Board of Estimates Recap

Police overtime, but not Overture . . . and an interesting discussion about pesticides, green roofs, downtown multi-modal transportation plan and the sustainability plan. More cheers for Paul Soglin! Love this guy! [with bk comments] Yeah, you’re going to totally get sick of me praising this mayor, but I promise, I’ll return to my cranky self once I get over the shock that we have a mayor that listens to and values the public and other people’s opinions. A mayor who has a discussion, not a proclamation, about issues. A mayor who is engaged and asks questions. And wants to hear the answers. Still giddy. The more I see, the happier I am.

JUST GETTING IT STARTED
They waited, and waited for the Mayor to show up. After about 12 minutes, they started without him.

They approve the minutes. There are no disclosures or recusals and they pass the first three items without discussion. (Northside fiscal agent issue, MG&E right of way issue, making employee WRS contributions pre-tax). Then, the mayor shows up.

POLICE OVERTIME
Lauren Cnare moves acceptance, Mike Verveer seconds for acceptance of the 2010 annual and 1st quarter 2011 Police Overtime Report.

The mayor invites up Randy Gaber (Assistance Chief) and Terri Genin (Finance) from the police department for questions.

Cnare says the report shows extra demands this year, were there any lessons learned from that work that will help mitigate costs of the city in the future.

Gaber ignores the question and starts with 2010 because that fits his message instead of getting to what the alders actually want to know. He says that in 2010 costs were tracking consistently, the charts are about the same throughout the years, a few items to note, while there was a 5.6% decrease in overtime, there was about a 2.5% uptick in hours worked. He says that officers are taking time off instead of pay, the pay out has been as low as they have seen in 20 years, but its a wash out, there is a potential liability when they can’t get time off. More staff means less hold overs, less vacancies, so that is not what drives overtimes, it the special events. The president and vice president coming costs them 3000 hours, if they had to apply overtime dollars that would be a lot more. The holidays also impact it, it depends on where holidays fall. Finally, the first quarter is driven by the protests, they are up 72% over first quarter last year. The issue is that theses are unpredictable, so they can’t plan for them, we are a destination state and city, these events are going to happen in Madison, and they think it is likely they will see more of it in the coming months, they are expecting to see more of what they saw in March, they will predict where they can. A lot of the overtime is contractual, sometimes they don’t know about presidential visit until a week before they come.

Joe Clausius says the state will reimburse, right? Or not?

Genin says that they haven’t heard yet, its a possibility to reimburse but they haven’t said for sure, it is still being negotiated.

Dean Brasser, from the Finance Department says that in last few days the state is still collecting information statewide, he is expecting to them reimburse us with the others.

Clausius says he has concerns about what is caught up in court.

Mayor Paul Soglin says there has been no payment and there is a possibility that less than a dollar for dollar will be reimbursed and some people over at the capitol are saying they will only reimburse costs for those on the capitol grounds, all police and sheriff departments were inside the curb except we did everything around the capitol.

Cnare asks if they were over staffed or is there anything we can do to cut back since know the protests will be back.

Gaber says its based on the intelligence that came in, when there were protesters and counter protesters they needed to be there, the pre-knowing helps cuz don’t need to call people in on overtime, they can also use resources that are currently working, traffic, etc. Some days there were 10s of 1000s there and there are only so many people they can call in.

Larry Palm asks what hold over is.

Gaber says that is when they are completing calls that happen at the end of their shift.

Palm asks if they are understaffed and if they could decrease overtime by more hires.

Mike Verveer says that is why they went to the 5th shift.

Gaber says yes about the 5th shift, he says there are less hold overs if 5 shifts but they still need to cover vacations etc.

Palm asks if $2M of overtime is about what they can expect.

Genin says they more people they hire, they more overtime they have, 60% of overtime is contract overtime. They did the patrol staffing study, and they said there is a balance, its more efficient to pay overtime for a certain amount than to hire staff for the whole year – she says it is a balance.

Gaber says some overtime is just not predictable.

Palm says it is predictably unpredictable.

Verveer says he was pleased to see reimbursement for ATFf for gun violence investigations, was last year the first year we had that available?

Genin says it started at the end of year 2009, they got a little funding that year.

