No matter how many jokes and excuses Verveer made, this is just not the right place to hold an official City of Madison meeting. It was actually the second time I was in the church yesterday day but when I went in the church last night I went downstairs where the two large meeting rooms are . . . turns out, the meetings was in the sanctuary itself. Can you image what I said when I walked in here? Alright, once you get past how disrespectful and rude the location of the meeting is, there is much more to be worried about.
The smoke and mirrors show by the Edgewater was introduced by Alder Maniaci and Verveer. That was followed by staff explaining the project review process to the group of about 200 people gathered to worship at the alter of development.
There is a separate post for . . .
– The Review Process
– The Hammes Presentation
– The Neighborhood Presentation
– The Q&A (check back tomorrow or Friday)
– Landmarks meeting (check back tomorrow or Friday)
All of them have my [comments sprinkled throughout.]
A few observations:
-I’ve haven’t seen that many neighbors at a meeting in a long time. And it wasn’t just the Mansion Hill or the other 4 groups in Capital Neighborhoods people, but people from 3 or 4 other neighborhood associations in the downtown area. Including quite a few from the Tenney Lapham area, which I found a little curious.
– I hadn’t see this many developers and real estate industry folks and their supporters at a meeting in a long time. I’m sure I won’t catch them all, but I spotted the folks – Michael Matty, Bob and Dave Keller, Curt Brink, the Pallisades folks, Gorman & Company staff, Erik Minton, Findorff construction, Apex Development lobbyists, DMI, and I’m sure more that I didn’t notice!
– My favorite moment was when I took a picture of Soglin and Cooley (City’s Economic Development Director of playing poker with TIF fame) cozy-ing up in the back of the church. After I took the picture, I could hear them chattering “Did she just take a picture of us?” “Why would she take a picture of us?”, but I ignored them. A few moments later I walked out into the hall and as I was leaving, both Soglin and Cooley snapped a picture of me in unison . . . too funny boys!
My question is, who was Soglin representing and was he lobbying Cooley and will it show up on the lobbying reports?
– The presentation really seemed to favor the developer and it seemed that neighborhood people were second class citizens that were interrupted and cut off, while the developer was allowed to talk as much as they wanted. I couldn’t tell if the Edgewater folks were there to listen to what the public had to say in hopes of addressing their concerns, or if it was a sales pitch to convince the public to like the project. The answer came in the Wisconsin State Journal article this morning where Dunn is quoted as saying:
I don’t know why, with all the support we’ve seen in the community and within the neighborhood, we’d consider any major alterations at this point.
Interesting . . . so the public process is just beginning according to city staff, but Hammes isn’t interested in making any changes, so it was all decided privately behind closed doors with no intention of having any critical public comment or input, supporters only!
– There is quite a bit of backstory on how the agenda for the evening was developed. More than a week before the meeting, the neighborhood, after talking to Alder Maniaci proposed an agenda, the city facilitator agreed to it upon approval of the alders. No word was heard until a week later Monday night at 3:30 am, the day before the meeting when Alder Maniaci decided she didn’t like the agenda. Originally the agenda was 15 minutes for the developer and 15 minutes for the neighborhood. Alder Maniaci proposed the neigborhood get 5 minutes and the rest of the hour minus whatever staff time was used would go to the developer. In her own words:
This is not and should not be a tit-for-tat meeting. It’s an alder-run meeting for neighbors and citizens to ask questions and weigh in on a proposal, of which the MH Steering Committee is one of many voices. We’re looking to keep the presentation time to 1 hour, and the Q&A to 1 hour with a 9:30pm end time. We will be using the sign-in forms that are used at plan commission, city council, etc for the public Q&A. People will be encouraged to give their names verbally when they get up to speak, but no more than that. We’ll have on the forms addresses etc.
That’s not really how the meeting went, no one was allowed to comment. Hammes ended up with a half hour and the neighborhood got 15 minutes. I’m curious why she didn’t want people giving their addresses and saying who they represent?
– Finally, after many commented to me about how lobsided the meeting was and noted which people got cut off and which ones were allowed to speak, I was beginning to understand how why the neighborhood keeps saying Alder Maniaci was representing the developer not the neighborhood . . . but to put things over the top, I got this text from a district 2 resident last night as I was about to go to bed:
BM & hammes had dinner 2gether @ the old fashioned 2night after the meeting…lobbying? Or just social?
– This whole this has just gotten bizarre. Even supporters of the project told me on the way out that the presentation was a bit off and they sort of missed their opportunity to sell the project. Most people in the room agree, the Edgewater is due for an upgrade, and there are many positive aspects of the project. I believe, as others I talked to, that there is something salvagable here. But I have no idea how to get there when the Alder and the developer are acting the way they are. There is no opportunity for a transparent process that people can buy into or for dialogue. It’s too bad that city facilitator didn’t actually facilitate the meeting instead of just taking notes – anyone could have done that. What this project needs, if it is going to success and not continue to divide the community, is some true dialog about the points of disagreement, not just talking points and opportunities to see who could jam the room full of people. These are going to be some really long, useless city meetings if something doesn’t change and depending upon which way the wind is blowing, we could lose a project or drive a permanent wedge through the downtown, dividng neighbors and colleagues that should be working together.
Anyways, check out the other posts about this subject.
