Last night’s council meeting lasted about 3 hours, with an additional 1 hour of presentation and questions about Transport 2020 and Trolleys at 5:30. Alders Cnare and Compton were absent for the evening.
We started our pre-meeting presentation around 5:35 with several alders present including Jed Sanborn, Brenda Konkel, Mike Verveer, Robbie Webber, Marsha Rummel, Eli Judge, Tim Gruber, Satya Rhodes-Conway, Joe Clausius, Michael Schumacher and Mark Clear. We were eventually joined by Brian Solomon, Julia Kerr, Zach Brandon and Larry Palm. David Trowbridge walked us through where various studies were at including providing information about where routes would run, capital costs and operating costs for Transport 2020. Several alders asked questions until we had to stop for the Council meeting. At that point we were joined by Alds. Bruer, Skidmore and Pham-Remmele.
We kicked off the Council with a moment of silence for Jeff Erlanger who recently passed away and the 9 firefighters who died in South Carolina. We then honored Isabel Jacobson for her spelling bee accomplishments and named a firetruck after K-tal Johnson who died in a car accident in Indiana. His son Ian accepted a plaque in his honor. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place.
We then moved to the Elver Fireworks agreement. After a minor change in the resolution about the city’s insurance it was 6:45 and we moved to the public hearings.
First we heard from an attorney for two liquor stores on the Southside of Madison. While there were plans to remove conditions from the liquor licenses for the size of coolers, there was controversy over if they should be allowed to sell liquor in bottles until 750ml. Apparently, the only place current liquor license holders have these restrictions are downtown, but now we also have these restrictions on the Southside of Madison.
Then we heard from the women from Tres Amigos. The gave us a statement, but then were asked some questions. Apparently they were required to give up their nightclub license the day after the ALRC meeting, however, we discovered they had not done it. It may have been a moot point, but it didn’t set well with several alders. We approved the recommendations of the ALRC.
We then finished the public hearing items and moved to our consent agenda. We approved the rest of the agenda with their recommendations, with a substitute on the Rental Rehab program in item #95 with the following exceptions of numbers 7 (hiring resolution), 18 (resolution to look at gender, race/ethnicity and disability in hiring and salaries of top managers for the City), 19 (resolution to look at gender, race/ethnicity and disability in appointments to city committees, commissions and boards), 35 (neighborhood grants), 41 (Alcohol in Law Park) and 84 (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles). We placed number 23 on file because the fire department did not receive the grant.
The first item we took up was item number 7, a resolution to study our hiring practices. Alder Brandon bristled at the fact that this was on the agenda under suspension of the rules. There was some discussion and questions of the clearly annoyed Human Resources director and then we made a few changes. We limited the study to professional and managerial positions and changed the report to December 30th with an interim report to CCOC after 2 months. We also changed some wording about people hired and then immediately reclassified so that they are paid a different salary. Originally the review of recent hires would have included about 1200 hires, but when we limited it to professional and managerial positions, that reduced it to 60 – 80 files they would need to review. Then there were some confusing amendments and we tabled the item. When we came back to the item at the end of the agenda, we changed the reviewing agency to the Affirmative Action Office so that there was an outside agency reviewing the Human Resources work. The final amendment was by Larry Palm to limit the file review to 25% of the files, which would have been 25 or less. That motion failed with only Alds. Palm and Brandon voting for it.
Next we moved on to the “gender resolutions”. There were a few questions about why we were only looking at gender, race/ethnicity and people with disabilities. It was explained that this was essentially the only information we track at the moment. We added a report date for February 1 and after the standard “feel-good-wasting-my-time” speech from Thuy Pham-Remmele and Eli Judge signing on as a sponsor, the motions passed on a voice vote, with a quiet no from Thuy Pham-Remmele in the back of the room.
Next we went on to the neighborhood grants issue. There was some concern from members of the Capital Neighborhoods that they did not get the full amount of the money that they had asked for to work on homeless issues in the downtown area. Staff explained it was because the remaining portion did not meet the criteria for the grant. The motion passed.
Next we went on to talk about alcohol in Law Park. There was a quick motion to refer this back to the Park Commission subcommittee that was looking at alcohol in the parks. There was a presentation by the police department, a plea from Ald. Mike Verveer and collectively we came to the decision that while this was likely to just displace the problem to another park, something needed to be done so we approved it with a sunset. This means that the law will be in effect until December 2008 at which time the law will expire. Hopefully, the subcommittee can figure out a recommendation for how to handle the issue of alcohol in parks in a systemic kind of way, instead of banning alcohol on a park by park basis. The motion passed unanimously.
Finally, we got to the electric neighborhood cars. We heard testimony about some concerns about the ordinance, then referred the item back to the Public Safety Review Board and the Ped Bike Commission for further review. This was one of those issues where the original sponsor retired and some of the changes that were anticipated did not get made. Luckily, Ald. Clear and Judge signed on as sponsors and agreed to work to bring the ordinance back with the needed changes.
At that point we finished up the changes to the hiring resolution mentioned above and adjourned to the Magnus. Nearly everyone from the Common Council was there. Only Alds. Sanborn, Rhodes-Conway (had to be on a plane at 5 am), Pham-Remmele and Skidmore did not attend. Nor did anyone from the mayor’s office or city staff.
(Heh! I’ll try to add the links later today . . . You’ve heard that before, so you know, it may or may not happen.)
