Dane County Board had a 46 minute virtual meeting where they have a 10 minute roll call, cut off members of the public for not being germane, allow virtual committee meetings and delay seizures of properties for not paying taxes.
You can follow along here:
GETTING STARTED
Call to order
County Board Chair Analiese Eicher calls the meeting to order. She thanks people for their patience and flexibility in this brand new amazing technology that they are using to conduct their meeting. A shout out to our tech folks making this happen. The clerk is going to call the roll and they will proceed through their agenda like normal.
Roll call
County Clerk Scott McDonell starts to call roll.
Eicher explains that on roll call Supervisors will be unmuted by staff, they will say present and they will need to mute themselves.
McDonell starts over.
They seem to have some issues getting adjusted to the technology and are having trouble unmuting people. McDonell suggests they unmute everyone, but they say no. Finding and unmuting is taking a while. They skip some people and come back to them. People are obviously present but having mic problems. They are trying to unmute people but its awkward and slow and sometimes they have to unmute themselves.
Roll call takes 10 and a half minutes.
All present except Jamie Kuhn, Bob Salov, Julie Schwellenbach.
Eicher says that Schwellenbach and Kuhn indicated they would be absent.
Inspirational
Chawla does the inspirational about the crisis we are in. Best to watch it above if you are interested to get the real flavor of it, but he thanks people and highlights the following:
- County Board Chair made sure their meetings are open and accessible
- Mayor and County Executive worked quickly to ensure social distancing while maintaining essential services
- Clerk is making sure that everyone eligible to cast a ballot can do so and have it counted.
- Doctors, nurses, first responders, delivery drivers and grocery clerks have stayed calm and composed and put their community first to provide food shelter and health.
- Board members need to convey urgent messages in a unified way
- Listen to Dane County Public Health for frequent updates, statistics and idepensible life-saving advice.
Even though you might not be in a risk category, by social distancing you are protecting the most vulnerable among us who may not be able to protect themselves. Following these guidelines is an act of deep patriotism and shows your love for your neighbors and your community.
We are closer to the beginning than the end of this pandemic and we have myriad of challenges ahead of us.
- How will we help our neighbors who are homeless and housing insecure find food, shelter and medicine?
- How will we protect the children who depend on our schools that serve as a vital safety net for them?
- How can we protect the inmates, officers and staff of the county jail form contracting coronavirus while still keeping our community safe?
- How will we help our neighbors who own the restaurants and shops and the many service workers who are always there with a smile and a hot meal and a cold drink affter a long day?
We must not forget the tremendous economic toll this will take on those who can afford it the least. Living paycheck to paycheck or with no paycheck at all.
This crisis will show the strength, agility, and cooperation of our state and local government, board members and constitutional officers. We are stronger together.
Pledge of Allegiance
In delayed stereo!!!!!!
HIRING FREEZE
Presentation by County Executive Joe Parisi
County Executive addresses the County Board in the first time that I can remember in the last few years. After a game of “can you hear me” he thanks everyone and makes an general opening statement about the current crisis – again best watched in the video linked above.
He says the Dane County Budget will be one of the casualties of the crisis
- Sales tax and investment income are two key revenue sources that will suffer
- We can’t predict the duration of the mitigation strategies that have and will be implemented, so it is difficult to make predictions
- According to the Department of Administration 2% growth over last years sales tax projections would leave a budget variance of over $3.8M
Depending upon the duration of the mitigation strategies and given the strong possibility of a recession to follow, this variance is likely to increase.
In recent years the investment income has been a bright spot in the budget, the 1.9% earned in 2019 produced $2.25M in revenue. Rates this week are at .25%. If this trend continues for the balance of the year, the impact will be an additional revenue reductions of $1.4M.
Other small sources will be impacted as well – parks revenues, heritage center revenues, zoo concessions and others will all take a hit.
He is announcing tonight pursuant to Chapter 29.52(19) a freeze on most county hiring. The freeze will not apply to positions critical to our response such as
- Janitorial
- Sheriff’s Deputies
- 911 Communicators
- Elections staff
- Staff at Badger Prairie
- Child Protective Social Workers
- And positions in county enterprise funds such as the Airport and Solid Waste
Other positions will be subject to an appeal process to help prioritize the most critical county functions in the context of reduced resources. This freeze will be administered by the department of administration and will be effective immediately. Staff are available to answer questions.
He thanks county staff and members of the county board.
Questions
Chair Eicher explains if they have questions they can put it in the chat feature and they will be recognized.
Supervisor Stubbs asks about the Alliant Center Director, is that position frozen?
Parisi says that in this instance this is a critical position given the fact that we need to remain flexible in regards to what we end up doing with the grounds . .. (sound glitch and I didn’t hear)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
If anyone has announcements “drop that in the chat feature and you will be recognized”
No announcements.
Eicher says has the following announcements
- They all received an ettiquette document about how it is going tonight. A reminder that you should be at mute at all times unless there is a roll call vote or you are called on by the chair. They are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves, please remain on mute due to the background noise. If they have a question or wish to speak, please use the chat feature (bubble in the right hand corner) and you will be recognized, for official business only. This is a public record and will be recorded as part of the meeting.
