Yeah, so, after 8.5 hours yesterday, I just had to be here to finish it – call me a glutton for punishment. been department heads and finance staff have been placing their $2 bets on when the meeting will end. Seems to be favored to be between 10:30 and 11:06 (last I heard). I’ll try to do the first 10 amendments here . . . and
rest in Part II. Hopefully I don’t need a part III.
Getting Started
Attenndance: Alder Rebecca Kemble and Larry Palm are absent (excused).
They take the operating budget off the table from last night’s meeting. Passes.
They dive right in to the amendments.
AMENDMENTS
To see additional language on these amendments, look here.
1 – Attorney – Remove Funding for the MUNICODE Upgrade by Alder Cheeks, Alder Phair (25,000)
Maurice Cheeks says there was a note from attorney May, it passed at the Board of Estimates, the reason it is on the floor of the council, in his experience this is not the tool that they use often and the attorney doesn’t use it. There may be a value to the public, that could be argued.
Michael May says that this is the only place you can find our ordinances on line, its outdated, its clunky and doesn’t work well. They have been looking at a different source, the upgrade would make it more searchable and it would be easier for the public, city staff (including those out in the field) and alders. They think this is a good investment – the system makes it difficult.
Mike Clear says he appreciates this and concurs with fiscal responsibility but this is an important part of access to our government. He is convinced the enw version is better enough to have better access, he thinks its an important upgrade and urges rejections.
Marsha Rummel says this is a transparency and good government issue and she would like to be able to use this better.
Paul Skidmore says in his real world job he has lots of people come to him to find the codes and he finds this easy to use and asks them to reject them. He says this helps keep the city more transparent.
Cheeks thanks colleagues for weighing in, he brought it up because it is important to acknowledge if we want to make this investment. He says we shoudl invest in things we will use and promoste to teh public and he hopes the public gets value out of it.
Samba Baldeh asks version they are using and what they are upgrading to? Kronenberger says staff reviewed it and staff are impressed by the improvements. The biggest issue is the search function – that alone would warrant the upgrade. STaff and others will be able to find things quicker. Baldeh asks if this is the latest version or will we need to upgrade again. Kroneneberger says he thinks this is the latest version.
Motion fails on a voice vote.
2 – CDA Redevelopment – Correction to Debt Service by Mayor Soglin, Alder Verveer 0
Passes on voice vote without discussion.
3 – Common Council – Funding for Alder Constituent Outreach by Alder Palm, Alder Verveer, Alder McKinney 35,000
Verveer moves adoption in Palm’s absence. Barbara McKinney explains that some districts that don’t have development they can’t have pay for their outreach, in order to have more outreach they need and increase. She asks Verveer to add to it. Mayor points out he isn’t the queue. Verveer says he did it as a courtesy to Palm. The main concern of Palm is that he has found it difficult to have mailings to every household in his district. Some have secured funds from other colleagues to mail to the entire district. Verveer points out council staff is available to answer questions.
Steve King asked for the spreadsheet on what they spent last year. They had $48,500 and they had $20,500 left over and Palm spent almost nothing on postage. He says his initial reaction was that this would increase capacity but he needs more of a case to be made for that. His initial reaction was to support it, but in our new data driven culture (mayor) the data does not support this.
Shiva Bidar says they have never run out and go over. Some alders do, but you can ask your colleagues who haven’t used their funds. She understands the spirit of the request but does not think it is money well spent because they have left over money every year. Vote no and move on to other important amendments.
Rummel asks about the process and says she asks developers to pay for it. One alder has never spent a dime. What is the protocol if you run out of money. Lisa Veldran says they also have $600 per district. Large mailings go out for developers and liquor licenses. Then there are meetings on a safety issue, we can’t charge that to an applicant, they have been successful asking for the police department to pay for one meeting, they will share the cost. Parks and Traffic Engineers will offset our costs, if not full, but maybe half. There are always options, we always have money left over. Instead of approaching this as something you can’t do, you would work with the staff, you can’t do a full district mailing every month, but think strategically on how to do it. Some of the senior members know how to do this and she is always open to suggestions.
