Besides Jack Martz being confused and the award for the Tree Board, the North Mendota Parkway was the biggest issue discussed on the agenda.
A. ROLL CALL
30 present, 7 absent, Hulsey excuses. [I TiVo’d it, and the clerk doesn’t repeat who is here or not and the mics are not on, so I can’t tell who his there and who is not.]
1. Prayer/Inspirational Message – Supervisor Bruskewitz (Supervisor Clausius next)
Eileen Bruskewitz says as you all know, we only get to do an inspirational once every 37th meeting, so an inspirational is an important occasion for all of is. She says it is rather a propitious opportunity was on day of N. Mendota Parkway resolution. She was elected 10 years and she and Wiggy started working on it. They were long and inspiring years. She says thanks to everyone who worked on it for their long hours, but what was most inspirational is that people from the broadest political spectrum to work on it. They have a natural resource area that has designated, communities have identified and area that is most advantageous for a road way. But the most important thing was there were so many people including Mayor Cieslewicz, Howard Teal, Jim Ripp, Judy Olson, Lisa McKinnon, Ken Golden, people from Westport and Waunakee and County Exec and her employees, a lot of work done for a wide range of people.
2. Pledge of Allegiance – Supervisor Bruskewitz
They say the pledge.
B. SPECIAL MATTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Presentation of Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council Award for Dane County’s Emerald Ash Borer Plan
• Supervisor Paul Rusk – Marla Eddy, Chair, Dane County Tree Board
• Mike DiMaggio, Solid Waste Coordinator – Award Recipient
Paul Rusk asks Tree Board and staff to all come up, he says he’s the representative on the tree board, and the reason why the Emerald Ash Borer is so important, says he has a giant ash tree in his yard and he is trying to save it by treating it. They are receiving an award, a partnership award, sometimes people think we don’t partner enough, but in this case we do. He says Tom Dunbar from the Urban Forestry council, but introduces Tree Board, Jeff Roe from DNR, Marla Eddy and Nancy Schlimggen.
Tom Dunbar says the purpose of the Urban Forestry Council is to advise the DNR on best ways to expand, preserve and protect Wisconsin’s urban forest. They have an annual awards programs, they award individuals, communities and tribes that further urban forestry in Wisconsin in 5 categories, life time achievement, distinguished service, elected officials, innovation and partnerships. The award recognizes projects that use partnerships as a means to provide services or benefits to the urban forest. In the application, it says, “This outstanding project was the first in Wisconsin to look at a larger county picture to plan for the Emerald Ash Borer. The original focus was on ???? but the project grew and changed to look more comprehensively at the county, the municipalities and the needs of the residents of the county.” There were a whole raft of partners in the project and what struck them was not only that it was first, but it had a huge repertoire of partners and then went on to second phase. They had a wood utilization workshop, the started and one of reasons got the award was because they continues. It’s the Dane County EAB readiness plan and goes to Dane County Land and Resources Department, the Dane County Tree Board, and Dane County Public Works Solid Waste Division.
Darren Marsh (?) from Dane County Parks and Land and Water Resource Department, and he wanted to mention a few other people instrumental in making it happen. Peter Jopke? who was the planning coordinator, invasive species coordinator Anna Willow, Michelle Richardson who worked on GPS and mapping and they were instrumental in making it happen. He can assure you Dane County is ready as far as looking for the EAB and they are prepared for when it gets here, all communities are working this, they are getting word out, they are crating marshaling areas, they are doing inventory, they know how ot take care of the situation. That was the goal, how reduce the costs so we don’t have to deal with costs like Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and portions of Canada are dealing with right now, its substantial. Utilizing the wood for biofuels and other things in our communities, we are ready for whatever comes our way. This is only one of the invasive species and we know others will come our way and we know we are going to have storm damage, And we are going to have other things that will occur to our trees in our community and I believe we are ready.
