultant we hired, but its how we set ourselves up.
Marsha Rummel says that the team is as good as we make it and the directions we give, hindsight being 20-20. If we hired someone else we might not have a different outcome.
Mayor says we knew there was risk in going down the path we took and one of the things we have to understand outside the context of this development is the nature of risk in the private sector. We are in an international economy and we are going to have to do things to have greater impact and control over our own destiny and as people in the private sector know, risk is unavoidable and we will have failures. He says that we had an inclusionary zoning law that failed, he wishes we had that 4 years back, but it didn’t stop our efforts to create affordable housing in Madison. The says we want to take risk with the minimal loss. We were able to obtain a package that provided guarantees, if what happened last week happened in 6 months we had guarantees that protected us, we were not shareholders in the company. We were providing the one and only financial opportunity provided in the State of Wisconsin. We made decisions for this rare and unusual opportunity. We will continue to move forward. He wants to make a point we have two projects to work on. If an announcement were made about 100,000 sq feet and 100s of new employees we’d . . .this site is as good as we can get, its got good transportation. The Madison economy was driven for decades by government and university. With the competition out there in the market place, we are doing novel and exciting things. Cooperatives won’t get up and leave when owned by the workers, we have to try new and innovative processes and systems. We don’t want to become a 1099 economy. Look at the new book “Raw Deal” focusing on the nature of the economy and the real disruption of full time jobs, like Exact Sciences made a commitment to. Whether its something new for us, the cooperative movement, investing in worker owned business or a TIF based not just on the land but employment, or the labor agreements that serve as a model for future work, one of the recommendations going to Board of Estimates on Monday is to give the other competitors an opportunity to modify their proposals. They may wish to go beyond the hotel. We did this with guarantees, this is not going away, if we want to do something about our regions 4.6% unemployment and an inclusive economy, these are the steps we will have to take. WE need to reverse the trend to the 1099 economy. He says we should approve the contract and not assume for a moment that the kinds of chlanges we went through for the last months are behind us, but we should be welcoming them in the future.
Roll Call.
No – Ahrens, Baldeh, McKinney, Kemble,
Abstain – Carter
Absent – None.
A whole bunch of student looking people got up and left – they must have been here for a class . . . I thought they were here for the ID issue . . . . odd.
#72 – Student IDs for Voting
Nancy Lynch is registered to speak. Assistant Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs speaksreallyfast . . . . she says they made the decisions consistent with all but 3 campuses. They would have to add a signature to their car and have a 2 year expiration date. Students have lots of options for IDs. 45,000 students are a lot to track down every 2 years. She says there are only 20,000 voters this would apply to (over counted likely) There are only about 6400 students that will need a voter id card. The separate id card is cheaper for them. Its $3 for the card they use, but its 11 cents for the one they propose. She ran out of time. They give her more time. She says the card has a lot of purposes, all those services get interrupted when they re-issue the card. They have secure facilities that the police have to manually grant access to buildings. They don’t want to add the signature. The government accountability didn’t approve stickers for signatures, but those damage their card readers. They won’t maintain signatures. Instead they will try to educate students about how to register and vote and get cards to vote. They have a communication plan set up. They are asking students now if they need a voter ID card. Student orientation will also ask if they need a voter id card, that will capture all incoming freshment and transfer students. Wiscard office will have extended hours. We are taking it seriously, we looked at all the options.
Ahrens asks if voter ID card will show current enrollment. No, they have a voter enrollment clarification form they can display at the polls on their phones and tablets. Ahrens asks if this is ok with the defunct GAB – she says yes, everything was approved. Ahrens asks if the successor to the GAB, will you bring it to them. She says they will wait and see until the new body is formed and see if they keep the same rules.
Verveer met with Everett Mitchell about this, and he heard their action plan, he understands all the arguments, but it seems to him that the easiest way to get voter id cards is to have another location beyond Union South, take it to the residence halls and other places. Did Mr. Mitchell bring that back and did you consider that. She says they explored it, its not feasible, we need a secure UW data line, they can’t use wi-fi. It has to be on-campus locations. The question is when they should do this. Verveer appreciates that. It’s a no-brainer, but they don’t want to make people trek to Union South. Easier access it critical to not disenfranchising students. She says the machines are not very affordable and security is an issue. Verveer says they should be able to figure out how to hard wire it.
Zach Wood speaks equally fast. Whatever he asked, she says they can deal with it. Wood asks for alternative plans for same day issues. She says they will do extra hours and communicate how to get it done. They have to determine what nights it makes sense to stay open, obviously not Friday night.
Mo Cheeks appreciates the need to have secure data, he wants to know what the UW position and why other campuses have prioritized voter id. She says she can’t speak to those organizations. Green Bay, Stout and Superior are significantly different and they have a mag stripe, so they aren’t as expensive and have fewer students and fewer out of state students. She can only represent UW Madison. He says 700 ids a day sounds like not very many, how do you expect to deal with something like 2008 where people were in lines for hours after polls closed. She says 700 a day is under normal operating conditions, they can do more if they extend hours and have more locations. She knows people will wait, but that is part of her messaging. They think they can manage a large chunk of it at SOAR. Alot of it is education and a lot of it is on students. We tell them how to register and where to go but at the end of the day its their choice. Some will vote absentee where they come from. Its not all 40,000 students that need the card. They will give it to everyone who wants it and needs it.
