Farmland Preservation Plan Steering Committee - Regular Meeting

I can call this meeting to order. The meeting of the Dane County Heritage Preservation Commission of Tuesday, April 15, I hereby call to order. And our first order of business is to consider the minutes from February 11. I will look for a motion. So moved by Tim. Moved by Tim. Any seconds out there?

Second. Seven. We did for seven or less. We don't need a second.

Oh, gotcha. Can take one. Right. No. Let's do it your way. The county way. So all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. So reports to committee. Can we bring up that PowerPoint or whatever it is we have?

Unless, Kirk, do you wanna mention the Zoom thing first? Oh, yeah.

I had been sending out at the previous meeting and maybe the previous two meetings, it'd been an operator error on my part where I'd sent out links for you guys. Some sometimes I've had to register to to attend the meeting. And if we just I'll end up sending what I did today or Ben will send what we did today where you get the panelist invite so you get the direct connect to the meeting instead of the earlier one rates I had sent previously. Just a process error on my part that won't happen again.

Okay.

You shouldn't you guys shouldn't ever have to register for the meeting. Your link should bring you right to the meeting if you're attending on it. So Okay. And if you end up having to register for some reason, either contact Ben or myself, and we'll get that squared away.

K. Okay?

Good. Come from Zoom, not one of us, I think. Right? Yeah. The I think maybe that's what Bill ran into. So it will come from Zoom and the email will come from Zoom and not an email from Kurt or I, if that

makes sense. Alright. So I put this little presentation together. It's only about 11 slides. But just to give some context to what the marker design might look like. So let's just go to the next slide, first slide. So there are two different programs. The State Historical Society has its program, and these are two examples from them. You can see the badger on top. That's the distinctive emblem that kind of separates their marker from the Dane County marker.

In most other respects, they use the same sizes, same price points, and the same colors. So it gets very confusing for the general public. But I picked out these two markers to show you what an motto or emblem could look like. The only emblem that's been used in the State Historical Society is for the Black Hawk historical marker series. So there are like over 600 markers in all of the state, but there's a subset of about two dozen that have that insignia, that silhouette of Blackhawk.

Next slide. So I am proposing that we have an insignia of our own for the Underrepresented Communities Markers program. And I'm not trying to sell that particular design, but I went online to design.com and just with their AI, that's what they put together. I just said underrepresented communities. It's about people, and they came up with that particular design.

So like I said, I'm not trying to push a particular image, but I do think a logo of some sort would help separate the series that we're working on now from the larger context of the historical marker programs, be they state or county. Next slide. And this is just another iteration using AI that design.com came up. Just something to think about. Go ahead.

So this is a Dane County marker, and it's this is a wall mounted example. It's part of the it's called a small city marker, and it's rather small, and it only costs $850, and it's it's on the Dane County Courthouse Building or the new Judiciary Building, I should say. On the state level, they also have a small city marker. It's a little bit bigger, $1,140. It can be post mounted.

It's only about, let's say, 16 inches across, 12 inches high. It's very small. You don't get a lot of text. But if it's a short and sweet message you want to get across, that's a that's a possibility. Next slide. This is a city marker from the state. It's very similar for the Dane County Historical Society. This has a variation, a few variations within. You can get different font sizes, so the amount of text would change. But if you want something that's easier to read, that's kind of the trade off you have to make.

You get about 1,600 characters if you go front and back, and if you have different text on each side. You can have the same text on each side or different text. You could tell two different stories if you wanna tell have two different texts, you can have two different aspects of the same history. So there's a way to approach those markers to kind of tell two parallel stories. There is an issue with theft.

As you can see on the right, that marker has been stolen. So I haven't seen that that often, but it is quite possible. So in terms of long term responsibility, that's one of the one of the possibilities that could happen. Next slide.

Sure. Any post mounted sign is subject to theft, or are those particularly subject to theft?

I think the post mounted ones, either small or, you know, regular size. If it sits on a post

I see.

Yeah. It's it's subject to a car hitting it, other possibilities. So there is some issues with that marker. I have a question also. Yeah. What makes it a city marker? It's a size. Oh, okay. I think the idea was that the city markers were smaller and would fit in a city context. Whereas, I'll show you those larger markers that are six feet in size and usually will be in a turnout, so you can read them from a car. They'll be at travel plazas on the interstate and things like that.

