Here we go again . . . The full amendments are here plus #17.
OPENING REMARKS
Got started late, about 5 minutes.
Roll call: Anita Weier excused, Jill Johnson missing. With 18 people its harder to get to 11 votes.
FINAL CAPITAL BUDGET VOTE
Mayor says continuation of recessed meeting form last night. They did 21 amendments last night, motion before them is the capital budget as amended. He asks if they want to vote now, or take it up with the operating budget later through referral.
Bridget Maniaci attempts to move the budget. Mayor says it has been moved already. Cnare tries to do the same thing, Subeck seconds. Mayor says they don’t need a motion he’s asked three times for discussion.
Chris Schmidt wants to speak about why he didn’t speak to the Edgewater, it was fatigue. He says that they have discussed this and he didn’t see new information. A lot of stuff in the press, mostly things the council was already aware of. He thinks it was a bad precedent to not speak to such a large item. Of course going to be complaints from the development community. But we are voting on all kinds of developer projects today, if we look at Edgewater as close as we did we should scrutinize others as much as we did. Upcoming is the project across the street, a precedent with Edgewater was not sent but we need to address precedent of other projects. Didn’t like the outcome, hopes people are willing to accept that the place I was coming from was not because of shenanigans or misinformation. He says nothing new inf front of them.
Bridget Manaici will not be supporting the Capital Budget. This is not her vision, her dream, her priorities or her constituents priorities, the operating budget is a good investment in people in the city, and she will support this. The capital budget was an opportunity to do what was right and just and lay a path for the city. Subeck district assessments down 10%. How are we supposed to fund this when no new construction. How are we supposed to get investment here. The priorities in this capital budget is not what she will represent. For her constituents who are young adults who have to say if they had to stay or not, we have nothing to give them. Where are we on jobs, investing in housing, investing in our community and this battle was very much a battle of generation’s interests, for all the talk about this community, about what was happening with the capital, the 1%, Fred Mohs, . . . .she says that she is sick of people who can’t do their jobs. When you have money and power easy to get your message across. She fought hard on this project, for her district and the city, she is watching city managers retire, we are so lazy because we have so many bright government jobs, in her day jobs working for tips, our public employees can’t come in and spend money. We are going to see that more, we are going to fall behind. Until we are ready to work together and not put interests of special interests, neighborhood association presidents, we are going to fail, the more she hears, the more she is disappointed, it is often my district vs her district, she worked to reach out, the capital budget sells the city short, if this is a future you are happy with, with home values struggling and social service needs, then find, some of you have constituents that are doing fine and there are lots that are not, we have to be on top of our strategy, its easy to put our district interests first. Her colleagues have set the city back 30 years, assumes mayor will not be here in 30 years to tell us what happened 30 years ago, Madison is supposed to be a beacon, the coercion, threats, twisting of arms is not a government I am proud of, if citizens cannot believe in their local government, how are they supposed to believe. You wonder why there is the tea party, there are a lot of good citizens burned out by this. How will be put the city back together. Wasn’t allowed to speak last night, past that now, and there is going to be a lot of fallout. She says did what was right for city, heads will roll and not concerned cuz it is not mine. Please think about what kind of city you want, what you want to be. WE are getting passed by every day, you take the students and economy for granted, we don’t get serious ever, its all about process and groups getting to have the say. we are the body that gets to have a say. Think about that, but the interest of the city before any one group. This is a tough job. You get burned out, its easy to just get by. She was very disappointed when she saw across the board, no one hit their light to talk on this item, I’m out of the room for 5 minutes and you all sit there silent on a 95M project that will go substantially towards the city in community services and underground street lighting.
(She stood and yelled most of that, I missed a bunch of it.)
Brian Solomon can’t explain why they didn’t speak last night, Ken Golden used to say that the council motto is that everything has been said but not everyone has said it. This is a hard job. This project was different, we changed a whole lot of rules and did it different. He supports tax base growth, this wasn’t against the Edgewater, just the $16M. People voted for $3.3M. They supported it. He hopes Bob Dunn decides to work on the 4th plan, and $82M hotel. Would love to see it with $3.5M in TIF, think he has creativity and smarts to pull it off. For the capital budget, we were in a more serious situation than usual. I applaud us for making tough budget decisions and taking it seriously. He is proud of colleagues and proud to vote for the budget.
King says will not support budget because he does not represent outlying areas. They business community says this sends a chilling effect, thanks for sending more traffic through my district on the way to developments in other areas.
(Sorry, I can’t keep up with the impassioned speeches, you may want to come back and watch this.)