Amanda Hall says that Alder Rummel has the blog that is most read and there are other ways to reach out. She only knows that because she is number 2 and she is salty about that. She says there are other ways to do this besides postcards.
Baldeh asks about the mailing budget. Veldran says they expect to be reimbursed by people. He wants to know where the money goes, she says it goes back into the postage account. The revenue goes into the bulk mail account.
McKinney is thankful for the conversation, as new alders the problem is the ask. Veldran says they can always ask. She syas this is a good conversation and appreciates Palm for putting this forward.
Sheri Carter says that some fo the districts our constituents do not have internet and it is important to send something to them. She says some have great blogs and you constituents are on the internet all the time, some of us don’t have this privilege.
Cheeks says that we often talk about strengthening our capacity as a body. He doesn’t intent to vote for this, there isn’t evidence this is jsutified but every year we give the mayor’s office $50,000 in travel and for our office we have less than that for 20 people.
Motion fails on a voice vote, only Clear voting aye.
4 – Community Development Division – Increase funding for 15 Point Plan to restore funding for the Emerging Opportunities Program by Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Phair 150,000
Bidar urges approval. She says the amendment language might be confusion. This restores the EOP funding to the 2016 level. The executive budget put the money in the 15 point plan. She says that they should fund the $400,000 and keep $150,000 for EOP. She syas yesterday seems far away but she hopes she remembers the speakers who spoke about what this small but significant fund does for those who don’t traditionally have access to this money. She says that they were hearing often that they didn’t have a way to ask for the small amoutn of funding to start a program. The programs can apply in the fall funding process after getting started. She sent them the list and says it is a big investment. This provides huge access. One of the conversations they have had is that this is a small amount of funding and our contracting process is very involved and that creates a barrier and creates alot of work for the CDD staff. She says fair and herself have been in touch with staff to deal with issues to simply processes to continue funding and alleviate pressure on staff and the group. She says a recommendation that came out of the study was to think about being more nimble in our funding. She says micro-grants work well at the national and international level. They are working on that, but please support maintaining the funding. She says this is an uncertain time and now more than ever this funding might be important.
Matt Phair says Bidar did a great job explaining why you should support this. He says that we have heard this is time consuming and trying with the staff. He says the staff works to help alot of small organizations along. He says the program makes direct community investment and not every group is successful and he is on the board of two groups that get this money and truly the EOP funding has been leveraged into other funding and this is what we wanted this to be. The same with Carts for Community (Let’s Eat Out). He says he is sure there are other success stories out there.
DeMarb says that the CDD division took it down to 0 to fund the 15-point plan. She will be voting for the amendment because this type of funding right now is very important. CDD is in trasistion and the ability to apply for new funding is very limited. There are good things happening and we hear about it. She thanks people for looking to streamline this funding. For very small amount of money to go through the process is pretty redundant.
McKinney dittos everything said. She sat in on their deliberations and was impressed with the time. He discomfort is with the taking the money for the 15-part plan. She would like to increase the funding. She wishes this was a stand alone amendments without the 15-point plan.
Phair says this funding was tied in to the 15-point plan but this is just restoring the money. This is just a budgeting . . . something.
Carter appreciates what McKinney said. This funding should never have been decreased, she thinks the money for the 15-point plan should be $250,000, not $400,000.
Passes on a voice vote, Carter votes no.
5 – Community Development Division – Eliminate reference to Henry Street Men’s Dorm Alder Phair, Alder Cheeks 0
Phair says he never got an answer about what this money does, he knows there is no funding but he is worried staff would be tasked to do something. CDD will continue to talk about homelessness, youth recidivism, etc. We don’t need to add something with unclear goals.
Mayor asks Verveer to take the chair.
