Several things going on in the 2nd district this week including Breese Stevens Field, Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Plan, the East Washington BUILD and Well 3.
Breese Stevens
We had a little surprise today. An item on today’s Board of Estimates agenda would have taken $340,692 of the $447,073 set aside for downtown parks to do work on Breese Steven’s Field to finally get moving on the plans that were approved years ago (2003). The work to be done is good work, it provides for accessible seating, internal entries (instead of making people in wheelchairs go outside the event and around to get to the restrooms), restrooms and concession area. Most of this work would have been done in Phase II, but its cheaper to do it in Phase I, so we’re $440,692 short in this year’s budget. $100,000 would come out an older fund leaving $50,000 and $340,692 would come out of funds set aside for improvements to downtown parks, leaving $106,381 for the downtown parks unless there are more developments that pay fees for park improvements. This item was never introduced at the Common Council, it just magically appeared on the Board of Estimates agenda. Luckily, it was referred for two weeks to discuss this with neighborhood folks and discuss what improvements won’t be getting done to other neighborhood parks like Reynolds, Tenney, Giddings, Yahara River and parks in the 6th district as well. (James Madison has its own funds in the budget, but that doesn’t seem to be moving either.)
Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Plan
Last Tuesday, we finally got the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Plan introduced to the Common Council, after years of work by the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Association. Part of the reason for the very long delay, was internal discussion by staff. Today, in a meeting about the East Washington BUILD, we were handed this draft recommendation from Traffic Engineering that will be handed out at the Pedestrian Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Commission tomorrow night. The brief report is as follows:
Based on staff’s review, several meetings and written communications with neighborhood representatives, and professional responsiblites as charged by the Council, the City Traffic Engineering has to recommend the following re: the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Plan:
Recommend Rejection altogether, or at a minimum, recommend the resolution, plan and fiscal note be amended to include the following:
- The Transportation component of the plan is proposing fundamental changes to the City’s transportation system, which will have significant, city-wide and costly impacts. Staff recommend that the Council consider the ramifications of attempting to convert long standing arterial streets to local streets, as the plan identifies. To determine the impacts and costs associated the Council will certainly need data, analysis, and evaluation. To provide this data, it is recommended the Council undertake a comprehensive downtown transportation operations study. The cost of a similar study was identified by the Planning Unit and Metropolitan Planning Organization from recent research to cost approximately $1 million. This does not consider the capital improvement and operations and maintenance costs.
- Staff also recommend that the fiscal note be changed accordingly for the major study as well as the capital improvement and operations and maintenance costs associated with any of the plan’s recommendations.
BUILD
Information about how the staff came up with the $1 million figure is here. We had a meeting with staff today about how to work on the transportation pieces of the East Washington BUILD. The staff provided maps with all of the transportation plans for the area. Unfortunately, I had to leave to go to the Board of Estimates meeting to deal with the Breese Stevens Field issue (above). When I left, I think the staff had agreed to take the map, what is written in the BUILD plan, the proposed language from attachments A & D in the memo and present them to us for comments, but when I left, they were still talking.
Well 3
Here’s the update from the Water Utility Board meeting last Tuesday:
City of Madison News Release For Immediate Release: Jun 22, 2007
For More Information Contact:
David Denig-Chakroff, General Manager 608-266-4652
Al Larson, WU Principal Engineer 608-266-4653WATER BOARD APPROVES ABANDONMENT OF WELL NO. 3
The Madison Board of Water Commissioners this week approved the immediate abandonment of Well No. 3 located on the near east side.
The well, which is the oldest well in the water system, has been plagued with problems of iron, manganese and increasing levels of carbon tetrachloride. Water quality issues at the well caused the utility to shut down the well in September 2006 and it has not been operated since then.
Utility officials completed a review of the water supply serving the east side in April in order to determine if their would be sufficient supply to meet emergency demand (fire flow, extreme drought etc.) for the next five years, until a replacement well for Well No. 3 can be located and drilled. The Utility plans to have a replacement well online in 2012.
The analysis showed that there would be sufficient water supply to serve the area without Well No. 3 if the water utility follows through with the 5-year capital improvement plan previously adopted by the Water Board.
Staff asked the Board to approve its recommendation for abandoning Well No. 3 in May, and the Board requested additional information about the specific capital projects in the plan that it needed to commit to in order to ensure that the area could be sufficiently served until a replacement well for Well 3 is constructed.
Principal Engineer Al Larson presented a report to the Board outlining those projects. The report identified $13.9 million of projects through 2011 that would need to be completed in order to maintain assurance of adequate supply until a replacement well is constructed. All of the projects had been planned to be constructed in that timeframe whether Well No. 3 is abandoned or not.
Water Board Commissioner George Meyer emphasized at the meeting that customers need to be aware that there are significant costs to maintaining our water system, and those costs will be reflected in increasing rates over time.
The utility will begin the process of permanently abandoning the well, and hopes to complete the process by the end of the year.