I have a question. Yeah. Does the shape of the shield have anything to do with what kind of marker it is? Like, if it's got the bloop bloop at the top, or if it's got the Nathan Dane one had Yeah, symbols.

So there, you see that round? Yeah. That's the Dane County marker, and it's impossible to read from here. Yeah. But it's very similar to the Dane County itself. There's like four quadrants.

The background, the shield, the the shape of the The shape? Of the

That shape stone. That shape with the rounded top

Yeah.

Almost a Dutch colonial kind of thing Thank you. Is unique to the Dane County marker program. So they don't have something similar to that, I think, in the state. They don't offer it. They could produce it because the mold is there at the factory.

But are we beholden to that then?

We can use that.

We don't have to. We could use any shape we want.

Well, I I don't know. We'll probably get into that in a bit.

Yeah. Or we would do it by if it's city sized or state sized.

If we're gonna do a marker in the city of Madison, it has to be a state marker. Right.

I remember that.

Okay. But if we were to do something outside of the city, we'd probably want to use the Dane County marker. We could use the state, but I think the Dane County marker would be easier and a little less expensive.

Mhmm. K.

Where are we going? Yeah. Here we are. So this again is the largest of the markers. It's six feet tall, 54 inches wide, and they're about 300 pounds.

You can see that insignia on the marker on the left in the bottom right corner. They're very expensive, starting at $64.5 and then the installation and the posts are not included in this price. So, you know, sell marker posts for $750 for this size, but still you have to hire someone or have some way of working with a group that has a team of workers that can do some of this work. It could be a railroad tie. It could be a telephone pole.

There's lots of different ways to hang a marker of this size, but it is an issue in and of itself. Whereas the post markers are dig a hole, put in a bag of concrete, stick that post in, and screw the marker on top. So it's much easier to install and therefore less expensive and time consuming. And this is just another of those large maps, in this case, wall mounted, an example in Dane County at the Tenney Parking Lot. This is a Dane County marker.

Next, Mark. It is possible to have photographs incorporated into the marker. And you saw in the I think we should back up, I didn't mention this. But with the large marker One more. Yeah, on the right.

You can do graphics like that, which is a map that shows the route of the Black Hawk war, where Black Hawk traveled in and out of Wisconsin. Again, that'll add costs, but it you can go that far if you want to. Okay. But the the photograph would cost you, I'm guessing, $4,500 to include. But if you have a photograph that can really help tell the story, and really, I think, increase the impact of what your people are hope you're trying to communicate to people.

So we have a couple photos we could use in the case of Eston Hemings Jefferson. There's a drawing of him on the left. And then Eston Hemings Jefferson's that's not Craig, I'm sorry, that's Beverly and his three sons. Beverly was one of Eston's children. So that is Eston and his three sons.

And, no, Beverly and his three sons, who operated a hotel in town, and a carriage and freight company in town. It was well known in the community. And for the most part, all of the family of Eston Hemings Jefferson were accepted into the white community. They basically, for all intents and purposes, looked white, even though they might have had, like, one sixteenth of white blood. And that that that is the location of where Eston Hemings Jefferson lived on where that parking facility is now.

So that would be an excellent location to put a marker about Eston Hemings and his family and how they grew up in Madison. We would have to work either with the parking utility that owns the building and most of the property, or work with the city's right of way to get a marker closer to the curb. I'm thinking right of way is probably not as easy. It might be easier to work with the parking utility, but that's yet to be seen. Next slide.

The other marker that I think has a lot of going for it, first and foremost, that the city is so gung ho on this marker and would be really willing to help and partner with us. And that's up in Vandenberg Heights in Sun Prairie, which was mostly consisting of key part housing that the army built. There is a park on the left there, Vandenberg Heights Park, where the marker could go, and I think the city has expressed interest in that location. And then you still have a tremendous amount of that housing still in place. So it's an incredible story.

The officer housing is an example on the top, and the duplexes all in a row that for the lower enlisted men. For the most part, it's still very intact and probably is eligible for the National Register as a historic district. But that's that's something we could express to Sun Prairie, see if they want to follow-up on that, but we'll see. We'll talk about it. Next slide.