Verveer asks how it works, is it only if the feds prosecute?

Genin says they are reimbursed after the fact, doesn’t matter who prosecutes, its gun related, Lt. Woodmansee determines if cases are eligible.

Verveer asks if it is continuingthis year.

Genin says yes, but in a smaller amount.

Rhodes-Conway asks if there any progress on the base level of overtime?

Gaber says are at or lower than usual without the special events, they appear to be making progress, 5th shift helps, staffing to fill the beats helps.

Genin says that when added staffing in 2008 that is where things started to stabilize in hours and pay for time.

Gaber concern is that Madison is the capitol and they are going in a different direction in terms of these events. [Seriously? These protests have been very peaceful, do they need to spend this time, especially if they might not get reimbursed? It seems they completely dismissed the questions of cutting back.]

Verveer asks about civilian overtime? That is also down, is that because of staffing?

Genin says yes and continuation of management has also had an impact, the management has been there awhile so there has been steady staffing.

No further discussion, the acceptance of the report passes.

Item 5 passes without discussion.

SUSTAINABILITY PLAN
This was an interesting discussion.

Public Testimony
Hannah Olson is a member of the Healthy Lawn Team and a public health student, she is still learning a bit more about t how the city works so she hopes her input here is appropriate, she hasn’t been able to attend the other public input sessions because she had to work. She says that one area not mentioned in the report, that she was hoping to see explicitly was reduced pesticide use. She points out where it could be in the report and notes that it could improve water quality. She says they noticed with sustainable purchasing a reduction in pesticides. She gives them resources from teh Healthy Lawn team which I couldn’t really catch but sounded interesting. One was a famous study as an example of healthcare, its easy to understand if not a scientist, it talks about the developmental ability of kids. Some of the things are more short term in the report, but a healthy soil saves money in the long term.

Mary Carbine, the lobbyist for the Downtown BID (Business Improvement District) says they provided input and it is in the legislative file, but since April she has heard more from property owners and businesses in State St and capitol area. They recommend that the Sustainability Plan should be delayed for more outreach to the business and development community. She says the report is dense and wide ranging and the impact on downtown development needs to be looked at because it is expensive for the private sector and they think that a draft plan with narrow goals might help focus things. She thinks that more outreach, education and incentives for developers and businesses are necessary. What they want, and agree with the plan in, is to encourage more dense development downtown. They want to retain and expand and establish a stable customer base that requires infill development, they are on same track there but received she input that some areas of the plan might discourage development downtown and that instead they will look outside Madison to develop. The maximum parking thresholds are one area of concern, they already don’t have incentive to build more parking than needed, they want to make sure users of building are satisfied. The green roof requirement is too expensive and stringent. This and other points will be in a memo to Jeanne (Hoffman), they encourage referral.[A few questions here, but Soglin covers them. I’m just wondering, if they already submitted comments that are already incorporated in the city files, why do they need more special outreach to this segment of the community. This has to be the most widely referred item in the city at the moment. And it seems her members are aware as they provided input and more input]

Rhodes-Conway asks her how they could do better outreach – she is no longer on that committee but was and outreach is always hard but she feels like they tried in writing of plan, they involved a significant number of folks including form business community, they did a survey on web, had emails lists, and people were specifically tasked to reach out to the business community – so she is asking sincerely, what else could we do? How could they improve their efforts?

Carbine says the reaction she is getting is about the density, and the wide ranging report is difficult to grasp what the impacts might be for a developer or business person, they aren’t done going through it, the State St business association might want an executive summary. They sought out the information, they weren’t outreached to, they have people who are impacted, she says some of the staff input was excellent, especially from the Office of Business Resources and plan staff. They should have been asked about if there should be a shopping center(?). They concur with those suggestions, very interested in downtown being more sustainable, it will attract business and residents, but need more buy in. Seriously, they already gave input and now they are saying they can’t grasp it? They need the city to do an executive summary for them?

Rhodes-Conway encourages them to go back to sustainable design and energy to do the outreach, as far as she knows, the committee is very interested in outreach and buy in from as many people as possible – she says they don’t want the plan to discourage density.

