The CCOC committee is all alders, so discussions here are typically a preview of things to come. Topics on the agenda include residency, council ignores Mayor’s budget instructions, student on ALRC, tenant’s informed of rights and increased penalties for landlords, TIF policy . . . [with comments.]
Committee members present: Schumacher, Eagon, Compton, Schmidt, Rummel, Bidar-Sielaff, Clear, Bruer (Schmidt is an alternate and since there is a full committee there, he is not voting.)
Non-committee members present: Rhodes-Conway, Maniaci
Staff Present: Lisa Veldran (council office), Michael May (attorney), Tim Cooley (Economic Development), Joe Gromacki (TIF Coordinator), Joel Plant (Mayor’s Office), Matt Mikolajewski (Office of Business Resources)
RESIDENCY REQUIREMENTS
Schumacher says that he had the pleasure of working with MPSEA and Lorri Wendorf, this isn’t a debate about residency, but about equity. These are human beings who work for the City of Madison we should be respectful of them. Thinks the compromise was fair.
No comments from public until prodded. Eric Keston and Lorri Wendorff working on it for two years – thought it was a fair compromise with Mayor. Both sides can be happy.
Passes with Rummel voting no.
COUNCIL BUDGET
Bruer says the council has always cut and reduced to the bone to the extent there is nothing left except the basic core. Any of the options would seriously jeopardize the ability to function. Have cut to their own peril. In last 5 years we have tried to budget more support for the council and never done it because of the budget. To be asked to cut further goes to fundamental core staff.
Veldran explains that the base budget from 2009 meant a $13,288 cut. She cut overtime, postage and alder expense accounts in half. Then also had to produce 6% cut plan and that cut another $21,702 and there are two options to severely cut account lines and zero out alder expense accounts or reduce staff. No place else left to cut.
Clear says that background is that last year we [ah, the truth comes out – this was something leadership supported?] were going to cut Secretary 1 staff 50%, no one found that acceptable and we submitted a budget with no cuts. The Mayor reminded the Council that all city departments had submitted a budget within the guidelines except the council. He says they should follow the rules, but he says that these options are not acceptable and when it comes time for amendments we will make changes to restore the functionality of our own expense accounts.
Schumacher understands Clear’s comments about following Mayor, but with the council, we are a legislative body, not under the direction of the Mayor’s office. We should decide what our directives are. We have such a small budget, when we cut we don’t cut us, we cut our ability to work for our constituents. He suggests that they don’t make cuts.
Rummel agrees. With these cuts all we have left is an illusion of government and services. She already makes businesses pay for mailings to neighbors. I don’t even know how you would be an alder without the mailing accounts.
Bidar-Sielaff agrees. The Council is different than a city agency, they need this support to do their legislative work. We’re not a city agency and we don’t have to follow a memo directed at city agencies. She suggests they submit the budget without a 6% cut. She doesn’t like to play games, if that is what we are going to do anyways, why should we go through the work. Staff could have been helping us instead of wasting time preparing a budget that we don’t intend to follow.
Maniaci totally against cutting expense accounts, signed phone agreement based on having this budget. She can’t do it without it. We’re already bare bones the way it is. The Edgewater mailing was $1500, they mailed out 8,000 people across three districts.
Schmidt says ditto.
Bruer says they made that case last year. He says that this is a breath of fresh air because it used to be divisive and some alders wanted to cut our budget along political lines. This is about the council as an institution.
Schumacher says to submit 2009 budget. Bidar-Sielaff seconds.
Clear says he will put in whatever we recommend.
Bruer says that the Mayor has been responsive on this issue.
They clarify that they will use the 2009 budget with a supplemental request to restore $13,000. They agree this is a cost to continue budget to keep the service level they had in 2009.
They quietly note, under their breath, that the budgets were already due and they are late and quickly move on.
ADDING A CITIZEN AND ALDER TO THE ALRC (Alcohol License Review Commission)
Rhodes-Conway notes that the Committee on Committees (long forgettable name) addressed the creation of committees. Passes around form you are supposed to use. She says they strongly recommended that the committee be an odd number of members. They say that is what the second substitute says.
Clear moved 4 (changes to ALRC) & 5 (changes to Public Safety Review Board – PSRB) together.
