Council failed to override the Mayor’s veto, staff contracts renewed and they share their visions for the next 5 years, northside Tenneyson Ridge affordable housing project passes, Allied Drive Grocery Store report passes after some comments and an embarrassing moment as the council refers the $13M TIF for Anchor Bank.
GETTING STARTED
Chris Schmidt is in the chair as the Mayor is gone for most of the week.
Roll Call – John Strasser is an excused absence, everyone else is present.
Denise DeMarb moves to suspend the rules to introduce things at the end of the meeting and to take things out of order.
#1 – passes on voice vote
It’s 6:34, 4 minutes in to the meeting and they discuss if they want to do the consent agenda or wait until 6:45 as is on their agenda. DeMarb wants to just do the consent agenda. Schmidt says it is up to the body but if he was making the motion he would wait and take a 10 minute recess. DeMarb moves to take it up early – on a voice vote the no’s were louder, Schmidt says he is in doubt and is about to ask for a roll call when DeMarb moves to take up items 2 and 3 which are the confirmation of 5 year contracts for staff. Schmidt rules that the motion failed.
STAFF 5 YEAR CONTRACT CONFIRMATION
#2 Paul Kronenberger, IT Director
Marsha Rummel asks about visions and mission and goals for the next 5 years.
Kronenberger starts with continuations of things already started. They are working on having their software work together, expanding information available on line for the public and more electronic functions for staff in food service area and planning department. He says these are multi-department issues. He wants to do more with transparency of information available to the public, especially financial, due to the new ERP system. That is development, on infrastructure they are working on connectivity for libraries and community centers and improving access for the city and the public. They are helping the school district as well and connected 27 schools with better speed. They are working with traffic engineering to automate traffic signals and increasing communication with vehicles and optimize the flow of traffic. The fiber optic network will help improve that. He says that they are in a good situation with equipment for city employees, they have desk tops, laptops and tablets as needed.
Rummel asks about the hiring practices and gender and racial equity, what are your goals for your department. Kronenberger says the majority of his staff are women, 60%, they do participate in the AASPIRE interns, they had two last year. They hired one former AASPIRE intern. They are participaing with the YWCA with the Y-web program. They are reaching out but there is more they can do, he is on the Racial Justice and Equity Steering Committee and he is interest to be on the forefront personally but he is also looking at how his department can help others through technology.
Scott Resnick asks him to say more about the infrastructure and how other cities are doing hackathons and other events and how the IT department will work with the coding community in the future, can the council help with outreach, how can the general public use our technology more. Kronenberger says that they had a hackathon a year ago, they asked city agencies to come up with ideas for the what the community could help with, for themselves and the public, they went through a process to come up with 100s of ideas and they provided it to the hacking community but he isn’t aware of anything coming out of that. He has worked with Code for America where they bring people to site (a brigade) and do a project, often communities with tremendous needs. He thinks they might be helpful.
Maurice Cheeks asks about his list of things, most are in action now, but his department gets to me more forward thinking than others, can you give them some suggestions of things he’d like to see the council empower him to do or you think the city will start doing in the next few years. Kronenberger says providing internet service to the residents of Madison, they started last year with the Digital Access committee, they are looking at internet access for low income communities and Obama announced some changes to laws that might help if it passes. He says it could eventually be for all neighborhoods, there is some funding to study to see if we can create an internet coop. He sees a need from the council to help with more money to complete the project, both capital and operating budget expenses.
Cheeks asks if he has another example of something we might not be thinking of yet. Municipal internet is great, but have you seen something we haven’t thought of yet. Kronenberger says there are many topics you can read about, but one item he is interested in is Big data, to determine trends for the city. One challenge is how does that apply to the city, its more obvious with consumer trends in private industry. Has a lot of promise but needs more definition, field continues to develop rapidly. He was tlaking to Johnson Controls staff and he was thinking about how it might apply to government.
Motion to confirm his appointment passes unanimously on a voice vote.
Confirmation of Rob Phillips, City Engineer
Rummel asks Rob Phillips to fill them in on questions she asked earlier in the day.
