This is for the hour of items prior to the budget discussions. Includes wheel tax and Judge Doyle Square.
Here’s the video if you’re brave. This covers about the first hour of over 6 hours of the meeting.
Getting Started
Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway starts the meeting. They take the roll call. Alders Shiva Bidar, Keith Furman, Rebecca Kemble and Barbara McKinney are present when the meeting starts. They start with the consent agenda. They have registrations on items 8, 13 and 14. On 8 and 13 its to answer questions. They also now have a registrant on number 1. 9 and 12 are also excluded. They pass items 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11.
1. Granting and adopting equitable wage increases for employees in Compensation Group 28.
Rick Mart is available from MPSEA in support, not wishing to speak, available to answer questions. Bidar moves adoption, its seconded. No discussion. Passes on a voice vote.
They have two registrants, Megan Schwartz from Movin’ Out, in support and available to answer questions and Mark Hammond from MSP Real Estate in support, available to answer questions.
Barbara McKinney has a question of Mark Hammond from Wauwatosa. She apologizes for not reading the details about the development. She wants to know how the projects were selected. Mayor points out that the question might be for staff. Mayor asks if Hammond wants to speak. He says “it’s a great project” then laughs and says that he hopes to get approval tonight. McKinney asks why its a great project. Hammond says that this is located right across the street from the North transfer point, there is great access to public transportation, it’s directly next door to the Dane County Job Center. So there is really great synergies there as well. There hasn’t been an affordable housing project developed in the direct vicinity for 20 years. This is a pocket of the city that they believe is underserved for affordable housing. The Pick and Save grocery store is within a half mile, the Willy St. Coop is about a mile north. This will be MSPs 3rd affordable housing development that they are working on in the City of Madison, one on the west side and one on the east side and now they are up spreading the love on the north side.
There are no other questions for either of the registrants, Bidar makes a motion for adoption.
McKinney now asks staff to come up and answer questions. Jim O’Keefe the Director of Community Development Division comes up. McKinney says they have really been talking about affordable housing and the speaker said there is an affordable housing project on the West, East and now North side. Could you share what we have learned in the selection of these developments and the placement of them.
O’Keefe starts to speak, Mayor interrupts and says, maybe just a short thing on process and how we came to these projects. He says this is the 6th year since the inception of the Affordable Housing Fund. It was an initiative that began 6 years ago with the primary goal of increasing the inventory of affordable housing rental units in the City of Madison. Affordable means primarily serving residents of income of not more than 60% of the County Median Income. It’s funded at $4.5M per year since it was created. Proposed in the 2020 budget to increase by a half million dollars. The strategy that they adopted in putting this initiative in to motion was to try to leverage other funding sources, most notably federal low-income tax credits. That is a resource that has been around for some time but had not really been taken advantage of in this city as much as it could have been. So they quickly learned that local financial support for these projects made them much more competitive in a process that the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) uses annual to allocate tax credit resources across the state of Wisconsin. They largely mirrored in terms of the things they were looking for, what WHEDA was looking for because the whole point was to make these developments more competitive. So they looked for developers with track records in using that federal resource. They looked for development proposals that were located proximate to public transit, groceries, parks, schools, the kinds of amenities that anyone would want to live near by. And they instituted their own annual competitive process and timed it in a way that they would make financial commitments in time so that developers who secured those commitments would have them in hand when they applied to WHEDA. It’s been a tremendously successful strategy so far as it’s gone. We set a goal, the council set a goal of adding 1000 units of rental housing over a 5 year period of time. They exceeded that goal by about 10% and this is the most iteration of it. They have found that the use of our resources has been an effective tool in helping developers secure those tax credits. They have gone 17 for 17 in terms of projects that they put city dollars to that have ultimately gone on to get tax credits. A couple of those projects have taken more than one attempt but they have all been successful. About a week or two ago Mr Hammond and his group had a grand opening at the 9th of the 17 projects that have been completed and opened. They’ve learned that theirs is an effective partnership with the development community. With the state through WHEDA, Dane County also participates in a good number of these projects. It has proven to be an effective resource for them.