2. Announcements
Dennis O’Laughlin says tomorrow is the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial that will take place at the Square and Mifflin and State St. It’s a very moving situation, if you have a few moment, please join us. It honors the law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty this year in our state and remembers the 200 or so that were killed nationally in 2009. Kicks off at 11:30 at Olin Park and then parade up there and around the square. If you’re in the area, please stop up and pay your thoughts to the fallen officers.
Wiggie requests a memo about what is required from the Sargeant at Arms, something came up at the last meeting and he questioned someone that came in and he didn’t know if it qualified so if you could put a memo together to what we want them to do so we don’t step over bounds.
Scott McDonell says there were no birthdays for May, double checks there are none, he says that is odd.
C. APPROVAL OF BILLS & ACCOUNTS
1. Claims Recommended for Approval
Move approval by Al Matano, seconded by Duane Gau, no discussion. Passes.
D. APPROVAL OF PROCEEDINGS – March 4 &; 18, and April 1, 2010
Moved by John Hendrick, seconded by Dave deFelice, no discussion. Passes.
E. CONSENT CALENDAR
1. Ord. Amdt. 56, 09-10 – Amending Chapter 69, Adjusting Speed Limits on County Highways (Adopt)
McDonell checks to see what chapter they are amending, its chapter 69, usually it says that on there. Motion is committee recommendation. He says if there are not objections it will be recorded as unanimous. It is so ordered.
G. REPORTS ON ZONING PETITIONS
a. Map of Dane County
b. Summary of Grant as Modified Petitions
1. Petition 10121 – Town of Sun Prairie – Kevin Miller (Grant as Modified)
2. Petition 10136 – Town of Cross Plains – Richard Vilstrup (Grant as Modified)
3. Petition 10155 – Town of Berry – Ronald Dresen (Grant as Modified)
4. Petition 10158 – Town of Sun Prairie – Gary Damrow (Grant)
5. Petition 10168 – Town of Blue Mounds – Beverly Docken (Grant as Modified)
6. Petition 10169 – Town of Deerfield – Robert Riege (Grant as Modified)
7. Petition 10173 – Town of Deerfield – Russell Pohlman (Grant)
8. Petition 10174 – Town of Blue Mounds – Craig Kittleson (Grant as Modified)
9. Petition 10180 – Town of Deerfield – FJD Farm LLC (Grant)
10. Petition 10186 – Town of Windsor – Steven Fredenberg (Grant as Modified)
No registrations. G1 is separated by Jerry Jensen. The remaining items pass.
Jensen wants to re-refer, requested by property owner, pending negotiations for the sale of the property. Seconded by Gau. No discussion, passes.
I. AWARD OF CONTRACTS
1. *Res. 302, 09-10 – Accepting Habitat Restoration Grant Funds for the Walking Iron Natural Resource Area (Adopt)
McDonell says that Parks, EANR and Personnel all recommended adoption unanimously, no discussion, passes on voice vote.
2. *Res. 314, 09-10 – Authorizing Addendum to Employment Services Agreement for Veterans Service Officer (Michael R. Jackson) (Adopt)
McDonell says both Health and Human Needs and Personnel and Finance recommended adoption unanimously.
Jack Martz says that he has a question on the fiscal note. This position and the next one, the supervisory positions gave up x % based on the County Executive request, is that correct.
McDonell asks Travis Miron to come up.
Miron says each of contract managers volunteered to forgo 3% of their salary, it says in the last sentence, line 18 that it shall be modified to reflect the wage concession.
Martz says it would be nice if they had the wage concession and isn’t it a matter of record, shouldn’t the fiscal note reflect the actual amount.
McDonell says it could, but its budgeted for, so in terms of how it would impact the budget this is already budgeted.
Martz says it does impact it because individual is giving back.
McDonell says they already budgeted for that. All county employees are giving back 3% and all management.
Martz says we’re talking about giving us the best information, why that difficult to reflect that in the fiscal note.
McDonell says that there can have two numbers, the one they are getting paid and the number that would have been the scheduled amount.
Martz requests that they have that done and it be provided.
McDonell says they can email it out.