Rob Phillips says that on transportation and streets and bridges, they believe in a balanced transportation system, meaning they don’t serve cars to the detriment of bikes, they try to balance modes to have the co-exist, there is no formula, but it has worked well for them. They want to build quality transportation systems, they maintain their pavement rating and they are looking at cost effective ways to maintain the streets, they have to also be cognizant of the borrowing as they move forward. They are working on a green roads policy, they hired a staff person with experience in that. On bikes they are interested in a mode shift to cycling through convenience, they are working on projects to encourage biking, Traffic Engineering works on that too. He thinks there is an emphasis to commuting downtown and there is an opportunity to bike to other employment centers, West Towne, East Towne and UW Research Park, they are well on their way to making it easy to get there. Staff enjoy working on it, they built a lot in railroad right of ways, wasn’t easy, but they are completing projects where there wasn’t right of way. ON facilities they are designing a lot of buildings these days, they try to have quality buildings, LEED certified, water and energy conservation projects. They are working on renewable energy, hot water solar and photovoltaic green roofs. Sewer Utility they are trying to maintain the system and maintain reasonable rates. Stormwater Utility is an area of growth for them. The goal is to improve water quality in lakes and streams and meet state requirements for suspended solids, they relaxed those standards, the phosphorus requirements is more challenging. He says they need to look at reducing flooding and keeping an affordable rate structure. Rummel asked about vehicle miles traveled and how that impacts them. Madison is poised to grow more rapidly than any community in the state, 40,000 more people by 2040, also intercity is seeing growth which is good and the fringes are seeing growth as well. There has been a decline in vehicle miles traveled, but it is stabilizing, he thinks it might increase in the near future, but it might stabilize and grow with the population. Much of what happens in this area is dependent upon technology of the vehicles and fuel costs. He says that how convenient we make transit will also have an effect. We have been more successful in encouraging people to take other modes of transportation than other places. Other communities can be envious of us. We need to continue to grow, we want developers to invest in Madison, so we have to make this a place where developers want to invest, we should monitor the milleniums to see what they are doing and make adjustments. They look at each project individually, they have undertaken capacity reduction projects in the past and should continue looking at those opportunities, but can’t overreact to reductions in vehicle miles traveled. We don’t work in a vacuum, there are communities near by that people can choose to live in. He says Rummel also asked about climate change, and there are four key areas, we have to be responsible in our small part of the world, reduced energy use, solar, etc make a difference in our part of the world and hopes we are a role model. Education is another area, ice storms and Madison may be 6 degrees warmer in the near future and that could result in more storms, we need to educate people to be prepared for emergencies. Emergency preparedness is something they do and they do drills and put practices in place. Lastly infrastructure improvements and projects that reduce flooding are important, expensive unfortunately.
DeMarb thanks him for commitment to bike paths to employment districts out of the downtown area and she hears about how that will reduce parking pressures. She asks what a green road is. Phillips says it is about sustainability, recycling pavement, accommodating pedestrians and bikes, a lot of these things we do already. For stormwater infiltration, retention, landscaping, trees, etc.
Anita Weier says Mr. Phillips is one of the hardest working people she knows, easy to work with and is a very nice guy.
CONSENT AGENDA
Schmidt moves on to public hearings, DeMarb interrupts him to do the consent agenda. Pass everything on the agenda as recommended except the following.
4 – 10 public hearings, 5 has registrants.
#13 – Billboards
#21 – Kickstarter for Elver Park
#22 – $575,000 for software
#23 – $13M for Anchor Bank
#44 – Allied Drive Grocery
The following items take an extra majority vote – 15 votes and will be recorded as unanimous. 22, 26, 28, 43, & 45
42 has a substitute at their desk
Rummel votes no on 26 and 19
Resnick pulls 19 (police scopes) off the consent agenda.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
#4 – Open public hearing, close public hearing, no registrants, motion passes on voice vote.
#5 Tennyson Ridge Project
Bev Metcalfe against, lived in her house for 30 years, many neighbors lived there since neighborhood was built – petition signed by 60 neighbors, asked alder not to support but he has continued to support it. Our vice president of he neighborhood has been speaking for us but most of us didn’t know we had a neighborhood association. They have one of the most densely populated low-income neighborhoods in Madison, she submitted a letter. She feels there is too much to be taken care of, many troubled neighborhoods that need to be cleaned up and if that happened there would be plenty of affordable housing on the northside. She is worried about the school, they would be attending Lakeview which is the poorest in the city, 3 of the 4 schools most challenged by poverty are on the northside. Classrooms with a majority of low income students don’t do as well as schools with a balanced population, she wants to know why they would increase the number of low income students in those classrooms. They want it to remain single family residential. She doesn’t think it should have another low income or subsidized apartment complex in the middle. She wants it to remain the best it can as it has been for 50 years
Aaron Williams – working for Tom Sather Co – Landscape Architect – reapproving it, approved last year, expires tomorrow. That happened cuz didn’t get WHEDA credits but have reapplied. Density is imperative, this is a major arterial and it makes sense to have more density there, single family development will happen further in, they need the zoning for the WHEDA application. They are making changes along Elliot to make more green space to preserve the oak grove and connectivity for the neighborhood.