Mayor says that the program operated for half a dozen years, he is not sure what the clarity issue is. Mayor says that through conversations with Allied Drive residents some years ago, it became evident that there were issues with housing, educational and job needs of young african american men. Its a bigger issue than just housing. The homeless consortium looked at the issue and an analysis was done. If you think about you middle class men bound for college, they are in a supportive environment (high school, parents, higher education institution). There is an entire supportive environment working towards the goal. This was focused on MATC and failure cam from lack of a supportive environment outside of school. They funded it with block grant money, section 8, private dollars and they created a facility with a resident advisor. Everyone had a job, housing was covered and they were in college or apprenticeship and they had a resident advisor. It was expensive. He doesn’t know why the program failed. At some point the city of Madison decided to terminate it because of financing and they gave the building to Porchlight. They then changed it to help homeless without the programming he just discussed. He says they should look at the demise of this and look at the outcomes. The premise of the program was solid and it was addressing real problems. He says that it is difficult for a 19 year old that is not in a supportive environment to get this opportunity. Will it work, is it affordable? We know the premise but we don’t know what went wrong.
Phair asks if he reached out to alders to have a conversation about the program. The mayor says that they discussed it at BOE. He tells fair to understand that he is cognizant of the problems of the open meetings and walking quorums, some of you were not. Phair asks who we are. Mayor says they discussed at BOE, you were there. Phair says that he should reach out to more than one or two alders and did he discuss with staff. Mayor says yes, staff searched the records.
Eskrich will support the amendment to strike the language. She says the mayor has the ability to have staff look into things as the executive, there is no fiscal impact, this is policy language that she doesn’t support so she doesn’t feel comfortable directing staff to do this. She says this doesn’t belong
Cheeks says this could be done in a resolution. He has a myriad of concerns on the underlying notion of this. We know the mayor directs staff all the time. He says when this was proposed the staff were just becoming acquainted with this project. He says this seems premature. He supports removing it.
McKinney says that the additional staff time will cost money. She is comparing this to an amendment that failed last night. She says she knows the issues and what people need. She supports because if we are willing to reallocate resources and say there is no fiscal impact, but we know when you shift staff there is an impact.
Motion fails with two absences – and 8 no votes – Gruber, Skidmore, Verveer, Wood, Zellers, Ahrens, Baldeh and Carter voting with the mayor. There were 10 votes against. 11 are needed to pass.
6 – Community Development Division – Restorative Justice Program by Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Eskrich, Alder Wood, Alder Hall, Alder Zellers, Alder Phair, Alder Rummel 122,500
Bidar says Alder Kemble would support this if she was here. The funding is to make sure every 12 – 16 year old has access to this program. She sent them the report. There is good metrics and factual numbers. She hopes they can support this, she knows that some think the county should fund it, the county is funding some of this. We can point our fingers at the county or we can put our moeny where effective programs are working for our kids. This program is making a difference and we are good a piloting things that work and then the program goes away, we need to continue funding this. Everyone who works on this raves about the results. This is the kind of program that sends a positive message about the police trying to build that trust.
McKinney asks the attorney – she is a consultant with the program, should she be listed as a sponsor. He asks if she has been paid and if she is currently working on it. She says she has been paid but is not currently being paid. The city attorney tells her to recuse herself. She asks if she can speak. Mayor says no. I think she said “shit”.
