Final action on what will happen?Not really. But you’ll have to be patient to find out exactly what happens.
Meeting starts with Maniaci in the hall and they wait, finally Kevin Briski goes to get here and comes back and says that she says it is ok to start without her.
There are no disclosures or recusals. (Tho there will be a statement later that probably should have been disclosed and sure sounded like a conflict of interest – a personal one.)
They approve the minutes.
Clear explains that he has several other meetings and will have to leave.
The committee members are in a hurry to get out of the meeting in time for the Packer game, which is mentioned throughout the meeting.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Joe Lusson – He says he has two comments on 640 E Gorham and the other two. Related to 640 if they make decisions on the latest staff review sheet that compares the numbers, dated Sept 1, he says the estimated improvements costs were increased for his proposal with the screen porch, historic tax credits and sweat equity. It would be $6900 in property taxes. On the other two properties he would love to see the bidding reopened on the middle house to get a residential use. He says with more publicity with this process he thinks there will be other proposals. On the bed and breakfast building, he supports the international student group, or possibly reopen if you want, but they would be a nice addition to the neighborhood.
Richard Linster does not wish to speak. Wrote to accept the Lusson/Tierney proposal on 640, reopen 646 and accept Madison international offer to 704.
Henry Doane – Support everything Joe said with respect to the three properties, reopen on middle house, international school is good for Collins House and Lusson is a great resident in the smaller house.
Jason Tish from Madison Trust for Historic Preservation – available to answer questions.
DISCUSSION OF SCORES
640 E Gorham
Bob Shaw says that he had a conversation with Dan Rolfs about his professional opinion, asks him to repeat what are the key things and what is less importance.
Staff Opinion
Rolfs says that in staff’s opinion there are 3 main things that are critical when looking at the proposals. The first is the use. He won’t opinon on that, everyone could talk at length about it, but factually what matters is does it or does it not meet zoning laws. Lusson and O’Kroley meet it, Walden Living may need a conditional use permit depending upon final form and they won’t know unless they are accepted and the proposal is finalized. Midwest Restoration International Student Center, zoining is not as big of an issue. Use is not a major issue from staff perspective, they may have feelings about what they like, but its not a major issue for them.
Other two are cut and dry. Purchase price for structure. That is in the review sheet. The second is the lease payment. That they can negotiate on, it goes directly to the City and it will modify over time and that is something that is black and white.
Less important to decision making process are estimated home value and taxes that come off of it, as has been talked about several times what the final value of the structure is going to be varies, everyone has a different opinion. The only place it matters is Assessor Office, it is the staff opinion that all proposals will do a solid job of rehabilitating the structures. There is no concern of someone doing a bad job, they will all treat structures as they should be treated and people in the room want them to be treated. We can talk about the final value, but that is not very useful.
On the issue of taxes, the thing to remember with taxes is that number does not all go to the city, all of the taxes go to all the jurisdictions (School, MATC, County, City) 50% goes to school district, what we are talking about is a relatively small number. There are bigger numbers to worry about, the purchase price and lease. We can quibble about the rest but many assumptions need to be made.
Given the structure we have, process we have and referendum, he urges you to keep in mind that whatever is accepted and approved by council will also have to go to the voters. Keep in mind what makes sense to the committee, but when goes to the public people will comment one way or another, it will have to pass a smell test.
Back to 640 E Gorham
David Wallner, the chair says that there is a 15 point spread.
The scoring results were not handed out to the people in the audience, they just got done right before the meeting, but they were added to legistar right after the meeting. I cut the staff some slack on this one, they had a tight time line and Rolfs has a new baby at home.
Mark Clear moves that they accept the Lusson proposal. He says the ranking tells the story well, he was torn between theirs (Lusson/Tierney) and Dawn (O’Kroley), either one would do a suburb job, both address what we are looking for, so he decided to do the rankings and there was 1 point difference, the only one was on experience, just because Dawn is a professional architect, so he gave it one more point. But then there was the intangible of the actual work they (Lusson/Tierney) have done in the neighborhood so in his ranking that Dawn came out one point ahead but Joe and Aleen had the edge and when look at total rankings they had a slight edge there too.
Joe Clausius agrees, he says he drove through the neighborhood and Joe’s experience on previous properties he was impressed with, they will add stability, they will stay in the house and he could have gone either way, but that is what swung him, but liked Dawn’s proposal.
Shaw (conflice of interest alert!) says he worked with Joe for years on the neighborhood council, he doesn’t know Dawn but saw her bio and proposal, he scored them equally, he could support Joe and Aleen over Dawn.
Manaici also scored them equally, its such an edge, razor thin edge choice here, but she has to acknowledge the massive quantities of letters of support from the neighbors and neighborhood association, half the neighborhood association council wrote letters in support. The only thing that throws Joe and Aleens proposal over the edge is she has been in the house and likes the single family style. On face value she has no problem with the 2 unit proposal, and in terms of long term it adds more value there, but she has sort of been fighting for reversal of chopping up of houses, so that is where she comes in. She is so frustrated cuz Dawn had such a good proposal, she wishes she had those level of proposals across the board on the properties – that is where she is coming down, she is “totally perfectly fantastically” in support of either.
Barmen-Wanek says the difference between the 2 and 1 unit is the thing that tips the scale, no problem with 2 unit but looking at it he is drawing the line at rehab and what building is now. Looks like Lusson proposal is what it is now, that is what tipped the scale.
Approval passes unanimously on a voice vote.
Lusson thanks them.
646 E GORHAM
Wallner says Walden got a 571.
Maniaci moves to not to recommend – to reject. What she would like to see is for it to go back out for proposals. She moves to reject Walden Living for 646 and have a second round RFP process, with the same criteria, same scope, same ranking, just change things.
Clear seconds
Rolfs asks bout time frame?
Maniaci wants to hear the discussion, wants to hear from staff about what a proper time frame is. She also wants to know about rolling forward Dawn’s proposal.
Clear says they have to start over
Wallner asks about time
Maniaci asks about calls and interest. She says people now know, how long do you think would take to have quality proposal put together, they had assessments done., had contractors put through, etc.
Rolfs says minimum 60 days, preferably 90, they have to reissue RFP, needs council approval, need time to do it
Maniaci says we could suspend the rules and pass it the night of and could get it on the agenda for the next meeting and under suspension of rules introduce and pass it.
Sahw asks about 90 days, how does that impact April referendum
Rolfs says miss it, need 45 days, council has to approve
Maniaci asks about 45 or 60 days, how will that do at referendum
Rolfs says we will miss it.
And I have to go . . . sorry. There were no reporters there, but Jason Tish at the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation may blog about it. Now would be a good time to put in a plug for more volunteer bloggers. You don’t need to do what I do, but going to meetings and writing a summary of what happened, even if it were only a few paragraphs would be really good. You could just email it to me and I could post it or you could get your own log-in and blog right here or do it as a guest blogger. The important thing is to share the information that is relatively hard to find otherwise. Volunteers? Anyone?