Tom Sather- They have been working on this for a year and a half. Identical to what they approved last year. They got zoning and financing from the city. They had issues with WHEDA because they like to see public private participation and they lost 21 points on their application, missed by 9 points, they got funding from Federal Home Loan Bank and Madison remediation funds and other funding. Palm has done a good job informing the neighborhood, 5 neighborhood meetings to address concerns, he thinks there is a miscommunication, section 42 has to be a high quality product, residents make good incomes. He shows quality of other section 42 products and compares them to section 8 properties (smaller, high concentration of low income people, few amenities, older andrun down) and that can lead to problems. He says in comparing this to section 8 the residents make an average of $10000 and pays an average of $250 in rent. Their residents will make 3 times that, average rent is $900. They do believe that with public-private funding it will score well. Site is currently occupied by environmentally contaminated industrial building, will be costly to clean up, most developers wouldn’t take the time, they can do it due to funding. Introduces Kelly Edwards from Oakbrook to answer management questions. WHEDA has point scoring for participants and they get top scores for property management.
Also registered in support is Kelly Edwards and Tom Keller.
Anita Weier asks about the vinyl siding, would they consider changing that, he says they can. He says they have preliminary planned development and if get credits will work with people on design elements, they have to go back to UDC for final approval and will work with people on those elements.
Cnare asks why removal of single family lots is a good thing. He says that part of the project was to extend Elliot Lane and they were worried about the mature oak grove by the school so Keller agreed to bend the road to save the trees and there is no longer a double loaded road and the lots got too small and they redrew the lot lines and have more open space.
DeMarb asks staff – adopt with conditions.
DeMarb says that they are looking at developments that stand the test of time, if this was in her neighborhood, her neighbors would be concerned about the look and management, can you talk to that at all. She is bringing it up because she knows they are voting on zoning and will probably vote in favor, but when it comes back she wants to vet it carefully. Kevin Firchow says that there are numerous conditions of approval, has to go back to Urban Design Commission (UDC), also more details from Plan Commission – those issues need to go back to UDC. The management plan also has to be filed as finalization of conditional use.
Weier disagrees with the change from single family and how it impacts the land next to it. She thinks public officials were misled about community support earlier and has to vote no.
Subeck hopes they will vote for it again, they are just revoting for what they approved. She says she has one project in her district, one near it and almost no one knows that it is Section 42, this is what we need to be doing to get away from the project mentality.
Passes unanimously on a voice vote, I heard no nos despite Weier’s comments.
Items 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10 each have their public haearing opened and closed without comment or registrations and adoption passes on a voice vote.
BILLBOARDS
John Sobotic – in opposition – supports mayor veto, vote against override. He has 25 years dealing with billboard regulation, the mayor’s point in the veto is critical to understanding and controlling the industry. If you override you are giving future alders future headaches with unlimited lifetime. Madison is certified city, the industry has to get permits from city instead of state, he reviewed the ordinance, it will take the city out of compliance with state law due to defects with it, that will require secondary permitting from the state and that will affect your districts. If the city is out of compliance, state permitting would be required on Park St, Hwy 151, East Washington Ave etc would require state permits for billboards, that creates headaches for city staff and others. Sign permits should always be for limited periods of time, if you don’t, you create a real estate interest. If he leases the property to a billboard company and they have a permanent lease, you have a deeded interest in the land, it will be next to impossible to get rid of the signs, its difficult to get down once it is up and if you want to eliminate the visual blight you can’t do that. He says that the companies will be back and they are insatiable in their appetite, expect to see many, many future requests. think long and hard before voting on this.
Jason Saari – Real estate manager (lobbyist) for Adams Outdoor Advertising. He disagrees with every word the previous guy said, it took him off guard, he is at a loss about what to say. He goes to his prepared remarks. In the proposed ordinance the city not required to buy anything out, any money that changes hands is between sign company and the developer. The ordinance is restrictive, there are many areas they cannot put signs. The permit procedure is the same as the last 20 years and the process hasn’t been a problem for them or the city. Expiration dates on sign permits are problematic, he says regardless of it if is illegal is besides the point, this is a bad business model. This ordinance solves a lot of problems for Cannonball Ridge, Villager, Union Corners, and in the future Regent St. Madison has far fewer signs than other cities. Businesses use billboards to thrive, they are good for the economy. They have donated 3/4 million in nonprofit space in the past year for the March of Dimes, Second Harvest, UW Cancer Research, American Heart Association, Ronald McDonald House, etc. This is a responsible, common sense ordinance with plenty of control. If the city finds the new ordinance doesn’t work, there is a 5 year sunset.