Bruer says a lot of words but I think it boils down to this . . . maybe. There was a total melt down in the city in the 70s and we needed to spark the capital square. He talks about building the Fred Mohs tore down on the square at Manchester Square, we used all kinds of funds and sidestepped rules. Talks about other buildings that were torn down in the area. Why is he talking about this? Cuz there was a desire, need and argument, we needed for public good we needed a higher better use, where were the preservationists then? He talks about saving the Central High Arch. He talks about financial tools and creative financing, not just TIF, but look at the money we invested in projects. IN the end no doubt it was a benefit. We gave the revenue away to make the deal work. He explains his questions to the comptroller last night. He says that he bought that at the time it was important to make those investments. It was important to be open and accessible and welcoming to the business community. Look at school districts, its catastrophic. In the past we stood by our past decisions, didn’t support Edgewater at first, went to bar last night, disturbing when we can do Monona terrace, hotel etc . . . not completing thoughts . . . not sure where he is going. I’m going to sit back and listen and see if there is anything I can do to sum it up. He says there is a confidence crisis, this is not about a mayoral race. This will come back to haunt us for generations. Talks about John Q Hammonds who eventually build in Middleton. I don’t know . . . at end of the day, he doesn’t feel good about the capital budget that turned away 100s of 1000s of job and turned away investments by the banking community.
Mark Clear appreciates Bruer bringing up Manchesters as a historical perspective. Last night we demolished the Edgewater. This all started with historic preservation and the only way the old tower could be saved if the new tower was built to support it. Wishes that Solomon was right, the building will be unsalvagable in a few years, there is not economic model to make it work. If you think any other developer will try this and run through the gauntlet you are wrong.
Schmidt says good things are in the capital budget, we need to acknowledge that, there are a lot of things that were good calls and good moves and the mayor gave us a good template to work with.
Mayor says preferred not to speak, but something needs to be said in regard to the culture of the body and the city in relations to the Capital Budget. Its significantly lower than last years. Appreciates Schmidt bringing that up. Situation created over number of years, and as someone who has advocated in investments in infrastructure are good to grow jobs, this is not enjoyable to make these reductions, the problem is, we cannot continue the trajectory to where spending 15, 16, 17% of revenues on debt service if we are going to maintain the police department and streets, etc. Tough decisions do not mean that people have to put a line between themselves and others. Thanks Cnare on message sent out. In defense of city, council and staff, I will not tolerate innuendo, that reeks of Joe McCarthy and impropriety and calls on people who has charges to be specific and name names, have evidence and documentation. There are certain principles we will honor, fiscal, legal and moral and its his obligation to make sure all of them are met.
ROLL CALL ON BUDGET
NO: Clausius, King, Maniaci,
ABSENT: Weier
PUBLIC COMMENT ON THE OPERATING BUDGET
By the way, thumbs up to Boyce for hooking up a stand alone mic that is not hooked into the mic system that doesn’t work. People can speak from both sides of the podium tonight.
Jim Carrier spoke on money for Warner park, he wants a chemical analysis of the wetlands before and after Rhythm and Booms next year. They don’t know what 19 years of fireworks have done to the environment and the people who use it. He pulls out garbage left after the fireworks.
Tim Birkley spoke to union contributions to the budget, very eloquently.
Overture Registrants. If anything new or interesting comes up, I’ll blog it. Or not.
Inquiring minds want to know why Susan Schmidt testified last night and tonight representing DMI and her 46 member board, and yet, filed a cessation of lobbying form (see page 5 and 6). ????
Lori Kief talked about work in low income neighborhoods and the need for a building inspector in these areas. Says it should be a housing code inspector
I tried again . . . less emotional, same message. Does the budget reflect our values?
Erik Poulson spoke to the Economic Development Committee position, agrees that they need to make sure that this is in the economic development plans. He says we need new thinking about part of society not considered in our economic development plans – we focus on young professionals and others, not the kids that don’t go to college. That is a different path and it would be beneficial to have someone working on that. Thinks 16A is the right way to go.
I don’t think Manaici has been in her seat since she did her speech – she voted on the budget from the back of the room. It’s now 7:15 and she seems to have disappeared.
City Attorney’s Association representative talks about their agreement with the city. Says they have an agreement through 2012, their contract is shorter than others. He’s concerned about furlough days that the city is asking for. They have 4 people speaking. Sorry, not blogging their whole 20 minutes. They make case for how they don’t have anyone else to do the work and can’t cut items out of the budget, its all personnel costs.
Bruer was missing when I was speaking and also is still missing. I think we need to institute the Bruer Watch from years past and add a Maniaci watch. Oh wait, they both came back! It’s 7:30 now, Bridget has missed all of the public testimony up to this point, perhaps she was rounding up the documentation to back up her claims for the mayor?
