I have only the time I am sitting here to do this, so it is what it is. Check back for updates from time to time.
Item 11 and 12 are the mayor’s recommended changes to the budget. Item 13 then adjusts the levy. Also on the agenda are reconsideration of all those items in case they need to. Rumor has it council wants to stick it to the mayor and keep the budget they way they want it. Denying the .5% increase to the unions and city employees, I would find that hard to do with Gretchen Lowe sitting in the audience with her AFSCME shirt one! Also, there’s actually media here! Surprise!
My apologies in advance for multi-tasking while blogging and not doing a thorough job. They’re threatening to take my credentials away if I don’t post something! 🙂 🙂
Sister City presentation is still going on, even tho the council meeting should have started. They started 15 minutes late. Now waiting for the mayor to show up to start the meeting. It actually started nearly on time.
Subeck is excused and missing from the meeting. Clear also missing and excused. Mayor apologizes because someone turned the heat up to 85 degrees. Maybe they are hoping to get people to talk quickly so they can leave? (my comment, not the mayors)
First item is recognizing Madison Scouts Drum Corp which is going to be in the Macy’s parade. No resolution because they heard about it too late. Mayor makes comments about his years of experience with the group and what they have done for young kids in the community. The group is talking about the history of their instruments, he talks about where they are in the parade.
The suspend the rules to take things out of order and introduce items.
Item 2 is Simpson St. Neighborhood and Finest Families Reunion recognition. (Funny, anyone remember why they changed the name . . . for some of the same reasons they are now celebrating? Change the name back! That would be a real recognition.) Organizers of the reunion speaking are saying they want the name changed back! (Yes!) Mayor says that they came up with an administrative way to put a sign up in honor of Homer Simpson family that owned the property but they couldn’t get the name changed. He says at the time of the launching of the TV show he was the only Simpson in America.
CONSENT AGENDA
Mostly this.
13 is placed on file
74 is separated.
Motion passes.
PUBLIC HEARING
#3 – Paint Bar – Registrants are here for questions, no questions. Rummel moves additional recommendations on Entertainment License to be added to the Liquor license. That passes.
#4 – Gallerie at the Brink. They place this on file.
#5 – Tiki Shack – grant with conditions. No registrations. Verveer asks for the public hearing to be held open and refer back to ALRC. Passes.
#6 – street lights Brandie Rd., no registrants, passes.
#7 – 37 apartments on Jupiter drive – they adopt with conditions
#8 – Sales and service windows in various districts. Refer to plan commission.
#9 – New uses in zoning district Table 281-2, passes.
#10 – Side yard setbacks in TE district. Passes.
SUSPEND RULES TO TAKE UP TWO ITEMS BEFORE BUDGET
GIS Specialist in comp group 16 (represented) or 18 (non represented)
#24. Move to place on file because the report said “no action”. 2 registrants speak to the position and how it should be classified, it should be a technical job, comp group 16-18 o 16-20. Question is if this is clerical or technical. Local 60 feels like they shouldn’t use another position as a represented position. They don’t want it in comp group 18 – management. Brad Wurst says there are reasons they can’t have a professional position in the bargaining unit. Says it is a legal issue. He says there is another position and they can’t have them in two different comp groups. Alder Steve King suggests that he is struggling with this, he says they don’t have the expertise to manage staff, they should trust their staff. Alder David Ahrens is giving them a lesson on what the laws say and what a professional is – having a degree is professional but not a certificate (gross simplification by me). He says it is up to the council to contest if this is a professional job – he says that people can have technical skills and not be professional (graduate level course of study). DeMarb says the reason BOE didn’t support it, because staff couldn’t speak to it with authority and there was a missing fiscal note. Maybe staff can speak to them with authority today and she asks Katherine Cornwell to speak to it. Cornwell says that this didn’t require a fiscal note, there is one now prepared, they have the funds for 2014 and 2015. She says in the fiscal note they compare the bottom entry level ranges. She says the person they are replacing has 1/4 century of experience and GIS was not created when he started. The incumbent started in 1990, it was a planner tech position, while her colleague was promoted in 1999 to GIS position, the male was promoted. When she did the exit interview she said that she didn’t feel that her position matched the responsibilities she had. They asked HR to take a look at the item, it took months to have the