I did the Week Ahead for city and county yesterday, as well as caught up on the last county board meeting. So, this morning I could get caught up on the round up . . . with a chance of snow.
CHANGE WHO CAN APPEAL CONDITIONAL USES, ESPECIALLY FOR PUBLIC PROPERTY
You might have noticed this little tidbit in my rant against the Daily Cardinal on their poor reporting on the Lisa Link Peace Park issue . . .
Here’s what the opponents and supporters actually said at the Plan Commission, which took the final vote on this matter unless a property owner appeals it . . . [ironic the homeless being pushed out don’t have the right to appeal, isn’t it . . . cuz for them it is their home, but they don’t own it, its public space so their voices don’t matter. I think any member of the public should be able to appeal a conditional use in a city park, especially a park that is used by the whole city, and especially the people who spend the most time there.]
The more I think about this, the more wrong it seems. Think about it, one of the biggest issues that impacts your daily life and you don’t really get a say in it, because you don’t own nearby property. That just seems so wrong.
Here’s the language, perhaps we should at least let other alders appeal or something . . .
(i) Appeal From Action By City Plan Commission. An appeal from the decision of the City Plan Commission may be taken to the Common Council by the applicant of the conditional use, by the Alderman of the district in which the use is located or by twenty percent (20%) or more of the property owners notified objecting to the establishment of such conditional use. Such appeal must specify the grounds thereof in respect to the findings of the City Plan Commission and must be filed with the Secretary of the Plan Commission within ten (10) days of the final action of the City Plan Commission. Final action may be either initial action on a conditional use or action following reconsideration of the said initial action under the Commission’s rules of procedure. However, reconsideration shall only occur following written notification of intent to reconsider by a Commission member to the Commission Secretary no later than ten (10) days after said initial action. Thereupon, the notice requirements of Section 28.12(11)(f) shall be complied with before the Commission reconsiders such initial action, except that the notice by publication shall be a Class 1 Notice. The taking of an appeal prior to the third day after said initial action shall not preclude or invalidate reconsideration by the Commission as herein provided.
THE CHAMBER SAID WHAT?
I found this amusing. And interesting. Why does the Chamber of Commerce hate the planet? But hey, they’re sticking to their guns . . . remind you of anyone? [I have two people in mind.]
“We don’t have regrets about our position, and we don’t intend to change it.” That’s what the Chamber of Commerce said today as pressure mounts from member groups to step back from its extremist stand against global warming legislation that would regulate CO2.
STATE BUDGET
Here‘s a good project that helps inform people about the state budget. What caught my attention was this:
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Wisconsin was well below average in total state and local spending per capita and also below average in per capita state and local taxes during the 2006-07 fiscal year. A two-page analysis of the new data by the Wisconsin Budget Project shows the downward trend in spending and taxes since the 1999-2000 fiscal year and compares Wisconsin to the national average on a wide variety of measures of government spending and revenue (per capita and relative to personal income).
SAFETY IS COUNTY’S NUMBER ONE BUDGET PRIORITY, NOT HUMAN SERVICES
I didn’t crunch these numbers, I’m stealing them from a county board member forwarded from someone else, but check out these numbers, is that what you expected? I was especially surprised that 87% of the Public Safety budget is paid for by taxpayers as opposed to 27% of the Human Services Budget.
Public safety is Dane County’s top priority for General Purpose Revenue(GPR) with the Sheriff’s department receiving 30% of our GRP from property and sale taxes as the chart below shows.
The number one debt service cost is for the new Courthouse.
Department % of GPR (Dane County Revenue)
Sheriff $ 54,656,716 30.020%
Human Services $ 53,559,215 29.417%
Debt Service $ 14,858,100 8.161%
Badger Prairie $ 9,653,760 5.302%
Public Safety Comm. $ 6,531,753 3.588%In fact, when you add up all the Public Safety items in the budget like Clerk of Courts, it comes to 37.8%, more than all Human Services at 37.4%. All other items are less than one-quarter of our budget or 24.8%.
Public Safety (Sheriff, COC, DA, 911) $ 68,822,754.00 37.8%
Human Services incl. PH $ 68,104,333.00 37.4%
All Other $ 45,141,479.00 24.8%
Total $182,068,566.00It is also the top priority based on percentage of budget that is GPR. You see that Property Taxes and GRP provide 87% of the sheriff’s budget and 81% of overall public safety budget, compared to 27% for the human service budget.