McKinney thanks him for sharing and says that with 17 for 17 often times you learn from each of the projects and it gets better so that is what she wanted to hear, thank you for expanding. You have a process and method that is working and at each venue you learn something from the other and you apply that so thank you so very much for sharing that.
Alder Donna Moreland says that he has said the projects have been successful and asks what success looks like.
O’Keefe says that we begin with the ability to use the resources that we have put in to the projects. He doesn’t mean to overstate the city’s role, but he thinks if you look at the numbers of Madison development proposals that have secured tax credits before the fund and since there is a stark contrast. The first part of the success has been to leverage other resources. He says we have invested since the project started a little less than $24M over the first 5 years. They have gotten $150M in tax credits and those investments have supported development proposals totally over $250M. So in terms of the financial impact of the investment he thinks that is very powerful testimony. But more importantly than that is that they helped create over 1100 of quality new housing that are now either occupied or being developed for occupancy by members of our community who have struggled to find housing largely because of the cost of that housing. So, we set that minimum standard at 60% but many of the developments are serving households much lower than that. 50% of county median income, 30% of county median income. The biggest impact has been that – it has provided quality housing and stable housing, in some cases for the first time for households who now take up residents in the apartment buildings that we help make happen.
Moreland asks, specifically because of Tree Lane, the city had to come back and grant additional dollars for other things, are we factoring that in to some of the other buildings. Is there going to be money set aside to supplement if needed for services.
O’Keefe says Tree Lane is a very different development than most of the others. It along with Rethke Terrace apartments are the only 2 of the 17 that he mentioned that were developed solely to serve very low income residents, so the profile of the residents in those is different than the others. 15 of the 17 have a mix of incomes, Tree Land and Retake were developed to serve exclusively very low-income residents. What we have learned from that is that it is not enough to come up with the resources for the bricks and mortar. They have learned some hard lessons, particularly at Tree Lane, about the need to have adequate support services. So, its an adjustment that they have made at Tree Lane and they are seeing the impacts of that adjustment. He thinks it is a lesson they have learned in terms of where they go next with permanent supported housing and not the least of which is whether that model of concentrating a large number of very high needs individuals in one location is the best way to meet that need. It’s not the only way that we are meeting that need currently, there are a number of mixed income developments that have as many as 10% of the units reserved for permanent supported housing. That might be the better model as we move forward.
Mayor says it would be useful when presenting something like this to present the level of affordability or whether or not it’s permanent supportive housing, given that there is still a lack of clarity about what we mean when we say affordable housing. It might be useful to be a little more specific. She asks about the level of affordability of the units. He has the applications but it would take a moment to look it up. Mayor asks if any of them are permanent supportive housing. Verveer points out the report has ranges, but not the numbers for each range. Mayor tells Moreland to look at page 5 of the resolution they are adopting that will have the levels of affordability in each project. She says she thinks that is sufficient.
(I’m not really sure what they are looking at, here the memo, the resolution and a summary document. The resolution says this:
Developers, Projects and Loan Amounts
-
- Up to $1.7 million (from AHF) – MSP Real Estate, Inc., or an affiliate LLC for 1212 Huxley Street Apartments: a 111-unit rental housing redevelopment with 94 units affordable to households with incomes at or below 30%, 50%, or 60% of the County Median Income (CMI); and
- Up to $1.4 million (from AHF) – Age Better, Inc. and Gorman & Company, LLC, or an affiliate LLC for Elderberry Place Apartments: a 87-unit rental housing development with 73 units affordable to households with incomes at or below 30%, 50% or 60% of CMI; and
- Up to $1.025 million ($125,000 from AHF and $900,000 from HOME) – Movin’ Out, Inc., or an affiliate LLC for Red Caboose Apartments, a 38-unit rental housing development with 32 units affordable to households with incomes at or below 30%, 50% or 60% of CMI.
O’Keefe says that the typical profile of these mixed income development and these three would be characterized as mixed-income development is that something on the order of 15 or 20 percent are set aside for very low income households (30%), a comprable are kept as market rate units and the balance are serving 50 and 60% CMI level.