DeMarb tries to ask Koval a question, he isn’t there. She asks OKeefe if there is someone being hired to help. He says yes and they will be hired soon. DeMarb asks if the county had to apply. O’Keefe says it had to be a government entity, the city could have applied. O’Keefe says that they are doing something similar and was surprised they submitted without the city and this grant is in sync with what the city is doing. Koval is finally back. She asks him about the success of the program and what your opinion is on restorative justice programing is and how that benefits or not the city. He says they need to do something to address the issues. 75% of the citations are going to kids of color. We decided to create an alternative and they could go through the municipal court with little services or go this other direction. He hasn’t seen all the vetted numbers. Lots of kids are choosing this and if they follow through then the citations are torn up. This is more service oriented. DeMarb asks O’Keefe about the outreach in the county program with TimeBank and YWCA – they went and talked to kids that didn’t respond. Kids don’t always know and sometimes ignore it. Would the city fit on this program as it was constructed or would there be changes. O’Keefe says the program, the way it is working now, with the outreach is a solid one and whether we would pursue the funds in the future, they might, but the program is solid. DeMarb asks about the $70,000 – he says they support Briarpatch ($55.000) and 10,000 to Centro Hispano, but the city funds are not directed to the YWCA for the outreach efforts. The city funds are 12 – 17 years old. Would the $122,000 fund the same kids, there seems to be discretion in that. She supports this, kids make mistakes and they can not carry it forward with them and back up in a very different way outside the criminal justice system.
Mayor says that there are two issues. As a matter of principle, we generally believe that when the county funds a program it should be for everyone in Dane County, not just those outside the city of Madison. When we hear the city and county share 50/50 that means the city 75% and 25% the county. We have to understand that. When the county funds something for Dane County, we expect to be treated as part of Dane County. He says that social services and juvenile services has been a shared responsibility between the state and the county. There are instances where the state and county do not act, we enter into that area, and that is the evolution of the Community Services program shows this. Even tho by law and tradition the responsibility lies with others, the city enters into the area because of the value to the people we serve. He shares that to support this, but this should be a county service. He has one question, when talking about young people, if we arrest or cite a young person and they are not a city resident, what happens. Koval says that they have jurisdiction and can be served. Non-city kids can get the benefit of the program based on the incident happening in the city.
Bidar says that this is municipal court, our court, our budget. She says there is a long report, but overwhelming number (90%) are city residents. She says a few kids might not be residents but she is happy to spend money on those kids. She says the money now is for Judge Koval to redirect kids. This program is one step before that, they don’t even appear before Judge Koval. The county has other programs on arrests and other ways of working with juveniles that are getting into more of the criminal justice system.
DeMarb asks to be added as a sponsor.
Passes overwhelmingly on a voice vote.
7 – Community Development Division – Appropriate funds for the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Program by Alder Palm, Alder Kemble 750,000 (other funds, not city tax dollars)
Verveer moves the substitute. THe sponsors are both out of the country, the substitute adds a LTE during the 2 year federal grant.
No discussion, passes on a voice vote.
8 – Community Development Division – Designate Urban League Greater Madison as Construction Employment Initiative Vendor by Mayor Soglin, Alder Verveer 0
Passes on a voice vote without discussion.
9 – Community Development Division – Homeless Street Teams by Alder Eskrich, Alder Phair 0
Eskrich says that the mayor made her point what the role of the county is. She says the goal of the language is about the sources of fudning and what other sources require. She talks about medicaid match. She says this is about outreach, not case management. This is to connect people to services. She hopes they support this common sense language.
Hall says that she is in favor, and wanted to be a co-sponsor. She thanks Eskrich for drafting this. Homelessness is a lightening rod for people in this room and I have heard time and again as we reject issues poeople ask what our ideas are, she says this is one of them.
Rummel asks the intent of the language. What would the program look like as opposed to case management. O’Keefe says this is to strengthen outreach and being more proactive in connecting people. He says this can take advantage of the CCS program. The CCS program is a powerful one, but it is also a difficult one to access – it requires the client to directly be involved in their service and treatment plans. By nature, outreach is not eligible under that, but its not always clear where outreach ends and case management begins. Our outreach is to connect clients to services and take advantage of thigns like CCS when it is available. Its not always easy to access CCS. He says it will be focused on those who have been resistant to date. If they are resistant they might not be ready for CCS. Their intent it to use other resources that are avilable. Rummel is still struggling with the language and how it gets used for the RFP. O’Keefe says case management for CCS is only if the client helps direct. In other instances case management might be provided if the client is not participating in the direction of case mananagement. Porchlight, Tellurian and Tenant Resource Center receive some funds. She syas she has been frustrated with outreach services in the past and she never felt like we did anything to help these people. She has not gotten help in the past. She wants to make sure people are getting help.
