Sorry, no time to do more than type this as its happening and hope it works out ok!
ROLL CALL
Steve King excused. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff excused. Mayor Paul Soglin also absent. Denise DeMarb is in the chair.
SUSPENSION OF THE RULES
Done to take things out of order and introduce things not on the agenda. things = resolutions and ordinances
HONORING RESOLUTIONS
– Leon Verjan day, Mike Verveer reads the resolution. Lady Liberty (former alder Nicole Gottschalk) did a presentation, complete with a slideshow of his antics. Former Alder Sally Miley read a message from former Mayor Sensenbrenner where he tells a story. Former Mayor Joe Sckornika also spoke. 2 registrations in support, several other former alders also in the chambers. Marsha Rummel talks about working on ASM elections and about the pink flamingo resolution. Passes unanimously. (it took 30 minutes . . . and channel 27 packs up and leaves . . . ah, media priorities . . .)
– Ann Gullickson retirement. She and her boss are not here. DeMarb reads the resolution. Passes unanimously with applause.
CONSENT AGENDA
All items pass as recommended on the agenda except
3 – 10 public hearings (registrants on 4, 6 and 7)
14, 17 and 22 pass by unanimous consent.
Items that will be discussed
16 (Police Records Manager)
23 (Heartland Health Outreach hired to do street outreach to homeless)
36 (Room Tax Commission) and
37 (Noise control ordinance) are separated for discussion.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
3 – S. Bassett St. project placed on file without prejudice.
4 – out of order on the agenda, they take them in the order they are on the agenda
5 – Assessments around the square. No registrations, motion passes.
6 – One speaker concerned about having a smart growth solution to the issues in their area. Motion passes without discussion.
7 – Jenifer St reconstruction
Several registrations with residents speaking, having the fees be 38 feet instead of 40 and keeping the healthy ash trees. Trees were most important to the neighborhood, don’t cut down healthy trees, have impervious surface and protect them from construction machinery. I lost track of how many speakers spoke for the trees, but it appeared to be about 8 . . . the Lorax would be proud. Mo Cheeks moves the report with its recommendations. (I think it was seconded). Marsha Rummel moved the amendment, they have discussed this street reconstruction for a year. The project was delayed, they got a grant to facilitate a process about the street. Ped/bike safety was a big issue, as were the vibrations from construction and the impact on historic structures. Madison Metro use of the street, stormwater and trees were also issues. 10 perfectly healthy trees wouldn’t come down, we are already losing trees due to Emerald Ash Borer and they don’t want to lose canapy trees. They will be looking at current policies, and they are going to delay removing the trees. The final issues are about Metro and that will go through the TPC process, they prefer not to have bumpouts. Clear asks Skidmore or Palm to summarize discussion from Board of Public Works. SKidmore says it was discussed, he seconded it and supports it now that things have been worked out. Amanda Hall is talking about running on Jennifer St. because that is where you could get shade instead of running on the bike path. Sarah Eskrich asks if staff had reactions or fiscal concerns. Rob Phillips says the street width is a slight savings with a narrower street. Leaving the 10 trees would also save money, but might have be removed in the future. Staff is comfortable with the amendment and worked with Rummel on it. David Ahrens asks Metro about the narrower street. Drew Beck says that they operate on streets with similar widths, not a problem when the weather is nice. They aren’t as opposed to bump outs, the speed humps give them grief. The bump outs do determine where the bus stops go. Mo Cheeks asks about the bump outs unintended consequences. Phillips says they do present a challenge for snow plows. He says there hasn’t been a great deal of damage. The trade off is often bikes, you might slow traffic but you force the bike to interact more with the car. But this should work just fine. The amendment and motion passes.
(as an indication of exactly how lazy I am being, an hour and 10 minutes have now passed, but nothing controversial or particularly interesting has happened either.)
8 – Passes without comment
4 – 6 ft fences. Same speaker as item 6, opposition is on the timing not the height. He had a conditional use he applied for and didn’t get, he didn’t get to put up the fence he wanted. Eskrich asks staff about uses and when requirements are put in, this would be a building code violation, correct. Yes. Gentleman tried to speak again, but they try to shut him down, he speaks anyways. DeMarb scolds him “that behavior will not be allowed in the future, when you are done speaking you are not allowed to come back up here”. Shari Carter asks about specifics. I missed the answer, was paying attention to the uniformed officers that was walking around . . . not sure what he was doing, my guess is he was here for a later item and had to leave.
9 – Passes without comment.
10 – Passes without comment.