unions meet and that delayed between retirement and getting to BOE. Their systems are specific and they have work arounds and have to clean data to get a good product. If they don’t have good employees it will be garbage in, garbage out. The GIS specialist that was reclassified may retire as soon as March, she wants to get someone in the department to work with him. She says she is desperate. She is losing ability to attract the right candidate if this is not a GIS Specialist. She says there is a lot of IT work going on, they have a backlog of work, there are opportunities for efficiencies because they don’t have sufficient staff. She says 60% of the requests for mapping come from other departments, but they haven’t been tracking that, their coverage for their own workload has been reduced. King says that Ahrens? or Wirtz? is right, they would have to reclass 1000s of jobs in some organization he has worked in, he is a professional. They should just follow the recommendations with staff. Alder Lauren Cnare asks Brad Wirtz to respond. He disagrees with Alder Ahrens “wholeheartedly”, he says there is no masters degree required, they have professionals in the city that only require bachelors degrees. He says they can form unions as long as they don’t have supervisory responsibilities. The professionals in the city have always chosen not to unionize, that might make this easier. Cnare asks if there is a way to change the scale of the pay? Wirtz says the salary ranges cover 100s of classifications in that structure. If they hired someone in the planning tech position, in the supporting role, this position isn’t that type of position, it is professional with program level responsibilities that they will be responsibilities. Cnare asks if they pass this and not place it on file, are there legal issues we might have? Wirtz says after tonight they are ready to go. Alder Mike Verveer wants to step back and look at the broader view. He separated this because of the broader view of the constant degredation and reclasses from represented to nonrepresented positions when the positions are empty not because of the workload or work done. He says Dode Lowe would often vote against these proposals, even tho there are professional reports on these items, he thinks the HR professionals did the job, its the constant degreadtion where the position was represented and become nonrepresented. There is another one on the agenda. He says this happens all the time, it has nothing to do with Act 10, it just is constantly happening, he wanted to express this frustration. He understands being spread thin in the planning division, but we need to look at the broader position. It’s frustrating. He says he knows that in the budget they created more represented positions, that is great, but these specific positions that are long time represented that are proposed to be nonrepresented and at some point they have to look at the large issue. Alder Chris Schmidt says this is something where they need to look at the policy, but they have one in place and he is conflicted. Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff asks how many a year they reclass. Wurst says its 3 or 4 a year, some do go the other way, he says it is because services evolve and we are becoming more professional. He says this isn’t an agenda, its a reasoned analysis done professionally. Alder Scott Resnick asks about the Equity Coordinator that will have GIS expertise and how they decide. Wirtz says they start with the supervisor description of what they need, then they classify it, it goes to the personnel board and then they make a recommendation to BOE and then to council. Resnick says that the GIS requests they are receiving is extensive and it will increase. He wants to know how this is coordinated throughout the city. That is a larger question they should look at. Schmidt makes a substitute or alternate to approve. Mayor says they have to defeat the motion then make a motion since it is completely contrary. Motion to place on file fails with 1 or 2 or 3 nos? New motion to approve passes.
Verona Rd/Allied Area Grocery
Willy St. Coops supports looking at grocery store in their area. Wants them to consider Allied Coop a partner. They worked in Willy St. area to change that community and she says they can do it again. They should work with the people in the neighborhood. They have 50 members in the neighborhood, they are starting with a buying club and they want a local “by and for” the residents grocery and pharmacy. They think they should start with the coop that is there instead of writing an economic devleopment plan and trying to fit them in. Another speaker has 2 food pantry gardens. 3 speakers. REsnick and Zellers are added as sponsors. Mayor says this has been a real challenge and the neighborhood played a role in crafting the resolutions. They are entering a new world with partnerships with city, neighborhoods and entrepenuer activities and cooperatives. In the past the focus has been on combating bad things, now we are taking a new direction in building.
