Many more issues to comment on today, Hippie Christmas, lobbying complaints, alternative Edgewater proposal thoughts, why Google came to Madison, a little jab at Google, metro route expansion, short notice/county board budget process sucks too, short notice to comment on how we will spend millions of federal dollars over the next 5 years, final? piece of the non-profit property tax exemption and Konkel’s blog and the media . . . there was more but ran out of time, had to be on the radio at 8:10 . . .
DANGERS OF HIPPIE CHRISTMAS
Beyond the bed bugs (Doug Moe, get a clue, you wanna come talk to the crying people who end up with bed bug bites all over them? And have to throw away more than a couch and replace it?) and cockroaches, there are other dangers in Hippie Christmas . . . like losing your stuff while you are moving. A friend of mine told me about taking a vacuum cleaner, after waiting and looking to see if it belonged to anyone . . and then being chased down by the owner to reclaim it. And, as I was looking on craigslist yesterday, I found this.
I think there has to be a better way to do this. There should be places set up to put reusable items and places to put things that are clearly trash and a way to designate what is NOT up for grabs . . . that way less stuff would end up in the land fills.
LOBBYING COMPLAINTS
Dean Mosiman follows up, noting that my complaints have merit and that some are cooperating to get the information, but he notes that one of them is questionable. The City Attorney directed the Marcus Hotels and Resorts to look directly at MGO 2.40 (2)(h) which says:
“Legislative action” means the development, drafting, introduction, consideration, modification, adoption, rejection, review, enactment or defeat of any ordinance, resolution, amendment, report, nomination or other matter by the Common Council or by any board, committee or commission or committee or subcommittee thereof, or by a Common Council member acting in an official capacity. “Legislative action” also means the action of the mayor in approving or vetoing any ordinance or resolution, and the action of the mayor or any department, board, committee or commission or committee or subcommittee thereof in the development of a proposal for introduction to the Common Council.
I’d remind people of our 2009 budget discussions, where the Mayor proposed $1.2M for the Madison Municipal Building/Government East parking ramp. The proposal included this language:
This project envisions a 570 stall above grade garage to be built on the current MMB site. Planning will take place in 2009 ($1.2 million) with construction in 2010, estimated at $14.25 million ($25,000 per stall). After this parking garage is constructed, Government East can be demolished with redevelopment of that parcel starting the following year. (Note: This project is in lieu of either a parking garage at the Brayton site, or the replacement of the Government East garage at the Government East site.)
Um . . . that parking ramp was part of the Marcus Hotels and Resorts plan that most of us have never seen, but it was seen by the Mayor and he was willing to put it as his preferred option in his budget. It’s also the reason that the Development Services Center that was all the rage with the business/development community a few years ago, is being held up. If I look hard enough, this has to be in writing somewhere . . .
EDGEWATER
An interesting alternate proposal for the Edgewater . . . he makes a good point about how winter in Wisconsin isn’t such a great view from the 11 story tower . . . and how the public spaces become less useful . . .
GOOGLE DIDN’T NEED A TIF HAND OUT
Did anyone note the answer to the question about why Google chose Madison in the Cap Times Q & A? Talent pool and quality of life . . . and knowing someone who lived here who had an interest . . .
GOOGLE – FIX YOUR SEARCH ENGINE!
Ok, in reading the WSJ version of the article above, I laughed out loud. As someone who uses the blogger software for my blog, this quote struck me as ironic.
Google’s search engine can sift through billions of documents in a fraction of a second, said Laudon. “Search has really come a long way,” he said.
Ha! Except if you go up to the top of this post, enter something in the search engine that you know I’ve written about and see if the posts show up. For me, the last few months seem to be showing up, for others, nothing at all shows up. People have been trying to get them to fix this through their “Help” function for over a month, to no avail. I hope they fix that soon, otherwise I’m going to have to update the labels on my posts. One of the major uses of my blog for myself is being able to find information quickly.
METRO EXPANDING
Somehow, this just seems wrong. One of the reasons bus fares were raised was to spend $150,000 for expansion of bus services. But . . . to Fitchburg? I don’t think the $150,000 is being spent on it, but I wonder if we’re getting fully paid to do this, or how much we’re subsidizing it? And I wonder, how will this impact ridership numbers? I know we favor bus routes that get people to and from a traditional work day, but as we serve more and more commuters, what is happening to the transit dependent riders who might work at odd hours?