Brenda Konkel (yes, me, awkward) I watched the debate on this last time, and was surprised to see the council shift so much in the other direction, and that is what prompted me to attend tonight, along with another item. Mike Verveer’s comments, and Lauren’s Cnare’s comments about how we have a standing court date with Adam’s spoke to me the most. The law as we have it now has been litigated many times and the minute you change the ordinance it opens up more headaches for the city. Simpler language isn’t always better, the language needs to be clear and staff needs that guidance, that also will open up more opportunities for lawsuits. The main reasons I came is because this is at the core of who we are as a city. We talk alot about equity, metrics and looking at things through an equity lens and this is one of those issues that addresses what we have been talking about. Are we going to go with the business community and Chamber of Commerce and who will make the most money or are we going to stick up for our neighborhoods. If you look at where the signs will be removed from higher income neighborhoods like Regent and they will be put where lower income people will live. Look at the map. What will the messages to those neighborhoods be, will it be pawn shop and other such businesses. What will that be saying to those neighborhoods. You as an alder will have little say over what those messages are and where the signs go. Low income housing, the more affordable housing, end up living near the roads where these is noise. The buyouts from the city will continue as long as we have TIF, there will be a gap and we will still end up paying as a city. Finally, I had no idea this was about billboards, you need to work on the titling, I saw signs and that it was going to UDC and thought that it was another discussion about signs at UDC and never opened it, I had no idea it was about billboards and if you want the public to participate, you need to title it so they know what it is.
Dorothy Krause, Alder and County Board Supervisor from Fitchburg was also here on another item, Adams has them next up for a lawsuit for the same reason as the bike bridge sign. She would not like them to override the veto. Let them die. I don’t like to have all this advertising in my face, we have businesses where we restrict their signage, we fight over a windsock. 20 years ago they did not have the advertising the internet affords, they had newspapers and billboards, the internet is plenty to replace that. They have two billboards left, she would not like to see them take one down and put a new one up every 40 years and continue into the future. It’s time to have billboards go away.
One more registrant against.
Questions of registrants
Shiva Bidar Sielaff asks me about my strong statement that they would be moved from higher income neighborhoods to lower income neighborhoods, like what happened at the Villager. I say (awkward) that it may happen from time to time, but my experience as an alder in district 2 with East Washington where there is pressure to develop, the pressure will come where they build housing for high income people, not low income people and move the billboards, the neighborhoods where the pressure is tend to be more middle class and I don’t see putting up new billboards in those areas, but moving them to other areas of town. That might just be my experience as an alder on E. Washington. The tendency is for it to be the way I describe. Bidar says, so its just your assumption. I say no, look at the maps, where they can go, there are more options in lower income neighborhoods.
Ledell Zellers asks about expecting more litigation as a result of a change of the law. I (awkward) say that the words have been there for a while, they have been litigated, and when you change the words, you open it up for more litigation about what the new words mean, I didn’t have anything specific about which words. They must have full time attorneys that do nothing but sue the city and when you change the words, you open that up.
Subeck asks the first speaker to explain what is your background on billboards, where does that come from. He says he is an attorney with DOT, he is not testifying not on their behalf, he lives in the city of Madison. Concerns with the last comment on lawsuits, he agrees, sign industry practice it to litigate over everything.
Bidar Sielaff asks Sobotic why it is a good idea to have limited time for the types of sign, what other cities have such limitations. He says he hasn’t reviewed municipal ordinances, but if you have a limit, the future council can get rid of it, if you don’t, there is an interest in real estate created and you can’t get rid of it. In 1972 billboards were supposed to go away when they wore out, but now they are 50 years old and going strong, they get replaced over time in pieces, they hide where they are replaced, they fight tooth and nail to get them to follow the law, theydon’t do it voluntarily, they struggle when want to get rid of these things.
Rummel asks about how the ordinance is out of compliance with state law and require secondary permit from state. He says its highly technical, city ordinance doesn’t allow construction now, so no problem with state law currently. Right now they can’t have any billboards within any controlled area, 660 from a highway and the ordinance only covers the interstate and not other areas and not beyond 660 feet from the highways. This is the west beltline and interstate interchange.
Rummel says that the boundaries would not set? Sobotic says it is highly technical, he leaves it to Mr. May to give them further advice, it is the Bermuda triangle of billboard regulations.
Verveer asked about experience with other municipal ordinances that might have cap and replace. He says all kinds of models in urban planning journals, his role is with state regulation and doesn’t offer advice to municipalities and hasn’t had to deal with it, just telling what he knows about the industry, would be glad to look for it and sure planning department would have access to – ordinance works well, when change it, will be in court.
Verveer asks if he has professional experience in the City of Madison, or because of our existing ordinance there are no secondary permits, he says his is about state highways – he is familiar with beltline i9-90 and i94 – Verveer asks if there are any anecdotes that would show difficulties at the state that we would be familiar with – none within the city limit. He says the tax case the city went through was huge from the state stand point. He has a case to brief on billboard on i90 north of town, LaMarr is the company, it was a painted structure with letters glued to it, now there are three posts, it is wider than it is tall, its covered in vinyl wrap, it has a different apron, nothing like it was, they have been in 2.5 years of litigation about if it is the same sign as in 1972, we will go to court of appeals cuz they always do.