BUDGET
Public testimony
Green shirts/AFSCME reps green shirt, frustrated with process, seeking parity. They know its a tough budget, there was money there to accomplish some partiy. They did the right thing time after time, had cuts to pay and benefits to get here. Please make up for some of that. MPSEA is not thrilled with the inequity in wage increases, but expected that because they understood the restraints, but there are opportunities here. Please support the .5% increase to lessen the gap. Tons of registrants backing them up.
Chris Schmidt asks about the rules. Says he wanted to hear speakers on 11 because that is where people registered, some alders want to take up reconsideration first. They are looking for a motion.
Cnare asks about pay and equity issues, police and fire always get 3% increases and other don’t when will the employees be on the same track and be treated equally. Wurst says police and fire don’t always get 3%, one year they took 0, they do try to make it equal for all of them. For a couple years they are locked in with police and fire and they are working to bring it in line, when the agreements expire, they will be able to go back to what they did, get the same wage increase for everyone. They are in a touch position because they have the contracts, but after they can try to get to equity. They tried adjusting benefits, they haven’t been popular, but they might be able to create equitable wage increases with police and fire but they are not out of the woods until that contract expires.
Mayor Paul Soglin says over the last 4 years, the overall net income has declined with wages and other changes to benefits, what they attempted to do was going into the next budget to keep parity, they did, given the circumstances. Parity is important because while people are in different classifications and responsibilities, they have always attempted to have parity so people doing similar work would be compensated the same. They held off on salary increases to meet the budget in the last 3 years, he says it will take 5 – 6 years. He recommended 1.5% based on the revenue estimates and obligations, he thought they had agreement that the forestry fee would go up at level recommended by BOE, when it was more, they got more money, he sees it critical to be an opportunity to get as close to parity as possible, at 2% which doesn’t close the gap, but closes it by 1/3.
Alder Larry Palm says the raise is not the only thing, he ask Schmidieke about the General Fund balance, multiple questions. What is the goal? He says they are at 14.7% of expected expenses, goal is 15%. End of 2014 will be 15 – 16%. This will be 1/10th of a percent, the 2014 budget was $4M. He says they are mostly one time items. Palm asks if homeless funds are one time moneys. Schmiedicke says they are not in the base budgets, hard to know since there are many view points. It was one time in 2014 and then again in 2015. Palm asks if the reduction to the General fund and elimination of levy on table, how will this impact future budgets since the salary is not a one time expense. $217,000 is a small share of the General fund, it is manageable and there are other one time expenses in 2016, this is a very minor expense. He says it has a modest effect on the next budget. In the next budget they will be looking at multi-milions of dollars, not a dramatic effect. Palm points out reducing the capital debt by $202,000 and that is considered substantial but this isn’t.
Schmidt says that he is lining up to vote against it. He says that they worked with the Mayor to craft some amendments to find something council might accept, Denise DeMarb and him don’t have their names on it. The lateness of the request is the issue, he understands where the mayor is coming from, but as we increased the revenue in the budget they had made priorities and if anyone is wondering why we didn’t put the raises on the table its because they understand that this is the mayors role, he agrees they need to get to parity, we are nibbling at the margins, he is nervous about the forestry charge may come under legislative review, but on balance, they can work towards parity in 2016. The homeless bridge services was his recommendation because they are a bridge for when the shelter will open, he takes blame for it. But that doesn’t mean we need to abandon the idea completely.
Bidar says open and transparent government is her issue, they take it to heart and believe in it. Unions are dear to us, everyone one of them on the council. Not this way, not now. They are committed to parity and they will figure it out, not tonight, not this way, because it was something that just appeared after 3 years of discussion. She knows they will understand and they will do it eventually. (Just not when it is the mayor’s idea.)
Anita Weier asks the effect on the average value home? $64.35, 3 dollars more than the adopted budget.
