Wow. The discussion at the Board of Estimates about recessing and possibly referring the meeting was very interesting. Maniaci apparently didn’t even want the recess to happen and the Mayor says its just a tough choice they had to make . . . even tho there is an obvious solution staring them in the face and no real indication about why that other choice could not be pursued. Enjoy! It’s a lovely train wreck that will make some weep for the state of democracy in this town.[Just a few BK comments.]
DISCUSSION ON RECESSING THE MEETING
Mark Clear moves recess til 7:00, someone seconds.
Mike Verveer asks why they don’t recess until the briefing on the 17th, why not hold a special Board of Estimates meeting at that point since everyone has it in their schedules.
Clear says it was an option in the poll and that was not a popular option.
Verveer asks about the 6 on the Board of Estimates.
Clear says that he doesn’t know and will look it up, not everyone responded to the poll.
Verveer says that this is a lousy idea the way we are doing this and this is the most contentious item he has deal with in 15 years of serving and to hold both meetings at the same time is bizarre at best. He thinks it is a poor choice on our part. When he thought about it today, he was wondering why we don’t just meet next Monday since they are going to do it all over again and answer all the same questions. He has lots of questions and it will just be repeated over again. He thinks the best way to go is to hold a special Board of Estimates in a week.
Clear says that two expressed preference for next Monday, none were Board of Estimates members.
Verveer says that he preferred Thursday, didn’t have an option to point out availability for other meetings, he is available next Monday.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz says that he calls the Board of Estimates meetings and its his decision, and he’ll take the blame. He says its like Churchill said about democracy, this was the worst possible choice, except for all the others. There was no universal choice that was popular with everyone. He agrees with Clear that someone was going to be unhappy not matter what we chose, there were a lot of tough options, this made the fewest people unhappy.
Verveer says it’s a tremendous disservice to the community, forget about our inconveniences, it’s the public that is testifying at the same time, at two difference meetings.
Mayor seems agitated and interrupts Verveer and says he’ll argue with Verveer on that point, its easy for the public to come down and testify. He says its more convenient for the public to testify at two meetings in one trip. [Wait til you hear Verveers response to this when the reconvene, he hints at what this is really about, the out of town Edgewater supporters.]
Verveer says he respectfully disagrees, won’t debate it any more and asks to be recorded as voting no on recess. He says that a lot of his constituents want to attend the entirety of each meeting and are not getting the opportunity.
Cieslewicz says that they might depending upon when Landmarks gets done.
Mayor repeats the motion, says they will take testimony at 7:00. [Wow, how out of touch did they have to be to pick that time.]
Verveer asks if public hearing at Landmarks is still taking place when they come back will there be public testimony at that time.
Cieslewicz says that they need to choose a time to come back, but if public testimony is still going at that time, they would call another recess until whatever hour they think is reasonable that public testimony would be done.
Joe Claussius asks how many registrants?
Deb Simnon, Comptrollers Offices says there are 6 to speak and many more registered.
Clear notes that more will likely register to speak.
Simon says that many who registered appear to have gone upstairs.
Clear says that there appear to be about 100 people upstairs at the Landmarks meeting.[Making the choice of 7:00 CLEARLY absurd.]
Cieslewicz restates the motion that they will recess until 7:00. Verveer and Rhodes-Conway vote no on the recess.
RECONVENING THE MEETING
They don’t show them reconvening at 7:00, I don’t know if they did or not or what they said. They do show them reconvening at 8:30 when they note that public testimony is still going on at Landmarks [go figure] so they try to start with the presentation from Gromacki and Zellhoefer. I suspect there was other discussions that took place between the part you can see on TV/streaming and when they reconvened. Mayor says they will do the public hearing after the presentation.
Satya Rhodes-Conway refers to the next meeting of the Board of Estinmates, for the chair to call. She says it is patently unfair to take this item up before testimony is done at Landmarks. It’s unfair to the public and the alders who want to be at both places and its unfair to Alders Maniaci and Verveer that want to be in both discussions and whose constituents are at the center of this controversy. If I was in their shoes I would be so frustrated about the inability to hear about the Landmarks and testimony of my constituents, these are two distinct issues and unfair to put those two alders and the rest of the council in a position to have to choose where they want to be. [Not to mention the bloggers!] I think we should refer it to the next meeting and as chair, that is your prerogative as to when to schedule it. She thinks that would serve public and council better than trying to pursue this tonight.
Clear says that when they discussed scheduling this meeting, he talked with Maniaci and, he doesn’t speak for her[?], but her strong preference was to keep Board of Estimates at its original time and not even with have the delay [recess] we did. She very strongly felt that was what she wanted. She was the first one Clear talked to before he made a recommendation to the Mayor.
Verveer says that he wants to repeat what he said before a mostly empty room earlier. He concurs with Rhodes-Conway and supports her motion, he stated his peace earlier, this is a huge disservice to the community, I appreciate the concern about Maniaci and him, but he is worried about the dozens of folks that are upstairs. When I objected earlier the Mayor said that this was more convenient, but he couldn’t disagree more. Perhaps convenient for the registrants from out of town who registered here and upstairs and left, but when you look at the scene upstairs and here, there are many more people who obviously want to be in two places at once. A delay to next Monday would not delay this before the council, we’re already meeting again next Monday, in a way we are just duplicating the discussion tonight and all the questions and answers will be repeated, this is a tremendous disservice on the most contentious issue that has come up in his tenure and he hopes that they could recess and let those of us who are interested go back upstairs.
Dave Cieslewicz says that he hopes they will continue. He says Clear made a good faith effort to accommodate people by recessing it twice. We can’t recess to another date cuz we don’t know who can be there [Here’s a thought, all the Board of Estimates members are sitting at the table, just ask them.] and it won’t necessarily be any better[for whom?], there was no perfect solution, it’s the best they can do under the circumstances and he says that they can hear from staff because it will take some time and then we have several members of the public that are registered that are in the room and we can listen to them and hopefully then they will be done upstairs or people from upstairs can come down in speak. Very often in life we have to make tough choices, and we’re just going to have to do that. [This isn’t a tough choice. Unless there is something the Mayor knows that is not obvious, they can just have their meeting next Monday, that is the EASY choice. Staff and the developers and everyone is already planning to be there.]
The Mayor and Rhodes-Conway clear up what her motion is. They Mayor seems to think that she is referring to the next regularly scheduled meeting, she says its the prerogative of the Mayor to set the meeting. Mayor says they motion is to refer to next meeting to be called by the chair.
The motion is a 3-3 tie, with Rhodes-Conway, Verveer and Jed Sanborn voting to refer and Clear, Tim Bruer and Claussius voting no. The Mayor breaks the tie to continue with the meeting and ignore the concerns about the public.
[I’m actually kind of stunned and I’m wondering if this was just plain stubbornness, or if they know someone will be gone on Monday and they won’t have the votes, or if something else is going on. I seriously don’t know, but this seems odd, even for the Mayor and his odd style of leadership.]
If you think this process was unacceptable, and don’t want to see it happen when there is an issue you care about, I’d let the Mayor (mayor@cityofmadison.com) and alders know (allalders@cityofmadison.com). And you might want to thank Verveer, Rhodes-Conway and Sanborn for trying to do the right thing.
