It was a long week for me, but here’s what I have (for now). . . T Wall loves Delaware more than Wisconsin, Non-profits united, TIF for bum benches, Oct first means . . . , People’s Vision for Affordable Housing compliment, E Mifflin bike boulevard, social engineering by ATM, dumb out-of-touch question and failed public hearings.
T WALL TO FUN FOR DELAWARE SENATE?
Hmmm, this seems like a problem . . . I know there is nothing wrong with T Wall’s tax dodge, but . . . um, maybe its not so good for someone who wants to run for Feingold’s position.
NON-PROFITS UNITED
Hey, if unions can do it, why not non-profits. Tenant Resource Center is a member of the group, along with many, many other individuals, non-profits and coalitions of non-profits. Of course, it takes quite a bit of time to get all these groups to decide if individual or non-profits are the members and someone has to volunteer to compile and double check all the information . . . meanwhile, keep the group moving forward. Watch for the info next week. It’s not like we’re Smart Growth Madison who refuses to tell us who their members are . . . or the Common Sense Coalition . . . or some other fake front group that gets formed all the time. No subterfuge intended.
NEW BENCHES
Somehow, this article seems to miss. Saying Verveer now wants to solve the bench problem by using TIF doesn’t feel like the whole story. Is this about the benches? Or the homeless sleeping on the benches? Or promoting what DMI and others have been lobbying for, TIF for the square this year instead of next year? Seems like the three issues got connected in some weird ways. Looks like they just threw the bench/homeless issues in there to grab the headline, then did another story. If Verveer’s worried about homeless sleeping on benches, he’d just get the dividers removed now.
OCTOBER FIRST, DO YOU HAVE FUNDING TO CONTINUE YOUR PROGRAM?
The most annoying thing about working with HUD is that you never know if you have funding for your program the day it is supposed to start. Do you lay off your staff or do you prepare to make the changes that you recommended in the grant? Will you be getting $20,000 to continue limping along, or $100,000 and you need to start hiring? Do you continue providing the services you might get paid for? It’s a non-profit dilemma faced every October and alot of time wasted with endless reloading of this webpage. It’s October 2, do you know where your funding is?
PEOPLE’S VISION FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Thanks for the nice compliment. Next meeting, October 22, 5:30 – 7:30, Downtown Public Library.
EAST MIFFLIN BIKE BOULEVARD
Meeting on the 13th!
The Tenney Lapham Council recently voted to pursue evaluating the
installation of a bike boulevard on East Mifflin from the Yahara river
to the Capitol Square. We now need to roll up our sleeves and work with
neighbors and traffic engineering on the issues. All interested parties
are strongly encouraged to attend. We will attempt to identify
stakeholders and form a working group that will continue to work the
traffic engineering to iron out issues and work toward a trial
implementation.When: Tues, October 13, 7-8:30PM
Where: Supreme Pizza, 912 East Johnson
Who: anyone — all invitedPlease come early, at 6:30 to socialize and support our fabulous
neighborhood pizzeria, Supreme Pizza, by having dinner before the
meeting.Background:
What is a bike boulevard? See what Portland has done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM60DqAM6bQ
The city council, in 2008, voted to support the Madison Platinum Biking
City Plan. One recommendation in that plan is to
“Study and determine a location for two to three bike boulevards.
Construct one and evaluate.” East Mifflin is specifically mentioned.Why East Mifflin? It is a straight shot from the river to the Capitol
Square, with relatively low amounts of traffic for much of its length.
Currently, the Tenney Lapham neighborhood has no off road bike paths
available that take residents west from the Yahara river. A bike
boulevard ensures lower volumes of motorized traffic by using diverters
that encourage only local traffic.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING BY ATM MACHINE
So odd to see social engineering coming from the right. Good observation Tom!
YOU HAVE TO ASK?
Seriously . . .
The Streets Division is currently conducting a survey of the people who are using our brush drop off sites at Badger Rd and Sycamore Av. It has come to our attention that several Alders have received questions from their constituents about this survey and we wanted to fill you in on what we are doing.
While preparing our 2010 Operating Budget one proposal that came up was to divert all brush coming to our drop off sites directly to our brush processing site at 121 E. Olin Av. Our staff currently spends quite a bit of time removing brush from the drop off sites each day and hauling it to the processing site. Since users of the processing site are charged a fee, this idea would also general revenue in addition to freeing up staff for other duties. And, as we offer free curbside collection, our residents would still have a no charge option for disposing of their brush.
After discussing this idea, it was determined that we need to do extensive research on the proposal so we could not have a solid proposal ready for the 2010 budget. We have gone forward with our research so that we can determine if this is a viable option to include in our 2011 budget submission. To that end we have assembled a team to work on data collection and analysis and to prepare a report on this idea.
We are currently doing the first of two or three customer surveys to determine why people bring brush to the drop off sites rather than wait for collection and paying a fee for using the site. In addition to customer surveys we will be doing extensive data analysis prior to making a decision prior to our submitting our 2011 operating budget request.
I have an idea, cut the study, pick up the leaves and brush on a schedule people can count on! People don’t want that stuff sitting on their lawn til who knows when . . .
HOW’D THOSE HEARING GO?
I hear that the committee and the participants didn’t think that the hearings on the 2011 priorities went well and it left people frustrated and alot of unanswered questions. Sorry I missed them as I was in Stevens Point for the day. Sounds like there is lots of work to be done . . . but I’m sure they a plowing through this quickly and hope to be done next month anyways.