COUNTY BUDGET CUTS ON THE WAY . . .
With about 2 working days notice . . . here’s the good news we got yesterday . . .
Below is information from the Dane County Board Office regarding the Public Hearings on the Department of Human Services’ 2010 budget proposal. Our budget proposal will be delivered to the County Executive and made public late in the day Thursday, August 27th. It will be on our website by Friday morning, August 28th. Your contract managers will be contacting you the afternoon of Thursday, August 27th, to discuss the proposed budget for your individual programs; you will also receive a hard copy of that information through the mail.
Here’s the info . . .
I apologize for the relatively short notice of the dates for the budget request hearings. I’ll follow up with additional details, but wanted to get you the dates as soon as possible.
The hearings on the Department of Human Services budget request will on Tuesday, Sept. 1 and Wednesday, Sept 2 at the Alliant Energy Center, beginning at 6pm each day. The hearing on all other department budget requests will be held Monday, September 21 at 6pm in Room 201 of the City County Building.
Please mark your calendars, and let us know if you have any questions. Additional information will be provided shortly.
So on Thursday the 27th you’ll get a call, so what? You should just sit around the office and wait for it – and then figure out what you need to do for a budget hearing the following Tuesday. Seriously? Normally, the hearings are held the day after Labor Day, which isn’t ideal either, but you can at least plan for it and its not on a week when many will be gone.
MORE SHORT NOTICE
With a new Community Development Director, many expect priorities for how we spend millions of Federal money to change . . . and the framework for how those decisions get made is the five year plan. So, you’d expect this to be a thorough, transparent, public process right . . . Nah . . . not really, but it sure would be nice. Here’s the notice we got yesterday . . .
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARING
Draft 2010-2014 Consolidated Plan and Draft 2010 Action Plan
5:00 p.m., Thursday, September 3, 2009
Bridge-Lakepoint-Waunona Community Center
1917 Lake Point DriveThe City of Madison Community Development Division and CDBG Committee invites you to provide feedback on the draft CDBG Office 2010-2014 Consolidated Plan and 2010 Action Plans. The Consolidated Plan is used to identify and set funding priorities for the community development program over the next five years. The Action Plan sets specific goals for the upcoming year.
Copies of the draft plans will be available online at www.cityofmadison.com/cdbg and at the following locations on August 24, 2009:• City of Madison Libraries
• Boys & Girls Club of Dane County – Allied Dunns Marsh
• Boys & Girls Club of Dane County – Taft St.
• Bridge-Lakepoint-Waunona Community Center
• Warner Park Community & Recreation Center
• Lussier Community Education Center
• CDBG Office at 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Room 280, P.O. Box 2985, Madison, Wisconsin 53701-2985Comments may be made at the public hearing scheduled for September 3, 2009 or submitted to the CDBG Office in writing via mail – CDBG Office, PO Box 2985, Madison, WI 53701 or email – cdbg@cityofmadison.com.
The comments will be incorporated into the discussions for the final versions of the plans.
If you need special accommodations such as a translator or sign language interpreter, please call the CDBG Office at 267-0740 (866) 704-2318 TDD.) at least 48 hours prior to the meeting so that we may make the arrangements for your participation.
According to the email, you can also find the document on the 24th here.
PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION
When the state “fixed” the property tax exemption issue, it left many of us out. The city identified 9 non-profits that rented space that would still have to pay. If you ask me, they missed quite a few people on that list, but last I heard, all of them were off the list except one, which was expected to also be taken off. Yesterday, Social Justice Center got their notice that says “I have reviewed the income and expense information submitted to me previously. My analysis indicates that the above property satisfies the rent use requirement and will continue to be exempt from property tax.” Great! Good for us . . . but this was one of the most miserable processes ever and it sure wasted alot of people’s time and money.
BE THE MEDIA
People comment all the time about how they like my blog for being timely and many (including many city staff) say its the only place they can find out what happened at various city meetings or get information that isn’t available via legistar. Many comment that the papers should pay me for the information – I couldn’t ever do it, cuz while I desperately need a copy editor, I don’t want them editing my content. However, I had to laugh that this was posted on the madison.com site. Maybe I should be getting paid!