Ahrens will vote for it, time to deal with it is now, not a vague promise we will vote on it at some time in the future. He would write a different plan, but we have a plan, it is credible and he wants them not to get bogged down in arcane process issues and what someone should have done, what the mayor or council should have done, but we should deal with the issue before them. Under the current budget we are asking to give most of the employees half of waht some of them get, we should say that there are process issues that get in the way. He is voting for it and hopes 14 others will do.
Paul Skidmore will vote for it, has issues with process, right thing to do and right thing to do now. Delaying the decision to the future, the time wont come soon enough and time is now to make the decision.
Palm says Bidar spoke eloquently, its is with a heavy heart to think through this, the irony about participatory budgeting and to be faced with this process is hard. This is only .5%, they need more, that will take more than what is here. We don’t have to wait until next budget to see what we can do. We can phase in things and agree to fund schedules over time, we can have a date certain and that is a process we can all participate in, sounds like council is being encouraged to participate in that discussion. He is behind the funding being discussed. He is worried about homeless issues being one time funding, particularly Briarpatch which is ongoing. He is worried that they need to leave that money there for future years to pay for the capital budget and that will be the number one issue impacting wages. He thinks the council did the right thing leaving the levy on the table. He is hoping the community grows and they have new income and they can discuss this now. We did our deliberations and we are all still overwhelmed by it and this is suddenly upon us and he doesn’t have the capacity to get through it.
Matt Phair says that “this stinks”. Nothing he wants to do less than raise employees pay, but there is a process and there was a process and we do put our heart and soul in it, its open and deliberative and its messy some times. Last Tuesday we walked out thinking we did a good job and were finished. The mindset was that we did pretty well. He asks wehre some people were last Tuesday or at BOE over the emonths, he didn’t hear any of his colleagues bring this up. He says this really really stinks, its unfair to change course the way it was done in the last week and he echos what Bidar said. He says he described this to friends and their eyes glazed over and they said it was stinky politics.
Joe Clausius says this was distasteful, they had 3 months of discussion, they came up with a solid budget and they felt good about the budget, they are committed to parity, we will get there, he just doesn’t feel like this is right to commit this at this time, we can take this up later.
Steve King echos all that, the merit is one of the highest we have in the city, but it was not part of the arcane process. The last budget motion on the floor was to reduce forestry fee, we voted it down and Mayor said “most ridiculous thing they did that night” and then to hear he wanted to use the money to use it for something they never heard about was the problem. They should stick to what they did, they have a process to change things midstream, they should folllow the process.
Mayor says that you heard alot about process and transparency, comparisons to Washington and state capital, but there are no specifics, he would like to hear what they are. A budget is not a series of programs, but linkages. He is concerned about the fact that if parity is an equity, if we do not make the commitment to it at this time, this money will be spent elsewhere. He is particularly concerned after amendment after amendment spending funds after the forestry tax. He was comfortable until they doubled the forestry fee and when they did that and didn’t include parity, a serious problem occurred. He says when the forestry fee was proposed by Clear or Schmidt he made it clear he was opposed on a matter of principle because it is regressive. It has a disparate impact on lowest and most modest income families, even when distributed to property tax exempt entities. He asked staff to look at the fees and when they looked at landfill and remediation, given the size of the fund they could make reduction in the fee comprable to the forestry fee, he said he was willing to go that far, about a half a million that is offset by the landfill remediation fee. We talked about that at BOE and you know the outcome. He says they were meeting programming and meeting with units to get to parity as close as possible, but he couldn’t get it over 1.5%. That disparity and lack of parity weighed heavily on many of us, he tole them his objective was to get to 2%, you have a solution before you which is workable that can be done now today, it involves only one cut, that is the $100,000 for the Madison Sports Authority and now we will talk transparency! On WEdnesday he met with council leadership, he expressed the concerns and agreed to meet the next day at 8:30 to see what they could come up with, nothing hidden there. THey took input form all of us, he had three meetings til 11:00 and much of what was fashioned was fashioned by others, it has only one cut. He wants to talk about that item. $100,000 about the sports authority, he spoke to some of them about this, by the way he didn’t talk to the public employees and they weren’t involved and didn’t know until later that day until labor relations staff met on