And there's some historic photos on the left designing a scale model for the housing and an aerial view. And again, these are some photographs that might work into the marker. Next. Ada Deer, that's her house on the right, and that's her on the left. I read her autobiography, and she talks a little bit about her house there in Fitchburg that she bought in the seventies.

She wasn't there a lot, and so she let her niece and nephews and others kind of stay there. But she was there quite a bit, and I saw a meeting of the city council in Fitchburg, and a lot of people on the council knew her and remember talking with her and learning from her about Native American issues. So she was well loved in the community. There's a lot of resource material at the State Historical Society. Her papers are there.

But I think based on her autobiography and other secondary sources, it wouldn't be hard to put together a marker for her at that location. And, again, the owner has expressed a lot of support, so I don't think that would be too troublesome to get a marker in there. Next. Carson And Beatrice Gully House. That's the house on the left.

It was built in 'fifty four, and you can see they're celebrating their twenty fifth anniversary on the right. The house is still there. It's been greatly remodeled on the inside, but that used to be where he would televise some of his cooking shows from his own kitchen in his house. I don't know how I haven't met the owners. So, I mean, we none of it, you know, there's a lot of them we haven't contacted yet, so we don't know what kind of support would be there.

But it's a it's pretty high, I think, as a possibility. Next. And then Lucia Nunez. I don't know her story quite as much, but I think she's pretty beloved in the in the community that she was part of, and that's the house in the Tenney Lapham neighborhood. I don't know where the marker would go, if it could go in some of those terraces outside the sidewalk, between the sidewalk and the street, or if they could find a place for it on their private property.

But that's the kind of thing we have to explore with all of them. But, again, she's a high a good candidate. And then Robert t Valentine, this is the one Brian mentioned that he had found a book that talked about Valentin, Robert Valentin, living on property right next to that United Brethren in Christ Church. This is in the town of Rutland. I think Valentine owned the property where the cemetery is.

There is a marker there discussing the church, I think from the Lutheran church. That's the view from the highway in the top left corner. But what I found when I did some research is that Robert Valentine lived there in 1855, when this state census was done. But he also lived there in 1850 when the federal census was done, and his father and his family also lived in the town of Rutland. So there were at least two black families there at that time, and they might have both moved from North Carolina at the same time.

And they moved on from there. They didn't live there very long. But both Robert T. Valentine had two children who became Civil War soldiers. And Shadrach, which was Robert's father, also had a couple kids.

So two were brothers of Robert T. Valentine, and two were sons of Robert T. Valentine. So there's there's a lot to be said in that story, talking about the United States Colored Troop and the United States Colored Infantry, of which they were part. One of the one of the four is buried in Arlington. The others are built in military headstones. Next slide. Is there another slide? That's it? Yep.

Okay. So we haven't talked to the town of Rutland either at this point. So I think those are probably the biggest questions we need to ask for most of these is contacting the owners, figuring out what kind of marker will work in that situation, in terms of getting permission, and then working with them to to see if what kind of support they have for a marker in general. Any questions? I thought this would help in terms of laying some groundwork.

Great. Thank you very much for that. So one sounds like one thing you're proposing is that we kind of get a logo?

Yeah. We don't have to. It would be less complicated if we didn't, but I think I think it would help us identify the series of markers we're doing to stand out from the larger grouping.

Because if we didn't, we would just have to go with Dane County?

I think we would go with the Dane County historical marker outside of the city and the state marker inside. I don't think we can add a logo to the state marker on the inside, though. They want they might not let us. They were not interested in supporting that at at my first conversation with them.

I was also wondering if our title, underrepresented communities, is always gonna stick. Oh. Like, what if it

It changes?

Becomes communities of underrepresentation? Yeah, I don't know. Just, you know, like,

Well, if it's

that's an interesting question. I mean, there's also an attribution on the bottom of all these markers, and you can put in small lettering underrepresented communities. That's the sponsor of these markers, and that you can always get credit that way.

I'll just name it as a program, even still a Dane County historical marker. That's what I was thinking. It again. I'm sorry. Because this is a Dane County, I've heard we'd still keep the

Yeah. Logo on there Yeah. Identifier. Right.

