“Broken” Process Public Hearings Rescheduled

I missed the Economic Development Committee meeting last Wednesday, so I was a bit confused about why the public hearings were not on the agenda for this week. Thanks to Vicky Selkowe for explaining via email to her neighbors . . .

The city’s Economic Development Committee (EDC) met last Wednesday and spent most of our meeting talking about the development review process update. City staff (Peggy Yessa) has prepared binders for all committee members with all of the feedback & recommendations received so far. This includes numerous comments from neighborhood associations, city commission members, the Chamber of Commerce, etc. etc. as well as the notes & summaries from the neighborhood summit held in late July. All of these comments are also on legistar – Peggy has done a great job of putting these documents online.

The committee set dates for public hearings on this development review discussion: Wednesday, September 16th & Wednesday, September 23rd. Exact times & locations to be announced, but I believe they will both start at 5pm. Please note that the hearings originally scheduled for this week have been canceled, as has the EDC meeting scheduled for September 1st. Staff will not have a draft recommendation document for the EDC’s discussion until after those hearings.

I would strongly urge concerned neighborhood residents, associations, and others to attend these hearings and speak about what needs to be maintained in the development process, what should be improved, and what recommendations made so far you oppose.

At that last EDC meeting, committee member Al Zimmerman presented to the EDC his”findings” and recommendations, found here: http://legistar.cityofmadison.com/attachments/8c11e330-48af-49ea-b67c-a52f40838a2f.pdf. His recommendations were formed from his conversations with an undisclosed group of his colleagues. He emphasized that those he talked to share the belief that the process is not in fact broken, and that we have all of the elements of a great process, they just might need some rearranging.

EDC members will be able to ask questions during the September hearings, so please let me know if there are questions you are particularly interested in having asked. I hope to see many of you at these hearings.

If you have other questions about how the EDC is proceeding with this task, let me know.