the handbook with them when he informed them of what they were owrking on. He talked to 5 of them about the Madison Sports Authority, asked what the money was for, how was it vetted, how was the org chosen, what were the deliverable and not a single person could tell him. Is there anyone in this room, besides someone who works for them, can tell us what the money is for. Where is that transparency, where are the standards they apply to the noprofits and give them hell over 15,000, they file paperprok, they sit in meeting, they answer qeustions and there are so many out there that don’t come to us anymore, because of the challenges and demands we make in the process and transparencty. He recalls so many times they trie dot respond and be nimble with special funding and people said no we can’t do that, even when they set up the emergin gfund they make people go through the process, where was the process for the $100,000? And where was the lack of transparency to preparing this amendment. Remember when we marched around the squared and with a flourish we signed contracts, how much more transparency was there then. That is only half way through, the rest is capital budget, for now he will spare them, except to make the observation of taking care of it later, he absolutely believes it is true, the situation is so serious, he believes the council will act and take care of it. It is clear from the meeting with council eladership and staff that there is an apprciation as to how severe the problem is. There are some other things that he doesn’t think they ahve seen. He wasnts the Municipal Building (Judge Doyle Square) he wants it postponed for half a dozen years. This is not new, they had 4 presentations, about debt service and the capital budget, he can do another presentation tongiht. There is the question of parity and fairness, there are no issues regarding transparency, that is a fraud, if you are concerned about transparency, talk about the sports authority. THis isn’t their fault, they didn’t ask for it. He had hoped to not say anything, at this point in the discussion, some faint hope this motion would be approved, its clear from what people said it will not, not sure if it will be successful on reconsideration. He would be glad to answer questions about transparency and openness especially after someone tells him about the sports authority.
John Strausser supports it. If for no reason other than the phrase, show me your budget, I’ll show you your values. WE can talk about process all you want, we will do them throughout the next year, that is the process, there is no process being violated, we debated 100,000 of 1,000s of things at the last minute at 2:00 in the morning last week. He thinks that just cuz they voted they have to shut off our process. If this is truly your values, show your values and put it in the budget.
Denise DeMarb says she was privileged to be in many of the meetings, some of which she remembers and some she doesn’t. She has been conflicted. She appreciates every job from mechanic to fire trucks to controllers and mayors. She values the employees. She is delighted and sometimes surprised by their quick response. The $100,000 for the sports commission is not part of the equation, its part of the amendment, but that is a separate issue. This isn’t about transparency on that, the transparency went back to the budget process, when we received the budget there was 1.5% in it for employees and she felt that was the mayor’s budget and the best he could give you at that point and time and she knows that he and they were concerned about parity. All of those things come in to play. She says this deserved to go through the budget process and go through it at that time. What is before us is not well thought out. She will echo Alder Phair, this stinks, it looks like if we don’t vote for this we don’t care about you and that is absolutely not true. This should have happened during the budget process and it didn’t. She will pledge that she will loook long and hard for money for you in the future, there may be other things that will wait, parity and you are important and she will not be voting for it.
Scott Resnick says there was an accusation and he would like to know if it was true, that the Mayor was trying to work to 2% and that they had talked about it during the whole process. Schmidt says once the budget was at BOE he doesn’t recall it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. DeMarb says it was a lot of conversations ago and she remembers being happy he got to 1.%, does not remember conversation about 2%. Schmidt says earlier in June they were talking 2 or 2.5%. Resnick says they got the fiscal note at 9:41 this morning, we have a 4 month budget process. We have a budget that tried to achieve goals and values. We have other ways to make this work, if this were open for reconsideration he’d be willing to make cuts to positions and their own salaries, he would do that, but we took out positions we didn’t think were important, over $100,000. This is not the way to do it. He asks where Deb ARcher is in these conversations, he says they go through this at BOE to make good decisions, they are not simple cuts, when you look at what this might do to Briarpatch adn homeless ervices, this is no way to make a decision or run a city getting this information so late. He has seen what has happend to working class employees when cities don’t support union class members, we could have stopped at midnight on Tuesday and had a council decision about how to make this happen. He is frustrated about how this happened.
