Here’s a recap on the resolution asking the State Legislature to fix the Property Tax Exemption Problem caused by court cases brought to court by the City of Madison.
PUBLIC COMMENT
David Sparer speaks in support. He explains he’s the Vice Chair of Housing Committee and that the Housing Committee has a subcommittee that is working on this issue. He says the committee meetings have had alot of interest and that so many people showing up they had to get bigger room. He says this resolution is sort of what they supported and he wants people to support it, but thinks there are a few things that were changed from the subcommittee and he’d urge that it be amended.
1. Wanted Council to direct the City lobbyists. Leaves that up to Council.
2. What is really important they had 2 “tweaks” to the bill on the vetoed language that would make a change in the state law. The committee felt they were important. He explains that they were drafted by Tim Radelet. He says the current resolution language is only requesting something substantially similar to the vetoed language. He thinks they should be more specific so that they preserve the status quo. He explains that neither of the changes create further exemptions than currently exists. One “tweak” deals with the definition of “benevolent” and he says it needs be modified to include all of the status quo. 2nd “tweak” deals with multiple buildings in the same project that might be on separate tax parcels – without the language each parcel would need to meet requirements on their own while the projects function as a whole.
Mike Basford left before being able to speak.
Dean Loumos – Prefers the original language. His support is qualified because he says the council is acting too late. He’s been working on this for over 5 years. If this policy is not changed at the state level, we will be in a situation at a statewide level that makes affordable housing unaffordable and it will increase in homelessness. Wants lobbyists to go to state with a sense of urgency. Programs won’t be able to pay these taxes. He explains that the law shouldn’t be used to support an absurd result – so his point is why not pass any appeal that comes before them to asks for reinstatement of tax exemption. Put the pressure back on the state. Invites alders to rally at noon on Tuesday. There will be a tent city because we know homelessness is happening and if this is not fixed there will be an increase and the homeless will be sleeping on the Capital grounds and in the City-County Building. Please don’t increase homelessness.
Marilyn Feil – housing case worker for 15 years, member of Affordable Housing Action Alliance but speaking for herself. Wants state to change and wants city to work hard to make it happen. If that doesn’t happen, she wants a Plan B. She says this is going to affect us at the local level. People will lose their housing or people won’t be able to afford the housing they are in. This will create stress and hardship for individuals. Talks about East Pointe apartments and how it has improved and they might hand keys back to the city. While I missed part of what she was saying as someone was talking to me, she made some remark about maybe that is what the city wants – a new project since they are getting done with Allied Drive.
Bob Holloway – Talks about the economic hardship affecting people now, and reminds the Council that some poeple live with it year after year. He says this population is at risk and has fewer people to speak for it and it needs the Council the most. This seems to be a moral imperative, he doesn’t mean to preach, but to encourage the Council to embrace those in our neighborhoods and city that don’t have the resources, opportunity and voice. He says the Council should step up and speak on their behalf so we, as a city can be judged favorably on how we treat those least among us.
11 people registered in in support not wishing to speak.
QUESTIONS OF STAFF
Schumacher says asked all alders to sponsor the original resolution and that many people signed on. The substitute is from meeting with Mayor’s office. He asked Mario Mendoza to speak about changes. However, the Mayor interrupted and offered to speak instead. He said that the most significant is the tweaks that Sparer spoke about. He says he doesn’t have a problem with the language, but thinks that what they have is substanitally similar, and he didn’t want to be hemmed in to specifics while lobbying because sometimes need to make a decision at the last moment as things come up. It is in fact waht they will push for. He just wants room to move.
IS THE CITY STARTING A NEW CHALLENGE TO PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION?
Kerr asks assessor or city attorney about comment in paper about city was also looking at payments to for-profit subcontractors. Is this a new angle the city is pursuing? Assessor says alot of non-profits have money paid to subcontractors and that they always looked at the 990 statement and the payments made to figure out levels of benevolence of the non-profits. They look to see if they are at the same level of expenses as a for-profit.
[Sidenote: Schumacher, Bruer and Joel Plant caucusing in back of room. Verveer joins them, must be on the alcohol issue.]
Assessor continues:
He seems concerned about half million to million dollar payments to property management companies. He says this is not a procedural change to review this and it is something that they have always looked at when reviewing eligibility for exemption. He says those numbers were large so they were a red flag. He says he hasn’t looked at managment percentage to rental income. Has two in non-profits in mind – they happen to be two of the non-profits that took the cases to court. He says they look at this every time someone requests an exemption.
Julia asks if there will be policy or procedure changes, he says its the same as always.
[Sidenote: Bullshit. This is a change to review this.]
MOTION TO AMEND
Alder Rummel moves to add the language back to include the lobbyists in new “number 1”
In “number 3” – add the language that was originally in there on the tweaks.