No discussion, motion passes.
McKinney says that for non-neighborhood based School-age child and you development programs and she is always looking at the funding that goes in that direction but the programming and impact and intended outcome of that. Again, that is just a process question and its always good to know what the process is to arrive at that selection. He asks Mary O’Donnel (staff) to join him. He says this process begins with they are increasingly calling policy papers that set the parameters for what we are looking for in terms of replying these dollars and what kind of programming we are looking to support and the expectations we have of those programs and the organizations that deploy them. They develop the policy papers with input from stakeholders in the community that are interested or affected by them and they bring the policy papers to you, council members for discussion and approval. We do that through the community services committee. Those policy papers provide the foundation for the request for proposals. They are converted into the request for proposals as we communicate to community partners about what we are looking for and asking for and expecting with respect to the use of the dollars. We issue those request for proposals and we usually provide about a month or 6-8 weeks to solicit proposals and then we have increasingly turned to review panels that are compromised not just of City Community Development staff but other colleagues within city government and other partners outside of city government. Those review panels review each of the proposals we receive, they apply criteria that we have established that are laid out in the RFP and we gather input from those review panels and staff make recommendations to one of any number of standing committees, again in this case its the Community Services Committee. They discuss the recommendations with the committees and they make adjustments and the recommendations that are in front of you this afternoon are from the Community Services Committee.
McKinney asks about the policy papers compared to the weighting. Is it policy papers, is there subjective processes that are weighted. Or how is that . . . ?
Mary O’Donell says the criteria used by the review panel and staff are posted with the requests for proposals, divided into various topics, most of which are covered in the policy paper, things like the expected frequency of programming, the breadth of topics, the staffing ratios, expected cost per participant, those kinds of things. And each of the criteria they’re objective in terms of the budget and staffing fits what they are applying for. Whether the organization has history with that type of programming. What kind of outreach and communication they have with community engagement with parents and other stakeholders.
McKinney asks what the report back requirements are and how you make adjustments if there is a need based on the expectation is or was and how they are meeting those.
O’Donell says that the next step is the contracting process. During that process they set out the specific requirements for the reporting, typically its quarterly reports on the service outcomes, number of kids, number of hours and then annual outcome reports, sometimes that varies a little bit by agency. For example the Urban League program Schools of Hope reports by semester and we get their annual report more by the school year than the calendar year. Typically they are quarterly and then annually. If there are concerns, if they are not meeting . . . they work with the agency to identify what is happening that they are not meeting their goals. Did they lose staff, are there changes in the neighborhood, and then we would address those either in the next contract year or potentially, depending upon if they are serious, they might meet with the board of directors in addition to the staff, it just kind of depends upon the level of contract compliance issue.
McKinney asks if there is always an opportunity to cure when you do those quarterly or annual reviews. You are still working with that entity to make sure that they are moving in a direction to make sure its position on both ends. McDonell says “correct”. Each contract is amended each year and that is an opportunity to make adjustments to the goals, the budgets, and we work hand in hand with the agencies on those changes. McKinney says she commends the work that they have done and moved this process forward.
Alder Patrick Heck wanted to point out one of the clauses in the resolution that specifically mentions the Salvation Army affordable housing component of the Salvation Army process. Verveer points out that was the previous resolution. He apologizes when he realizes that they already moved on.
Moreland asks what some of the goals the agencies have in their papers. O’Donell says there are both service goals, the number of unduplicated children or youth that participate in a program over the quarter or over the year. The number of hours of programming. And then the outcome goals, most of them are around social, emotional learning, so they are looking for kids to have increases in terms of communication skills, how they work together as a group. Some of the programs will have goals related to academic performance if that is their focus. Some may also have goals related to the youth attendance or behavior issues at school if its a smaller group program that has more intensive services. They might be looking to say that children in the program will have less behavior referrals, higher attendance rate. It’s kind of a mix depending upon the focus of the program.