Marsha Rummel says she shares the frsutration and conflict, she could vote for or against it. She has to answer the mayor, she wrote notes, she wrote “disrespect”, you disrespected us that night when he asked if they wanted to take a 10 minute break, he should have said they should look at this change, if you had chosen to do that, we would have said, ok, lets talk. WE would have talked about it. When you ask for an example of what went wrong, I point to you ad say that is part of what went wrong. YOu lectured us aobu tthe inappropriate decision on the forestry fee. She didn’t vote for the sports commission fee. All of us voted to put in the ill thought out deputy director of Planning and Community and Economic Development. At some point, the hurry hurry to get it done someone should ahve asked to slow down. We are repeatedly asked to stay away from salary positions. We add positions, but not change how much people are paid. Lack of communication is the problem here and if it had happened we would have come to a different conclusion.
Palm says that he wanted to follow up on a budget being about our values. He voted for as money budgets as he did against and the positions are complex. If he were voting for a perfect budget he wouldn’t vote for any of them. Subeck put in $110,000 for COLA for our community service agencies and that was a value, they are payed at the low end of the scale. The departments make their priority lists and the mayor picks some council pick some and they make amendments and vote on them and the reasons Subeck did that on the floor because they voted it down at BOE because they ran out of money. THat was a difficult challenge, BOE budget was over. If the mayor would have made that amendment, the council would have voted for it, we never got it. We are still getting used ot labor negotiations in a post labor year, if someone would have said this is waht we wanted we might have tried to make it happen. There were many good things in the budget and there were terrible things in the budget and its there because otehr council members liked it. They could be making those amendments, but that is disingenuos to the people who ahve items in the buddget and it starts a whole cycle. His apologies because if he ha seen this 3 weeks ago, they would have worked towards that. In January they will set up a structure for this discussion, but tonight is not going to fly.
Weier says since the council’s transparency was questioned, she has to say there was no transparency in a secret meeting after the buget, she didn’t know about it.
Canare says that we learned that we all think our employees are important, but none of us talked about parity. She also learned that budgets always take two nights. She says this is also about failure to communicate, the mayor has to work with the council, there were surprises. It is awkward to have staff talk to us about raises, its ok to talk to us, the rules isn’t forever that you can’t talk to people, call alders as your representatives and say that you want parity and it will be on our schedule. She says some of the emplyees were surprised by parity as well, she can’t vote on this tonight, when they are tired and angry, this is not the time to do this. We should earmark any money that comes in as good news should be given to them. She is sorry. Hopes they will still pick up her trash.
Strausser says he is hearing they like the employees, they think they deserve .5%, the employees did nothing wrong, but the mayor, alders, leadership and others did. The employees didn’t. And they are being punished. We are either being disingenuous or we should vote for this fix to get us where we want to go. He understands where the mayor is coming from, with hindsight there is an opportunity, but we won’t take the opportunity because we don’t like the process. He saw nothing wrong with the process except the sports authority, no secret deals were made. WE made a quick decision about cost of living expenses and $110,000 is out the door and this is only $200,000. This is very little fo the general fund, we get surprise money coming in all the time, we will proably get that. WE would rahter leave .5% on the table and scold each other istead of doing what is right.
Schmidt says that our job is to balance multiple goals. ON the issue of leaderships role, if you don’t think leadership should work with mayor and try to avoid something like tonight, then change the ordinance. We were supposed to meet with Paul and then do nothing, that is bizarre. Secret meeting, no! We have it every week. Some alders get together and work and that happens all the time, there is nothing wrong with that, no quorum is violated, that is the key, we can’t poll you, its called vote counting and an illegal meeting, he doesn’t want anyone walking out and saying they did some thing wrong, they didn’t. They did what they were supposed to do, if you want to change it, then change it.