And have what you're just saying, text at the bottom Yeah.

That it's Explaining.

The the program. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I was thinking, I've seen in fact, we've done some of this at the the zoo, and that's incorporating incorporating, I think they're made of metal, so they hold up, incorporating into the signs a QR code. Oh. So so you have your text, have that QR code work. You know what mean? There's there's a link to your description that we have on the the historic marker nominations map.

Right.

Something like that. You know? It helps to, again, more in-depth story or whatever.

Not a bad idea. Yeah. And then you can always update that too on the web, whereas the marker is kind of immutable, where the website is very easy to manipulate and add and

things like that.

And we also talked about QR codes before about the impermanence of those as well. Just The technology? In the world, in the in the future.

You know? No. You can't stop change. So

And they'd be good for a while.

Well, that's that's the point. It's not very expensive to create those or put them up, is it? I don't think.

If it were instead of being part of the marker itself, it were if it were mounted to the pole just underneath the marker, then it could be

Yeah.

Or or a raised part of the marker. There's there's a metal plate.

Yeah. I'm just saying if if if we're going to kind of keep an eye on the temporary nature of things, then the ability to change out the QR code for whatever the next technology is. Right. If it's pole mounted instead of part of the placard itself, that might make it a bit more flexible.

Yeah. To swap out. To swap out.

And and to your point, one of the markers he showed earlier at the bottom had the friends of the the friends group that had sponsored the marker. So I think that kind of goes to your point too saying we could do the the commission's name at the bottom of the marker. So there's

And then the project.

And then the c the Dane County seal at the top kind of thing. Yeah. So the notation can be there for both pieces. If it doesn't end up being a logo, there's always the notation bottom up. Marker sponsored by.

I suppose it depends on if we're going with polls or not for all of them and where this where our code could go. I would say, yes. We should try to use it where we can because it does bring on a different audience. You know, it's it gives gives something for the kids to do.

Yeah. There's only so much text you can put on these things too. So right. Yeah. Pictures, etcetera. Right.

Yeah. You could tell a much bigger story online. Okay. This is just gris for the mill.

Yeah. It's good.

Okay. Next. Should we go on

to action items? Sure. Let me see what get that up.

So, yeah, these are for the historical marking rankings outside of the city of Madison, so it'd be elsewhere in the county. And it's a spreadsheet. Yep. Came up good. Ranking that the committee had looked at before. So we put it under the action items hoping to get some sort of action on choosing certain number of of these for us to pursue. You know, talking with the respective towns or cities and villages, seeing if they can help out in with an installation and maintenance, things like that. Kurt and I have done a

little bit of work on that so far. I don't know. We're We've been contacted by both City of Sun Prairie and the village of Shorewood. Was checking in today to see where their status was, and I said I would check back in with them tomorrow after after the meeting today. And I did ask. I said, if your community was chosen, would the village be able to help out with maintenance of the project? And he said that it it would be on a piece of village property, so maintenance would be part of the regularly scheduled stuff with with the village of Shorewood. So that's just one of those in passing things I asked is part of the conversation.

And county parks feels the same way about the Babcock Park, Ho Chunk Village. They You do?

You've talked to them?

Yeah. I talked to to Laura Hicklin Land Water Resources, and she said they could prob you

know, if

you probably help out, you know, not a 100% certainty. One thing with that, though, they're redoing Highway 51 next to Babcock. So she just thought it would make more sense to install this at the same time that they're redoing the highway just because they're doing some work in the park as well. That wouldn't happen until 2026, 2027. So that would be something that would come later on down the line, but it doesn't mean that we couldn't approve that one. It just wouldn't actually be installed for another year, year and a half, something

like that. Well, I like having a long ramp to get there. That's good.

So back to the canoes. Are we for sure on Shorewood? Because I remember that there was a conversation about possibly putting it on that county park sign that you were gonna change anyway.

Are you talking about the

I'm talking about the canoes.

The county park sign, which is

Mention the Middle Eastern? Yeah.

Yeah. This And we talk yeah. That or we're doing it in both places. Yeah.

I mean, that's two different very two different locations.

Right. I'm just was wondering if we settled on one. I didn't I mean, they're in Sherwood. So

are are you thinking both as a possibility?

