Who did the lobbying for . . . .

TomoTherapy - last December they got a $700,000 loan from the city, but don't seem to have a registered lobbyist.

What about .the Todd Drive project that is looking for $2M in TIF, I don't see a registration for Landmark Gate, LLC . . . . I do see this registration of Brad Hutter for Mortensen Investment Group, LLC, but it doesn't mention lobbying on the TIF application.

On the 700 University Project, the $3M TIF is being loaned to University Square, LLC. I don't see any registrations for University Square, LLC, but there are 9 registrations for lobbyists for Executive Management, Inc. which I know are the same people, but I'm not sure how the average citizen is supposed to know that.

(Another funny thing I noticed on this one is that there are two lobbyists named Adam Smith for two different companies, but the way it is on the City's website it looks like one guy named Adam Smith who is lobbying for both Executive Management and Porchlight and I'd be pretty surprised if the grantwriter for homeless programs at Porchlight is an "Associate" at Executive Management, Inc.

Where is the lobbyist that negotiated the TIF issues on the Block 89 Parking Limited Partnership deal?

While we gutted the lobbying ordinance, we did say that anyone who got more than $10,000 from the City of Madison in loans, grants or TIF funding had to register. All of these projects should fit into this category and would not be exempt. Although you can see that Union Corners and Gorman have registered on their TIF applications and that Executive Management has registered likely on behalf of University Square, LLC. It becomes a larger stretch to find someone registered on the $3M Todd Drive Landmark Gate project. The $700,000 Tomo Therapy and Block 89 Parking Limited Partnership have failed to register all together. I also can't help wondering if anyone should have been required to register on the BioAg deal or the Hauk property deal.

I wonder if the City Attorney will be following up on these deals? Read more!

Where are the Whole Foods lobbyists?

Did I miss something? I can't find the registration for either Whole Foods or Sentry listed on the City's website.


One of the lobbyists for Sentry is Michael Christopher and he contacted me on Monday, but Sentry is not listed under his name. I didn't see anyone else registered as representing Sentry. Of course, he has 5 working days to register, so even if he does register, we probably won't see it on the city website until after the decision has been made.

I scrolled through the names to try to find anyone representing Whole Foods, but I didn't see anyone. David Schwartz and Lee Pearson appeared at the Plan Commission on behalf of Whole Foods but they may have slipped through one of the new loopholes. If they didn't do anything outside of the Plan Commission meeting, they don't have to register.

Joseph Freed, of course, is registered with multiple lobbyists, at first I thought that they may be missing a few folks tho it is incredibly hard to tell since Dominic Lanni is listed on the City's website as representing the Simpson St Free Press, even tho if you look at the form its clear he represents Freed on the Hilldale project.

So, it could be that some of these folks are registered as some LLC or another and its just not apparent who their representing. It's interesting tho, we won't know until July who actually lobbied whom and how much they spent on those activities, well after the decisions have been made.

This new lobbying ordinance is useless. Read more!

Whole Foods - Makes No Sense

Much has been said about the Whole Foods project by the Cap Times, Wisconsin State Journal and Channel 3 among others . . . but here's a few facts to think about . . .


1. We're replacing 3 3-story buildings with underground parking (97,340 square feet of office space with 236 parking stalls) with a single-story 50,000 square foot grocery store with 240 surface parking stalls.

(Do I need to go on, or is that enough?)

2. When we approved the plan for the Hilldale area in January 2005, the 3 story buildings with underground parking were supposed to stay in place, this is a change to concept presented in the recent approvals for this site.

3. Demolition standards have likely not been met because we cannot find that the buildings are structurally unsound or incapable of being rehabilitated or repaired.

4. There is a 30% increase in parking above what would be required under the Zoning ordinance. The ordinance would require 167 parking spaces or one space per 300 feet of floor area.

There isn't even a need to go into the question of why we would have three grocery stores so close together or concerns about Whole Foods labor practices. The land use is, well, as I said to Channel 3 . . . "its just plain dumb, terrible land use". Read more!

TIF - Good questions.