May says that he had one concern that applies to both and one for the ALRC. When drafting they did not make the appointments for three year, as in the ordinance. Second, he points out that for both of them they have an effective date of the ordinance problem. Once ordinance is published it is in effect and mayoral appointments won’t be done on time and that causes quorum problems. Add a sentence that says it is effective within 60 days and Mayor should make appointments. We had the timing issue with adding seats to the Economic Development Commission.
Bruer says this is restoring the aldermanic composition because there was no need or interest in the past.I think he is engaging in some revisionist history here, my understanding was that they (Cindy Thomas and Matt Sloan) were trying to make it easier for alders because there were too many committees and alder appointments and they were trying to reduce the work load. Generally speaking they thought committees didn’t need more than 2 alders)
Clear asks if they could make the ordinance effective when appointments are confirmed by the Council. May says that could be confusing. A date certain would not be confusing. Clear asks these ordinances are before the council tonight. No.
Clear moves that the citizen appointments would be for three years for ALRC and for both would be effective 60 days after they are published. May suggests November 1st. They agree. Bidar-Sielaff seconds, they decide it is friendly to accept Alder May, er . . . Attorney May’s suggestion.
Eagon says that instead of putting a new citizen on the committee, they should make the ASM representative/student a voting member. Rummel seconded.
Eagon says that students are one of the largest users of liquor license establishments, especially in the downtown. They want safe, fun places for people to go to. They should have a voting voice, otherwise it is unrepresentative. This would create some good, necessary dynamics on the ALRC. Mark Wolff, one of his opponents is the current appointment. But Eagon thinks it would be good outreach to students and show that we care about UW students.
Schumacher says Eagon is just serving his constituency well[This seems to be the new code on the council for telling and alder that they are out of touch with the rest of the city.] and understands students might want this. He says that he and Alder Judge just got a student on there and that has a sunset. The sunset was negotiated between alders and the industry. The industry was not supportive of having a student on the body [Now who is “serving their constituency well”?], if they do this, then they should add the other technical experts (tavern league and university) they just passed an ordinance that cleaned all that up. This is premature; we just changed the rules and this will open up other issues with other technical advisors and the sunset.
Maniaci says there is a lack of gender diversity – would like to see a female member of the committee. She finds the committee paternalistic and advocates for changes.
Clear says ASM position is appointment by ASM chair and that would tip the balance of power and would create some political issues within ASM and it’s a slippery slope to make this change.
Schumacher clarifies that ASM recommends to the Mayor and the Mayor makes the appointment. Schumacher notes that there are other student organizations like Edgewood or MATC and they might want representation too.
Bidar-Sielaff says that student representative, which are primarily UW students are the largest constituency for downtown businesses including liquor licenses and lack of their voice on ALRC is a very important issue. We should have a student citizen member. We have very little student representation on our committees and this committee particularly impacts the students. Other technical advisors have an important role, but at the end of the day the students are a big user and have intelligent smart things to share with us about what they expect from their downtown. They should be able to participate actively.
Compton asks if student on ALRC has an age restriction, do they have to be 21 to serve on the committee. She says many things need to be addressed if the change is made. We have a student member and we have a sunset and we move sunsets all the time.[This is Compton’s mantra for the day – to hell with the rules and policies we have, we can ignore them or change them when we want.] If a case could be made to decide how to choose the student she might support it. Wouldn’t want the student to be someone that is not 21. To say the big student population is the major partakers is a problem cuz only seniors are drinking age. She says there should be some restrictions to get her vote.[Sorry, she was kind of rambly and hard to follow.]
Eagon says that it is friendly, they can require the person to be 21. [I was surprised by how quickly he agreed to that, I immediately thought of the entertainment licenses and the fact taht 18 – 21 year old people can be in these establishments as well under the right circumstances.] He notes that even if they don’t make that change, since the mayor does select, he could turn someone down if they feel that an 18 to 21 year old shouldn’t be on the committee. So he says its friendly, or comfortable letting the mayor choose.
Rummel asks when the sunset is. Answer is three years. She sees why this is an issue, but it is a legitimate question and when she thinks of the density plan and she thinks if the students had been part of that it would have been important. Agrees with Eagon.
Schumacher says is going to refer because ALRC has prided themselves in involving the industry [wow, kowtowing to the industry you are regulating, interesting . . . and he keeps bringing it up. ] to the and he would like to invite the industry to comment on it. At this point he says he isn’t going make the motion to refer despite his earlier statement.
Bruer babbles about history . . . not sure what his point was . . . or that he completed a sentence.