Cheeks thanks the UW for sending someone here, thanks Wood for putting this forward, he thinks the UW has a throughful response to this request, but there is nothing easier than having their student ID have be their voter ID, he continues to support this, he wants the lowest possible barrier for students to vote. He appreciates the pressure the students are putting on the UW.
Wood – ditto. He looks forward to further dialogue. He is troubled by the notion of low voter turn out and that it wasn’t worth it. He doesn’t want to be critical, but that is why he is so disappointed as a May graduate. There are barriers to students voting, it is difficult for out of state students to vote, the rules are designed to prevent them from voting, the responsibility it on the university and student org. UW should make sure that if they want to vote this is a reality.
Matt Phair wants to be a sponsor.
Motion passes unanimously.
Introductions from the floor
Zellers – N Pinckney underground utility district – refer to Board of Public Works.
Committee of the whole – Budget Discussion
Cheeks move they move into a committee of the whole, its seconded, they take roll call again (all here), mayors staffers leave for the most part.
Mark Clear corrects them on their procedure.
Denise DeMarb says that since April she has tried to bring the best and latest information she has, she says responsible and smart people make the best decisions when they have this information. She says that she had someone come up to her today and say “I hear you have an important job with the city, tell me about it.” She explains she’s an elected official and she is council president. The person asked what they are working on, she said the budget and it hit her how important this work is. We are putting forward a plan for the next year or 5 years. She says that may people have been at BOE and several haven’t, so Schmiedicke is going to do his presentation again. She says there is some work that has been done between BOE and tonight and she wants people to understand what the motions are so they have knowledge of what is going on. She says on the capital budget they talked about Monroe St. She asks Eskrich to explain her thinking about that today and how it is different than BOE.
Eskrich says you make have noticed, or it might have slipped by you that there was a resolution tonight to “green” Monroe St., but it was for 2018, BOE voted for 2017, she wants to have a plan they can stick to this time, so she will have an amendment next week. It’s important we start planning and schedule the plan for when they can afford it. They have a huge opportunity and they can learn from Johnson and Willy St. The process will be in 2016 and 2017 and construction in 2018 if her amendments are supported.
Technical difficulties.
DeMarb asks Bidar or Schmidt to talk about Mid-town. Schmidt says the amendment would be not to change construction schedule, but there are changes to operational schedule. The staffing will be delayed to 2018. That was an effort to smooth out the operational impact and they worked that out with the police department.
Bidar says other alders were also sponsors of that, so their intent was to make sure the information is shared today and that the other alders that sponsored the BOE amendment would also be on board to these changes. She says that one of the challenges is that they can’t have quorums to work on things and that is why they are telling them now. Leadership of the police department were a part of this. Board of Estimates heard from Assistant Chief Williams last week.
Barbara McKinney says that she wants to acknowledge the community work to support this amendment. She just received a text supporting the police station from a condo association. (She reads it – sorry, didn’t get it all)
Shmiedicke has a graphics heavy presentation that won’t make sense if I start telling you about green and red an blue stuff. People have walked up to the monitors to see it. He is showing changes from executive to BOE changes. There are new numbers to push the bus barn back a year and taking the $10M of borrowing for Judge Doyle Square out of the budget. Hopefully they will make this available to people.
He then shows what happens after BOE. More charts. He shows what happens with Monroe St. He talks about the other changes. This is a little silly to try to blog. It was illustrative . . . not easily described without visuals.
There are, not surprisingly, not questions.
Bidar thanks DeMarb for getting this info to them before next week. She says they were able to figure out how to do things so that they didn’t change much from where they were with the Executive budget. We are doing this with faith in this body that we will follow through with our plans. We can’t commit a future council to our CIP, but we don’t want to have discussions over and over and they want to see through on their commitment. They are trying to make it a good budget over the 5 years.
Rummel says that at BOE they talked about the omnibus amendment, where are we at on the operating budget.
Taxes on the average home = up 3.4%
Rummel asks how much “extra” money they have? He rattles off numbers, there is about $1M before they hit the levy limit. Rummel says the mayor wants to set aside $700,000, does that mean there is $300,000 if we follow his advice. Mayor has 2.9% increase in his budget. He says that the number in terms of what is left assumes DOA reverses its decision on the returns, so it might be another half a million lower.
Bidar asks if the biggest amendment was the city pay increase and the mayor was supportive of it. He says that it was the largest. Without that they reduced the spending by $87,000 from the mayor’s budget.
Kemble says that she has an amendment for $40,000 for Vera Court Community Center, since there is resistance to funding outside of the community services process. She says this is a partnership to have a private investor invest $500,000. There is an expansion planned – they are packed. They discussed it with the city, they were told to wait. Forward Wisconsin wants a city investment in programming if they make the investment in the expansion. There was some confusion about if there was a capital or operating match, they were waiting for a staff to be hired, that didn’t happen. So, this is a $700,000 investment, Vera Court will raise $200,000. The mayor and Community Development support this. They were trying to follow a process, it was just the wrong process.
DeMarb says ask questions as much as you can before deliberations next week.
They move to come out of the committee of the whole, do processy stuff involving roll calls and mumble jumble and adjourn. 8:45ish.