NO MATCH RULE DISAPPEARS
Wow. This seems to have quietly gone away, but its definitely a good thing!
A GOOD ARGUMENT FOR RAIN GARDENS
Everyone knows that Barrett has no love of engineers and roads, but these pictures paint a pretty convincing picture.
SHARROWS
Time to increase your vocabulary. In the last week or so, new paintings have shown up on Wilson Street. They are a picture of a bike with two > symbols, apparently they are called sharrows. They are intended to encourage bikes to ride in the middle of the road on low traffic streets. I often drive on this road as it is right by my workplace and I find it very encouraging that the city is using them there. I hope East Mifflin is next!
SCREW MADISON METRO
Wow, the local city support for Madison Metro is going down by $3M. An approximately 30% cut in local funds. The City had been contributing $10.2M and now will only contribute $7M. Something seems really, really fishy about that, and I wonder what problems this will create in the future. And, what that means if the RTA becomes a reality. It seems like a huge step backwards and if they can save $3M that money would be better spend INVESTING in more service and getting that ridership back up. Even Sanborn feels uncomfortable about this one. And, we have a $35M rainy day fund, from which we could take $3M and barely notice instead of whatever Metro is doing to make that cut happen. I suspect this will come back to haunt Madison Metro and result in service cuts or fare increases in the future.
MAYORAL SPIN
The Mayor’s take on the 26 amendments to his capital budget, expecially the two big ones about the Edgewater and the Central Library was kinda funny. Apparently, making amendments to his budget is ok, if you call him first. Of course, the people involved here are people the Mayor would call first when he was doing something that affects them. He does realize that you get what you dish out, right? When you treat people with respect, they respect you back.
And, of course, the WSJ rushed in with their editorial saying they should leave the money in the budget, with weak arguments about why. Mostly, this argument has nothing to do with support or not support of the Edgewater, but more about the fact that currently, it isn’t even in a TIF district and no “but for” analysis of the project has been done, because we don’t know what the project is any more. It makes sense to take the money out – after all, they are not entitled to this money. There are policies and laws that have to be met first. Budgeting for it before then is foolish and most council members realize that. Some of those arguments are made here. But, especially in a tight budget year where the borrowing could be used for other projects, the money should be spent on projects closer to fruition or not at all. Council amendments would save $55M in borrowing if they are all passed. Maybe it could be spend on the project below without other budget gimmmicks that give the impression of support but are really designed to put pressure on people to do something they think is wrong.
Here’s a few more of the amendments made. Looks like we’re going backwards, and once again back to making changes to James Madison Park contingent on the sale of the houses in James Madison Park, a desperate move that is a bad budgeting gimmick, that the council usually frowns upon.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ASM?
Safety is a big issue on campus, SafeWalk staff who help others get home at night, now won’t be able to get cab rides home, at least not from ASM. What the hell was the thinking behind that? Luckily, transportation services will be picking up the cab rides.
BUS CRASHES
This little article prompted some interesting discussion about how often buses crash. I don’t ever recall seeing that information when I was on the Transit and Parking Commission (3 years). It’s a good reminder that turning in front of a bus is illegal.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?
I’m on the bikies list, which is a group of people who are passionate about their biking. What always amazes me is those who are so passionately against bikers. Stories of getting egged by someone in a SUV or people who put broken glass (repeatedly) in the road or even, more lately, an incident of razor blades on the side of the road where bikers ride. Seriously, what could make you hate bikers that much?
WYOU AND ALL PEG STATIONS GETS HELP FROM BALDWIN
While the City of Madison is trying to shut down WYOU earlier than necessary, and taking the funding that should go to WYOU for the general fund, Tammy Balwin is trying to help mitigate some of the issue with a federal bill. And, rumors are that there will be attempts to fix it at the state level as well. It could be in the end that the Mayor takes away money that is there for the station, shutting down the station when the funding remains in place. Lets hope the council sees the foolishness for what it is and doesn’t do this to our community television station. Especially when they are working on new local programming on issues like public transit.