[Sidenote: “Number 1” refers to the 1st whereas clause, and “Number 3” appears to be a new paragraph.]
Bruer says its friendly, Compton objects and is ignored.
Rummel explains that her language adds sense of urgency and includes the two tweaks discussed by Sparer. [Sidenote: Mayor’s staff turns around and glares at me. HUH? Is everything still my fault?]
Bruer says he thinks the motions were well intended but concerned about dynamics in governor’s office and legislature, reconsidering due to political sensistivies and after being kicked under the table (presumably by Alder Kerr). Now after thinking about the friendliness of the motion, he is worried about bigger picture.
Mayor explains that the first change “just hurt his feelings” (I’m not kidding!) He says that they have been working on it for 5 years. Mayor also says they don’t want to lock themselves into the position with the tweaks. He doesn’t want to be in position to say he agrees but council doesn’t and that would put him in bad position. [Sidenote, are the lobbyists working for him or the Council?]
Alder Compton is uncomfortable directing city lobbyists [She thinks this refers to people who are required to register because they are lobbying city officials – the ones covered by the City lobbying ordinance] and wants to clarify that it means the hired lobbyists who are lobbying the legislature on the City’s behalf. Mayor says he assumes that it means contracted staff, Compton asks the Mayor if he knows what “assume” stand for. There is discussion about how to clarify this, but no changes are made.
Clear can’t support changes – go figure. [He’s such a tool for the Mayor] Thinks it will box the lobbyists into a corner. Thinks that we are directing them to do only one specific thing and the perfect might be the enemy of the good. He says passing something is more important than the exact langauge that we want.
Kerr says that usually agrees with Alder Rummel, but has gotten lobbying 101 and its the most fluid thing she has seen. And she just wants to get to the end goal – tax exempt low income housing.
[Rummel and Solomon and Sparer caucusing in the back of the room – Ray Harmon repositioning his place in the room to eavesdrop.]
Palm says we all know we need to lobby state legislature. He’s surprised he agrees with Alder Kerr that need some latitude here and we’re not in the drivers seat – goes into some driving metaphore I didn’t catch. Thinks its ok to direct the lobbyist and we need to keep end goal in mind.
Rummel says she pulled the words from the original, and she thinks that this language is needed to accomplish what we want. She says we need to define housing so that 75 – 80% of the residents are low income and not 100%. She says that is pretty fundamental. [She didn’t say it, but we’ve been trying to create mixed use housing instead of having projects that are 100% low income.] She says that definition is important. The second “tweak” is important because we need to look at the projects in the aggregate.
City attorney [after consulting with the Mayor] helps with language to say something to the affect that they want something substantially similar to the vetoed language along with the language offered by the Property Tax Exemption subcommittee. That, too, was friendly.
Bruer says this reinforces how much this body and the Mayor’s office is dedicated to bring on legislative change and says its out of our hands. He says the city is dedicated, to the extent that we ignored the city attorney, and he wants to reinforce and urge you [the viewers] to contact the Governor and leadership. He says that there is a cross section of the Council trying to do the right thing to fix what could be a catostropic impact to the city.
Clear ties to clarify the amendment. He gets it wrong. Mayor explains that the city attorney language was to incorporate the language from the subcommittee, but the Mayor wants to clarify the first part. [Even tho Bruer already acepted it as friendly.]
Bruer says he thought it was all one motion.
Compton says she also thought she was misunderstanding – dealing with 1 & 3. Mayor says he thinks 3 was friendly, but 1 was not. [Apparently, he’s just making things up now? No one challenges him.]
Alder Schumacher agrees with Bruer that we are all behind this and thinks that amendment to paragraph three is good mixture – but he doesn’t want to mix means with ends. Doesn’t want to dilute powerfulness of the clauses so he’s opposed to number 1 [the part that hurt the mayor’s feelings]. Wants people to stay focused on goal. We’ll be lucky if legislators even read this and they want to make sure they read the important part. [Note: he doesn’t end up voting that way.]
Solomon says he supports it, but says that he agrees with Alder Bruer’s comments but upset about the process and in part it is the Council’s fault that it got this far. He is upset about the council getting overruled by the City Attorney. He says he’s scared because it sets a dnagerous precedent about our role and we need to not ever find ourselves in this position again. He says this should worry anyone who cares about democracy. He says its our job on the council to do what we think is best and to have that taken away from us is upsetting.
On amenedment 1 roll call on if hurt mayor’s feelings. They clearly did not know what they were voting on as people voted the opposite of what they said on the Council floor. Only Alders Pham-Remmel and Compton voted with the Mayor.
So, both the amendment 1 & 3 pass and the resolution passes unanimously.