Phair appreciates the discussion. In the bigger picture this is about how we compliment each other with our city dollars, there are no clear blue lines here, but we want to be as strategic as possible. Staff has been working hard on this and it would move us along.
Mayor says that prior to the street teams for Rethke, we all had the frustrations Rummel described. We asked where is the service or case worker that should be working with this individual and the bottom line is we didn’t have that capacity or skill set and we weren’t seeing enough of it from the county. We engaged on REthke and we have seen how effective it was. One of the great feelings of joy is seeing people there whose lives are not easy, but seeing people off the streets and doing better and in permanent housing. That worked, lets keep doing it. On the amendment he supports no funding case management funded by other sources, we are doing what isn’t being done and should have been done all along. His only caveat is that as they develop the RFP he hopes we don’t write it so tightly that there are not other opportunities. He repeats his Brooklyn story about a outreach working having breakfast every day for a year and a half before they convinced the person to move into housing. He hopes this will get more case workers out there. He says that several outreach teams have said that with all the good work they are doing that the addition of a case worker is profoundly impactful like the Joining Forces for Families works do.
Passes on a voice vote.
10 – Community Development Division – Allocation of Funding for 15-Point Focused Interruption Plan by Alder Phair, Alder Cheeks, Alder Palm, Alder Bidar-Sielaff, Alder Clear, Alder Gruber, Alder Hall, Alder Rummel 0
Phair says this clarifies the language and where the $400,000 is spent, where the money is housed, the engagement process and it will go through RFP. This is for the first two points for the 15 point plan. He says they heard the presentation and the focused interruption group have been meeting with staff and they are working on a community engagement plan. This is a new thing, there is alot to be worked out. He appreciates staff going into this new area and there is a lot of learning to do. You might hear about peer support coaches not having the evidence behind it. This research and study was done with the community and these are the top priorities for peer support coaches. The 3rd item is the Madison Peace Project which they hope to fund and we are continuing to work on youth employment.
McKinney says she is not a sponsor and is concerned that the money reaches the people most impacted. It hasn’t sunk into her spirit that this will reach the people most in need. She cannot sign on with it.
Cheeks says that many people have been following along with the 15 point plan to address violence in our community. Phair and myself were looking into this independently . . . ugh, I missed a whole lot, kinda just tuned out. . . too much hot air going no where . . . he clearly supports his own brilliant (if he does say so himself) idea. Sorry, losing my tolerance for the goofy budget meetings . . . .
Zellers supports and asks to be added as a sponsor.
Ahrens thanks Alders Phair and Cheeks for their hard work. He has some questions about it. He says that they need to have fidelity to the program and is concerned about program management and evaluation. He wants to know who creates the plan and conducts the evaluations. Laura Noel says they have been researching this and are doing their homework and there are several nationally recognized programs that focus on mental health and forensics support and training for peer specialists. They are working out evaluations for these programs and they will work with the groups to see if the national programs evaluation can be used. She says some of the money should be used to bring in national trainers. He asks if any organization can apply for these funds if they are not in the focused interruption coalition. He says he has worked with MUM and they have a track record and they could apply? Yes. The alders don’t look so certain.
Rummel thanks the alders and says that this should be out of CCOC (alders) and put it back in CDD (community development division) and she is glad to see that. She says that she represents areas that she hopes this program can support (Darbo) and hopes this will work to find alternatives and lead to a better quality of life.
Carter says we can no longer pinpoint where violence will be. 110 plus shots were fired all over the city of Madison and we all were affected by violence – not one of us can say my district, my constituents, we all were impacted. Her concern is the service getting to the people who need it. When we increase the budget to finance EOP and we left this budget at $400,000 and she thinks it should be $250,000. She says this is not baked yet, she would like to hear more about ti and won’t support the amendment.
