They are concerned about lack of discussion on various important economic development issues and lack of outcry about losing the train by the business community. They think they spend far too much time on this project and want to table anything that staff is not in agreement on until after the Zoning Code Rewrite.
This was sent out to the EDC members this morning:
Dear Doug (Peggy, please forward to the full EDC),
Alder Schmidt and I have both spent a good time of time reading the draft economic development process document. In our attempts to offer comments on the report, we both have come to the conclusion that while there are many items in the report that appear to be agreed-upon by staff, neighborhood residents, and other stakeholders, there also are numerous more controversial items that will require considerable further discussion to reach consensus. It is our opinion that the Economic Development Committee has already spent far too long on this discussion and this report, to the great detriment of scheduled conversations about other pressing topics such as job creation, workforce development, high speed rail, TIF policy, and city capital projects that would spur job creation.
Due to the relatively muted response by Madison’s business community to the apparent cancellation of the high speed rail line, and the tremendous importance of the rail proposal to Madison’s future economic growth and development, we feel that that issue should be taken up by the EDC as soon as possible. The EDC’s discussion of that issue might warrant a special meeting prior to November 29th so that the committee could consider drafting a letter or taking other action. The EDC’s silence on this critically important economic development issue is noticeable, particularly given the vocal and aggressive efforts of our Mayor Cieslewicz to ‘save the train.’
In regards to the development review process document, at our next meeting, on November 29th, Alder Schmidt and I plan to make a motion to do the following:
1. Move approval of all items in the draft report that were agreed-upon by staff; and
2. Move to table the remaining items in the report until at least the completion of the zoning code rewrite.
We are making our intention to make this motion known ahead of time so that, in case that motion is successful and the development review document is temporarily moved from the committee’s agendas, we could have proactively acted to have additional items added to the November 29th meeting agenda (in particular the high speed rail line) so that the committee might turn its attention back to these other items.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed.
Thank you,
EDC Members,
Vicky Selkowe & Alder Chris Schmidt
