Short meeting. Satya Rhodes-Conway and Brian Solomon absent. (This should have posted this morning, don’t know what happened. 🙁 )
Public comment – they ask people if they want to speak now or later. The three speakers opt to wait til the item comes up.
The mayor skipped disclosures and recusals, Cnare reminds him. Verveer says he’s on the Board of Overture Foundation.
PERSONNEL ITEMS
Items pass individually without discussion.
WHO SIGNS THE CHECKS
Items three and four are about who signs checks, Mayor or the Treasurer. The mayor explains that “this is a good thing” for him not to sign. It passes without discussion.
REPAIRING MIDTOWN ROAD
Joe Claussius asked where this goes next, does it go to Plan Commission?
Talking off camera I can’t hear.
Larry Palm asks about Town of Verona not contributing to fixing the road.
More talking off camera, and then the mayor asks staff to come to the table and answer what has changed and why is it taking so long.
Rob Phillips, City Engineer comes to the table and says the city had a project last year to resurface Raymond Road and Midtown Road. They were bid and we were unable to reach an agreement with the Town of Verona that was acceptable to the city, so they took Midtown Road out of the project. The road is in very, very bad condition. The section deleted is half in City and half in the town, they couldn’t reach agreement on the terms Staff would recommend that we take over the project if we could assess Town of Verona property owners, they are working on it and they are hopeful that it will be agreeable. We would reconstruct the roadway and assess their property owners and agree to maintain it moving forward.
Palm asks what plan C is.
Phillips says we would make interim repairs on our half of the road. It would probably be an overlay of some kind. They wanted to do it better because of the bikes that use it.
Palm asks about boundary agreement and the timeline.
Christy Bachman, also with City Engineering explains that the boundary agreement would just change the right of way, not the properties.
Phillips says that it is not a boundary agreement like we have with other municipalities.
The Mayor says he wants to be very clear about something, we have the funds available and are ready to do the reconstruction of the road?
Phillips says yes.
Mayor says problem is Verona portion of the road. Can we repair the Verona portion of the road?
Phillips says he’s sure they would be amenable to that, but technically they would need their permission.
Mayor says technically we could use our money to pay for their share of the road if they approve.
Phillips says that yes, he’s pretty certain they would.
Mayor Paul Soglin says that its not in their foreign aide policy.
Passes.
B-CYCLE
No discussion. Palm asks to be added as a sponsor. Passes.
AGREEMENTS WITH SKI TEAMS
7 & 8 pass without discussion. Passes.
ELVER FIREWORKS
No discussion. Passes.
OPPOSING STATE LEGISLATION ON CONDEMNATIONS
Palm asks Rob Phillips about examples of where this would have been an issue if this had passed.
Phillips says this is mostly for blighted property.
Anne Zellhoefer from City Attorney’s office says the main impact would be on CDA.
Palm says he wanted to know about roads.
Passes.
BOARD OF ASSESSORS
They handed out a change, passed with no further discussion or explanation of what changed.
BEEP FUNDS AND MOVING OUT INC. FUNDS
No discussion on these items, they both pass.
LEASE FOR TEMPORARY LIBRARY SPACE
Mike Verveer asks a few questions for the patrons. What is the timeline?
Barb Dimmick says 10/1.
Verveer asks about it being small and says people were hoping for larger more convenient space. What are some examples of services that won’t be available.
Dimmick says she would like to say what will be there.
Verveer asks what the timeline is for how long they will be there.
Dimmick says 20 months. Brian ? joins her and says that 20 – 24 months.
Verveer asks if that is a safeguard.
They say yes, if it is not finished.
Verveer asks when they will be back at central.
Brian says April or May of 2013 and the lease would end in May 2013.
Verveer asks Dimmick to explain what services will be there.
Dimmick says that its only 5,000 sq ft so there won’t be much of the collection there, there will be new items and hold items to pick up and drop off, but it is available to them. There will be 30 computers and active wifi, the computers are almost always busy.
Verveer says he appreciates that. Will all of the staff be housed at central?
Dimmick says no. It’s going to be different. Another guy says most of the staff will be at Hamilton, maintenance staff and some storage will be off site. Dimmick says administration and foundations staff will be there.
Verveer asks if they have a place for storage off site they can discuss?
Dimmick and guy say they have some leads, but not ready for prime time.