The recent WSJ article about the Board of Estimates meeting on TIF made me ask some questions. I couldn't stay for meeting to ask these questions, but the questions that I have, plus those that others have asked me since then, made me wonder what we're doing . . .

My biggest and first question was, why wasn't the Gorman project mentioned in the WSJ article or the Board of Estimates agenda? (The WSJ reporter tells me it was cuz he worked off the BOE agenda, which makes sense.) After all, the Gorman project was:

a) one of the projects mentioned in the 2005 budget for the $5M we set aside
b) it actually is in an established TIF district
c) the application has been pending for about a year
d) the request has been reduced from about $8M for the entire project to $3.9M
e) we had to rush to get the TIF district established for this project and
f) it is the generator for the TIF district.

I've been told that this application is "at the end of the line". Why? I don't know. Who decides where you are in the line? What factors are used to consider where you are in the line? When you're at the end of the line, how long do you have to wait to get staff's attention?

The following questions are questions people have asked me . . .

1. How is the 700 block of University Avenue blighted? Seriously, good question. When you think of the University area, is that where you think of blight? Is this where we should be encouraging development or can it happen on its own?

2. What TIF district is the 700 block of University Avenue in? (Ok, the answer is none. The State St. TID has to be expanded to include this property.)

3. What TIF district is the Union Corners project in? (Ok, the answer is none. We still have to create a TIF district for that project.)

4. Why are we talking about TIF projects for 2007 and 2008 when we haven't dealt with 2006 projects? We've been told we can't make decisions for future councils, so we can't decide what we will budget in 2007 and 2008 yet.

5. How did they resolve that little issue with the unwilling property sellers for the Todd Drive project?

Why are all of these projects, which have multiple unresolved issues, being talked about while the Gorman project is "at the end of the line"?

Oh, and don't forget about the issue I raised a while ago. Why don't we look at the return on our investment when we spend our TIF dollars?

I seriously wonder, should we just close the East Washington TIF district if there is no interest in making it a priority?
Read more!

Allied and Affordable Housing

So, if we get the Hauk properties, the next question we have to face is what would we build on 8 acres of land once we tear down the 9 Hauk buildings plus 2 more buildings the City owns? Conventional wisdom is that we should create owner-occupied affordable housing (i.e. ownership, not rental). The reason for this is that people believe that homeowners somehow have a greater stake in the neighborhood. When you ask questions about if the ownership opportunities will be affordable to people who currently live in Allied Drive, the answers are kind of interesting.

A popular answer is, "You'd be surprised, some people in the Allied Drive area make $50,000!". Let's pretend that true and try thinking this through. In order for a family of 4 to make $51,240, 2 adults would need to work full time and make $12.31 per hour. This is 70% of the Area Median Income for that family of four. Under IZ, that would be a three bedroom home at $157, 807 or a condo that is even less expensive because you have to factor in the condo fee. (Problem is, with IZ we used a fictional 4.5 person household to arrive at the number, so the actual amount that a family could afford would have to be less than that.)

Another answer is, "well the Ellefson's were able to build houses for $165,000 and they're a private builder". However, they forget to mention that the Ellefson project got several hundred thousand dollars from CDBG. Furthermore, those are starting prices. Some of the "affordable" homes have sold for over $200,000. Clearly not affordable to a family making $50,000.

Clearly, creating affordable ownership housing isn't going to be easy. It can't be the only answer. We need to create affordable rental housing as well. Perhaps using a "rent-to-own" type program like we have with the Urban League or Commonwealth Development can be part of the solution.

Finally, I don't want to see us repeat what we did on Broadway-Simpson. There, we sold condos to families at a reasonable price, $105,000 - $115,000. Problem is, a few years later, those homes are no longer affordable. Some homeowners were able to sell those condos for $200,000 and make over $100,000 in less than 5 years. (Don't get me wrong, I believe they should share in the equity, but I don't believe they should get a windfall.) I don't want us to see us invest money into homes for affordable housing, and then watch the affordability disappear, leaving us to invest in affordable housing . . . again! Sounds like a stupid investment to me.

