News from the Neighborhood Summit

Don’t worry, I’m not dead, dying or deathly ill, I took the weekend off . . . so I missed the Neighborhood Summit.

Here’s some of what I gleaned in the last 16 hours or so. Not much in the news, but emails, meetings, my tv show and talking to people make it so I can tell you the following:

MAINSTREAM MEDIA
Cap. Times coverage. Pat Schneider.

Wisconsin State Journal. Chris Rickert, an opinion columnist will have something tomorrow.

Isthmus – Joe Tarr, probably the best coverage. And best quotes!

Um . . . that’s about it. I guess. You see anything else I missed?

ALTERNATE MEDIA
Here’s my tv show I did last night with Alder Marsha Rummel and Capitol Neighborhood Inc. President Adam Plotkin.

If you prefer to watch it on television, it airs today at 5pm, tomorrow morning at 6 am. Channel 95 or 991. Or you can watch it live streamed.

On Tuesday, August 10th, at noon on A Public Affair on WORT (89.9 FM) I’ll have a follow up show with some of the attendees and YOU can call in with your questions and comments.

TID BITS OF INFORMATION
Who was there?
Which alders showed up? Rummel, Bidar-Sielaff, Rhodes-Conway, Verveer, Solomon, Kerr, King, Schmidt (I think I”m missing one, if I figure it out, I’ll change it!)

Which alders showed up with at 11:30, after 2 and a half hours with only a half hour left? Compton and Maniaci

Which alders didn’t show up or have a really good excuse for being there? Sanborn, Cnare, Eagon, Skidmore, Bruer, Claussius, Schumacher, Clear, Rham-Remmele

Palm was doing the AIDS Ride – that’s a legitimate reason not to be there!

Mayor’s office and Council Leadership (Clear/Cnare): M.I.A.

Lobbyists who showed: Carole Schaefer (Smart Growth Madison), the now infamous Bill White, Susan Schmitz (Downtown Madison Inc), Ron Trachtenberg (developer and alcohol license lobbyists) and perhaps others.

Other items of interests:
– There were people from neighborhood associations from throughout the city, I wasn’t just an Isthmus thing.
– Several former alders were there, concerned about what has become of the process
– Over 100 people showed up with little notice on a Saturday morning in July.

What did they talk about, what did they do?
After some discussion, they decided to keep it positive, not respond to the attacks on neighborhoods and the process and instead, focus on staying positive and what the neighborhoods need.

Some suggestions:
– Enlarge the notification area
– Leave the super-majority votes in place the way they are
– Consider environmental Impact Statements for projects
– Training for Alders
– Training for Neighborhood Associations
– Increase alder’s budgets for mailing information

One of the conclusions people walked away with:
There’s nothing broken with the process.

What’s next?
There will be a second neighborhood summit to continue prioritizing the suggestions.

The alleged process from here on out was (and it likely to change a bit):
August 18th: Economic Development Commission (EDC) meeting, preliminary report from staff
August 25th: EDC Listening Session on the Pre-approval process
August 26th: EDC Listening Session on the city approval process
September 1: Initial Draft
September 30: Draft report briefing to the Council
October 19: Introduced to Common Council
November 9: Council to vote

Note: While they are getting input from the Plan Commission, Urban Design Commission and Landmarks Commission, they left no time for the report to be sent to those commissions.

More to come, I’m sure. But that’s what I have for now.

Don’t forget to look here periodically for updates to the materials that are available. Several updates coming today.