Eagon says that if they add two people now, then after a 3 year sunset, they’d have to wait three years to exchange, that seems too long to wait, why not do it now.
Bruer says there are always vacancies on the committee and there are now.
Schumacher says that he thinks a three year appointment is hard for students if they are 21 and finishing undergraduate, they won’t be there long. Agrees the intent is worth exploring but it needs more work and input by people who are affected by this. [That’s the third time he brings that up.]
Bidar-Sielaff asks if they can set a 21 year age limit. May doesn’t answer and they move on quickly.
Eagon says that alders shouldn’t be 21 to run, and that someone under 21 could represent students.
Bidar-Sielaff notes that the license to have 18 – 21 year olds in the bar needs improvements as well. They can tell us if this will be entertaining or not. She says that she would like to continue the discussion another time. But difference is that these are our equal right residents of her district. They are not a special interest group. Some of the other groups like tavern league is a special interest group – these are her constituents. A student is a resident who gets appointment to a committee. Maybe the discussion is to encourage Mayor to look into a student to be a citizen appointment.
Really, as this point, everyone has said everything but they feel the need to go on and it just gets repetitive from here.
Compton says [well, this is really cleaned up to say what I think she meant, cuz it didn’t quite come out this way.] this is a slippery slope. She says if we do this, we might have to change the membership of other committees. She uses the example of all 20 districts being impacted by garbage pick up and that a committee dealing with that would have to be 20 members if we start saying that every district needs a representative on a committee. She skips around a bit and then gives another example to have PSRB have a member from each of the precincts. She says committees make decisions for the whole city – this is a slippery slope and this is a big, big thing that needs to be thought about. She asks if there should be people from the churches, because they have something to say about ALRC. They could do this with any committee they have. Says Eagon opened a good door. And then she babbles about having an old mind . . .
Schumacher says open appointment could be a student, he thinks that they are a technical expert. He says Judge and him struggled with making it a student and the ASM requirement – he’d like to see grad students or phd students apply because they might have research skills and they don’t come through the ASM pipeline. Wants to make sure they have more expertise than just being a consumer over 21.
Rummel says there is a difference between people in the bar – could have an 18 – 21 person and get away from issue of age – entertainment license. Would like to see referral. Would like to see it worked out. Referral to which committee is up to the committee. She says if they vote, the amendment won’t prevail but she thinks people are in support of the discussion.
Lots of talking on top of each other. A little chaos and I didn’t catch anything, but nothing seemed significant.
Maniaci says that many years ago she was there taking photos for the newspaper and the ALRC asked her questions about cabaret license because she was the only young person in the room. She does really think there is great value in having that voice. Someone who is 19 would be in Madison 3 years to serve their term and she thinks it would be a positive improvement to have the ALRC to have a consumer. Says there are valid issues with having someone of a youthful age in the room.
Eagon wants to vote on it and he likes his amendment because it locks it in. Will also be a student, no matter who cycles through what.
Rummel asks if ASM should appoint. Eagon says it does lock it in to an ASM appointment and says they can vote for it and go back and fix it later. Eagon then says referral is ok.
Bruer says that we need to continue forward because this is a big issue for council members. We still have issues with membership that need to resolve. This is getting slipperier and tavern league vs. non-tavern league issue in history . . . again I didn’t understand what he was saying . . . but at end of day, discussion on debate needs to be done. We need to enhance student representation and he supports that. Citizens and the council need to be involved.
The vote on the amendment is Eagon, Rummel and Bidar-Sielaff vote aye.
Clear, Compton and Schumacher no.
It’s a tie and Bruer votes no.
After they have voted, Compton wants to add something about urging the Mayor to apppoint a student to one of the openings. Clear reconsiders, makes the motion again, says Compton’s idea is friendly, then clarifies that the motion includes the changes making the term 3 years and the effective date of Nov 1.
Rummel says that they should move to referral back to ALRC – they should weigh in on this. We want to hear from stakeholders. It does not mean much to send it to the mayor’s office.
Schumacher says that we need to do some homework, bring more people in [that’s four . . . . ]and then see how it impacts things. Whether we say the Mayor should consider something, we should get the parties involved and then we should vote on it.
Rummel is going to vote against it because it sets in place a new structure.
