The meeting started a good 10 minutes late with Attorney May in costume – wizards hat, cape and wand! (Did he lose some kind of bet?) . . . Mayor said if the meeting goes to long he will ask him to get out his wand and make us all disappear . . . believe me, after about 2 hours on item #2, I was wishing he actually had that power. Or that I was Alder Cnare and not present!
SOLAR/WIND ORDINANCE #2
Note: Will Sandstrom, completely off topic, made a bigoted and homophobic remarks. He followed up his hateful remarks with “God Bless You”. You can check the tapes if you want more info.
So, the issue that took the first couple hours of the meeting was the solar/wind ordinance. We spent about an hour discussing if we should refer the ordinance. This is entirely Council President Bruer’s fault. For some reason . . . ahem . . . he called on Alder Compton to make the motion instead of following our standard procedure of the Council President making the motion or deferring to the sponsor of the ordinance. (He later publicly apologized after many, many furious stares from many alders on his side of the room.) Reasons given for referral were because we were in the middle of budget and couldn’t deal with this (Alder Pham-Remnmele) or that this was too confusing or that people wanted to talk more about the process (Monson). I rather bluntly suggested that we either adjourn so we can deal with budget or not schedule other items during budget season . . . or that if people want to discuss changes, that they make an amendment.
At one point, there was a rather painful vote to “call the question” or end debate which failed: Aye: Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Rhodes-Conway, Sanborn, Webber. No: Compton, Konkel, Monson, Palm, Pham-Remmele, Rummel, Sanborn, Skidmore, Solomon, Verveer, Bruer, Clausius, Clear. Cnare absent.
After that there was more babbling, questions, hand wringing, etc. Eventually, we got to the motion to refer which failed: Aye: Compton, Monson, Pham-Remmele, Sanborn, Skidmore, Clausius No: Gruber, Judge, Kerr, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway, Rummel, Solomon, Verveer, Webber, Bruer, Clear. Cnare was absent. Palm and Schumacher passed until they saw which way the vote was going and then both voted no.
After the motion to refer failed, the Mayor announced that Ald Rhodes-Conway moved, and Bruer seconded a motion to adopt. Funny thing was, I didn’t see either of their lips move.
Next, we voted on an amendment by Jed Sanborn which removed the covenant language that the Realtors were all concerned about. Removing it really didn’t do anything, except give us enforcement authority, because it is already in state law. The vote on that was Aye: Compton, Monson, Palm, Pham-Remmele, Sanborn, Schumacher, Skidmore, Solomon, Bruer, Clausius, Clear No: Gruber, Judge, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway, Rummel, Verveer, Webber. Cnare absent. Kerr passed and eventually voted no.
The next amendment was by Alder Compton. After the typical confusion that comes with her amendments and the Mayor asking her to “just state the intent of the amendment” and some questions . . . we deduced that the motion was to create a public hearing before we approve these items. However, it seems that we can’t do much after holding ahearing unless there is a health or safety issue. It’s a permitted use.
Schumacher made a substitute amendment, which he didn’t have drafted, that the notice would be to people within 200 feet for the wind only portion. No one had trouble understanding his amendment, even tho we didn’t have it in front of us. There was alot of discussion about how complicated this might be and the motion failed. Aye: Compton, Kerr, Monson, Palm, Pham-Remmele, Schumacher, Skidmore, Bruer, Clausius, Clear. No: Gruber, Judget, Konkel, Rhodes-Conway, Rummel, Sanborn,
Solomon, Verveer, Webber. Cnare absent.
Since the substitute failed, we went back to the Compton amendment. I asked the city attorney to explain it, it took about a minute and had lots of holes in it. Compton made a substitute to her own amendment. I can’t tell you what it was . . . it still had a bunch of holes in it. The motion failed on a voice vote.
Finally, back to the main motion. Without another word, it passed on a voice vote with an overwhelming yes.
We took a “five minute break” which amazingly only took 10 minutes.
BUDGET (9:20)
We had three speakers.
Gary Peterson – President of Wisconsin Planning Association but speaking for himself. Here to advocate that planning department adds alot of value to the city. He said we could expand the value for just a bit of money in the planning budget. He’s a planning consultant. Wanted us to send our staff to the national and state conferences and provide them with more opportunities to see what works and what doesn’t and to avoid pitfalls others have made. He pointed out that at the last national conference he did a presentation on wind turbines and that if staff had been at such a conference, we could have saved alot of time. He suggests we add $60,000 to send staff to conferences.
Steve Vincent – concerned about cash bus fare. For someone like him who is on Social Security it could be a hardship for him to pay for the fare. (Mayor clarified that TPC makes the decision, but said it was “likely” that the fares will go up to $2)
Will Sandstrom – made a return appearance. He asked us to go look at his blog. finnics7 which addresses subprime mortgages . . . and it went on . . . sigh.
Earnestine Moss – registered in opposition to raising the fares but did not speak.
The budget was referred to the next council meeting.
TROY DRIVE SIDEWALKS
It boiled down to this:
In support: 7 speakers, 1 registrant. The speakers said they need sidewalks for safety, pushing kids in strollers in the street is unsafe, hard to navigate in winter, cars speed, that there are no pedestrians for a reason – its not safe, kids need it to walk to Mendota school, people are worried about accidents, its more heavily traveled than it used to be, its in the 1992 plan and it ranked high with adults in the area as a need and the kids identified it as a need.
Against: 9 speakers, 1 speaker had to leave, 3 in opposition who didn’t speak. Their issues are that they’ve never had them and don’t need them, residents in opposition for a long time, few people walk by, they can take their kids to school in a car, only one person has been killed in 20 years, they don’t want to shovel the sidewalks, they don’t like the bump out and that we should delay this until we see where the economy is going.
Two alders in the area (Schumacher & Rhodes-Conway) were in support, even tho they acknowledged that there was a diversity of opinion.
Passed on a unanimous voice vote.
LAKE MENDOTA DRIVE #5 (10:45)
1 speaker against.
1 speaker says we need this because of the flooding.
1 lobbyist in support.
Passed on a voice vote.
DOUBLING FINES – SNOW & PARKING (10:55)
The staff explained that the fines will go from $20 (not downtown)/$30(downtown) to $60 city wide but that is the fine only on nights where there is a snow emergency. Plus, they can now charge $50 for towing. I asked alot of questions about the random towing and when it would be done. There doesn’t seem to be any hard and fast rules, just a vague notion of “safety”. Alder Verveer clarified with staff that the towing will remain the last resort, even tho they did it last winter. We don’t have that in writing, but it seems to be a promise of sorts. There will a whole new package of ways to get the word out. Expect to hear more about it on Thursday.
It passed on a voice vote, Kerr and Konkel vote no.
Meeting ended at 11:15.
How embarrassing that we made all of those speakers wait so long while we made fools of ourselves. One colleague of mine said it was ok, because people got to see democracy in action. I suggested that maybe it wasn’t one of our finer moments.
The following people met up at the Great Dane: Verveer, Kerr, Gruber, Konkel, Schumacher, Clear, Bruer, Solomon, Rummel, Webber, Judge . . . with most people leaving after 1:00, we decided that is was just practice for late night budget nights.