Bidar-Sielaff asks the Adams Outdoor Advertising lobbyist if he is aware of any municipalities that have time limits or expiration dates. He says there is two ways to answer the question. One is amortization ordinances where they give a time limit to remove all the billboards, in 2006 state legislation made that not allowed under zoning ordinance. The other way is exaction, if in a conditional use permit conditions to not renew the lease for the billboard, in 2006 that law was also changed to make that illegal.
Bidar asks about how not allowing deterioration so that we can do away with them, which for the record we all would like to, besides you, but could you speak to what state law allows you to do for upkeep. He says state law is similar to city law – repairs up to 50% value of sign, court case in 200 or 2008 in Wausau that said the cost of repairs is the replacement cost of the structure. Madison is 50% of replacement as well.
DeMarb asks about 50% of the value, can you define the value. He says it used to be gray area, assessed or replacement value. He says it is replacement value.
Qeustions of Staff
Cnare says she is working with Adams Outdoor Advertising at work at University of Wisconsin, they are providing free advertising for an event they are having in January 31st, go get your health insurand. She spoke with the city attorney on this and disclosure is always proper but not recusing herself because she gets no benefit from it and they are working with other colleagues.
Bidar-Sielaff, asks about the 40 year limit, are there other municipalities that put an expiration? Michael May, the city attorney, doesn’t know, neither does his staff.
Subeck asks how the billboard can be replaced under current ordinance. Tucker says realignment of billboard affected by state road construction project, there is a new billboard by Verona Rd. by Home Depot. If they couldn’t have replaced it through realignment, would they have been able to place it elsewhere in the city – no.
Subeck says purple zones on the map they can’t put them there, can’t go there now? Tucker doesn’t understand the question. Subeck says the only way the billboards could go there is if permits were issued due to previous litigation. Tucker says there are a few that need to be placed due to lawsuit settlement in taxation lawsuit, of the 3, purple areas of map may not accurate cuz part of that settlement was where current ordinance allows it – annexed areas are not included, they were demonstrating cap and replace when they created the map, so they didn’t pull out the annexed areas. Subeck asks if there are other limitations, last time she thought that there would be a process to place them beyond staff or plan commission lever, are there any exceptions if something is close to a residence, or on small single tiny lots, there is one lot 2 doors down from where she lives, which she uses as an example, she lives in a condo and it would be on one side of apartment and billboard on the other side, could they do that, would something prevent it from going there? Tucker said it would probably be approveable, the ordinance adopted a few weeks ago would allow it, it would limit size to 300 sq ft instead of 750 if 45 miles per hour or greater, the one area or process part might be, it might require a conditional use alteration and the alder might have to approve that.
Rummel asks if the ordinance was not overridden, it would require a secondary permit, what would that mean. May says he is not sure he agrees, he says it explicitly adopts the state laws, our position is that we want to look at this and see if there is a tweak that needs to be made, but even if out of compliance, all it means is they have to get two levels of approval. With current ordinance we are certified, and there isn’t much to approve because we don’t approve new ones. Rummel says we would never not approve one. May says he thinks the speakers concern is that it might look like they could put a sign in a certain spot but they still need to get the state’s approval and the state might say no. Initially they didn’t think they crossed that line, this isn’t something they can fix tonight.
Lucas Daley asks if they override and the ordinance goes through, can we remove this ordinance at any time, or does something prevent us from doing it? May says they could amend it, but the concern would be if the billboard company has a right we created, we might not be able to take away a property right.
Verveer asks about the amendment and the language about “elimination” and what change would be required for cap and replace and wattage restrictions. Tucker says lighting applies to all signs, they discovered that technology is changing how it measure light, from watts to measurement of amount of light, so they changed that language.
Verveer asks about veto message and replacement sign permit, what is the existing process and if mayor’s veto is overridden the process will remain the same with lack of jurisdiction of plan commission or council. Tucker says currently you can only realign with DOT project. Verveer asks about the 3 signs as a result of settlement, what is the process now, and what it will be the future. Settlement established the rules of replacement. They get an application, they open the settlement and look at the language in the settlement and they use the code as it exists, places limited to purple map, prohibited in red area, historic districts and requires placement in ordinance today, including distance form signs, highways, height measurements, etc. Some things they run into are unique or unusual conditions, CSM issues with one of them and had to remove a condition. Conditional use alterations might be required (alder and staff) Fees for sign permit are also calculated and then they could pick up the permit. The remaining 3 billboards will look at the original ordinance. For new ordinance need to generate square footage, that process is in the steps to bank square footage, after the site is picked, similar process but a few new requirements, different way to measure height, they are required to be closer to the road and not stacked behind each other, so the area is not congested, annexed area litigation is not part of new ordinance, annexed after 1987 would be included, there may be other issues they will have to work through.