Phair says if this doesn’t get to the people, we have failed. That’s the whole point of the focused interruption coalition. It keeps him up at night to make sure this really works. As far as this not being baked is ok, if we wrote it all down we would be doing it backwards, this is a facilitated community process to listen to people about what they want so we can put that in an RFP that responds to people and what they want.
Bidar says thanks you to Cheeks and Phair for working with the coalition. She says violence is a health issue and alot of work is being done there and there is some well studied and evidence based programs around the county. She says Cure Violence is a good example of a program. She looks forward to a reduction in violence and having people find opportunity.
McKinney says she didn’t say thanks for all the hard work. She has high regard for the work that was done. She says that staff didn’t think about recidivism and you can’t have children and not talk about recidivism. She is drawn in by the peer work. She says that she worked with MUM (Madison Urban Ministry) for 10 years doing this work and she says that staff says they could apply, but everything that is written says it goes to the focused interruption coalition. She wants to make sure that this can be replicated and will move the needle and get to the people most affected. Sometimes it is someone needs a belt or pair of shoes and that has to be tied in to this. This is here hesitancy.
King wants to be a sponsor. He thanks them for the clarity. He says that alot of people are talking about population health, like the organization he works with and they need to spend more time on this. He’s thankful we are moving forward on this.
DeMarb says this impacts people all over the city and have ideas about how to prevent it. She says it comes up at every meeting with constituents. It will be interesting to see this as it comes up in the community. She is interested in public health and wonders what their role has been in this plan. Janelle Heinrich says they were not very involved, they reviewed it and made some contributions, they think it is a public health issue but don’t have overt strategies they are taking on. They are trying to figure out what the role is.
DeMarb asks why? It’s been in the news, it has urgency, why isn’t the public health department started strategizing. They have been understaffed and but they have started. DeMarb asks if they have looked at funding for this. Heinrich says that there is funding but they haven’t pursued this.
KOval was raising his hand to answer the question (cuz he seems to think he gets to speak when he wants to). He says they look at grants and review them to see if we should apply.
DeMarb asks O’Keefe and Noel about the evaluation and she says that 20% is the number that is used for evaluation. It’s not inexpensive. And its complicated. NOel agrees. DeMarb is concerned that they gather data and have evidence based data to see if it is working. DeMarb asks about staffing and the open positions and she is concerned about how they will fit this on. Noel says they are filling 3 positions but 2017 is looking daunting because we are doing EOP plus this and the funding process for three areas of focus and we can’t get it all done first quarter. Maybe one or more of the RFP processes will have to wait. DeMarb says that we keep putting new tasks, and we funded a person, but this is more work. Do you need more staff? Natalie Erdman says it is hard to tell because they have been down positions. They are working through work plans to show the priorities, they don’t know if they need new staff now or not. Noel says that the DOJJDP grant for the northside will have a planning process and then implementation after priorities are determined. It could be a a parallel process with the 15 point plan. There is alot of discussion to be had.
DeMarb appreciates the work with community partners. This work is important and we need staff to be able to address this. Our community expects a good job and excellence and accountability and re-portability and we need to have the right people and the right number of people to do this work. There will be high expectations and she wants to make sure they have the resources to be successful. If you need help, bring it back to us. We have to alter our expectations if it can’t be done. She asks to be added as a sponsor.
Cheeks is apologizes for being inarticulate – they didn’t start working on this when the shootings happened, it was the end of 2014, because they have been impacted the neighborhoods for years and we need to address the root causes. He doesn’t have any desire to have a monopoly on those issues. WE need to have a marked decrease in violence, the whole city is concerned. He thanks them for the praise but that goes to the members of the community. Community partners helped us move this forward more quickly.
Phair has an amendment to add a line that says, up to 20% of the funding allocated to the 15 point plan will go to training and evaluation of peer support coaches. He says that they can work with the coalition on that.
Amendment passes on voice vote, unanimously.
Passes unanimously.
See part II.
It’s 8pm at this point.