Brian Solomon says there is still time, we did get feedback at TPC from you when he was on the committee, it was very good feedback and the took that into account in their discussion.

Carbine says they have more feedback for Jeanne but there is not enough time.

Solomon says that he hopes that as this continues through the committees that you get that feedback in – we wouldn’t want sustainablity plan that would decrease density. He says that she mentioned incentives if they have thoughts or ideas, he’d encourage that – anything we can do to get the business community on board with sustainability plan, it would be valuable.

Verveer asks her to talk about 2 recommendations that seem to be the ones of most concern with discussions he has had. The Downtown toll zone and the TDM requirement for special events over 200K.

Carbine says these impact the overarching concern on density – it needs to be easy to get in and out of downtown to attract businesses and residents – with the downtown toll zone, where they are used there is a well developed regional public transit system, we need more people downtown, not disincentive to visit downtown, esp. for retail, most of shopping areas have free parking, if its a hassle to come downtown its a problem and its a problem even suggesting it, that has impact on investors in downtown. The street use permit TDM plan for events if over 200K is a problem because most are small organizations that put on an event, like Maxwell St Days. These groups have no expertise or funds, they city doesn’t have one of its own.

Soglin says he’d love on for the block party – no exceptions.

Carbine says events are extremely important to downtown economy – with one exception – and she would love to have people use alternate forms of transportation, but the groups can’t do it themselves, she would encourage the city to build in some things and not make it a requirement

Solomon says that at TPC talked about the items and agreed with toll zones concept, in a broader level, to segregate central city form parking expanses of east and west side is a problem. And we talked about a template with examples based on size or type of events or where people came from to have good factors and criteria, hopes that as we move forward we keep it in but give good guidance to the organizers.

Soglin asks about when this was produced if the authors looked at pesticide ordinance and policies. [Check that out, he paid attention to the public, and helped get their issue addressed, instead of ignoring it. How totally geeky cool is that?!]

Rhodes-Conway says no – she won’t speak for Jeanne but in general the group , there were many people involved, if there were pieces of city policies or reports or plan that they knew about in the groups that worked on this, they were referenced, but no if no one knew it it wasn’t referenced – she doesn’t recall pesticide issue.

Soglin asks Jeanne Hoffman the Facilities Manager to address this.

Hoffman says the report is broken into areas, a subset of committee worked on an area, groups met with city staff to get baseline info, that did not happen across the board robustly, but some groups did a better job reaching out to staff or other experts to find out what was happening – the natural systems group was robust in reaching out to experts- she says there was an attempt to gather baseline info, but was it complete? probably not, because a lot of stuff is out there.

Soglin says we may have one set of policies or ordinances on city buses but that might be contradicted or ignored in the document.

Hoffman says that is why so much outreach went into this and goes to 14 different committees to gather information and they had 2 public hearings, surveys, and we are gathering info right now, we want to amend the document then send to council for approval.

Soglin asks if when council approves it, particularly with Carbine’s comments about costs to developers, this document is not a mandate is it?

Hoffman says absolutely not, only if council takes it further.

Soglin says, for example toll zones, there are differential prices for driving in certain areas,where is says you would investigate this, you would need to research the impact – he says this is a softball, she says to tee it up – when he sees this recommendation, he thinks about looking into if it is legal, is that has to be researched?

Hoffman says yes.

Soglin asks if it would include economic impact and what would do to retailers?

Hoffman says yes, she says she has gotten a lot of comment on that item, if makes it through is a real question, there are probably other ways to accomplish the goals that would not include that action item. She says they got really good comments, then it will come to council and they can adopt for further review.

[I like the way that he addresses the misconceptions head on instead of letting them go and letting the business community continue to get away with “misunderstanding” the process. I hope he continues to call people on this.]

Soglin says that the city contemplated a multi-modal transportation plan to cover the downtown area and city chose not to do that?

Several people answer all at once, he’s talking about this.

Hoffman says she vaguely remembers it.

Soglin asks if the report incorporates doing something like that?

Hoffman says she would have to look to see if it is a specific goal, someone should write that down. [Yes. YOU!}

Soglin asks how we can have sustainability if not looking at complete study of multi-modal nature regarding transportation.