Well, we just discussed it. We didn't make a decision.

Oh, right.

No. And our last meeting in February wasn't that mostly public hearing. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. Let us know, actually.

And remind me where this Lakeshore property in Sherwood is.

I haven't been there, so I can't describe it to you much. There's

I think you said something like a boathouse is there. At a boathouse? Yeah. So that's good. There's a path that goes by that or something. I haven't been there.

It's a very publicly used boathouse by West High Kids. Just point of information.

Is this a public property, or is it

I don't know. A public property?

My understanding Doesn't matter.

Yes. But I that's to to this point right here, Ben and I were talking earlier today and that the commission would definitely benefit from a, like, a standard one pager on each one of these sites saying, okay. Here's the breakdown of this site. Here's a you know? Because we've got some from the street pictures that that Rick did.

We've got some assessment of that a better breakdown of of its publicly owned property. Here's a picture of it. The community is on board for installation and maintenance and and those kinds of things. So we could have a standard evaluation of each nominated site. And I think it's one of those things that would help the commission going forward as we go to the next round of submissions and the next round of submissions just to have that evaluation.

I'm not sure. We continue to kinda shuffle and reshuffle the spreadsheets, and I'm not sure what the commission is getting at it or if they would be better served with something like a like a zoning report, you know, just a one pager of here's what's going on here. And then you can because yeah. I mean, I think it's public land, but I don't know which public land it would be.

Two two things occurred to me. One, parenthetically, it's possible that students could help produce a zoning report. I'm thinking about our landscape urban study students. They're senior capstone projects.

Okay.

You know? So that that parenthetical set aside, Seems to me that we're in the course of this decision making process here. And I don't know. I'm gonna assume a characterization of the feedback you've gotten from Sun Prairie and from other folks in that that assuming their interest in the work, where there's interest, I say, let the flowers bloom. You know?

Mhmm.

Make those happen as soon as possible. That said, while I have that impulse, and I'm sorry for going so long here, but while we might have that impulse, the question is is do we want to be the arbiters? Do we wanna be the ones saying, this is the list, and here's the rank order of list. And when we get a refusal, then the next one up. Or do we want to really make the decision making open up and make it available so that anybody who steps forward gets one if they're gonna maintain it, if they're gonna enter into whatever agreement is to to maintain.

And then we make them until the money runs out. So this so so those were two options I saw for actually, if this is an action item for acting on it as it were. I'm not trying to foreclose the conversation here, but I I do have in mind, well you know? Because we're setting a precedent in some sort in some way. Right?

Mhmm.

If we're gonna continue to set the agenda and say, here's the rank order for them, then committees in the future might go with that president, and they may not serve next year's committee. So I'm I'm I just you know, whatever president we set, you know, then you and might remember that that that maybe we're maybe we're just saying, okay. We're just gonna get it. We're gonna choose something, but not have anybody beholden to the particular process we choose we use to determine the priority or list or whatever. Hope that made sense. I'm just

Yeah. Yeah. I understand what you're saying. There's two different ways to approach this

At least.

Or a hybrid of the two. Yeah.

I I have a reaction to that. One, we we started under under a process. We had you know, this this spreadsheet provides provided information both both that and the the website, the map mapping website, to provide us the the history and some of the data that's summarized in this table to for us to evaluate and rank, and we so we went through that exercise. And then we had a public hearing, so that was the opportunity opening up to the public. So I feel like we chose a path, and that's we need to complete that.

The other thing you know, I appreciate I always appreciate avenues of of public engagement, But the idea of just opening it up and whoever steps forward, then we'll that becomes a priority. Like, well, by us identifying, you know, some potential sites is also a way of engaging and getting folks like, you know, maybe they hadn't thought of their you know, area in their own community as a potential. Maybe they don't want a history, whatever, or what have you. And so, I mean, it's it's something of a kind

of dialogue, I guess. So If I may, I agree with what you just said. I think that that's absolutely I have you know, having been a part of those first meetings, I totally agree with the process we've done so far and should, you know, anchor to that. That said, I should have said this too. Does our budget enable us to do a good size marker for all the ones that we that are that are advanced?

