Council Recap Sans Walgreens and Overture

Sorry this is slow, more technical difficulties with the web hosting for our blog, making me very, very unhappy.  Includes bk comments. Only slightly humorous Thuyatrics at the end . . . I really wish I had taken pictures of the looks on alders faces.

GETTING STARTED
The evening was a bit screwed up as they tried to cram in an way too ambitious CCOC meeting along with a high speed rail update so, they did it all poorly and started about 12 minutes late. Recaps of CCOC and High Speed Rail are 2/3s done and will be up later this morning.

Roll Call: All present except Tim Bruer. He planned one of his fundraisers for work to conflict with the council meeting, as he does every year.

Mark Clear moved to suspend the rules. (This will come back to bite a couple alders later in the evening.)

Petition to detach from Madison
Item one, a petition asking to detach from City of Madison and be part of the Village of McFarland. Interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. This item was referred to the next meeting.

Early Public Comment
None.

CONSENT AGENDA
They approved everything on the agenda with its recommendations, with the following exceptions:

Public Hearing Items 2 – 13
14 – appointments
16 – appointments to Overture review committee
34 – Public Market
35 – Overture “comfort” resolution
57 – Animals at Festivals

Items 38 and 87 were extra majority items and a unanimous vote was recorded.

Item 66, the City of Madison paying for County Radio system was referred indefinitely.

Item 41 (land for Copps at Grandview Commons) was referred to Board of Public Works.

And with that, happy staff go home!

WALGREENS
They hear public testimony and talk until 9:30. The State Journal article on it is here. I’m not sure if I’ll get to it or not, its 14 pages of notes and I’m behind on other blogging and my technical difficulties this morning messed me up.

OTHER PUBLIC HEARINGS
Items 6 – 10, report of ALRC passes on a voice vote with a few registrants in support.

Item 11, report of Board of Public Works, resurfacing for Hanson Rd passes on a voice vote.

Items 12 & 13, report of Plan Commission
Jim Skretny from First Settlement Neighborhood Association and Lance McGrath the developer spoke in support of the Water Utility building redevelopment. McGrath thanked the neighborhood association (yes, part of CNI) for accommodating his schedule and working quickly with him.

10 MINUTE RECESS
Which lasts 15 minutes or more, council gets back to work around 9:45.

ANIMALS AT FESTIVALS THAT NEED STREET PERMITS
Clear moves a substitute, Cnare seconds.

Rosemary Lee is registered to testify, but out of the room, so they move on, but let her speak when she comes back.

Mary Carbine (Downtown BID) and Rita ? from Madison Festivals (Taste of Madison) are registered in support, not wishing to speak.

Scott Thornton registered opposed, not wishing to speak.

Questions of Staff
Judy Compton asks the city attorney Michael May if there is any language to exclude police horses or dogs? Are they considered service animals? Yes, she really asked that.

Michael May, City Attorney says they need additional language for that.

Steve King said something I didn’t quite here, but I think it was something to the effect of who is going to enforce the law against the police officers?

Discussion/Amendment
Mike Verveer says that they briefly discussed it, he has no objection to adding the language, he and city attorney didn’t think of it as they were drafting it, as he told Compton, he thinks it is inherent that police animals in the course of duty are exempt, so city attorney would need to draft the language and add a paren (2)(d), which is friendly to him.

There are no objections to the language being added.

More Questions of Staff
Lauren Cnare asks the city attorney about her east side farmers market, there are 20 venders, they have a street use permit or city street vending license, will that be covered by the ordinance, because they like to bring their dogs there.

Michael May doesn’t answer right away, needs to look some things up.

Verveer says that Ms. Lee is now here.

Verveer says Cnare shared this concern with him, he forwarded it to city staff and there was written response from staff stating that the east side farmers market won’t be included because it doesn’t meet the definition relating to what events are covered, that the farmers market doe not have more than 10 licensed food vendors, its clearly not covered, using language in ordinance there are only 5 events that would be covered, the Taste of Madison which requested it and they are here, Art Fair on the Square, Maxwell Street Days and Willy Street Fair as well as Farmers Market on Wednesday – the farmers market on the square is not covered but it is covered by state law. Other farmers markets, some on private property are not covered and those not on private property are covered if 10 or more licensed food vendors per ordinance.

May says if that if Marci Paulson said it is not covered go with her opinion, she is much closer than he has been to this issue.