Item 16 – Police Records Section Manager
Same speaker again, apologizes for speaking out of term. Says he had issues getting a letter from the records section. Says there was a letter saying not to ticket certain people in his neighborhood. They say the letter doesn’t exist, parking officers say the letter exists. Item passes without discussion.
Item 23 – Heartland Street Outreach
Connor Wild from Stepping Stones speaks. They also applied for this grant, Stepping Stones is staff from Bethel Homeless Support Services since the church will no longer be funding them and they have to close in April, so they started their own nonprofit. They have been working since 2009 with the chronically homeless in the downtown to overcome barriers and find stability. They have been central to the Housing First efforts, they collaborate with many, they conduct VISPDATs and help contact people when they come into housing. They are frustrated because they build relationships with the homeless and they see this as a perfect overlap, they were overlooked in the process due to “organizational depth and breadth”, he doesn’t know of another organization more equipped to do this, they have respect from the homeless community. They have office space and 501(c)(3) status. (They extend his time) The other reason was not having a licensed social worker, that hasn’t been an issue for the last 8 years and the county funded them without one. They served many people, he says this is not about credentials, but how you treat homeless people and listen to them.
Barbara McKinney says she voted against the substitute and sent an email to say she will vote against this. She is voting against it because the work of Heartland and expertise, she idn’t voting against tat. She is voting for 8, 9 10 years of committed service to a population that Mark, Connor and Skyler know well. A small local entity needs support going up against the big guys. She stands with the local nonprofit and the work they have done. It pains her that we have a process that eliminates committed service, it is with deep regret that we will lose the service of Connor, Mark and Skyler. She regrets Bethel has chosen this time to end that work. She says this generated some spirited discussion about how we choose to do business. She asks Jim O’Keefe to share about the selection process.
Jim O’Keefe says nothing about this process is meant to diminish the work done by Connor Wild and his coworkers. This is about housing created with city and county funds, for homeless, and very challenged homeless individuals. He says that this is about Rethke and Heartland Housing is building that housing, the support services are provided by Heartland Health Outreach, they are under contract to provide those support services. This $100,000 is to place clients into that housing. The team will go out locate, identify and engage people with self-directed treatment plans which will make their stay successful. This funding was discussed at Board of Estimates. They did an RFP, it had detailed requirements. They were surprised they got 3 quality proposals. Four staff ranked and scored the proposals, they met and settled on a recommendation to put forth Heartland Health Outreach. The reason was because of the Housing First and human rights and self-determination philosophy of the agency, the long-standing organizational capacity that gives them comfort that they will endure and they are familiar with Rethke, this is mostly about that project. The target population for that development and street outreach team will be twofold. People at the top of the community prioritized list, based on the VISPDAT tool to evaluate people. These will be chronically homeless people who have been homeless for a long period of time or have several periods of homelessness, and they will have a disability. They will be very vulnerable people who will require a large amount of support services. They want people with clinical experience, so that was a key part of the process. The idea that because Heartland is not here yet, we have heard that is an issue, but they have been working with agencies and developing relationships with them. They also will have to have the relationships with the people who will live in the apartments. They will be providing the long term support services. They thought this made the most sense, it was not easy, but they are comfortable with waht they are recommending.
Alder Larry Palm asks about the requests to only fund existing organizations, do we have a responsibility to nurture new organizations. O’Keefe says that they are obligated to make this project successful. This last component of this project wouldn’t have to occur, but it made an awful lot of sense knowing that the 60 units will be coming on line – they needed to do everything they could do to get people into those units. They were careful in selection of Heartland Housing. They have talked alot to Heartland, they have seen their work in other communities and he thinks they are most capable.
Palm asks again about diversity of agencies, is that something you pay attention to or think is a critical concern. O’Keefe says that this is phase 1, phase 2 is the same development team and manager, but there is a different support services provider. He thinks that at the outset of this they felt the need to provide new blood and capacity to these projects.
Rebecca Kemble reads the purpose of the RFP, says it is broad work and based on the needs of people and what O’Keefe said was that it was about making the project successful. She says that would be a different read. She could see how someone working in this field would not know that this was important. It wasn’t clear in the proposal. She asks if the RFP went through any committee? Was it just staff. O’Keefe says that RFP did not come to the council, they were advised that because it was in the budget they didn’t need permission to issue the RFP. The conversation at the Board of Estimates was primarily focused on the Rethke project. The resolution is broader, but the biggest challenge in this community around Housing First and addressing homelessness is about having housing available. This is about 60 units of housing available, that is what the primary focus is.