Verveer asks if it would be a 24 hour turn around to get materials?
Dimmick says it will be same schedule as now, 36 – 48 hours.
Verveer says when got the appeal for foundation it says that Sunday hours will be moved to Pinney, can you explain?
Dimmick says there isn’t enough of a collection there and they have been trying to expand Sunday hours on the east side and when Central reopens it will also be open on Sunday. They have to find funding for that. Pinney will get more people.
Verveer asks if Sunday hours are funded through the levy or foundation.
Dimmick says its a combination, the foundations actually pays for Sunday hours for Pinney starting in the fall and Sequoya Friends are paying for hours there.
Verveer thanks them and it passes.
CATHAY PACIFIC FACADE GRANT, TJ TAYLORS LOAN, BANCROFT DAIRY BREWD GRANT, MAUTZ PAINT BREWD GRANT
All the items pass on voice votes, Mayor comments that he is glad the last two items are moving along, we’re properly using the BREWD funds and hopes that these are not only successful, but that we get additional funds for future projects. Thanks staff, says it is kind of exciting stuff.
Lauren Cnare asks how much is left.
Dean Brasser, Finance Director says this is the last of the funds.
Cnare asks how they get more funds.
Mayor says spending this wisely.
Cnare asks if they have to apply.
Aaron Olver, Interim Economic Development Director says there are two issues, the state is looking to match us, they would provide 1.25 but in Madison they only do one-to-one match. Once we spend our money, two things could happen, they could commit resources directly to us, the other alternative is that Madison applicants could apply directly to the state and get more money.
Cnare asks what they program changes might be.
Olver says that they are moving to Wisconsin Development Corporation and they plan to continue the program even under the new corporation but they have wide flexibility under the statute to change the parameters of the programs.
Cnare asks if it will continue to be favorable to us.
Olver says we have three strong projects in the pipeline and good relationships with the staff and they can continue to be successful in getting more funding.
Passes.
BUDGET TIMELINES
Cnare says Deb Simon has some clarificaitons.
Simon, from the Finance Department says on the capital budget, the July dates were moved because the mayor will be gone the later dates, she will update it but she will wait til it gets closer to the council meeting to see if they can fill in some other dates.
Passes.
HOUSING DIVERSITY PLAN AD HOC COMMITTEE
No discussion. Passes.
OVERTURE PERFORMANCE CONTRACT
Dierdre Garton and Linda Baldwin available to answer questions.
Cnare asks about deadlines that are fast approaching and asked for updates on fundraising and strategic plans.
Garton says they are working on the fundraising plan and making progress and will work on it over the summer. On the strategic plan, they have had 2 sessions with the resident groups and another is planned for July. The community advisory group has not yet been populated but hopefully it will be set up soon. They have been talking with facilitators about wrapping this all together with the board and staff. They are on schedule for that.
Cnare asks Anne Zellhoefer, City Attorney office about the grant payments. $2M and disbursed in two $1M grants. If we sign this before the budget passes, how does it affect the budget.
Zellhoefer says that the execution of this agreement doesn’t matter because the funding of the grant is subject to the appropriation of the council. She does not know when it would be executed but before 2012.
Verveer asks about grant payment, coverage in news that perhaps $2M might not be the actual appropriation, can you clarify the “subject to appropriation of the council”, he wants to make sure that there is not a default provision if we don’t pay $2M.
Zellhoefer says that they can choose to waive any provision we don’t meet and not consider it a default. The structural agreement says if the city does not provide the grant, the agreement would terminate. That could be waived.
Cnare asks about annual review, who are the city staff who would participate.
Zellhoefer says its the council choice, it was not designated in the resolution.
Cnare asks if they should pass a resolution to fix this.
Zellhoefer says if it is important, they should designate people by title.
Cnare asks how to do it.
Zellhoefer says do it informally or change it here.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff wants to clarify that we look at the first year of operation as the baseline year and that is why there is not a lot of specifics but in future years they will have more specifics about performance. Goals and numbers to be reached as far as free and reduced programming. They had a lot of discussion about vagueness of the agreement. She also says that the language in the structural agreement about the city commitment there is default language. The new entity would have to waive it or both contracts would be null.
Passes.
ADJOURNMENT
Passes.
All votes were voice votes when items passed and I believe they were all unanimous.