Rosemary Lee has returned – she supports the amendment 1000%. (That’s not a typo) This is an ordinance to ensure the safety of all animals, true animal lovers should support it, she volunteers at Art Fair on the Square. She says that the extreme heat makes animals ill and dehydrated, the paws burn in hot heat, this year 3 dogs with 3 owners got in a fight and the adults and children were scared. Also this year, she recognized a woman who had a bunny rabbit on a leash, it was “hotter than hell”, the rabbit had its tongue hanging out, she was yanking it along on leash and it was trying to walk on one or two of paws cuz cement was “so damn hot”. She says this applies not just to dogs. It includes snakes, cats and the rabbit. The dogs do sniff the food at vendors, since not all animals brought are dogs, she suggests that the ordinance should state that animals be leashed or caged, a couple years ago someone brought a large gray parrot, it was not tethered, she is assuming wings were clipped. It is up to you to ensure safety and welfare of animals in spite of thoughtless owners, this is for protection of animals and people scared of animals and little children. She has seen dogs dive right into food vendors then they have to throw the food away because they can’t use it or worse yet, the dogs slobbered on it. She has been bugging her alder and the Art Fair on the Square to change this.

Marsha Rummel says that when she first heard about it she asked around and everyone I talked to supports no dogs at the festivals, the organizers are for it, with the exception for parades, which is in honor of Willy Street parade. She appreciates Verveer crafting that language to fix that.

Schumacher says that supportive, but notes there was no testimony from animals, pro or con.

Maniaci asks if Kelli is there. She is not.

Pause, Mayor asks if any other comment.

Maniaci again, says she was out of the room and she is concerned about farmer’s market in Cnare’s district. Cnare leans over to her to explain what she missed. Maniaci says nevermind.

Passes on a voice vote, unanimously.

OVERTURE
Discussion on items 35 (comfort resolution) and 16 (review committee) will be in a separate post later this morning. Coming up soon!

COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS
Thuy Pham-Remmele said she excluded this because council leadership finally agreed to take her concerns up for discussion, she attended the meeting and never got a chance to discuss it. That is why again, she needs to be recorded as abstaining. If this process is somehow or sometime described as broken, she has been waiting a year, she has never seen anything like this, when discussing an ad hoc committee, look how long it takes to get council to give input and come up with suggestions and we are talking about citizen committees and commissions making decisions for the city. She asks to be recorded as abstain, they promise they will take up again, she is waiting for that, but disappointed.

Appointments approved.

PUBLIC MARKET
Public Testimony
David Remmele (yes, Thuy’s husband)– He says this is only the 3rd time has spoken to the council and last time it was on the same issue, and at that time he was concerned that we were moving ahead without a basic business plan, that they didn’t look into volume of sales, how many customers needed to make it work, etc. As an emeritus professor at UW Whitewater, the home of the best entrepreneur small business program in the system he felt that when no business plans were set it was a problem. There has been some progress in last three years, the amount to be spent on the project dropped from $21M to $9M because it is in a larger development, that is a good step, he wishes they had waited and included the library as part of the larger development, but still he says there are several red flags in reports that have been refined over last three years. First basic problem, this is a major development and in there is an agency in charge, Common Wealth Development, that has no experience or expertise in this area, its about time we really need a group that knows what they are doing in this area to give important input. One report says 63% of the customers would drive there, have we actually seen any evidence that on a Tuesday afternoon in January people will fight traffic to come to the market? Who are customers and will they show up? Current sellers at one day a week successful Saturday farmers market cannot operate week long every day.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz cuts him off, his three minutes are over, asks him to finish his thought.

He says they need to determine who their vendors are, they need the basics and they are moving ahead with momentum that is unstoppable and 5 years from now he’d hate to sitting through a meeting to decide what to do with the market building.

Questions of speakers
(The looks on the faces of the alders in the room, mostly facing the back of the room so they don’t get caught on camera, were freaking precious.)

Pham Remmele says she appreciates the time he took to look into to this project, she trusts his experience to teach students to be more successful and wealthy than you are. When you look at the business plan and feasibility study, what is most important? Sellers? Buyers? Or location or something you are worried about we have to subsidize this?

Remmele says that they started out with the concept of public market without looking into starting point of business plan. Who are customers, vendors and sellers? This is the top down approach and needs to look at the basics, we were told when you approved the site reelection that it had to be done before they determined details , that has been done but now $50K for architecture and design before know who is going to be there, what products to sell, so many details, everything down to will they allow members to hawk merchandise before bother neighbors would be allowed? In the report, two other items, fundraising, which is going to be competing with Overture and library fundraising, is there that much out there to donate for the items and he did see in one of recent reports idea that city will have to put up subsidy for several years and he is not sure if citizens are ready for ongoing subsidies like Overture.

Questions of staff
Pham-Remmele has a question of staff, this is not something new, a couple years ago – she says the questions if for Dean Brasser, thanks him for answering question last time about library, she asks with this public market project, can you give us amount of money spent for this project up to now?

Dean Brasser says he can’t give the answer right now.

Pham-Remmele asks for an estimate.

Brasser says not available but can give email response later.

Pham-Remmele says they gave at least $60K at CDBG for the site study.

Mayor suggests that she ask Mark Olinger, the man in limbo, still hanging on as head of CDA and Planning and Community and Economic Development.