- Given the tech challenges and newness of this, unless there is an objection, everything will be recorded as having passed unanimously, she will ask for separations and objections. If you wish to be recorded as voting differently, please drop it in the chat feature at that time and they will record that in the minutes
ITEMS PASS WITHOUT DISCUSSION
Approval of payments – bills over $10,000 – Paul Nelson moves approval, Liz Doyle seconds, it passes unanimously without discussion.
Approval of the minutes – Paul Nelson moves approval, Liz Doyle seconds, it passes unanimously without discussion.
Consent calendar F1 and F3 – F7 pass unanimously without objection.
REGISTRATIONS/PUBLIC INPUT CUT OFF
Technical difficulties
F2 – She announces it is 2019 Res 515 – then the audio cuts out . . . a voice comes on asking if everyone is still there. Eicher “fell off the meeting” and they 3-way called her to get her back into the meeting. Finally they get situated and a member of the public speaks.
Eicher never said what the items was – but it was
Public input
Sawyer Johnson says they lived in Madison for the past 4 years but lived in Wisconsin their whole life. They don’t have a comment to make on the item they listed, but given the mess of everything and folks now having time to assemble some kind of item on the agenda, we figured it was best to put a couple thoughts out there. In any way we had available to us.
Eicher interrupts and says that it is not germaine to this agenda item so its inapprpropriate for you to continue at this time.
Sawyer tries to say that it does pertain to the item and is cut off. (My next post will have what Sawyer would have said and their reaction to being cut off, I will link here when completed)
Eicher says there are no other registrants on that item.
She records it as passing unanimously.
ORDINANCES
Eicher says that Executive Committee took action on this earlier in the night and without objection she wants to record it as having passed unanimously at this time – objections should be dropped into the chat box. There are none.
RESOLUTIONS
Supervisor Nelson moves Sub-1, seconded by Doyle. They record it as being unanimous with no objections.
AUTHORIZING THE TAX DEEDING OF TAX DELINQUENT PROPERTIES
Public Comment
They call the person in to the meeting.
“Al” wants to talk about COVID-19, something needs to be done about the Dane County Jail population . . .
Eicher interrupts and says that this does not pertain to the
. . . he says that health care is not being adequately provided for the incarcerated population, you are doing nothing for these individuals . . .
and he is cut off.
County Board motion and discussion
Nelson moves Sub 1, Doyle seconds.
Heidi Wegleitner has technical difficulties
She moves to refer this back to Personnel and Finance she is concerned about proceeding with tax foreclosures at this time given the pandemic.
Doyle seconds.
Wegleitner says that she was at the Personnel and Finance committee what feels like a really long time ago and she is not sure how many of the properties have people living in the properties and at this time it would be better to re-refer this resolution to figure out what the implications are for people who may be housed right now, to make sure that they are not pushed out during a serious economic downturn and re-referal would allow some time to get that information from the treasurer and see what parcels proceed or should not proceed.
Patrick Miles has a question for staff. Miles asks the Treasurer to address Wegleitner’s concern, he says its an awkward thing to be considering at this time, but maybe he can inform us of the process and if it were to pass would he have the discretion of not moving forward with these or should we proceed with sending it back to committee.
County Board Treasurer Adam Gallagher says he would be fine sending it back to committee, when they went to committee before it was well before this recent health issue. He had a similar concern when we started going through all this stuff in the past week. The good news is if this does pass, you’re basically saying take them but I can still work with them to get them caught up and many of these do not have people living on them, some of them are just strips of land, some are commercial parcels that are vacant and building inspection issues with. But he is fine with sending it back to committee.
Miles says he assumed there was some discretion, but regardless, he supports re-referral.
Sheila Stubbs thanks Wegleitner and Gallagher and says it is absolutely the right thing to do given the pandemic and one of the individuals is one of her constitutents and she spend some time after the meeting talking to Treasurer Gallagher and anytime we can give this exception for our constituents in Dane County we should, so she supports re-referral.
Matt Veldran is having technical difficulties but put his question in the chat.
Eicher says his question is how long will it take to get back on the P&F agenda?
Eicher says it could be referred to the next meeting at the end of March.
Chuck Erickson thanks the treasurer for providing a list of the properties and what district they are in. He says that if he could also provide a list of the commercial properties and strips of land vs a home of a citizen.
Motion to re-refered with no objections in the chat function.
Miles says something that I didn’t quite understand but I think he was saying they have the information about which properties are strips of land and which are commercials.
ITEMS REQUIRING A 2/3 MAJORITY VOTE
M1 – M7 – there are no requests for separation and they record it as unanimously and there are no objections.
SPECIAL ORDER OF BUSINESS
Nelson moves approval, Doyle seconds. No discussion. Passes unanimously with no objections.
OTHER BUSINESS AS THE COUNTY BOARD IS AUTHORIZED TO CONDUCT BY LAW/ADJOURNMENT
Eicher says there are some registrants for items that are not on our agenda this evening, Katheryn Briggs, Britney ? and Annakuh Lee. There was also a registrant Nicole Johnson who had registered on resolution 515 but that had already been approved by the time that they had registered. At this point she would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Motion to adjourn by Paul Nelson, seconded by Doyle. Eicher says it passed unanimously without objection. She sees none, they are adjourned. She thanks them for their patience, thank you to IT and staff and everyone who made the meeting possible and be safe.
Several county board supervisors chime in and say thank you and good work.
