There’s only one meeting in August, and so you’d expect us to have a long one, but due to absences (Kerr & Bruer) and for other reasons several items are expected to be referred. So, it could be a shorter one than expected and September agendas are going to be very packed. Here’s the items of interest.
1. Honoring the life of Jeff Erlanger.
We’ll be honoring a great volunteer for the City of Madison.
2. Congratulating Dorothy Conniff on her retirement after 30 years with the City of Madison.
Another great loss for the City of Madison. While I’ve known Dorothy Conniff for years, its been a pleasure getting to know her even better the last few years on the Early Childhood Care and Education Board. She, and all the knowledge she carries with her, will be greatly missed. And unfortunately, it was previously thought that her position would simply be filled, but it looks like the Mayor might take this opportunity to do yet another consolidation and eliminate the position. A big mistake in my mind, as we need someone in a leadership position for the Office of Community Services. As the City continues to grow and we can’t solve everything through policing, it becomes more and more critical that we have strong city services for families.
4. Mayor’s appointments.
There’s some interesting Plan Commission appointments. It seems the Kelly Thompson-Frater has been unceremoniously dumped from the Plan Commission. In fact, she didn’t even know about it until someone pointed it out to her last night. Instead, former Ald. Judy Olson, who is already on three other committees and a “vice president of governmental affairs” a.k.a. lobbyist (?!) is being appointed. So far, that’s not working out so well on the Urban Design Commission, I”m surprised he wants to try it again. Interesting, former Alder Ken Golden ends up on no committees at all, and former Ald. Olson is now going to be on 4 committees. And appointing lobbyists? The Mayor’s appointments get curiouser and curiouser.
6. Expressing support and appreciation for Erin Davies recent efforts.
This is an interesting set of co-sponsors.
24. Development in Cherokee Park.
I don’t think this project has been all worked out with the neighbors.
26. Redevelopment of the State owned Hill Farms property.
We’ll be getting a recommendation tonight based on last night’s plan commission meeting. Ald. Rummel and I stayed as long as we could, but it was so cold, we eventually left, so I don’t know what the plan commission final recommendations were, but there seemed to be some controversy left on this project as well.
46, 47, 48 – Halloween Resolutions regarding fencing and funding, glass ban and amending budgets (i.e. giving the cops more money, again.) You’d think we could have done this in the regular budget process.
50. Agreement to continue with cops in the schools.
52. $2.7M TIF for the Southside.
We didn’t follow our new process outlined in our TIF policies. One has to ask, what’s the point of passing policies that just get ignored? This better be the first and last time this happens and I suppose one can overlook it cuz the application is “the first one”.
70. Approving noise on the Westside.
I hope this “routine item” doesn’t bite them the way a recent decision did on the Isthmus. Looks like it won’t, but I guess you never know. Don’t worry, it eventually stops.
103. Water Utility Contract for Surveillance Cameras.
121. Fining kids for playing with toys.
As has been noted by Lisa Subeck, police have efficiently used their full time public relations officer to make sure we’re all aware of the dangers of toy guns.
125. Regional Transportation Authority.
Known to many as the “trolley tax” and likely to be referred mostly for that reason. If you ask me the RTA has alot of potential to help fund Madison Metro in ways that increases ridership, keeps flexibility and extends services both geographically and hours of service. However, the Dave and Kathleen deal that was cut hasn’t gone over well with many council members. Look for this to be referred to see if there is any way to get to 11 votes, cuz at the moment, it’s looking grim. Perhaps we should go back to the original proposal, it had 15 sponsors. Now, Mayor Dave’s deal only has 9.
129. Restricting Poll Workers from Participating in the Political Process
There’s supposed to be a re-draft, but no one has seen it. I would expect it would get referred, but you just never know.
130. Housing Plan for Allied Drive.
This is where we decide if we take the recommendations of the Allied Drive residents seriously, or pat them on the head and promptly ignore them. This plan and report from the Allied Drive Task for is supposed to be what we use to go out for an Request for Proposals to see who the best developer for Allied Drive is, but some people, have changed what they have been telling people for months and switched game plans.
131. Impeachment
That is being referred until September at the request of the main sponsor.
184. Water Utility Do-Over.
We’ll see if the City Council approves the Water Utility contract this time.
That’s it. And then we take a break until September, sort of, kinda, not really.