Schumacher says we just voted 3 months ago and it was a compromise. Tavern League was out to gun this down, there was a bloody war on the way – Judge and Schumacher weren’t clear this was going to pass. Now, to make changes again, we should have done this 3 months ago and they think they go the best they could at the time.
Rummel says that she’s confused now. We’re just undoing work that had been done. This should go to ALRC.
Bruer, says that ALRC has looked at it, crafted a compromise.
Rummel says this is different now.
Bidar-Sielaff says they are talking past each other. Rummel feels it needs more discussion and be referred; Schumacher is talking about what happened three months ago. She acts at the interpreter.
Schumacher says on the student voting issue the ALRC doesn’t care, they want to deal with policy. Adding an alder they didn’t care that much – it was a technical issue. This is not of substantive content for the body – so referring it back to ALRC doesn’t make sense– people were not concerned about the membership – but he is trying not to speak for them – they just seem more engaged in policy decisions.
They attempt to vote again. They clarify the motion but then . . .
Eagon moves to refer to next meeting. Rummel seconds. Rummel and Eagon vote aye, fails.
Passes with Rummel and ? voting no.
After all that, the PSRB seat passes without comment, despite concerns about the plant.
TENANTS RIGHTS AND HIGHER FINES
This just informs tenants they can request the photos that show damaged to their apartment on the check out forms, not in size 5 font, plus upping fines for violating rules and adding fines to the bail schedule (allows police to ticket). Bruer added as co-sponsor, Rummel too, Compton too.
[Holy crap! All previous attempts to add ANYTHING related to the bail schedule regarding tenants’ rights has been fought vigorously by the police department and opposed by Bruer and Compton. We’re living in strange times . . . or they have forgotten the issues and the police were asleep at the wheel!]
Item 9 was referred by Rummel – it was a discussion about forming a committee to look at licensing issues.
TIF “BUT FOR” DISCUSSION
Bruer informs the group that the “Mayor wants” 2 members of Board of Estimates, 2 members of Economic Development Commission and 2 members of the CCOC to be on a committee to discuss TIF policy. Compton volunteers. [Rumor has it he is appointing Rummel as well.]
Compton says that she wants to change the TIF policy; this is for industrial TID (TIF District), not residential TID, so this is not a wide discussion on everything. This is about what we are allowed to look at under state law for industrial TID.
Bidar-Sielaff asks if didn’t we didn’t just work on this. They say yes.
Bruer wants to hear from May. He says historically CCOC worked on policy and he thought this was a good place to discuss this because there is so much interest. [He’s justifying taking power by referring more policy items to CCOC where the Mayor has less control.] Wanted to make sure there was a cross section of discussion and involvement. Knows it is just industrial TIF but we just recently worked hard on this.
Clear asks a process question – he asks if it is the pleasure of the body to discuss this now or support the work group Bruer just described that would report back to CCOC and then have the discussion.
Bruer wants to have city attorney discuss it first.
Compton says this is a changing of the policy.
Bruer says that he’d like to utilize CCOC as a forum to better understand the issues.
Compton agrees with Clear, this is going to be an action item for discussion if the mayor chooses to have a committee to look into it – if they don’t come before us, we can still discuss it at this time. But at the moment we are asking people to make a decision without the knowledge of that body (the suggested committee).
Bidar-Sielaff notes they are not making a decision, this is just a discussion item.
Bruer says it is a briefing alders asked for.
Bidar-Sielaff says we should look at the memo May wrote, we should ask our questions so they are in the notes and that can inform the committee.
Bruer says that is what he was trying to do.
May says that says he doesn’t have much to add to the memo. Questions were could the city under state legal limitation change the policy with the gap financial analysis when looking at but for. He says he looked at legal barriers. He concluded you are not barred, but there are concerns and you have to take those concerns into account. TIF law doesn’t define “but for” – gap financial analysis vs. competitive factors, not answered by state law or court cases but there is some deference to local bodies as they make the decision.
The second issue, public purpose test, he has a little more concern there. Yellow light, not red or green. Proceed with caution. Use of funds and what is a public purpose is the issue. Courts have been deferential but if going to go that direction, make sure you aren’t being arbitrary, need some standards. Expressed serious concerns about how to write those standards in that competitive analysis.
Clear says he read some of the Department of Revenue guidelines and asks if those are guidelines or have the force of law, because they have “but for” test and they make it really clear that is required.