Moreland asks how much of what is being requested is what they requested. O’Donell says the total request with the RFP was $600,000 and laughter . . . the Mayor says that the short version is that we are not giving them everything they requested. O’Keefe says that this and the previous resolution do take into account that the executive budget includes funding that we had brought to the attention of the council and mayor earlier this year that would be needed to implement these requests for proposals. It’s part of why this resolution is a little bit late getting to you. These recommendations have been signed off on by the community services and conference committee earlier this year but we wanted to wait to see how these programs fared in the budget.
McKinney asks about intensive high risk youth, high risk. Repetitive high risk youth. Are they filtered into these programs, is there one program that specifically works with high risk youth? O’Donell says that this request was focuses on multi-activity after school programming. A portion of it is population or topic focuses, those are more gender based or race and ethnicity focused programs than programs that are targeted for youth in the juvenile justice system for example. She would say all of their programs serve youth that are facing a lot of barriers and challenges in their life and are at high risk for a variety of negative outcomes, but this area of programming isn’t specifically focused on just that select group.
McKinney says that was her question, because there is a group of highly intense kids, not that they are filtered in to the program, she wants to know if there is something very specific that is addressing that group of youth, and there is not. O’Donell say not specifically in this group of programming.
Bidar asks if that is programming the county provides a lot of. O’Donell says “correct”, that is really more the focus of the county’s program, not the city’s program, however, we as the community development division work really closely with Dane County Human Services, both the youth justice arena as well as prevention services and bring in our city funded programs and work to have them reach those youth that are most in need. But it is often through a partnership with the county, where our funds are attached to the broader program and county will have funds attached to specific youth that get referred.
Bidar says she is one of the alders that serves on Community Services, she wants to highlight that at community services they hear from every one of the agencies, they come before us and present their proposals to us. And then staff presents the result of their assessment and evaluation based on the criteria and then we have good discussion and we try to make every dollar extend. As you can see that some numbers go to 875 because we try to spread the money to the agencies that they feel really met the criteria we set up as the city. This year we were able to fund a number of new programs, that we hadn’t funded before. A number of her alder colleagues have asked about Simpson St. Free Press and they were able to fund them for an additional $13,000. If you can look at the requested amount and how much we were able to fund, assuming the executive budget as proposed will move forward, you will see certainly there is a gap and they can always use more money to fund some of the organizations based on the work they do and their request. They do spend quite a bit of time hearing from the program managers in the agencies but in this case, the youth who are receiving services at this agencies and we are able to ask them a lot of questions.
McKinney asks about collaboration of funds with the City and Dane County, so there are programs where you are working together and those are dollars she is looking for. More specifically her question is around those young people that are falling through the cracks. That they are not engaging, and there is a process, I acknowledge that, but there is a group of youth that are absolutely falling through the cracks. And in the proposals, and she is putting this out there as, she doesn’t have an answer to it, but it really is a concern of hers, is that, that group of young people that are falling through the cracks that really need a very intense intervention, we are missing those. She doesn’t know if, what they are funding, she doesn’t know the answer to that, but she absolutely puts it out there because she is looking for what they are doing with that intense group of 20 or 30, however many there is of that number that changes, that very intense group of young people that are absolutely falling through the cracks, that are not being included in some of these other generic program. That is something she is looking for a response too.
O’Donell says that the group McKinney is speaking about and the needs of that group would be a different kind of request for proposal focused specifically on the higher needs youth and different kinds of outreach, activities, very different intensity. It is not something that through the Community Development Division that they have entertained as a general request for proposal. We have at times with some special grants, had more focused collaboration with Dane County on that specific group of youth, but as alder Bidar said before, the County is the lead responsible organization for those youth and we do our best in partnership with them along with the Madison Police Department and all of the agencies that are engaged to try to figure out those gaps. If anybody had an answer to that, she would hope that they would actually do something.
Mayor says that the group that McKinney is most concerned about has been the subject of a multi-lateral table with folks from the city, county, courts and a number of community or nonprofit organizations that has been meeting for at least a year not and is piloting several mentoring programs. So its not funded out of this RFP, but there is fairly intensive work going on around that, but its not what is before us right now.