I mean, are we gonna we'll allow the budget to dictate the size of the sign, or are we going to, say the the the the because you're y'all suggested in previous discussions about a QR code and on a trail for folks to follow for these things. I think that's really good. And so that mitigates in some regards the problem.

As I recall, we've we've thought, and when we said we could do six or seven markers, it was based on that three foot high, two foot across marker. The $6,500 marker would eat up more than that. So I think we were always thinking in terms of that city marker on a post or on a wall. If we got more money and if there was something of real high importance, you know, we could consider it. But at this point, I think we're thinking in terms of those city markers, or smaller, if that's the only space we're allowed to put something on.

So in regards to this list, other than there being the numeric ranking

Yeah.

And so we have a bunch of them

that are five. I don't

is it am I understanding correctly here, this is just sort of put in in random order, all those hives?

Yeah.

Or I don't recall us saying this should go above five.

Say it again?

I don't recall us you know, we got these several projects, potential projects being a a score of five. So we got, what is that, five of them? That's a random order of that list is what I'm asking.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah. My understanding. Yes.

Yeah. Okay.

So it's not in priority order or anything. Okay.

Yeah. Then, I guess what I was coming here with the expectation of doing is ranking those prioritizing them. Shouldn't say ranking. Prioritize them, and pursue moving forward with sign a on there and get as many done that we have money for.

Mhmm. We could do it that way.

I have a question, though, about that top one, about Harry White Whitehorse.

Yeah.

So it still says the owner is Deborah Whitehorse, but it also says it's demolished it's gonna be demolished for a new commercial development. Does that mean that owner is changing sometime soon, and should we get that done?

Or No. No. It's what's being demolished is the chief auto parts store next door to the house. Okay. So Deborah Whitehorse lives in the house that they shared together.

Okay. So the house is where we're looking at. The house. Right. Thank you. So then, yeah, back to what you were saying. We should probably sort them by order of fees. Right? Like, which would be acceptance, location is clear, you know.

I think what I'm hoping for is that we can at least come up with two or three that really rise to the top, so that we can start work on them. Or I can start doing some more research and maybe writing. But yeah, I think ranking all of them makes sense. But at least hopefully we can get the go ahead to work with a subset. And then if there are some that still have questions that need to be answered, that's maybe where staff could do that one pager or whoever, so that we get a better idea, like from the village of Shorewood, what's there how do we approach that location as opposed to some other location?

But there, for me, I guess the slideshow shows my biases and that these are the ones I feel are the rise to the top for me. Now if people feel differently, that's well worth discussing.

Question for clarification. The those markers inside the city Yeah. Are we gonna execute the same process for those? Please please remind me where where we're at.

I think it's gonna be similar, but it's a much larger group.

It is.

And I think what I was hoping for is that we could get one or two candidates out of there, because it's going to be a lot it's a much more different process, because the city has its not just one, but several bureaucracies. They have planning, they have right of way, they have parking utilities. Anything in the city, I can't even guarantee we'll get anything at all in there because it's just a different ballgame altogether.

Understood. Understood. I just I just wanted to see because the the the budget. Right? If we've got budget for six markers

Right.

Or seven, well, we could get them all done right here.

We could.

And and and

And there's some sense to that.

Yeah. There there is some sense to that.

As the city supposedly has their own marker program that they're putting together.

Yeah. And if I recall correctly, we have some discussion. Was there gonna be some discussion between city and county staff about our have we had any discussions?

Yeah.

Do we have any sense of where the city's at with respect to our choices?

We had a discussion with Heather Bailey, who's the preservation planner for the city. And she said, well, here's what you have to do. And she kind of pointed, you need to talk to right of way, you need to talk to them. She kind of removed herself from the process to some degree. So we're going to have to see how the parking utility responds to a request to put a marker on their property or talk to right of way to see if they would let us put something in there right of way. But like I said, it's it's hard it's really hard to predict.

And oh, do you wanna

Yeah. And then we we strictly use the state Yep. Markers inside the city. That's the only one they can. Because of how their zoning ordinance is written, there's no room in their ordinance for our project. The only marker we can do is the state program is preempted in the zoning ordinance.

So I I would my sense too is the city was hesitant to allow things on their own properties as well, city owned property. So the I mean, one, on a parking garage, that might be more difficult because it's city owned. I I talked to this we found out after our meeting, the the dividing ridge, the effigy mounds there, the zoo, it we were thinking it was county owned. It's a city owned park.