Verveer asks about calculation about how much land has been annexed since 1987 and does this also allow for replacement signage in areas still to be annexed like the Town of Madison? Tucker says no calculation of amount of area because the annexation maps are not digitized yet. If this change was in place and 3 remaining billboards in the settlement, they would have no reason to capture that data, the only reason we need the data is to regulate billboards. It will allow that areas to get new billboards, including Town of Madison and Burke. The situation they might run into, it could end up on the same property, they could bank it and redo it on the same property.
Verveer says that was an interesting point not raised two weeks ago.
Zellers asks about annexed lands, would that presumably allow additional spots for billboard when the distance required (like by the betltine) might allow for more opportunities? Tucker says potentially, there is no requirement of a distance form billboard in the City of Madison, it just says another billboard. If in the city, they might be able to put a new one up. They could also find a spot that is better suited, there could be future realignment to have them in compliance with the law.
DeMarb thought she understood it but now confused, under cap and replace, if a billboard was removed from a non purple area, the only place it could be put is in a purple area and in the purple areas there are billboards? Correct. And they can’t be closer than 300 feet from each other? Correct. And she says she assumes they can’t obstruct traffic, Tucker says isn’t sure that it would be obstructing drivers, their vision clearance issues would take care of it, but they are generally higher up. She is trying to get an idea about where they might be placed, how much room do we have given these restrictions. Tucker says that it is unknown, there are some areas that are saturated, he says on N. Stoughton Rd, Atlas area, not much there, but there might be opportunity there.
Resnick asks about capping and replacing in the same location. That is new to him. Is there anything we could do to stop them from capping and replacing on the same site? Tucker says they can bank the footage anywhere and can spend in the purple areas, so could bank it at their purple area conforming site where there isn’t optimal visions for traffic or dated structure. You could draft something to do that, or the attorneys could.
Resnick asks Attorney May as well. May says that he thinks that is the correct reading and they could try to draft something. Lara Marinella says that there is a condition that could be on the list of criteria in the ordinance, to not place it in the same lot, that would be a policy choice, not a legal problem. Tucker says the issues is that the property could be changes over time and there might be questions about what the original lot was, they tried to draft some language and there were issues. That is why they leaned towards redevelopment, that made it clear when it would be allowed, that wasn’t adopted. It would be hard to track the property over time, what if they came back in 5 years and wanted to put the sign there. Schmidt says that the redevelopment issues was resolved in the clarification language, Tucker agrees.
Schmidt asks May about realignment issue and asks him to explain the law and how it costs us money? May says that when there is a case involving a state project, they have to be able to realign and if we refuse then we pay the value of the billboard not the state. In other instances in the country, the state pays. Tucker says that it can be realigned but our ordinance doesn’t allow it, then we have to pay.
DeMarb asks May to clarify if we could be required to pay the value – what is the value. May says different when condemn than when tax. There would probably be litigation, they would want present value. DeMarb says it would not be replacement cost in this case. She asks what a ballpark number might be. May says depends upon location, a couple hundred to $600,000 – 700,000 for one billboard.
Discussion
Clear asks if they want to have happen what happened with cell phone towers to happen to billboards, he says that they run a risk if they don’t pass the ordinance.
Zellers says she doesn’t like to make laws premptively if we don’t believe it, thinking that if we don’t do it it will be done to us. In the last discussion there was the statement that billobards aren’t evil, and she agrees, they aren’t, they are a business, but she also are not an attractive feature of our city. We would be undermining the gradual eventual attrition, and she realizes it would be gradual, but we still have an opportunity for that to happen with the current ordinance. She says she has an example in district 2 where a developer made it a condition of their offer to not renew the billboard. If this ordinance was in place as passed, there would be little incentive to not renew it, the billboard company could do cap and replace, and the billboards would be banked and removed from district 2. Some of the purple areas of the map they can’t be placed in, cuz of Urban Design Districts. She wants them to sustain the veto because they might go away, otherwise the square foootage will be with us forever, not in district 2, but in other areas of the city, and she cares about the whole city.
Resnick says the one troubling piece is if they can amend it, May says no. Schmidt says they have 4 options, override, override and reconsider (on next agenda), uphold, refer veto override to next meeting. 5th contingency is to adopt and then make changes later. He repeats it again.