McKinney mentions it because she was remembering when working with formerly incarcerated individuals was not in your program model and you made those adjustments, so she knows those adjustments are possible so that is why she is putting it out there, because it was a model you definitely incorporated because funding probably 4 years ago there was not money going into formerly incarcerated individuals, but there is a definite shift to that and so she is putting it out there, so it is in the air.
Motion passes on a voice vote without discussion.
McKinney asks how they arrived at the figure. Was there a process by which they said this is a perfect fit. How did you arrive at that amount for the tax.
Tom Lynch who they waited for as he put back on his jacket and got ready to ask a questions is the Director of Transportation says that he was working on a letter while they were deliberating so . . . Mayor jumps in and says that is actually a question for finance. Lynch wants to know what the topic is. The mayor says the vehicle registration fee, we are on item 12. She says that Tom was involved in the transportation piece, but the final decisions on the amount were made by the mayor in conjunction with finance. McKinney says she will hold the question for finance and the mayor.
McKinney asks if there was a RESJI completed on this? Who answers that question? How did you arrive at knowing that who is going to be impacted and normally we have some process we go through looking at the impact on certain populations. Was that done? Who do I? Who answers that question?
The mayor says “I do”. McKinney says “well then” The mayor says that staff can certainly speak to it if they wish but no, we did not run through a formal RESJI process on that decision or on the entire budget for that matter.
McKinney says she is really specifically interested in 12, not the entire budget, but since we are really looking at another tax and I know in the language it said that it assists “improve metro transit service to residents, paying for bus passes for low-income families, better weekend services that is reliable and frequent” and I put not just for communities of color but “to support a Madison that works for all” and so when she went through and looked at that, the tax and the projected dollar amount it would generate, I mean it really significantly assists in a lot of areas, was the tool applied and why not.
The mayor says it was not applied. And why not is because this is a key part of the executive operating budget and the time frame to make those decisions is incredibly short. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t think about the impact on various portions of the community, in fact that was a major topic of discussion and the last time, you probably recall that this proposal came forward it was a major conversation as well. So, I think certainly anything that you learned in that period can be carried forward because the concept is the same. She says she doesn’t know if anyone who was there previous to her wants to speak to that process.
Lynch says he was part of the RESJI process for the vehicle registration fee last year. It was last summer when it was being considered, Mayor Soglin’s proposal. So many of the impacts are very similar to what would have occurred last year. The difference with this, perhaps, is that there are measurable activities being directed to address many of the populations and communities that are underserved or communities of color. An example would be to increase service to the South Transfer Point during weekends. And kind of trying to shore up transportation for people that don’t own an automobile. We had several, probably 4 meetings, we looked at charts that have many graphics. The results of the analysis would be the same, but what is being done with the fee this time vs. what was being done with the fee previously is different is that this actually is targeting an investment to address transportation needs in at least a portion of underserved communities.
McKinney says it looks like it is going to serve the new initiative of the BRT as well. It fits a lot of purposes and I bring this up because when I hear that communities of color are impacted and she has heard it in various venues. Her question always is – is this something that will help communities broadly? It’s not just communities of color, its helping Madison move towards being a city where it is welcoming to all. So that is the mix up.
Mayor jumps back in. She says one piece of information that is useful is that under state law, funding from a vehicle registration fee can only be used for transportation, so it has to go toward transportation, that is why you are seeing it go to metro.
McKinney says she gets that, but its still is a question about the amount. She read the rationale in terms of Madison still being the lowest municipality that is using the wheel tax, but she still is not how sure how it landed on $40.
Mayor says “that amount was my decision and I chose that amount based on the advice of certainly transportation staff but also finance staff and staff in her office” and it really is a function of wanting to make sure we can support expanded service and amenities for the communities that in the RESJI process were highlighted as being negatively impacted” Another example is that they will be able to make low income bus passes available at the new employment center, where we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do that. And, with the needs of the budget as a whole and looking forward in her attempt to try and start some longer term planning in our operating budget, looking forward at what they think their needs are going to be, not just this year, 2020, but also out 2021, 2022, 2023 and to plan prudently with a longer term outlook and that is how we settled on the amount.