Tom Stoebig says the 2,449. He calculated that on 3% of 78,000. It’s not rocket science. It is already factored in the budget, that is why the fiscal note doesn’t indicate a savings. If you want to send out the not that says we are saving $2,449.96 cents, that’s fine, don’t send it to me, I already know the answer.
Martz says that in view of the criticism, he reminds the chair that County Board Supervisors are not the only ones that look at the notes, they happen to be public record and it can be brought up and it can be brought up on the clerk’s part and a citizen may not know that it is 3%, so on that basis it is important, maybe not for the supervisors that have good calculators, but for the general public who don’t have the ability to deal with that. [Yeah, cuz we have bad calculators. Who re-elected this dude?]
Cynda Solberg, she asks if they put it in, if the contract goes in to 2011, is it proper to put a hard and fast number in there if the contract extends to April and it could be changed.
McDonell says when they approve the contract they set the salary, the other number is for informational purposes, from his point of view, it is good to see how county employees took a hit just like each one of us did, its good to see it and remind us of that.
No further discussion. Passes on voice vote.
3. *Res. 315, 09-10 – Authorizing Addendum to Employment Services Agreement for Director of Department of Land and Water Resources (Kevin F. Connors) (Adopt)
EANR and Personnel and Finance recommended adoption unanimously, no discussion, passes on voice vote.
4. *Res. 320, 09-10 – Authorizing a Cost Sharing Agreement with the Village of Cottage Grove for Reconstruction Costs of CTH BB & CTH N Intersection and Jurisdictional Transfer of CTH BB in the Village of Cottage Grove (Adopt)
Public Works and Personnel and Finance both recommended adoption unanimously.
Martz questions the fiscal note, turning over county highway to municipality, it relieves the county of the costs to maintain it and he doesn’t think that the fiscal note reflects that.
McDonell says that it will take a while to construct it, but you’re right, after it is built they will do the maintenance, we won’t have to plow it, but I don’t think the jurisdictional transfer will happen, it will take a while for that to happen, the fiscal note is for this year, it will be reflected in future budgets.
Martz says to avoid confusion, [Personally, I think he’s the only one confused, perhaps if it is so confusion, he could show up at budget time and pay attention.]take out the fact of the jurisdictional thing will be changing what happens, it is in effect a cost savings to the county.
McDonell says that it will be long term, but its an expense to reconstruct it. We’re paying for that.
Martz says maybe he isn’t making himself clear, but there is an expense that Cottage Grove will absorb by in effect overseeing that part of the road.
McDonell says it would be helpful to him to see the calculation of the long term savings, it would be helpful to all of us.
Martz wants not only that, what is happening here, questions he is getting, when poeple have an opportunity to look, a number of people looking more diligently to see where the savings and where the costs are and it doesn’t just deal with dollars and cents, in terms of what we expect, we expect savings in dollars but personnel also get paid and their time is being used and he wonders if that would be something we need to reflect on here so we can see a total picture of what is going on.
Hendrick is called on and passes.
O’Loughlin says he understands that this has been agreed to by the Village of Cottage Grove and Dane County Public Works number one and number two if they agreed jurisdictional transfer can take place, he hopes it was not agree to this or else, his understanding is that even in the past, Cottage Grove was responsible for the turn lanes, they are on the road whether they own it or we own it.
Wiggie echos O’Laughlin, the intersection was reconstructed with stop and go lights for safety and this was putting the coat over the binding coat, our trucks will still plow it, but the actual savings was a benefit to the county, it was a 50/50 split as long as built to standards rather than what the village wanted.
No further discussion, passes on voice vote.
5. *Res. 321, 09-10 – Authorizing Intergovernmental Agreement for Art Exhibition Coordinator Services at the Dane County Regional Airport (Adopt)
Airport, Public Works and Transportation and Personnel and Finance all recommend adtoption unanimously, no discussion, passes on voice vote.
6. *Res. 322, 09-10 – Authorizing Rental Lease Between the Allliant Energy Center of Dane County and Family Motor Coach Association (Adopt)
Public Works and Personnel and Finance recommend adoption unanimously, no discussion, passes on a voice vote.
