One word: Thuy.
Ok, there were a few other reasons, Thuy was just the most obnoxious reason why. The meeting didn’t get started til 6:42 or so. Everyone there except Alder Clear. We started out by recognizing the efforts of the group that did the Stoughton Rd planning, that took about 5 minutes.
Next we did our consent agenda with took another 10 minutes or so, mostly because we were discussing if the BioAg Gateway resolution should be sent to the Commission on the Environment. We separated items 12 (Downtown Hotel Study), 13 (Public Market), 44 (Pleasant View Rd), 67 (Public Nuisance Ordinance), 68 (Opening car doors into bike paths) and 88 (Snow ordinance). We referred the Affirmative Action Report from the Mayors office to the Affirmative Action Commission to be fixed (#89), a project at 1900 – 1916 E Washington was withdrawn (#95), the BioAg Gateway resolution was referred to the Commission on the Environment and the Council meeting on the 31st (#118). We unanimously approved the budget amendments in number 11 (fire dept grant got 38,000), 16 (12,318 for a street vendor monitor) and 24 (using parkland impact fees for a 8 acre prairie resotration project in the 5th addition adjacent to Sherman Ave.)
We also had a group of people who were upset about being charged for some sidewalks. They showed up with signs and sat in the audience but weren’t allowed to speak to us because the items was just being introduced. Upon prompting from the council, the Mayor told them that we wouldn’t be discussing their topic, and then with further prompting, he informed them of when they could speak to the issue that they are concerned about. After I muttered a few things under my breath, someone leaned over to me and asked me if I thought the Mayor had been drinking before the meeting. I doubt it, but it made me laugh. So, by now, it was 7:00, not a good start to a long night of needlessly dragged out discussion.
So, back to the agenda.
DOWNTOWN HOTEL REPORT
Julia Kerr had some questions. They were asked and answered and the report was accepted unanimously.
PUBLIC MARKET
This discussion took about an hour, even tho we already approved it in the budget. It got a little obnoxious. Here’s a few highlights, perhaps out of order.
– Schumacher thinks that if this is so important, the private market would provide for it.
– Clausius thinks that its a good idea, but is interested in having more than one and smaller ones, perhaps on one the far east and far west sides of Madison.
– There were some concerns that this was done on a “sole source” basis. I guess the thinking is that there was another group out there that had been working on a public market for years that could qualify to do this work?? (I wonder who??)
– Thuy accused Mark Olinger and Commonwealth of being “Sacred Cows” and was seemingly implying that she wasn’t allowed to ask them questions, but that certainly didn’t stop her and no one was objecting – at least not at first.
– They had some doosey quotes including the qualitification of “I just am stupid” prior to asking questions that had been asked and answered at the CDBG commission that she sits on.
– Mike Kohn was whispering questions in Thuy’s ear as she was grilling Marianne Morton with quesitons that had been answered before.
– At one point, Marianne politely answered one of the questions by referring Thuy to the resolution that we were voting for.
– Alder Palm asked about the capacity of Commonwealth Development to do this work because they are also working on the Garver Feedmill (At which point he reminded people to vote April 7th).
– Alder Palm also suggested that the total cost of the project ($19M) was too much and that the project could be done with toothpicks, wire mesh and blue tarps.
I admittedly kind of couldn’t really pay attention at one point, because Alder Bruer was talking to Alder Sanborn on one side of me and Alder Palm was talking to Alder Cnare on the other side of me and Thuy was not making sense and I’m sure I missed some other points during this discussion. We had some weird questions of Mike Kohn where Thuy was confirming that he wasn’t her constituent and wanting him to answer the question as a “common citizen” and he was accusing us of being cavalier with our spending. The Mayor was wearily looking at the clock and Brian and Julia were trying to call the question as Thuy went on about how this was just a project for yuppies.
– Alder Gruber pointed out that we already voted on this in the budget and this is just following through on what we had already directed.
– Alder Rummel pointed out that some of the questions Thuy has asked were proprietary information and that this was all discussed at the CDBG commission that Thuy is a member of.
– Alder Schumacher said that this project could become a mini-Overture
– Alder Palm then moved for referral
– Alder Cnare politely suggested that we all go back and read the reports because most of the answers were in there and we’ve just forgotten them all.
– I couldn’t resist pointing out that we are wringing our hands over $60,000 where we have reports and have discussed this for years, but with the BioAg Gateway we are just taking a leap of faith with $1.3M.
– This promted Alder Schumacher to ask staff to prepare a comparison – which I think would be fascinating, since the operating costs per year seem to be roughly the same, but BioAg Gateway will produce 100 jobs in 10 years whereas the Public Marker would produce “only 300” jobs according to Alder Thuy but 400 jobs according to Marianne Morton.
– The Mayor finally spoke and tried to address some of the twisting of words that was going on regarding his position and his budget. He explained that while he didn’t want to commit large amounts of money for the project, that this money was being spent so that we didn’t lose the work we had already done.