Bidar wants to make a process comment that this conversation is also related to our budget conversation and the reason we have the ordinance before us is because of a timing issue with the state, we have to have the amount to the state by November 29th, for it to be enacted March 1, 2020. So since our final budget deliberations are before Nov. 29th. if any alder brings a proposal to change that amount of $40, we would then have to amend this item before us to reflect that amount by Nov. 29th. That means that they have to make sure that if there is such an amendment that we have this language before us on that same night because they don’t have another meeting before Nov. 29th. This sets the amount as $40, we may change it during the budget process deliberation, until the last minute when we vote for the final budget. If that amount changes during our budget deliberation, we would need to amend the item before us, this ordinance, to reflect the amount we approve in the budget. If it is different than $40 and we would need to do that probably the same night as we vote for the final budget to meet the deadline for submitting what our amount will be to the state. She is trying to say that instead of deliberating the amount right now, we should deliberate that as part of our budget because it is a big part of the budget and if we somehow as a council vote on different amount, we will need to amend this.
Mayor Rhodes-Conway points out that if they came up with an amount lower than $40 they would need to significantly amend the operating budget.
Bidar says correct.
Alder Mike Verveer also has a process question, perhaps more for the mayor and finance, the proposal that they have before them says that the ordinance shall be in effect March 1, 2020, and the operating budget language on page 203 of the budget book says the vehicle registration fee will “fall within the first quarter of 2020”, so he was surprised when this was introduced from the floor at the last council meeting and more surprised to see it on tonight’s agenda and perhaps he is misunderstanding why it is on the agenda. His question is, are you, Mayor, hoping that we would make a recommendation tonight on this resolution.
Mayor says yes, because under state law there is a three money gap between the adoption and the effect, so the sooner we adopt the ordinance, at council, the sooner that clock starts ticking and the sooner revenue comes in.
Verveer asks if the Executive Operating Budget that is before them a few items from now, does it anticipate a Feb. 1 start or a March 1 start.
Dave Schmidicke, the Finance Director says that the amounts in the budget assume a January 1st start date, so each delay of this, a month or whatever, is reducing the revenue that is available.
Verveer asks “what was the thought behind that, why would you, knowing that the start of the statute is such that there is no way we could practically have it?” Schmidicke says that he thinks they thought that they could probably manage a month or so, even 2 by scaling back the new elements, at least in 2020, what might be available for some of the expansions. There are some studies and they will go into those details when they talk about the executive budget a couple of budget items ahead. At least having it set up having that expenditure authority in place and in 2021 have that annualized amount, but that’s . . . we are sort of predicating what is in the budget on assuming as quickly in 2020 that the fee be in place. He wants to add to what Alder Bidar was saying, actually what is in the ordinance would require adoption by the November 19th meeting of the council, not the 29th and the reason it is before you at this meeting, to the extent to which the council were to adopt it sooner than that, then it could be in place by February 1st. Which would be more in tune with what is in the executive budget from a revenue perspective.
Verveer says it seems to him that he doesn’t feel comfortable voting on this within the next several minutes, we aren’t even discussing Tom’s agency request until Thursday evening. He can’t vote for this tonight without going through the agency requests, even if it takes a special meeting of the Finance Committee to make it work. When he first saw it, he saw it says it takes effect March 1 and so that is what he assumed the budget anticipated. And that is why he was surprised that it was on tonights agenda for action.
Schmiedicke says that they had it drafted that way in the event that you took that approach that you just laid out, which was that you wanted more time and to have it through the budget. The ordinance could be amended if you decide to adopt it sooner, the other thing is that you can refer this item to you Thursday meeting or you will meet again 2 2 weeks from today.
Verveer says right, on October 21st. Speaking for himself, he would be much more comfortable adopting this after we go through the operating budget amendments the night of October 21st and having this on the agenda on October 21st. He realizes that this means that we won’t be able to have this go into effect in any event in January, and it wouldn’t in February either, but that would mean March 1 start date in any event. But that is just his thought as of now. Maybe I”m the only one who feels that way?