Kemble says this happened quickly, was there time to think about how the respondents could work together instead of choosing one over the other? O’Keefe says there is nothing in the RFP that would have discouraged that. The RFP was on published on the 13th and the it was due the 27th of January. The brevity of the RFP window wasn’t a serious impediment. The shortcomings of the applicant you heard from weren’t due to a lack of timing. They were concerned about organizational and financial capacity of the organization and they didn’t have a social worker who works with clinical mental health and substance abuse.
Samba Baldeh asks if Heartland is here. No, O’Keefe says that they have asked advice about if they should appear and he told them they didn’t need to come here from Chicago at CDBG or BOE or at the Council. Baldeh says it would be more fair if they were here. O’Keefe says that when they finalized their recommendation they did reach out to the applicants and let them know about the process. They told them about the opportunity and one of the applicants has taken advantage of that and one hasn’t and one on his advice has not either. Baldeh says that one of the weaknesses was clinical social work but we owe some responsibility to the people who contract with us, if we don’t give them business, who will, if we cannot trust our people, who will. We have a problem if we cannot help our citizens. He thinks Heartland should be here and he would like to refer this to the next meeting so Heartland can be here. Someone seconded, but I didn’t hear who.
Mike Verveer asks what a referral would mean. The next meeting is a week from today, it might be a challenge to get them here from Chicago, and it will delay the work and the contract. It may compromise the ability to do the work. Verveer asks how long it takes to route a contract, how soon would they start. O’Keefe says that Heartland wants to establish a presence, they have an obstacle with office space, they want to put a team together as quickly as possible. They are not so presumptuous about bringing people on, but as soon as they know they will get to work. Verveer asks when is the estimated opening of Rethke? O’Keefe says late April or early May.
David Ahrens says he was told that there would be many people in the queue prior to its opening that would be identified as residents for Rethke, now what we have is some other recruitment, screening, processing system in place. This is supposed to be gradual. Will there be people in the queue that will be ready to move. O’Keefe says the queue is the prioritized list, but because they are on the list they might be hard to locate, find out who they are, and find out the process of working with them to come up with a service or treatment plan, but it is not required because this is Housing First. Ahrens is having trouble believing one week will make a difference given everything else going on.
Matt Phair asks what they will get out of Heartland being here, he is concerned about the process and there could be collaboration, but what would allowing them to come here do? They had the best proposal due to the track record, we should deny referral and move on.
Paul Skidmore agrees, he doesn’t see a benefit of bringing them back here. He says they had a 92, the second team was 88 and the third was in the 40s, all brining Heartland here would do is confirm their commitment. We can talk about changing the RFP process as a separate process.
Samba Baldeh (interrupted to make sure if this is about referral) says that if people are going to get money, they should come here and answer questions. Will they work with Connor’s group? We have not heard from them if they will do that. If you are interested in this work, they should come here. Connor has been coming to all the meetings, he wants to talk to Heartland as well. We are diminishing the level of the council if we are not having them come here, this is not good protocol.
Barbara McKinney wants to ask Connor Wild a question, there are no objections. McKinney asks about the scoring of the RFP, was there any consideration of working with the other local organization to create a more competitive application. Wild says they work closely with Tellurian. He says when he got the RFP, the pastor and church did not consider it until the day before the grant was due, he was forced to apply under Stepping Stones. The two week window, there was no time, he didn’t even know they were applying in retrospect that would have been a perfect pairing.
Roll call is called. Those voting FOR referral are: Carter, Cheeks, Harrington-McKinney, Kemble, Palm, Verveer, Zellers, Ahrens, Baldeh. Vote is 9 – 7. (Hushed discussions about if DeMarb is supposed to vote or not) Needed 11 votes to pass.
On the main motion . . . Palm asks the process of having $100,000 to get 60 people into housing, what are the steps necessary and why. O’Keefe says the people who will be served by the permanent supportive housing units are vulnerable with deep needs and will need services to make them successful. They will use the prioritized list (based on complexity or severity of their vulnerability) They need to be identified, located and engaged in a process to get them ready to occupy the housing units. Rather than wait for the units to open and have the service providers go through that process, the idea behind the budget proposal is to start the process earlier and have funds to do it. Palm says they will still get services when they are housed. O’Keefe says the service plans are self-determined and not imposed or required, but they will get services, but that is a process that takes time and effort. Palm says we are spending money now to get people into supportive housing that isn’t supportive unless they want it to. There isn’t criteria about who gets accepted then? Now he is more stumped, if we were giving them pre-support before they came, but if we are offering support they don’t want I”m confused. O’Keefe says that services are not required under Housing First. What happens is that those who are getting into housing are met where they are and work with them to develop a plan and identify needs and challenges and support them. O’Keefe says they are self-directed, it is not required, it is not a pre-requisite. The practice and experience has been that rather than get people ready for housing, they get them housing and then work on the plan. Palm says this is not doing that, since they aren’t in housing. O’Keefe says this is beginning that before the housing opens, to engage and build trust before them.