Mayor says he called Schmidt this afternoon and apologized for calling him again, but you are the only Council President you got. He hopes this doesn’t undermine the council relationship with the Mayor. He understands what Cnare was saying. He talked to several people and got fearful of crating a rolling quorum and he didn’t want to violate ordinance so he stopped, that is how it works. He can’t remember how many amendments they had, there were lcose to 60. For those who had names on those amendments, ask yourself about when you called the mayor and asked what they thought about those amendments.
Roll call vote: Clear and Subeck gone. Zellers, Ahrens, Rummel, Skidmore and Strausser vote aye, motion passes.
Item 12 – no discussion, they vote no
Item 16 – they vote aye
RECONSIDERATION OF ITEMS
Items 143, 144 and 145. Skidmore makes the motion. He says that he thinks most of the items are important, but the devil is in the details. He thinks they should look at some capital items and reduce the forestry fees. He says that their actions tie the hands of future councils.
Cnare asks if they reconsider, what would be the timing and what would it require on rooms, etc.
City Attorney says they have to vote tonight.
Mayor says they can have a special meeting.
City Attorney says they have to mail them by Dec. 15th and that takes time and they don’t have it.
Ahrens says that he made motion for reconsideration for fear of what our city will be. He says we can shift money to pay debt service, $19M for operating could be available but they are using it for debt service. He says that won’t come from police and fire, or roads and public works, but from the rest of the budget. When people talk about parity in the future, that won’t happen, we would have to fire 150 people and ask the rest to take a pay cut, or shut down the bus system. We have $10.5 in community services. Its willful blindness not to figure this out now, we will lose the programs we feel so strongly about. (Sorry, I’m mangling this a bit, not as thorugh as above) It is a different city in 2020 unless we look at this sober and without feeling like we want midtown police station and the public market, we need to look at if it is necessary like bus, library and day care. If not, push it back and cross it out.
Schmidt opposes it, when they met with David on Thursday they looked at the debt ration, levy increases etc and its complex, we need to have a whole different discussion. WE are still refreshing our infrastructure form the 50s and we are different in waht we get from feds and state. We need to look at these things, its a large discussion, how can we set this up and do it in the next few months so we have priorities in 2016 and amend the SIP in 2015 if we need to. WE need to look at things better. This is going to take more than we can do tonight or two weeks, we have the time.
Skidmore echos Ahrens, he articulated it better. Schmidt reinforced his argument. There are a lot of good things in the capital budget and it si a matter of priorities. We are goig to be faced with a situation where we ahve to pay the bills and we have to deal with it. If not tonight, we will have to. He says he didn’t hear anyone jump up and say that they alled the mayor. This is the way the system works, its messy, its democracy and he’s glad they are a part of it. He also said the executive ahs tools to deal with this.
DeMarb won’t vote for it, there are many challenges they will be facing, it is important that the mayor and council come together and educate the public. WE can’t do that tonight, its a big deal, it will take work and time to understand this, pull back the covers to understand what we have to deal with. He appreciates Ahrens and Skidmore and what they are saying, she appreicates the numbers, but she can’t speak to them, she says they have to do their work, she is committeed to working through this with them.