Given the above, what is going to work for Allied Drive? I'm sure I don't have all the answers, but I do know a few things.
a) If we invest alot of money into Allied Drive to create affordable housing, that housing should stay affordable for future families.
b) If we're going to build over 1oo units, there are not that many families in Allied Drive that can afford to buy these homes, so we need to create rental opportunities for the people who currently live there.
c) When families are displaced, we need to make sure we provide adequate relocation services and funds.

Then, we have some other issues we need to deal with like what happens to the non-profits that are currently in the buildings we are tearing down . . .

Read more!

MABA first to take ball and go home . . .

At the last mayor's workgroup, Alder Zach Brandon posed a question to the committee: Do you support "100% cost offsets" for the builder?

He wanted us to go around the room and answer the questions "yes or no".

Alder Brandon said he agreed.

Alder Palm said he agreed.

Alder Compton said she agreed.

Alder Golden, refusing to fall for the junior Alders antics said, that was the goal but that he had some concerns and that he wasn't going to fall into the trap of saying yes and then have the problem where we disagree with the definition of "100% cost offsetting".

Tom Hirsch, chair of the Housing Committee had the same issues and wanted to strive towards making it off-setting, but pointed out, that if the builder was being forced to build something that is infeasible, then we have the waiver process to address the issue.

Nan Fey, chair of the Plan Commission eloquently reiterated much of what Ald. Golden and Chairman Hirsch had pointed out. Including that this could be an administrative nightmare. How would we determine/verify the "costs" to the builder and how would we quantify the value of the incentives? How would the staff handle this and how much time would it add to the process?

By the time it got to the Mayor and myself, we literally said "ditto".

At which point, Alder Brandon attempted to characterize this as a fundamental flaw and declare that we should just stop working on IZ. Alder Golden and Chairman Hirsch objected to the characterization of their position as being opposed to have the cost offsets, various folks in the room continued to characterize their comments this way. Finally, I asked Zach to share some details with us, what would this look like? He said he'd like a week to come up with a proposal. I also asked everyone in the room for an example of an ordinance that does what they were requesting. The only example came from Phil Salkin, lobbyist for the Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin. His answer: Irvine, California.

So, another hour, and another week went by without making progress on anything substantive about the ordinance. Tonight, we are poised to have another discussion about incentives, hopefully see what Zach's proposal is and further clarify what is meant by "100% offsetting" . . . But meanwhile, the Madison Area Builders Association sends out this letter . . .

April 18, 2006

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz
210 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Room 403
Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Dear Mayor Cieslewicz;

The Madison Area Builders Association has been monitoring and contributing to the discussions of the inclusionary Zoning Task Force that is looking for a "fix" to the problems associated with the current ordinance.

The Association remains firm in its stance that, for IZ to work,
1. The ordinance must be completely offsetting, so as to prevent cost shifting to the surrounding non-IZ homes. It is simply not acceptable to require 85% of homebuyers to subsidize the cost of producing $200,000 homes for the other 15%.
2. Incentives must be automatically administered, not subject to political whims.
3. The equity limits currently in place must be replaced with a reasonable and simple
method that allows the homeowner to keep as much equity as possible.
4. The city must not mandate the marketing methods or process for IZ units.
5. The business owner who creates a new community must be given the latitude to make the best decisions on where IZ homes should fit within the layout of that community.

While the Association had been hopeful that there might be a reasonable "fix" to the current ordinance, in recent Task Force meetings, it has become clear that the most fundamental of these issues-- that there be no cost-shifting--is not shared by the majority of the members of the IZ Task Force. Rather, the weight of sacrifice is placed unfairly on the shoulders of homebuyers and builders.

While we recognize and appreciate your leadership in attempting to solve the flaws of the current ordinance, it is clear that the Task Force does not have the political will to make IZ a truly cost-neutral ordinance. Consequently, the Madison Area Builders Association will not only disengage from the discussions of the IZ Task Force but we will also actively work to have the ordinance repealed.