Rhodes-Conway says we did ask for a transportation study, she was asking for it and thinks it is a good idea, but the transportation subgroup felt like there was a lot of transportation planning already, the platinum bike, TIP, MPO work, long range Metro Plan, Transport 2020 plans, etc. and the group tasked with doing the transportation section felt enough with the planning, lets implement good recommendations in existing plans.

Soglin says you told us what they think, but you want a plan, can you reconcile that?

Rhodes-Conway she says each of the plans deal with one mode and it may deal with them quite well, she is biased towards the Long Range Metro plan because she wrote most of it, its good plan, but it doesn’t talk about how Metro relates to transportation or other modes, nor does platinum bike plan, so she thinks it is appropriate to look at it in a multi-modal way, esp. downtown, cuz there is a higher likelihood of multiple modes and density to support those modes. Its important to look at that, they are not talking about if there should be a bus here or bike there but how to people get round and how to make sure people have as many choices as possible and how do the modes interact, where are the transfers, where are the potentials for conflict? They should pay attention to that in how plan infrastructure.

Soglin says he is trying to hide his smile because he is wrestling with the same issue, he came to same conclusion, he agrees with analysis he just doesn’t know where the money is.[I’m smiling to, having worked with a constituent to write the resolution asking for the multi-modal plan a few years ago – I guess that is what it means to be progressive – out in front.]

Soglin asks Hoffman about the library, he says there was a recent discussion about the rooftop garden, would it be possible – and he does not want to set thing back – but is it possible to take our library and another significant downtown development, for example, the Lucky, and look to see how those kinds of projects would have been impacted, changed or in conflict with the recommendations. He wants a few real world examples.

Hoffman says to look though the plan and see how it would impact the project for city buildings is not that difficult, our policies already require LEED for major remodels or reconstruction. There was a lot of the developers on the committee, Paul Muench from ULI has a great case study with the US Bank building, they have incredible energy efficiency, they saved 30% by implementing smart choices. She says that energy efficiency can cost up front, but the life cycle costs make it worth it. Utility costs are only going to go up. The he infrastructure the utility companies need are different than what they have and that will require investment, they need to get educated, we should tell our story and collaborate with Focus on Energy to get the info to the private sector. Another good example is M Power Champions – businesses work with Sustain Dane and look at carbon emission and find ways to save energy, she thinks we are leading by example, need to educate more but private sector understands energy is an issue they need to address it. So, that was a long way of saying yes, that would be fairly easy to do.

Soglin says we need to look at costs, usually we look at workers, but other big cost is energy for the City Budget.

Cnare says she is looking at the report and the water issues, she doesn’t recall seeing it at water board. Have you shared with staff and departments? Could they further fill things in, some of these things are underway or in examination.

Hoffman says that they are taking all comments, if staff have comments perhaps a suggestion from one of water utility board members that comments still welcome would encourage water utility staff to comment. They have not gotten comments from water utility staff.

Cnare says they will have them this week.

Solomon says that this is a huge document and all encompassing, not sure if there would be a way to prioritize or rank them, that would give us some guidance on where to start, his fear is it will sit on a shelf, there is lots of good stuff here, we need more than an executive summary, we need to know where is the low hanging fruit, what would get the best results or what is easiest to do – that would be helpful.

Hoffman says that they are working on the layout of the plan – it has gotten a lot of feedback, they want to lay it out to show connections between the areas so they are better understood and they recognize that there are many ways to get to a goal, the important part of the comments are the goals. The actions are some examples of what they came up with, the actions might not be implemented, technology changes, she wants the plan to be nimble, they will put out updates to recognize changes, if they listed every action the plan would be super thick, if alders see something already they are doing or have a good idea, she wants to know.

Rhodes-Conway moves approval of plan and to convey to the committee the comments from public testimony and in the discussion.

No objections it becomes the main motion and passes without further comment.

OK, I continue to be impressed that Soglin is engaged, cares about what people have to say and think, both alders and the public, and he asks questions to get to their points, to facilitate resolution, instead of ignoring. It’s so, so, refreshing and exciting!

OVERTURE
Cnare moves referral because Bidar-Sielaff is not here and she would like to explain the details and respond to questions. Referral passes.