Mayor says when he made his decision to run for mayor, he was deeply ocncerns about trends in solvency of the city and the second was poverty and equity. He knew they had serious propblems and that they were buildilng up debt service that was unconscionable, he knew there were significant cuts coming from the fed government, you see the smae publications he does, its not just the roads, its the transit aids. Why we plan for better more sustanable trasnist system, the commitment in WAshington is lacking, there are cuts in CDBG and other regulations we have to comply with. He remembers at one point we were goig to spend $37M to clean phosphorus out of lakes at no cost to the tax payer, its not on the levy, but on the water bill. When he got there he found out it was much worse than he understood. There was the problem with the premium, he asked people if they know what was happening to that 10s of millions of dollars and no one answered, we were using the premium to pay for operations and not addressing equity. Thos budget were hard but in the right direction. The 2013 budget they crosse da line in terms of fiscal responsbility to have the funds to address the issues and challenges of poverty, to address the equity gaps important to theis community, we took steps and chances and he can’t promise success, we know Jane Adams know settlement houses work, that is why we are buying GRiffs. The budget he presented worked, he is supportive of the new positions of his and hte council, they will help us fashion and implement housing first program, equity programs, there weren’t jsut publications you recieved that told of the federal challenges, you’d have to be living under a rock to not know what is going on at the state capital. ANdthen, there are th eproblems we are crating for ourselvs. The problem he sees is that after the difficulties they went through, after attaining a place they could be more affective addressing income gaps, working iwth schools on achivement gaps, he is fearful that the legacy of the next budget in 2015 will keep us in 2016, 2017, 2018 from doing the things he wants to do. He got two emails about biodigesters and how important they are, he owned a consulting compoany that worked on them, he knows how that works, another building her or whatever, that affect is pushing back biodigesters and he doesn’t like being the heavy that says its unreasliastic, he’s not making the decisions piling up the debt service making this impossible. THey had four presentations since JUne 8th, for some reason he can’t help but end by telling us something, today were were named, and this makes him suspirious of polls, the number one city in the states for retiredment, as the weather crashed, we were also named 2nd best for young entreapenuers, he is no longer capable of figuring out the rankings, but they made a commitment that they ahve to continue and it has to be for everyone. The criticism that the ranking is great but not for every madisonian is valid and he is fearful given what they did with this budget and opportunity with this budget that we won’t come back and repairs it.
(Sorry for the shitty typing, will fix later)
Palm agress with Ahrens, but the solutions are not what he would pick. He says the capital budget has millinos for redevelopment for land that we will pay developers, we should look at that, its TIF money, we need to look at sustainability, he has questions about neighborhood centers, if we want to have a discussion about budget, the biodigester and midtown and if we talk about it, lets talk about not spending money, lets do it as a process. Put is on paper, make an amendment, lets vote on it.
Schmidt says that – sorry, missed it.
Mayor says there is in budgeting a step increase, you have capacity, if you have 5 police officers in that section as more poeple move in they can cover it but at some point you have to add more personnel and the problem is that we are doing too many step increases in too short of a period of time. Its not just the police officers, the police and fire station and libraries and municipal building and that is why we have the problem. The answer is we ahve to make tough decisions, and we have to.
Bidar says we is the right term, we are in this together, we cannot fix it tongiht, we can’t fix it in the next week, we need to follow the lead of the council leadership, there is no urgency, it is in 2016 and we can have a measured and thoughful process becasue evey single thing we change has consequences and effects and reflects our values. WE are prepared to have that discusion, For 2016 the deicsion does not need to be done tonight, in the next week, we need ot be deliberate. We need ot do it together and we need to look at all the projects.
Matt Phair says that they are committed to talk about DeMarb, he just wants to know what changed in the last week, they didn’t add a lot, they moved some things up, but they didn’t change much, why all of a sudden do we need to do that now.
Ledell Zellers says that a decision was made tonight and we just need to know we need to do something moving forward. WE can’t be effective and inclusive of the decisions that need to be made this evening. WE need to take care of this issue, won’t vote for reconsideration, but will be joining people in discussing this.
Reconsideration fails.
Introductions from the floor
4 or 5 or 6 that I missed.
Adjourned.
My one comment right now is the that the Mayor was damn good tonight, the council members looked kinda pathetic and whiny and it makes me sad. There are no statemen or women in the group that stand above the crowd and do the things that Alder Warren Onken and others did to solve things and make them right. This is a really sad state of affairs for our city, people voting more on how much they hate the mayor instead of the issues they say are important. With a few exceptions, I don’t know what these folks value or care about except their political careers and vendettas, much like the county board.