Chad Wuebben
President
cc: Mayor's IZ Task Force
Madison Common Council

So much for acting in good faith . . . I hope they reconsider their position, cuz there are many of us still at the table, still listening to suggestions and willing to reach a compromise. I'm not sure how they've determined that don't have the political will to make IZ a cost-neutral ordinance, the conversation didn't get finished. Perhaps its easier to quit than to continue the discussion? Read more!

Worth reading . . .

Interesting Paul Soglin blog on the US Chamber of Commerce . . . I especially like the last part where he debunks their "study". Sound familiar . . . Read more!

Lobbying Reports - What a mess!

So, I went to go look at the results of so many people registering as lobbyists. Bleck.

Here's some of the things that I found:

1. Some people did not fill in the amount of money that they spent, and it was clearly over $1,000
2. Some people grossly underestimated what they spent.
3. Some people I know I met with didn't write me down as a contact.
4. Some companies registered and didn't have all of their lobbyists fill out the reports.
5. About 60 companies registered and then never filled out another form to either cease activity or file their expense reports.
6. Another 25 companies that filed expense reports for the first half of the year did not file the reports for the second half of the year.
7. Some companies filed expense reports, but never registered in the first place.
8. Of those 50 that gave us the information, during the 2nd half of 2005 they spent $243,662.72.
9. There is still much work and education left to be done, some even over-reported.
10. The clerks office is not looking at these reports and the City Attorney's office is not following up on problems when they get the reports.

Read more!

Ah . . . those lobbying complaints, er, inquiries . . . .

At the last City Council meeting we accepted the annual lobbying report from the City Attorney's office. They dedicated one whole section of the report to the "Konkel Complaints" (ok, technically, the ordinance refers to them at "written inquiries" and that is what they are, but even the City Attorney's office has started calling them "complaints"!) Here's how it all boils down:

Of the initial 67 written inquiries, the City Attorney's office broke them down into 692 instances of alleged violations.

284 did not contain "sufficient evidence"
40 were able to claim an exemption
366 "have been resolved"
2 are still outstanding

The City Attorney, in talking about the increased registrations has this to say:

There undoubtedly are various points of view regarding the changes that were made in the lobbying ordinance and the complaints filed by Alder Konkel in 2005. However one views it, it is clear that the publicity given to MadisonÂ’s lobbying ordinance, the hotly debated amendments to the ordinance, the complaints filed, and the training and follow-up on those complaints by the Office of the City Attorney, have greatly raised the consciousness about the CityÂ’s Lobbying Ordinance.

In 2004, there were a total of 63 principals who registered with the City. In 2005, with the publicity and information related to the amendments to the Ordinance and the filing of the lobbying complaints, 182 principals were registered. This is nearly a 300% increase. For 2006, through March 10, 2006, 185 lobbyists have already registered under the amended ordinance.

These numbers are not totally comparable because the new ordinance changed the manner of registration from being primarily related to the principal to being primarily related to the lobbyist. Thus, the new registrations show the number of lobbyists, but they may be registered for multiple principals, or multiple lobbyists may be registered for the same principal. Similarly, in the past, a single principal may have had multiple lobbyists or a number of principals may have had the same lobbyist.

Nonetheless, I think it is obvious that compliance with the Lobbying Ordinance has increased greatly in the last two years.

And about future enforcement:

We will be checking registration at certain key City boards, commissions and committees for the first half of 2006. If we find persons who we believe should have registered, but failed to do so, our office will contact them to seek registration. If necessary, we will pursue further enforcement action. Our goal remains compliance with the ordinance, not punishment.

All in all, I'd call that amazing. Even with the new gutted law, we have quite a few registrations. I can hardly wait to see the information in the reports next July! Read more!

Downtown: Land of Luxury

Rob Zaleski's Cap Times article yesterday called Downtown Quickly Becoming a Land of Luxury
was one of those articles where you read the headline and think, "duh" or "where have you been?" But it was a good article.