May says Department of Revenue are guidelines, they talk about financial issues not competitive issues. He called the Department of Revenue and asked them and they said they punt on that one and not going to answer it. So, he says that wasn’t much help. Department of Revenue guidelines talk about financial need in talking about the “but for” analysis and that would support keeping our current system.
Compton says there are communities around us that have not used financial criteria and asks how many of them have ended up in court. May says he doesn’t know how they apply the test but not aware of litigation. The closest one was Wis Dells or Sauk City that is mentions in the memo, is the Olson case.
Compton asks his interpretation of law – we have an anchor that meets need for TIF and we choose to give them the money – she says it’s not giving them the money – pretense of corporate welfare – we are talking about infrastructure – if we take the seed and use the TIF money is there anything that would demand that anyone that came into that area and opened a business then we would have to give them money because people would come after them for discrimination and she said that is what she heard at BOE – we would have to give it to everyone because we would be discriminating.[Sorry, that’s what she said, didn’t clean it up.]
May says that there is a possibility that they could complain there was an inappropriate use of public funds without clear standards – but you as a public body ought to be able to defend why you gave the money just out of fairness, even I no lawsuit. There has been litigation, mostly by a taxpayer.
Rummel reminds them that there was a TIF policy committee that met for two year and we prioritized certain areas such as job creation – the blight study is her pet peeve – it is a state standard and it could a be correctable blight to create a district without poverty – she says that we are supposed to be focusing on higher need areas and we should be do job creation. She says the chair of the TIF committee [Tripp Widder] constantly reminded us that TIF is a real estate tool and not a job creation tool. She says the policy is that if you agree to create jobs you can jump ahead in line. We need to look at what are high need areas and what are our priorities – use the economic development plan we came up with and we need to look at it. Can’t support giving money to Danisco, it’s a race to the bottom – we don’t have standards to know when to give them money – with no standards you can’t defend spending the tax payers money.
Compton says that we did magnificent work, but we did not wait for the new Economic Development Director.
Rummel interrupts and says we asked him when he was new and he said we didn’t need to wait.
Compton says this is about industrial TID, industrial TIDs are not about blight.
Rummel says we need to figure out where we want to use it.
Compton says we need good input, isolate the industrial TID and we need jobs and if a business need $200,000 or $400,000 to do a project of millions – we need to invest. Industrial TIDS are different and this is why we need to do this – this is not a hand out this in an investment in infrastructure. Not like building a library – these jobs will be 25 years to retirement every day of the week. We are losing those jobs to the periphery, TIF is a drop in the bucket but we need to look into it. We need to capture these businesses and maintain the businesses we have here. Otherwise everything we are doing is for no reason – she lists off housing and other policies.
Bidar-Sielaff – agree there needs to be a subcommittee to take a narrow look at this issue, but wants to make sure that this is a narrow discussion. We have a very good TIF policy and it needs to be narrow and perhaps look at what attorney May mentions about competitive factors.
Rummel shows list of other state funds available – maybe that can be part of what the committee looks at – they have other tools.
Clear says that he appreciates them asking for that list and asks MMikolajewski whether the list is for businesses and organizations to apply or is city involved? Mikolajewski says that they typically follow up with the Department of Commerce and encourage the businesses to submit. There is a list of past 10 years that the city has worked collaboratively to secure funds for larger businesses. For smaller businesses they go to Madison Development Corp and WIBBIC (which the city funds).
Gromacki says our policy says that we should do the best to leverage other programs, with real estate that isn’t as big of a problem as there are few programs, with industrial there is a plethora of other programs. And it seems that we just look at TIF for everything. Says with the Pelletterri project, they are leveraging SBA405 financing, first time we have used that. That would be a good thing the more we can leverage other dollars, not just private investments, that makes our dollars go further.
Bruer asks if it doesn’t meet “but for”, do we look at other project. Answer is yes. Gromacki says Oscar Mayer was sent to Department of Commerce for energy efficiency program. He says the Norton Wingra partners in Clear’s district didn’t qualify for TIF but we could help them through the Capital Revolving Fund. He notes we helped Tomo Therapy [or tired to] but there are instances where they used other programs. At Oscar Mayer they found a state program. He thinks especially with small businesses there are more programs and that is where jobs are created.
Compton agrees on residential TIF, everyone wants it, but this body need to know that we don’t have more than 6 industrial TIDS out there, people are not beating down the doors, there are so many more needs that we need to look at.
And with that, they adjourned
