The next meeting is December 7th . . . here’s the Mayor’s office spin to the alders, from the spinmeister. Nothing earth shattering here, but good to know. And, if you haven’t been following along closely, these are the things the Mayor wants you to focus on . . .
From: Strauch-Nelson, Rachel
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 11:55 AM
To: ALL ALDERS
Cc: Hoffman, Jeanne; ‘Tripp Widder’; Dimick, Barb
Subject: Central Library UpdateAlders,
As you know, over the past three months the design team for the Central Library has held three public meetings about the design process for the library. For those of you who haven’t been able to attend these meetings, I wanted to provide you with a quick update on that process.
Starting in the concept phase, the design team presented some baseline ideas and took input at the first meeting in August to get a better sense of what the community is looking for in the Central Library. At the second meeting, they presented several concepts for programming needs and floor plans.
At the October public meeting, the design team presented several design concepts and took input from the public on each one. From that input, revised concepts were presented to a joint meeting of the Library Board, Urban Design Commission and Board of Public Works meeting on October 27. You can access the presentation from that meeting here: http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/central/documents/MCPL_UDC_27OCT2010.pdf. You can also watch this and the other public meetings on City Channel’s website here: http://www.cityofmadison.com/mcc12/streaming.html, under “Streaming Video: Special Presentations.”
Through the course of these public meetings, the design team has also met with stakeholder groups, including Capitol Neighborhood Inc, the downtown BID, homeless services providers, library staff, the Library Board and Foundation and the Bohrod family. City staff also met with the downtown community garden group to discuss various items that will be included in the feasibility study requested by the Council. Currently, city staff is developing that study and will work with the design team to finalize the study and cost estimates within the next couple of months.
At the next meeting, the design team will present the schematic design, the product of this public process. That meeting is scheduled for December 7 at 7pm at the Senior Center. That meeting and any other public meetings scheduled for that day will be noticed as a possible quorum of the Council. We will keep you up to date as anything else is scheduled.
Before then, if any alders would like to get more information or give input on the process, please let me know. I would be happy to talk with you more and to set up a meeting with our design team’s local partner, Potter Lawson.
Thanks,
Rachel
What exactly in this letter is so objectionable that it merits a snarky intro? Seems like a pretty simple and direct memo, bringing people up to date on a very big and contentious project. That’s appropriate, isn’t it? Really, Brenda, sometimes you just have to give your knee-jerk hostility to the fourth floor a rest. (q.v., boy and wolf).