The Tenney Lapham and Marquette neighborhoods have been trying to push back on developers and ask them to build "workforce housing" in our areas. Build the units smaller but with efficient use of space, use green building techniques that help the occupants save on energy costs and have a variety of housing options so young single workers can live downtown as well as families. Less luxury, more practicality. But I have to say, it seems impossible and there seem to be several factors contributing to the high priced housing.

Is it the cost of the land? Sometimes, but sometimes not. If they're paying $3o,000 - $50,000* per unit for the cost of the land, that's cheaper than out in sprawl land ($50,000 - $78,000*). Granted, some developers overpay, but who's fault is that? If the developers refused to pay ridiculous prices, what would happen?

Is it the parking? Underground parking stalls, depending upon how deep into the ground you go, can cost $20,000 - 35,000* or even more. In many cases that probably costs more than the land does since very few, if any, developers will only build one parking space per unit.

Is it TIF? One of the ways for the City to have to give the developers less money, is to make them sell the units for more money. Or at least predict that they will sell for more money. Unfortunately, that means then the developer has to figure out how to get more money out of the units and there goes any hope of affordability.

Affordability isn't easy, even when you're working with a developer who is trying to do it. I've seen some folks try, but we still end up with $200,000 1-bedroom condos. At those types of prices, few young families are ever going to be able to move into these units, because the three bedroom units end up being around $350,000.

And, it seems to make IZ all the more important. The current prices for owner occupied homes are as follows:
1 bedroom: $113,000 (70% AMI) or $130,000 (80% AMI)
2 bedroom: $136,000 (70% AMI) or 156,000 (80% AMI)
3 bedroom: $157,000 (70% AMI) or $180,000 (80% AMI)
(Remember: these prices are for houses, if its a condo, you need to adjust the price for the condo fee, so the price would be even lower than these if there are condo fees.)

Seems the IZ ordinance is serving a purpose, to make housing more affordable than the market will provide, despite all the criticisms.



*The numbers I used above are based on discussions with some developers, who may or may not have had an incentive to skew the numbers one way or the other. Read more!

What City is this?

Q: If I told you that in the last year or so, the following elections problems have occurred:

• polling places ran out of ballots
• polling places were not handicap accessible
• registered voters were asked to show their ID before they could vote
• soldiers in Iraq couldn't get absentee ballots
• people voted in the wrong ward, and even wrong district (i.e. for the wrong candidates)
  
• polling places ran out of supplies
• the clerk's office was understaffed
• poll workers have expressed the need for more training
• polling places are outside of the district/ward people are actually voting in
  

would you think that city was . . .

a) Milwaukee
b) Beloit
c) Appleton
d) Wausau
e) Superior
f) Madison

A: May in fact, be all of the above, but the list is just the beginning of things I'm aware of that happened in f) the City of Madison.

Should we let the bureaucracy continue to (not) fix the problems, or is it time for a public oversight committee?

p.s. If you're interested in getting involved in this issue, please feel free to email me at brendakonkel@yahoo.com Read more!

The Right Time for Paid Sick Leave

Every time the Mayor says that he supports paid sick leave, but it just isn't the right time, I cringe. I wonder if he realizes the impact that using those words has on people. I keep thinking of the quote about how the right time to do the right thing is always now, but I couldn't remember the exact words. So tonight, I googled "the right time" and found one of the quotes. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "The time is always right to do what is right."

So I pulled out a few books I have upstairs to find some more of his words and I re-read the Letter from Birmingham Jail . . . the letter to his fellow clergyman starts about by his explanation that he wants to defend the claims that his arrest was "unwise and untimely". I found the following passages that seem to apply to the situation here in Madison and throughout the United States for those people who do not have the right to stay home with a sick child or to be hospitalized, without the fear of losing their job or their housing because they cannot pay their rent. I'll let Dr. Martin Luther King's words, from another place and time, (while not directly the same situation, still applicable to today's struggle for racial and economic justice) speak for themselves. And I sure hope that the Mayor's office will think about Dr. Martin Luther King's words next time they use phrases like: "He continues to feel this is not the time to be doing this."

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!". It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time; from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Read more!