Resnick says he would like to see an amendment so that they can’t bank something and then before they could make any changes, rebank and areas immediately after they pass this. He doesn’t see that option on the table, so unless there is something creative to bring it back as soon as possible. We only have what is in front of us. May says they would have to have proposed amendments for the next meeting, May says they can’t get to the underlying ordinance tonight.
Subeck says she was torn, she voted for last time, but she is voting against overriding the veto, there were things glossed over as it relates to council approval and how to get a sign in the purple area, she partially blames herself for not asking questions, she didn’t realize there was administrative approval with staff having no leeway could be placed in any purple areas and when she looked at the maps he says lots of areas are like by her home where a billboard would tower over housing, but she suspects that some of them may or may not be residential, but where people live nearby. She would be open to another version at some point, this isn’t soup after all, she would be comfortable with referring the veto and come back with amendments but Schmidt says they can’t come up with amendments in the next two weeks, she will vote against overriding the veto, there is just more info than they had at the last meeting and it has changed her mind.
Bidar-Sielaff asks about if they wanted to amend underlying legislation, if we override they could reconsider at next meeting you could do that. May says new ordinance would be in place and then they could reconsider and if approved it would be before them, but they can’t do it tonight. She asks if they could override and at any point people could amend it, there is no time limit? Yes. They don’t need to go through reconsideration? Yes. If they uphold the veto tonight, it kills the proposal, could they introduce a similar proposal at the next meeting? May says they need to wait 60 days or whatever the ordinance says. It has to be substantially different
Clausius says this has been before him since 2007, he remembers in his rookie days that he was going to trade a billboard location for a branch library location and former alder recused him, he thinks Schmidt did a good job, he would vote to override.
Schmidt asks if he can speak from the chair, Subeck objects (“DeMarb you have the comm” says Schmidt) Subeck says wants to see DeMarb in the chair. jokes, more jokes.
Schmidt says that there are several points to discuss, the most disturbing that there were things glossed over in the last meeting, he says there is a difference between glossed over and not raised, some were not raised. Some were talked about in the development of the ordinance about replacing on site, they tried to address it and at the end of the day we are talking about someone deliberately spending $100,000 or $150,000 to build a sign on a site where they can simply maintain the one they have. It was one of the situations where we could try to regulate somethign taht is unlikely to happen. He doesn’t think it was glossed over. There was a misunderstanding when I talked to Alder Subeck a day or two ago about the realignments, he thought they had to allow them to replace the sign anywhere, not just on the property. If they can’t, we have to pay, we are still on the hook for it at about $200,000 – 600,000. With road constructions coming up that could be costly, if we had cap and replace that wouldn’t happen, granted, it would go somewhere else. He doesn’t feel like they glossed over anything, sorry if you feel that way and he apologizes for the error earlier. They have had a lot of stuff thrown at them tonight, new information and possibilities and its mostly this might happen or that might happen or this scarey thing could happen, but its not really new information. The issues with state law and state highways, they hit on that and its not as large of an issue and its brought to us in context of billboards we don’t have with replacement over time. Fitchburg Alder Krause brought up a good point about the internet replacing the value of billboards. We are not going to see this industry grow, its not happening even where they are more liberal with them. You are relying on society buying the products on the billboards and there being enough demand from advertisers to use them, you are making the assumption that is true. He doesn’t think this will open up a new set of lawsuits, its easy to say that, they are trying to address the many lawsuits. The reason there are so many law suits is that various levels of government are trying to make an industry go extinct, to make a form of business go away. (2:13 on the audio) Of course there have been lawsuits, businesses don’t generally come out and just roll up their front welcome matt and say gosh, I guess we need to go now. (Someone says something off mic) Schmidt says governments have generally done that where there is a public benefit to doing so, in this case we are talking about some level of visions interference or pollution that quite frankly most people do not find particularly objectionable. Even with the mayor’s veto and the attention, we are getting a rather tepid response, and that should say something to you. This issue is not raising to the level of high concern and we should be putting the right amount of time into it. The equity issue is interesting too, as Alder Bidar Sielaff hinted at, we will be more likely to see billboards leave distressed areas, look at the map Park St, they can’t go back in there because it is an Urban Design District and that is where we want redevelopment to happen, or one of them, same with part of E. Washington, and Sherman area corridor andthose are the places located where neighbors are located, there are some sites they are close to residents, but they are isolated and not high value sites. If they were high value sites they would have been approached for billboards already. The oil place on Gammon Road has not been approached. The PDQ at Raymond and McKenna has not been approached, consider the value to the operator. Annexed lands don’t have that much, this wasn’t even controversial with the mayor. It wasn’t controversial a year ago and it isn’t now. Alot of the annexed lands are zoned residential and billboards can’t go on it. We’re