16 minutes.
Roll Call: Clausius, Bidar-Sielaff, Palm, Verveer, Solomon and Mayor present.
Mayor says that they have been taking a few minutes to first go through the agenda, they expedite matters by separating the items they want to discuss and then if there is no public comment they adopt the rest of the items and then only spend time on the items separated out.
Shiva Bidar Sielaff separates item 17 and 18.
Mike Verveeer separates 1, 4, 5 8 and 26.
Mark Clear joins them at the table, but he is not a member (sometimes that is confusing for people, but alders can do that at any committee meeting.)
They pass the rest of the items.
Item 1 – Engineering Operations Lead Worker
Verveer has a substitute. He asks about the fact why it started with 2 positions but now it is 3. Is that what Engineering is asking for. Staff from the Human Resources said that they were doing the study and then there was a retirement so they just included that position in the proposal.
Motion to approve passes unanimously.
Item 4 and 5 – Golf Club House Operations Supervisor
Verveer moves adoption. He asks about the Wisconsin PGA to move the Juniors Champtionship to Milwaukee, out of Madison. Did the Wisconsin PGA talk to Parks before they made their decision? Kevin Briski from Parks says that they have had layers of conversations and they reassured us they would come back if we hired a pro. He was surprised by that announcement. They didn’t reach out to us and can’t confirm the story is real or not. That is new to him. Verveer says that this feels like the WIAA discussion. Briski says that they were supportive of where we were going, so that is news to me. Verveer says it was an unfortunate decision, points out it was in the State Journal. Palm asks about other updates, where are we on the status of this. Verveer asks where they are in the process of hiring. Human Resources staff say that they are awaiting final approval, they are screening the candidates and 12 candidates are moving on to the next step in the process and they hope to have a interview process by the end of the month.
Motion to approve passes unanimously.
Item 8 – Well operation permit and abandonment requirements
Verveer asks Mark Clear how this evolved into what we see today, is it a compromise? Clear says that is a fair assessment. He says at the end of 2011 we amended the ordinance to bring to an end the private well program and bring an end to private wells in the city. After that there was quite a bit of feedback from owners of private wells and they made a pretty convincing argument that this was a solution in search of a program and that the program could continue and there was no reason to close a functioning well that is serving a household and not posing a problem. So the agreement is that the ordinance stay in effect and that the households could maintain the wells until the property is sold or there is a problem with the well like it becomes contaminated or some other type of problem. Clear says that also in the ordinance but not funded is a proposal to help incentivize people to connect to city water, but it is not funded. He says that the co-sponsors disagreed about the funding and it is not clear where that would come from. Verveer says that it would be from water tower antenna income. Joe Grande from Water Utility says that is the direction it was going someone had suggested landfill remediation funds but it will come from the water utility and that was one source they would consider. Verveer asks if that is like the lead pipe reimbursement program, Grande says yes.
Motion to approve passes unanimously.
Item 17 & 18 – Contract with US Cellular and Verizon
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff makes a motion to approve and has a question. She asks why where are two contracts with two providers and several alders were looking at their cell phone usage during the budget and this seems really high to us. Deb Simon says that US Cellular is for voice and data plans and the Verizon one is for data cards for the police department toughbooks in their cars. Mayor says that he is not sure that US Cellular provides the service that Verizon does.
Motion passes unanimously.
Item 26 – Cannonball Phase 3 agreement
Verveer asks Rob Phillips from Engineering if they know what projects will fall on the priority list of the pedestrian and bicycle capital budget list. He asks about the cost overrun. The fiscal note says that they will fund it from there. Rob Phillips says that the project is in the budget as is, what happened was that the agreement with the state didn’t include all the money they had available for the budget. The amount encumbered is short. Phillips says project 6 in the budget is just the bridge, that is what this is. The amount in that line is over $2M and we will still have a little bit of extra contingency even after this resolution passes the council.
Motion to approve passes unanimously.
Bidar-Sielaff moves adjournment. Motion passes.
Exciting, eh?