David Ahrens asks about the clinical social worker, will they bill for the hours. O’Keefe says that cost is part of the contract. Ahrens asks if they will be billing MA etc for the services. O’Keefe says when the service or treatment plans are developed they will be billable, once they are in housing, this funding is filling that gap. Ahrens says this credential isn’t needed for this service at this time, a competent street worker would be qualified to do the work. Ahrens asks why this person needs to be licensed if they are not billing for hours. O’Keefe says that they have heard that this population requires this, because many will have co-occurring mental health and AODA issues. There are a lot of special issues that will arise that require the credentials. And LSCW is needed to bill, but you could have others with experience that fit the bill but doesn’t have the discriminatory effect. Poor people and minorities are under-credentialed and what we are doing in this process is barring the position from a vast number of people who live the life. People who live the life might not have the resources to do 6 years of college and a clinical internship. LCSW is important for billing later, but not needed now.
Marsha Rummel says her name is on the substitute since she worked with CDA and CDBG to do the RFP, we selected Heartland Housing, they were game-changers and is looking forward to them doing the work, but that is not what is before us. If you think those are important questions, we need to throw out the RFP, that is what we asked for. If that is where the will of the body is, we need to start over again and she has people living in vehicles in her district, she told people outreach workers will come and talk to them. She doesn’t want to set this aside. This RFP didn’t come to council, we should have discussed this, this is after the fact. Maybe this shouldn’t happen again, the vendor should come, you might have been wowed by them. You should also keep in mind they will be hiring people, and someone in this room might be good. THat might be a good match. After the 60 people are found, does the street team dissolve? Will they work on phase 2? O’Keefe says this is a one year contract and they will evaluate it after a year. Homeless families are very different than individuals. He doesn’t envision the same kind of outreach effort is needed. They will see what the experience is.
Rummel says that other agencies do street outreach, who else does it. O’Keefe says Porchlight, CAC, Tellurian. Rummel asks if it went to the Homeless Services Consortium.
Phair appreciates what Rummel says. He wants to go back to the BOE discussion, tonight its about the RFP, there are things we should fix, this should come to the CDBG commission. He says we need to move on this, we can’t wait. In a sense we made a decision, he didn’t support it to do outreach this way, partially based on the other amendments. Why isn’t this in the coordinated intake process, this isn’t sustainable going forward. But, this is where we are, we made the decision in November and there is good argument in getting a good win in Rethke. We have people like Connor and others that are doing a good job and if we incentivize them to work together with good outcomes, but for now we should continue with Heartland. He wants to clean up the process moving forward.
Ahrens wasn’t opposing the contract, it was to call attention to a predilection agencies have for adding credentials, when the more the better, when actually its the opposite. He supports the contract flaws and all.
McKinney says this has been a very robust and rich discussion and that is what she wanted to bring to the body. We as a council have a lot of work before us, she is thankful for the discussion and the contributions made, she will call the question now.
Motion passes, only McKinney voting no.
Room Tax Commission
Mark Clear made a quick statement about what this means for future budgets (sorry, I was actually out of the room) Passes without further discussion.
Noise Control Ordinance
Same guy is back. Says having a house is no good if you can live in it – he also had issues with the city and noise. Thinks he should be able to call the city without getting shuffled from department to department. He talks about the noise from fesivals, garbage trucks picking up at 6am and noise for 2 hours every saturday. He goes over time, they cut him off.
Rummel says this is because parks wanted to formalize standards for events and the ordinances are confusing, so this puts language in one part of the ordinance about the other part of the ordinances so people see the connections. People often look at the wrong section.
Passes without further discussion.
Introductions from the floor
Legislative File No. 39898 – Appointing Tim Gruber as Alderperson for District 11 to serve until the Spring 2017 election. (Council President Pro Tem Maurice Cheeks)
• Recommended Action: Refer to 3/1/16 Council Meeting for Adoption
Legislative File No. 41940 – Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute agreements and the Finance Director to issue purchase orders to MG&E and Charter Communication for the undergrounding of overhead utilities along Atwood Avenue. (Ald. Marsha Rummel, D. 6)
• Recommended Action: Refer to Board of Public Works, 3/15/16 Common Council Meeting
And they adjourn at 9:15.