covered on that issue pretty well. If we have a cap and replace ordinance we can avoid buy outs, more effectively than we do now, we used to make it condition of developments, we can’t do that anymore. So that does leave us more in a position of leaving a gap and using TIF to do it and if cap and replace is there you won’t have to pay that. he says they are in a position to approve something we did two weeks ago, and I feel like the council agrees because there was not that much activity on the board. He feels like he needs to address these things that were raised because it was important to address them otherwise the record goes without them. This is a simple way to stick with the spirit of the law, we are not increasing the stock, we are getting something out of it, we are enabling redevelopments that might not have happened without it, and because of the way it is written it may allow us a way out of other situations that might occur that would lead to lawsuits or expenses to the city, the cost of that is small, it takes a year or two to site one, it doesn’t happen over night and if we are going to start talking about how private contracts are going to work between a private billboard company and the property owner and a potential property buyer, we are stepping into dangerous territory. We should stay out of them, there is a reason the ordinances are written this way, we should stay out of them, we don’t approve of them because it is safer and cleaner and he thought as a general rule they wanted to set up rules to be administered by staff, that was the point of the zoning law. That is why we see so much less, we have so many less hearings on development because we wrote the rules to clarify and streamline what we intended. We dont’ ahve this level of review we didn’t have before and we don’t have for other signs, the only review we have is in the urban design districts (really? windsocks? I got a horror story about the words “welcome to” the staff won’t approve) so he hopes they vote to override the veto. Amendments are possible after the fact, if we override the veto or override and then reconsider, he would prefer we override and talk about amendments as separate legislative items because we will just continue this circus atmosphere potentially, of bringing this whole item back and we would be looking at a veto situation and eh can’t predict what the mayor will do because it has become a moving target. He hopes they vote to maintain the approval and yes, please do. Thank you.
Verveer apologizes to Allied folks for making them wait (Important, note this comment for part 2) , he urges them to sustain the mayor’s veto, he urges them to think twice, he thinks there is new information tonight and in the last two weeks, chapter 31 (sign code) is extremely complex and difficult to grasp in plain language reading of it. Thank goodness we have staff that are experts. If we override we are doing a disservice to the staff, they run a risk that the amendment will be published, take affect for one day and that will have unintended consequences, he says he thinks his colleagues think amendments are in order. Why risk having a defective ordinance on the books, even for one day when they can sustain the veto and come back, to perfect it, the city staff have language that they discussed 2 weeks ago that was not introduced to perfect it, it was not introduced. He says they heard for the first time cap and replace in place and annexed lands for the first time. He says the policy was established to not have billboards for decades, last time proposed couldn’t count on one hand the supporters last time. Why the new day, why the sea change? Why the thoughts of of the blight on our community by outdoor advertising have changed is baffling to him. There are many reasons why our urban environment is beautiful, including the lakes, but it is in part because we have fewer billboards than similar cities. He doesn’t believe that given our long litigious history in this community, that our community will be well served with this ordinance, he agrees with the mayor’s arguments in his veto message and he really thinks it is a mistake to allow it, a total trading of billboards by rejecting the Urban Design Commissions recommendations. We should start over and keep in mind our predecessors have said for decades that the policy is that we eventually have no billboards, cap and replace with no limits and unintended consequences is really something we should avoid at all costs, we can come back and do this right, there is no rush, this is not a crisis, we don’t need to do this immediately, reject the motion, sustain the mayor’s veto.
Schmidt says that sustaining the veto is hitting the reset button, this isn’t going to come back quickly if at all, he spent over a year working on it with staff and going through the committee process and he wouldn’t want to do that anytime soon because frankly there are higher priorities, he didn’t intend this to turn into a time sink. They haven’t had a change in the number of billboards for 10 years, its practically been the same for 8 – 10 years. The attrition rate is going to be dropping, they talked about this two weeks ago, he knows he talked about annexation 2 weeks ago, he knows he brought it up, he mentioned it every single time he spoke, it was important people understood that, it was important to say this, its not new information. The argument that this is new information isn’t true, we did talk about it, it might not have risen to the level of attention it is tonight, but its not new information. He could get into the history, he disagrees with Alder Verveer and the fear portion of the argument, that we have a problem that will start the second we pass this, that simply isn’t going to happen. He’s not even sure if the amendments people are talking about will need to be made, the process he went through on amendments led him to the point where they had what they had two weeks ago, he is not sure it is worth going through that again, please override the veto.
Motion is to override the mayoral veto.
VOTE TO OVERRIDE THE VETO
Definitely aye – Bidar Sielaff, Cheeks, Clausius, Clear, Cnare, Daley, King, Palm, Phair, Resnick, Skidmore, Schmidt, DeMarb
Definitely no – Rummel, Subeck, Verveer, Zellers, Ahrens and Weier
The embarrassing parts (x 2) will be posted tomorrow.