Olinger says that they have spent $160,000 to date, approximately.

Pham-Remmele asks if there was any money before that? Was $60K only money?

Olinger says $160K for site study and market analysis, now another $100K. He says that on the fundraising piece, back in November 2008, the council chose the Brayoton Lot, that was accepted, but also Rummel and mayor asked them to look at three other sites cuz the sense was that the Brayton lot didn’t feel right, they were given additional money to go back an look at Government East, Mautz Paint or other area in Capitol East corridor and Union Corners. Report looked at them, at the redevelopment and development potential and with the happy coincidence of the train station, recommendation was an option for Government East. The ability to wed with other activities made some sense, but Brayton and Government EAst are quite different, there went from 67 square feet to 40 – 45K sq feet. It’s a different part of downtown, they looked at competitive and complimentary uses, so what they are asking for tonight is that a concurrence that they should go with Government East side and release $50 of 100K to get to level of detail that Mr. Remmele talked to about regarding vendors, its a 40 – 45 sq ft building, as Remmele suggested we need to get to that info, and there is $50K in reserve for when find out about other pieces – train, bikes, hotel, etc, so we are not rushing into architectural/engineering study, we need more work on the business plan on how the market is built, operated and outfitted, and in the future, tell me how blocks fit into the public market square, this is a different site than 2 years ago and need to answer questions people have raised if it ends up at Government East.

Pham-Remmele verifies it will be 58 stalls, 260 jobs and some other details I didn’t quite catch.

Olinger confirms.

Pham-Remmele says she is glad to hear that, she is concerned that city putting in $260K to go forward with plan, concern is that whenever public market is discussed it is always Commonwealth without any other choices. Her reluctance is that Commonwealth is known for its affordable housing and not for this work. We steered into it without alternatives, she excluded the item to hear explanation, still feels like it is decided and we just keep agreeing to put money into it.

Olinger says that in every public market model he has looked at, he has not seen one for-profit run it, they are all run or managed by city or nonprofit board, it will be a non-profit board to run the market, Commonwealth is on board because they run two incubators, and public markets are, at their core, incubators for food – these are small businesses that need help, they run a program within incubators an youth training, that is in no way to suggest that end of the day, they will want to run or manage this, but they came into process cuz they got funding to help start thinking about it and instead of changing horses in mid stream, they had the knowledge from early fundraising and operations aspects and that is why Commonwealth, they won’t really get inside track.

Pham-Remmele says that she is leery more city property in a non-profit operation, this is prime real estate, it is $200 per square foot, that is her reservation.

Michael Schumacher says that no one is here from Commonwealth.

Olinger says they had a conflict tonight, and Olinger told them he would answer the questions.

Schumacher asks how this was handled.

Olinger says in 2008, recommendation and resolution pass the Council that chose Commonwealth and Blue Planet Partners, they had funding from other sources, UW-Extension, Madison Community Foundation and others, they asked city to partner with them to help with study, council said yes to work with them and that is how began discussion.

Schumacher asks if no other vendors were considered?

Olinger says other vendors helped in past in 2003 or 2004, he doesn’t recall where nexus occurred, but they asked city and council adopted resolution approving it.

Schumacher says this is not an extension of an old contract, this is a new contract.

Olinger says the old one expired.

Schumacher asks about no competitive bidding, this is sole source, he recalls that there were very clear criteria for when we can do that which talked about work load and x amount of dollars etc.

May says there is an exception that using someone that already put in time and effort to the project, which will cost us more to switch midstream. He says the council may indicate a specific entity like choosing Commonwealth. I don’t know, that sounds wrong to me. I think Schumacher might be a little off, but there are rules about sole source contracting and if that is what they are doing, I think they do need to do something different besides just approve it. Wish I had more time to look it up!

Schumacher asks about documentation, what is the sole source justification? Don’t they need justification?

May says no, but that is good reason to choose them.

Schumacher says that can choose anyone for something in the future?

Rummel urges support, says it was a long time in discussion when it was not before this council, with new alders and as as Olinger described the past, it was pure luck that we approved $60K to look at more sites. former Alder Gruber had questions and report came back around same time, suddenly there was a great opportunity and synergy and . . . missed some . . . there are so many positive things, she asks them to keep moving.

Roll Call
15 votes are required.
Aye: Eagon, Kerr, King, Maniaci, Palm, Rhodes-Conway, Rummel, Schumidt, Skidmore, Solomon, Verveer, Bidar-Sielaff, Clausius, Clear, Cnare
No: Compton, Pham-Remmele, Sanborn, Schumacher
Absent: Bruer

INTRODUCTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Joe Clausius has a resolution to give a loan from the affordable housing trust fund for Truax for $1M and it is referred to Board of Estimates, CDA and CDBG.

Schumacher has a resolution declaring September Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.