7. *Res. 324, 09-10 – Awarding a Professional Service Contract for the Pact Program Department of Human Services (Adopt)
Health and Human Needs passed it 5 – 0, Personnel & Finance recommend adoption 7-0 with one abstention.
Solberg recorded as abstaining, no discussion, passes on a voice vote.
8. *Res. 326, 09-10 – Authorizing Purchase of Services Agreement Between Dane County and API Outsourcing, Inc. for Assessment and Tax Printing Needs (Adopt)
Zoning and Land Regulation and Personnel and Finance recommend adoption unanimously, no discussion, passes on a voice vote.
J. RESOLUTIONS
1. Res. 313, 09-10 – Endorsing Findings of the Environmental and Transportation Study of the North Mendota Parkway and Resource Protection Corridors (Adopt with Amdts.)
Public Works and Transportation recommended adoption with several amendments, EANR recommended adoption with amendments from Public Works as did ZLR.
Public Comment
Caryl Terrell, lives in Madison, interim Secretary for CRANES, Capital Region Advocacy Network for Environmental Sustainability. You may have had a chance to read the communication to you, she reads it for those who did not see it. They are asking for the North Mendota resolution be referred to take care of two points, features such as protection of natural resources and open space from community quality trails are now more important than ever given the historically unprecedented events of the past few years. The energy crisis, annual flood damage of $68M and the economic downturn, CRANES believes that environmental expected to accompany the parkway, should be secured for the public benefit, they support county conservation fund position on the resolution. Also it asks Dept of Transportation to take over the project but they are only interested in the Hwy 12 intersection of an east-west route which may or may not be the proposed parkway. They will not fund the construction of the parkway, the county has no funds for the construction, neither does Middleton or Westport. This calls into question the wisdom of adding more lanes when new transportation initiatives such as the RTZ and “high speed rail” need to be considered. A public investment in for North Mendota Parkway will not be competing with investments in transit options. There is a sentence in the resolution that asks WISDOT to take over design and construction and they want that removed. Finally, CRANES feels that the advisory committee deserves closure on their 10 year effort, request that county board committees include the decommissioning of the committee.
Robbie Webber says ditto to what Caryl said. She served on Madison City Council and served for 6 years on the Metropolitan Planning Organization which is the transportation planning board which doles out federal transportation money and any project of this size would have to go through them. They do not have this in their plans. They are not planning on putting it in their plans. She has talked to people at DOT and they have no plans to fund it. Even if they decided to fund it, a local entity would have to come up with 50%, your current estimate is $40M which means a $20M local share. She wants to reiterate to urge them to not endorse the findings, it assumes the roadway will be built, it gives false ideas to those who might be making plans for the road to be built. They should not endorse a plan asking DOT to build something they have no intention of building. Urging you to send it back, take the language out and consider where the money for the project is supposed to come from, before make promises that this will be built, as a public body you should be responsible about future of public transportation and planning.
Subsitute
Robin Schmidt offers a substitute amendment, seconded by Richmond. She explains that the substitute incorporates the previous committee changes to the resolution. First and foremost, supports and commends work done by the committee and major components, the recommendations are consistent with comprehensive plans and intergovernmental agreement, she supports the building of the parkway consistent with the Parks and Open Space plan, she supports amending the North Mendota Resource boundary to include lands recommended to be included, she urges municipalities to map the corridor are and asks WISDOT to assist in designing it so that a route can be chosen to reduce agriculture, environmental, wetland and residential impacts. Lastly supports board gratitude for those who participated, monumental charge and did the work, some doubted could be done, but two minor changes. She takes exception to the directing of WISDOT to establish a funding strategy when Dane County already has an effective process in place for transportation projects in Dane County, need to be consistent in following processes and procedures else the fail to be effective. Second, when work is done, should be commended, lauded and then brought to dissolution recognizing that their work is done. They should be thanked and dissolved, with those minor changes she asks that this be approved.
Matano asks a question of staff. He sent the staff a question and got useful information but it says that “once the recommendations are finalized”, is there a document with the recommendations that they haven’t seen.