Ok, last speaker, still the city attorney’s office, Lara Marinella. She says negotiations are not working, they are at a loss. Asking them to get involved.
QUESTIONS OF SPEAKERS
Rhodes-Conway says that they should go in order, her first question is on 13.
They have no questions on items 1 – 12.
Overture
Rhodes-Conway asks for someone to talk about the regional issues. Dierdre Garton and Tom Carto come to the mic. (Ok, questions of speakers or staff?). Rhodes-Conway says other speaker spoke to regionalism, they got a lot of emails from outside the city, they come to Madison to spend money. She asked people if they asked their local governments to support overture as a regional cultural center. Have you asked anyone?
Carto says that they have done a lot of work to determine where people attending came from. He says people came from 90 miles away. Milwaukee, Beloit, Janesville. He says the county is the first area we need to work on, especially cities in the county. They want to get them as ticket buyers, donors and supporters and then asking for money. Shorewood talked about a small grant. The biggest hole is the county. They get significant sales tax revenues from ticket sales and other spending. Need to revisit that conversation. A few years ago about having Monona Terrace, Overture and Alliant having a taxing district. The region is ready for that. The RTA was a big issue and political capital was headed in that direction. They could also include zoos and museums. That is part of their strategic plan.
Dierdre Garton has nothing to add.
Mike Verveer asks Carto about labor agreements with AFSCME and IATSE.
Carto says at talbe since spring, bargaining in good faith, some issues of getting people to the table. IATSE has rep from Detroit and they have attorney form Milwaukee. They agree on quite a bit, but waiting to see what the budget does, would have to revisit the offers. Both agreements are close.
Verveer asks about employee benefits.
Carto says the structural agreement has substantially similar categories of benefits. He says they are offering the categories, health, 401K, flex plan, sick pay, leave policy. They worked hard. Non-rep is paying 15%, city employees are 12% and they think they are close. They can’t participate in WRS, they think they are competitive and generous. 70% of the employees decided to come to them after they knew what the benefit package was. Still negotiating that. They have told the non-rep employees. They did get push back from the board and it was too generous and they wanted more “austerity”. But they have good employees and they wanted to keep them.
Verveer asked about private fundraising filling the void.
Carto says fundraising is not easy, they are developing their fundraising strategy, it will take time, they have had success for their targets, they could not add 5-600K to that. Overture would be competing with resident companies and others. THey also have to raise transition money, $2.4M. Adding any more would be untenable.
Rummel asks about exclusive Frank Productions agreement and says that Barrymore and Majestic have been meeting and remain concerned. She asks for documentation about how these 30 events do, do they all make money.
Carto says that they have a separate agreement. Frank and Tag (True Endeavors) say that they are getting events that are not going to be in other venues. They attract them because of the venue. It is profitable for us. WE make most of the profit on the attendance and concessions. It is a risk of Frank and True Endeavors, if it doesn’t work for them they are stuck with the costs.
Rummel says that there are acts that have been going to the other venues that are no longer going there. She hopes they will continue to work and share information. So it is not at the expense of others.
Carto says magic of Madison is the venues. He’s worried about the Orpheum, says it is in dire need.
Item 18 – City Attorneys
Rhodes-Conway says that not asking to interfere in collective bargaining but to fund city attorney and Dept of Civil Rights, what does that mean in terms of dollars?
Carolyn Hogg says there is a gap.
Rhodes-Conway asks distinction between funding and collective bargaining. Where is the line? What form or how is funding really just funding and not inserting ourselves into collective bargaining.
Hogg says not tricky. Its bread and butter to decide the appropriate funding level. To set a round number to decide what they need to operate effectively. Yes numbers will be used elsewhere, they aren’t determining 3% raise, or furlough days, they are giving money to fund services, but they would decide the details in collective bargaining. We have been working hard. The parameters that they are working in are too tight, they can’t reach a fair compromise. Responsibility to look at the budget issue. Bottom line for service delivery is the common council decision. Not trying to be tricky, important to uncover and separate them. She was sensing reluctance.
Marinella steps up to say that 5 days is $35,500 in furlough.
Rhodes-Conway says that fully fund is $35K.
Marinella says fully funding would be $40K would give the city what they need to continue talking to us.
Maniaci asks Marinella about the amendment and the language. What is your concern if only the language is passed and not the money.
She says they would be asked to go back to the table without ability to move. They gave their bottom line, they think the city is at their bottom line.
Cnare wants to make sure that everyone has $25K for a study, that is an additional amendment to remember is there, its item #19.
Recess for 15 minutes . . . it is 8:12.
I’m going to move to a second post in case it gets too long . . . brb.