Then, I don’t know what happened, but Alder Bruer asked if Alders wanted to ask the Mayor any questions – not allowed under Robert’s Rules – but the Mayor played along. And then on cue, Thuy asked some question from her constituent forcing the Mayor to admit that he didn’t realize that this was a sole source deal until it was brought up tonight but that he’s comfortable with it. At which point Thuy accused him of “being the bachelor with the rose” and playing favorites with certain groups and not giving any one else a chance to work on these projects. (I wonder if she has someone else in mind that would do this?) And was complaining that she had to go home and aswer the phone and answer questions about why we are spending this money. At this point, there were multiple objections, mass confusion breaks out and some combination of Julia Kerr and Brian Solomon called the question to stop the madness.
Vote on calling the question: NO: Rummel, Konkel, Palm, Rhodes-Conway AYE: Sanborn, Schumacher, Skimore, Solomon, Verveer, Webber, Bruer, Clausius, Cnare, Compton, Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Monson and icing on the cake, Thuy first has to ask what we are voting on, and then says “please end this debate” and votes yes. Apparently oblivious that the only reason we had to take that vote was to get her to be quiet and that she was the one dragging out the debate. ABSENT: Clear Motion passes 15 – 4.
On the motion to refer so people could go read what they should have already read, because there were no additional requests for information: NO: Rummel, Solomon, Verveer, Webber, Bruer, Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway AYE: Sanborn, Schumacher, Skidmore, Clausius, Cnare, Compton, Monson, Palm, Pham-Remmele ABSENT: Clear So the motion fails 10 – 9 (Council rules require 11 votes for anything to pass, regardless of who is there).
Finally, the motion to adopt. AYE: Rummel, Schumacher, Solomon, Verveer, Webber, Bruer, Clausius, Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway NO: Sanborn, Skidmore, Cnare, Compton, Monson, Palm and Pham-Remmele. ABSENT: Clear Motion passes 12 – 7.
At this point, it was 8:30 and there was a request for a break from the clerk, but we ignored her and pushed on. I found that very disrespectful to our employees.
PLEASANT VIEW RD
Wow, this one was a blast from the past! I had to dig deep to remember all the issues and still don’t recall how I voted 5 years ago, pre-legistar. This involves the UW radio tower and falling ice, the Theis farm and where exactly a road in the Pioneer plan was suppose to go. Oh, and stimulus money for a project that we have already had planned. We budgeted $1.8M for this year and $4.3M for 2010 in our capital budget, but the rush was to get this done to get stimulus money to pay for it. We had to table this issue to work out an amendment that we voted on at the end of the meeting that approved part of the project and directed them to continue to work with the Theis’ on the location of the road. We did take a 5 minute at recess to get this resolved.
PUBLIC NUISANCE ORDINANCE
Alder Sanborn brought up an excellent point about how the name of this ordinance is non-descriptive. The city attorney said it was a drafting error in their office and that they would change that when it comes back.
CAR DOORS AND BIKES
Here’s where Thuy displayed a complete and utter lack of understanding of how laws are written and enforced and said that traffic safety isn’t a priority for the police department. Alder Webber pointed out for her that the police were in favor of this law, that the Public Safety Review Board and the Pedestrian Bike and Motor Vehicle Commission both voted unanimously for it and that it was in fact, the law in several other states. During this debate, one of the Alders from the other side of the room was sitting behind me and couldn’t resist pointing out that apparently Thuy has two different concepts of time – she can waste our time, but we can’t do business and waste hers. During this debate, she was apparently suggesting that we were close to passing an ordinance limiting how long you can spend in the restroom. This caused one alder to leave the room laughing and several dash to get of camera. It was just all so absurd and surreal.
SNOW
Alder Schumacher started off by saying that he gets lots of angry calls from people thinking that he is the streets superintendent Al Schumacher. Which prompted the Mayor to ask if Alder Schumacher could imagine the calls Streets Superintendent gets from people thinking he was Alder Schumacher. That kind of stopped Alder Schumacher in his tracks.
Anyways, this ordinance was intended to stop people from plowing the snow from their parking lots and driveways across the street and onto the terraces in front of their neighbors houses. Alder Schumacher was concerned that people would get tickets for shoveling the snow in the street onto the overflowing piles that land in the streets. We were assured that would not happen.
The ordinance passed unanimously.
SIDEWALKS
The issue was properly referred to committees.
We finished up number 44. Alder Verveer introduced an amendment to the TIF agreement with Alexander Company for Capital West and then Alder Bruer introduced his competing amendment.
Then, a perfect ending to the evening, Alder Thuy – completely out of order – went back to item number 16 and asked to be added as a sponsor.
You had to be there to fully appreciate how crazy it all was and it made for some very interesting comments that didn’t make the blog – yes, this is edited (for content), there was much, much more I could have added but refrained.
