A city Economic Development Conference. While everyone else was at the Landmarks Commission meeting last night, I was at home, sick, on my couch watching Board of Estimates and there’s a few gens in there that weren’t reported in the news. Find out why we’re doing it, why its not at Monona Terrace and a reminder about the ethics of staff and elected officials raising money for these types of events.
Here’s the conversation from the meeting:
Larry Palm, asks Matt Mikolajewski, Office of Business Assistance, what this is? I love the idea of sharing cooperative practices from around the world, but we are the principle funders, what does that mean to me.
Mikolajewski says this is a conference they have been working on with the Mayor’s office and a group of cooperatives from throughout Madison, it has three goals. To bring together the cooperative community, to bring awareness to the number, type and diversity of business cooperatives in Madison. To bring in speakers from around the country to share those best practices and finally to inspire potential employees to become cooperatives as businesses transition. We are seeing a lot of opportunity as people retire and one way to transition would be to become a cooperative.
Palm asks if this is regional or targeted to Madison.
This is really targeted to Madison. He expects that we will get attendees from the region, but the focus is on Madison.
The Mayor says the focus is on how to you build a local economy utilizing cooperatives that are often overlooked, for example one of the most successful and oldest post World War II era is Badger uh, UNION Cab, the city underwrote it, we’ve got other significant companies that people don’t realize are cooperatives, for instance on of the largest engineering consulting firms in the Madison area is a cooperative. There are hundreds in the area, you might think of them in terms of food service of housing, which are vital, but they are a major component in regards to employment and given that two of the most active community financial service companies are cooperatives and participating – Summit and UW Credit Union, we want to explore how we use this legal formation to grow the economy, keeping in mind that you don’t need to worry about it being bought up and moved out of state.
Satya Rhodes-Conway says the only thing she would add is that she has been putting bugs in the ear of the Economic Development staff for years because there have been some successful examples around the country and world that use cooperatives, not because a better business model, but if structured properly, you have a greater assurance that the profits will be maintained locally, within the region or city limits. That is one thing we should be focusing on, keeping the money here instead of at corporate headquarters. She is hoping that is one thing that they will be focusing on. Urges support.
Palm says that one of the institutions you talk about has bought many cooperatives and moved them to Madison, so the reverse could be true. The news cooperative in Milwaukee could mourn the loss of a headquarters there.
Soglin says “but not employment”.
Cnare asks if we have done this before for conferences?
Mayor says that we did one in June. Mike Verveer says the New Urbanism Conference and Rhodes-Conway says that we put in more money.
Cnare asks who is soliciting the private contributions and how they estimated that.
Mikolajewski says that it is an estimate based on the Small Business Conference they did, the solicitations will come from city staff, alders, Mayor’s office and some of the partners in the cooperative community.
Cnare asks if this is a LTE for the conference planner?
Mikolajewski says it is contracted services, we need an individual to mind the details of the conference planning and working on the conference in the weeks leading up to and following the conference. They found out during the small business conference that it takes a lot of time to do this and felt it was better to bring in someone with experience instead of city staff.
Cnare asks if there is a date?
Mikolajewski says tentatively June 7th.
Verveer asks if it is at Monona Terrace?
Mikolawjewski says its at the Pyle Center. (Watch the video, the look on Matt’s and Deb Archer’s faces are precious)
Verveer apologizes for interrupting.
Cnare says really, June 7th, good luck, that is really a stretch goal. She says they will have to work really hard.
Rhodes-Conway says that is how long it takes for her to plan a conference at work.
Lauren says that many take a year or longer.
Mayor Paul Soglin says that there has been extensive discussion about this for 3 – 4 months leading up to this, most if not all the participants have been contacted and that is why we can get private sponsorship.
Verveer asks why at the Pyle Center, cuz it is with UW-Extension and that we can get it at a record breaking discount price, or is Monona Terrace booked?
Yes, one of our partners is the UW Center for Cooperatives and they did reach out, it might not be a record breaking discount, but they did get a good price for the Pyle Center.
Did you compare with the Monona Terrace?
Yes, we did, and Pyle Center is less.
Verveer asks how much?
Mikolawjewski doesn’t remember.
Verveer asks him to follow up and let him know.
This conversation is amusing the the Monona Terrace Booking report was earlier on this agenda where they bragged about how business was up for them.
Verveer asks about the fundraising and if the resolution conforms to the ethics laws they just passed, has the city attorney reviewed the language?
Mikolajewski says they didn’t work with the city attorney’s office on the language. They ask the city attorney to join them.
Michael May, City Attorney says that the code requires the resolution to authorize it and that should be sufficient.
Palm asks if the Mayor and Alders get sponsorships to attend?
Rhodes-Conway says no, its to sponsor the conference, under the new ordinance we have to have permission from the council to solicit sponsors for the event. We anticipate that our partners will do most of that work.
Passes unanimously.
Note: The only people at the meeting that are members of the Board of Estimates are the Mayor, Cnare, Palm, Rodes-Conway and Verveer who walked in at the beginning of the item. They barely had quorum when they started.
uh, I believe that should have been Union Cab, not Badger Cab. Badger did exist as a co-operative once upon a time, but it was not a true worker co-operative and the ownership eventually sold. Union Cab was started with seed money from the City (a loan). Union Cab is also one of the primary sponsors and planners of this conference. Many of our members made this an election issue during the Mayor’s race last year (just for some background).
doh! I’m blaming it on being sick the last few days! 🙂