Todd Vialante said the charge of the committee was to oversee the completion of an intergovernmental agreement, and second to oversee the completion of an environmental study looking at environmental impacts of various road locations to connection intersection of HWYs M&K to hwy t12 and the committee did that working with Strand and they looked at 16 different scenarios with variations, looked at impacts on farms, residences, relocation of residences and impacts on environmental resources. Study is completed, just not compiled into a document, its the compilations of sub studies. He says the study completed, it isn’t neatly compiled into a report, but it has been conducted. The committees charge is done.
Matano asks if he wanted to read the study, what would he do.
Vialante says its all on line, you could ask our office to compile it into a more cohesive document, but that work has not been done.
Matano says that he went to read it this afternoon, but they didn’t have it.
Vialante says “that’s fair”.
Bruskewitz says on the substitute she asks about Matano’s questions, she says that a the committee said that a letter would be prepared to summarize their work, it would include the two maps that they have, she says Opitz was eager to get this to you, so hoped that they would have one more meeting of the committee to put the summary together, it was an important document to summarize, but this was before us quicker than she knew. Regarding the dissolution of the committee, we can do that but we will just have to appoint another committee when DOT comes back and if we don’t have those people, might be easier to leave it in place so that when there are communications, which she doesn’t expect soon, there will be some. She says she just saw this for the first time, the reason they want DOT involved, they have two important studies going on in the area for highways 12 and 19. That with the North Mendota study gives them an overview of what is going on in the area. The committee felt that good planning was better than no planning. She says the Town of Springfield got zinged when highway 12 came through some years ago and they will get zinged again when the North Mendota Parkway or some other road goes through Srpingfield and we felt better to be part of the process and advise and inform DOT instead of having DOT just come in and put it in an arbitrary place according to their issues, they felt Springfield should have a voice in this. It should not go north or south of the area. So to take this out, seems to her would end up defeating their purpose in maintaining a good dialog with DOT for the entrance and exit for this road. It was indisputable that a road will be needed, not in competition from RTA cuz RTA cannot use fund for roads, the transportation fund has no money. But we do know, when look 50 years out and did land use projections, we found we could save agricultural and environmental lands and plan a road for the 50K people who are very likely to end up on the north side of Dane County over the next 50 years. We can see the congestion now on county M, last night at MPO the Federal Highway Commission commended their work except in one area, and that one area was congestion management. We have to have a plan for traffic congestion management, we have done bits and pieces, they gave us our certification with caveat that this needed to be addressed before we are certified again. County M during rush hour can be a dangerous road, it was much more dangerous 10 years ago, we spent about $5 -6M to improve the area by 113 and that has saved many traffic injuries and costs. She speaks against the changes, many have not followed it as closely as she has, but making these changes would lessen the impact that the county has on the highway 12 freeway conversion and she’d hate to see that happen. Right now we have a voice, so does Springfield, this amendment takes that away, don’t support the substitute.
Amendment
Hendrick says that based on the comments, delete language on 79 and 80 to delete the committee. Seconded by Bruskewitz. He says he consulted with supervisor that drew up the substitute, the intention was that the charge has been carried out, we all agree that they are done. The idea that they are a liaison committee or intergovernmental voice vital to Springfield is perhaps soemthing we did not take into account but if that is something we can do for Springfield he would say lets change that. He thinks that addresses the rest of the comments. In line 66 we ask WIDOT to assist in design. This resolution does what is wanted. Please support amendment and sub one, he intends to support the final product. Hopes they can join together in commending the work of the committee.
The amendment passes on a voice vote, there seemed to be a no or two uttered for the first time tonight.
ROLL CALL
AYE: Bruskewitz, Claussius, Corrigan, deFelice, Downing, Duranczyck, Eicher, Erickson, Ferrell, Gau, Hampton, Hendrick, Hesselbein, Imhoff, Jensen, Levin, Martz, Matano, Miles, O’Loughlin, Richmond, Rusk, Sargeant, Schlict, Solberg, Stoebig, Vedder, Veldran, Wiggie, Willett, Bayrd, McDonell, Stubbs.
