Sorta live blogged. Lazy blogged? Not sure which.
ROLL CALL AND GETTING STARTED
Everyone present. Chris Schmidt suspends the rules to take items out of order and introduce items from the floor.
Presentation – Sabrina Heymiss Progress Poetry
Here’s the audio. Worth a listen!
Parkinson’s Awareness Month
Moved by Weier, seconded by someone. Read it here. Passes without discussion.
Mayor introduces Scout Troop #16 that is here tonight, its part of their merit badge requirements, they are earning on citizenship.
Items from the floor
Items are noted here.
Legislative File No. 37360 – Authorizing the selection of a portion of Census Tract 20 as the focus for a concentration neighborhood planning process and the creation of an Ad-Hoc steering committee. (Ald. Lauren Cnare, D. 3)
– Recommended Action: Refer to Board of Estimates, Community Development Block Grant Committee
Legislative File No. 37488 – Calling for increased funding for comprehensive reproductive health care. (Ald. Lisa Subeck, D. 1)
– Recommended Action: Refer to 3/17/15 Common Council Meeting
Legislative File No. 37491 – Supporting Continued Funding of SeniorCare. (Ald. Mark Clear, D. 19)
– Recommended Action: Refer to 3/17/15 Common Council Meeting
Legislative File No. 37506 – Accepting a Report of the Fire Chief on Cross Jurisdictional Dispatching. (Ald. Paul Skidmore, D. 9)
– Recommended Action: Refer to Public Safety Review Committee, CCOC, BOE
Legislative File No. 37507 – Creating Section 10.056(6)(q) and amending Sections 10.056(6)(m) and 10.056(6)(n)1. of the Madison General Ordinances to clarify that a Street Use Permit for an event that includes an illegal activity may be denied, clarifying the list of unpaid fees that could result in permit denial, and correcting a typographical error. (Ald. Mike Verveer, D. 4)
– Recommended Action: Refer to Street Use Staff Committee
CONSENT AGENDA
– There is one items added because there are speakers here. It’s the pay equity issue, increasing pay by .75%.
– Recommendation on 47 from CCOC is to adopt.
– Item 16 – Meriter Health Nurses is referred to 3/17 because it may become unnecessary.
PUBLIC HEARING ITEMS
Items 3 – 8 Alcohol Licenses
– # 3 – At about 15:54 into the audio, Will Sanstrom talks about growing weed, Minnesota nice and how he got banned from Wikipedia. Schmidt tries to interrupt and say the speaker has to speak to the item. Mayor says the dope part was ok, but Wikipedia took him off the subject, his microphone is turned off. He asks them to help him figure out who is after him. There are no questions.
– #4 Collectivo Coffee Roasters – one registrant
– #5 Harlem Renaissance Museum – no registrations
– #6 2 registrations
– #7 Pasqual’s – no registrations
– #8 HyVee – no registrations
The hearings are all opened and closed, no questions, no discussion, they all pass.
Items 9 – 11 Board of Public Works
Unanimously pass, no registrants, no public testimony, no questions, no comments. Public hearings opened and closed
Items 12 & 13 – Plan Commission
Both items pass without discussion, testimony, questions, etc. Public hearings opened and closed.
MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEE PAY RAISES
Item 24 – Taken out of order because there are speakers.
Neal Rainford, AFSCME Local 6000, he says that they worked with the city to pass a budget, but there are some pay inequities. He says some employees were made whole and some have not been. This resolution fixes part of that. They ask that they continue to close the pay gaps from last year and the other .075%.
Mike O’Brien Comp Group 15 representative, thanks them, would like comp group 15 to be included.
Dan Rolfs, thanks them, MPSEA thanks them, would like to them to continue to close the gaps.
6 people registered in support.
No discussion. Passes.
Item 22 – OLBRICH GARDENS CATERING
Alder David Ahrens asks if this is a no bid contract. Eric Knepp says that through 2016 this has not been competitively bid, it is a contract extension. Ahrens asks why? He says that other no bid contracts are when there are limited providers, this is running a bar. Correct. Why was this no bid and other providers able to compete? Knepp says its a matter of timing and customer service, the right time to bid it would be when people who have reservations aren’t impacted. The staff made a mistake, he did, about when it was set to expire, they have wedding reservations, the substitute addresses the competitively bidding process fro 2016. They hope to get a better result when they bid. This contract is in line with the industry. He says to get more would be unprecedented, we would like to get more, we did get some concessions, but the 30% and 35% are normal. Ahrens says we don’t know what others might have offered. He asks why its not bid for 2016, Knepp says that wedding reservations have been started. Ahrens asks if other providers can’t do this. Knepp says they are looking to their customers. Ahrens thinks this shouldn’t go to the biggest caterer and its a disservice to taxpayers.
Alder Larry Palm says that he has Warner Park and he thinks there is a certain amount of cleaning that parks is doing sorting things out and they have agreed that doing bids is a good idea, but you do want some assurity of who the contractors are and it would be silly to suddenly change the rules for people using the facilities and planning events. They did change it to end 2016 which is a reasonable amount of time to plan and was done via a bid originally and they are local, the parks department is on notice to bid it our in the future.
Ahrens votes no.
Item 51 – $13M FOR ANCHOR BANK TIF
37:16
3 people registered available to answer questions, the Baskerville and the Developers.
Ahrens asks about competition with City parking, he is worried about during the 8 years of the TIF and then afterwards. Are you prepared to commit to maintaining rates that are not lower than the rates charged by the city. Brad Binkowski says yes. The non-compete language is in the letter of intent, there is a prohibition in the first phase. They charge 2 – 3 times higher to discourage people from parking there to save space for the visitors. They will always be higher than the parking utility, they are doing that at Block 89, well after the TIF agreement is done. They have had free parking for restaurant patrons in the past, but now there is a strong demand and they plan to charge.
Marsha Rummel says this is a good project in many ways, but the one piece she would like to see if affordable housing units. Its an expensive project on the square and underground parking. To do affordable housing you need to apply for WHEDA tax credits and be on their timeline that doesn’t work for them, they have done other affordable housing. This wasn’t available to do that, they can’t slow down. Rummel asks if this is luxury or market housing. Binkowski says it will meet the demand, he says 53% of their residents are outside the city of Madison, Epic employees, they are not all Epic employees, but they have people who run the the American Family Childrens Hospital, they are meeting the market demand for those coming outside the city. She asks if all the issues have been addressed that resulted in the referral. Binkowski says that they have resolved the issues with the Baskerville.
Rummel asks Will May about the unresolved issues. He says they are happy, they signed a letter of intent with ULI, this isn’t the final resolution, but they are satisfied with the agreement worked out.
Motion passes.
ADJOURNMENT
They do.