Alder Grant Foster says that in terms of the timing his understanding is that the state collects the fees and then we get that money 30 days after it is collected. If it goes into effect March 1st, the money that gets collected on March 1st and March 2nd, is that money part of what we will receive in 2020 or . .. Schmidicke says that is simply a cash issue and it would be a receivable at the end of the year, so.
Alder Keith Furman says under the operating budget summary it talks about a $5.5M number that is replacing the Metro subsidy with vehicle registration for $5.5M and then obviously on page 203 it talks about $7.9M for annual revenue for the vehicle registration fee, he is under the impression that the difference between the $5.5M and the $7.9 had to with the later implementation, but it sound like there is other money that we will see that is being spent with the registration.
Schmiedicke says that when they get to the overview they will go into the details of the entire budget, including the vehicle registration fee and how it’s allocated.
Mayor asks if there are other questions. Motion right now is to approve.
Donna Moreland asks to refer this to their Thursday Finance meeting. Bidar asks if October 21st or Thursday. Mayor says the Thursday would get them through the briefings. Someone seconds.
Verveer says that his preference is Oct. 21st but he supports Moreland’s amendment and they will revisit this Thursday and they can re-refer it again Thursday night if the majority of them feel that is the appropriate approach. This is obviously a huge decision for all of them, $40 would be the highest vehicle registration fee in the entire state based on the memo that Doren provided to them and he would be more comfortable if he knew where they were with amendments. But he understands the one month of revenue concerns as well, so he will support Alder Moreland’s motion to refer to Thursday and revisit this Thursday evening after they presentations of the Transportation agencies and so forth.
They refer to Thursday on a unanimous voice vote.
The mayor suggest they take the testimony on item 14 (budget)first, then place it on the table so they can get the presentations after their closed session. That means the people who are there don’t have to go away and then come back after the closed session.
I don’t think they voted, but no on objected and they moved on to budget testimony
14. 2020 Executive Operating Budget
They take a half hour of public testimony, which I will include with budget blog posts.
They place the item on the table.
13. Judge Doyle: Negotiating Team Progress Report
They immediately move in to closed session. The mayor asks the staff to come up to the table. The graphic on the video says they are in closed session but . . .
The mayor asks if there is anything they can talk about before they go into closed session. George Austin says “good afternoon” – mic cuts out . . . next thing I hear is “We have held 4 negotiating sessions with Stone House since the council approved moving to negotiate with Stonehouse for the Block 88 air rights.” And they have 3 sessions remaining with the goal of presenting a draft development agreement for your review for your meeting of November 11th, they will be back on the 21st, at your next meeting for one further progress report and check-in. They did report that (video comes back) the team had been working on the impact of the modifications to the podium and underlying municipal garage which has been a key issue of several headline issues. Late last week they received a letter from the structural engineer that says “this letter is to confirm that it is our professional opinion that the podium structure has adequate capacity to support the Stonehouse proposed development above existing level 5 podium without need to reinforce the existing structure.” It goes on “existing columns, transfer beams and footings influenced by the Stonehouse development proposed above the 5th floor podium have been analyzed and been found adequate to support the imposed vertical loads.” So this is indeed good news and takes away a significant issue they wrestled with to ensure there was no delay in the opening of the municipal garage yet this year. And any cost impacts on the purchase price or development deal that had been proposed. They received that information on Thursday of last week.
The mayor says that before they move into closed session she wants to point out that they have two registrants, both Helen Bradbury and Rich Arneson from Stonehouse are here and are available to answer questions.
There are no questions for the registrants.
They vote to go into closed session with no discussion. It’s unanimous (Bidar, Furman, Kemble, McKinney, Moreland, Verveer, Rhodes-Conway).
They move into closed session and are in closed session for a little over an hour.
When they come out of closed session the Mayor says that she reports from the closed session that the Finance Committee affirmed their support for the original proposal from Stonehouse and directed the negotiating team to continue negotiations with them.
She says that brings them back to item 14, the executive operating budget.
I will blog the rest of that over the rest of the week.