NO: Ripp
ABSENT: Hulsey, Salov
McDonell says we can get the final letter out of them if they meet. 35 ayes, 1 no, 2 absent. [That doesn’t add up.] They fix it, there are 34 ayes, 1 no, 2 absent.
Back to the substitute
Bruskewitz says this will not be a county road, it will be a regional road when it is developed. They have seen tremendous development on the east side of the county and the west side, there are only two corridors to go east-west is through the Isthmus or the South beltline. It’s in WISDOTs hands, our goal was to do the work we could do to put us ahead in the cue if funding becomes available. She will support it cuz DOT will have to do it anyways.
Hendrick speaks in support and thanks them for the amendment. He says the question on the minds of people not in the room is will we have a Mendota parkway and he says “not in my lifetime”. That may be an exaggeration, I’m 57 in July and I read in the paper that the oldest person alive is 114. So, maybe in 57 years things will be different, but in the next 20 or 30 years we will not see it happen. Us voting for this tonight will not make it happen. It is not a county road, it is not, in fact, a county priority. We asked the committee to do the work and it is completed, that work is to be commended and that is what we are doing tonight. This resolution is not going to change the world, it is not even going to change Dane County, we may see a need in 20 or 30 years, it might not be indisputable, but the world may have changed with the pending disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and there may be a stronger demand for energy independence. We may have less cars years from now. By the time this comes to the top of the queue, there may not even be a queue. We may not be able to see the future, but we can see the effects of climate change, if the predictions that we are reaching the peak production of oil were to come true, that would also drastically effect the use of automobiles in Dane County. This is not in the plans for then next 5 years, some say 20 years, I’d go further and say 30 years. We are endorsing the recommendations of the committee and commending, this doesn’t mean it will happen. This does not create the North Mendota Parkway.
Bruskewitz [by the way, what the hell is she wearing? that shirt looks like its going to take a bite out of anyone who comes near it. If I were Ferrell I’d watch out for the top of his head.] She says that this is a tremendous county priority even if it is one that will not get funded any time soon. The economic development [everyone’s favorite buzz word] will depend on the ability to move people goods and services. And without this kind of planning and foresight, its true, it may never be built, when she graduated from high school who would have ever thought I’d have a computer I carry around with me or walk around carrying a telephone? So we don’t know what is going to happen, we did win an award from the planning association, in terms of planning this was spectacularly successful effort. The people of Middleton may not want to hear it won’t happen soon, there is tremendous concern about traffic safety in the area, some things will have to be done. She is an optimist, not a pessimist, we will need to address these kinds of issues and its more likely that we will see more single occupancy vehicles that will be less costly to run, that is what the future looks like to her, and not public transit, even tho there are public transit issues that must be addressed.
McDonell says that when we substituted sub 1 for the main motion, now you do get to speak again, that is why Bruskewitz and Hendrick are speaking again.
Hendrick says that he has no intention of spending 10 minutes, but he finds himself increasingly agreeing with the Dane County Towns Association, and he is sure that might make them nervous, as it does him. He wanted to quote a part of the conclusion of the letter from them today that he agrees with. Their letter says “approval of the North Mendota Parkway Plan preserves the option to implement this corridor in the future”. He 100% agrees with them and that is what is before them.
They vote on sub 1, motion passes on a voice vote.
2. *Res. 329, 09-10 – Amending the Capital Budget for City of Madison Courthouse Invoice (Adopt)
Public Works and Transportation and Personnel and Finance recommend adoption. McDonell would like to record a unanimous vote because it is a 2/3 vote. Gau wants to be recorded as no. Ferrell votes no as well. Motion passes.
M. SUCH OTHER BUSINESS AS THE COUNTY BOARD IS AUTHORIZED TO CONDUCT BY LAW
Gau has a resolution about economic development and a study being done, no cost to the county, its being passed around, but please get it back to them.
N. ADJOURNMENT – Until Thursday, May 20th, 2010, 7:00PM, Or Call of Chair
deFelice, Martz move adjournment. Passes.