So

to put a marker up there, we also would have to go through the city. But, again, they might be more hesitant to put something on city owned property that comes from even the state. So Wow. There there are more hurdles, like Rick was saying, with the city program. So less so than with the outside city stuff that we're looking at right now,

would say. Other communities are kind of begging us to come.

Yeah. Yeah.

So in this regard and I paid y'all's part, but I have a at six, so I have to leave in about twenty five minutes twenty minutes.

Okay.

But but so then at some point, y'all are gonna ask for opinions about this. I say fund these and go to the city and say, hey. We'd like to play with y'all. But

You're not making it easy.

Yeah.

I hear that.

Actually, actually, we can we can put some work to students to engage some dialogue with the city about the process. And, I mean, y'all can check the work. And it would be a good exercise for the students. For sure. You you know, to do a a one page zoner assessment and, you know, use very know, use assessment.

So Okay. Like Rick was said said and Kurt said that these cities have been reaching out to us, but we haven't the staff wanted to commit to anything, obviously, until the Mhmm. Committee made a decision.

So, how should we rank these? Go through

Oh, I was thinking of one approach. I I just right now, this is an exercise for myself. If I was setting a priority list of these top five, how would it how would I prioritize them?

Okay.

I can only do

that. Okay.

Sure. All the number ones are the ones with the lowest scores, the first priority kind of thing. That it's suggestion.

Don't fuck them all, though. Right? If we chose if we chose, can we can we decide whether or not we

wanna just I mean, there's there's the

It's almost possible.

If they're all the same size sign, I suppose you can come up with a unit cost per sign, but there's still gonna be other costs

if if I don't know. It's almost like you have to pick one

that preparation or

if there I don't know if we'd have to

get any easement system or something. Well,

if we take out Yeah. If we take out the h two visa one where we don't really have a location, we'd have six. And that's very close to the funding we have. So it's a matter of if all six of those pan out, I think we could work that way. But if one or two don't pan out, then maybe we do something in the city. Does that make sense?

Approach too. I mean, it doesn't force our you know? I mean, I defer to my colleagues.

Okay.

For me to to either approach one or two later.

It's easier to read it up there.

I can get this bigger too, I bet.

So we didn't have any other fours besides the h two visa one?

There

Yeah.

There may have been a longer list originally. Let me look.

You know, like, if Harry

if

Deborah Whitehorse doesn't mark her, you know, that's off the list.

Yeah. Oh, because they're mostly Madison is the thing. Right? Okay.

Right. Do you have the larger list there?

Yes.

Was there anything that was a four other than what we have up there? Okay.

They're all well, they're all Madison.

Right. Most of what we had yeah. That makes sense.

Right. That's why we picked these. Not the Madison.

But People were using the study Citi did to nominate things, so that's why we had so much in the Citi. Does that does that make sense that we work with that list of seven minus h two visa and just see if we can get all of those done? Well, it'd be six if without the h two visa. I know it's a great story, but it's just Just

have a look at

Yeah. I I it's not like we can't do it at some point, but I have a photograph that shows the workers and the farmer. It's a great photograph, but I don't know which farm it is. I could figure out which farm it is, and we could do something there.

Check down some The only

Yeah. We have to do some oral history.

Potential cost variable might only be installation of the one on private property with or the if if Ada Deer is the only one installation on private property, where that would be an additional cost, we could probably get Sherwood Hills and Sun Prairie to do the installation for us as part of the process.

And we were thinking maybe the town of Rutland for the Valentine one.

Well, that one, would it be the town of Rutland, or would it be the church?

The town of Rutland owns the church. It's a historic site.

Oh, okay. Yep.

Yeah. There's that the church and the cemetery, they own that property.

K. Because we'd want it right next to that, I would think, so you get a twofer.

I think we would probably petition them to put it right on that property if we could.

Yeah. In next to the other sign.

Yeah. Yeah. Because the the owner called me from who owns the Valentine Farm now, and the last of the buildings that were left have been since pushed under and plowed under, and they're long gone. Oh. So there's no actual there.

There's no there there.

Right. So and it's I mean, that that church cemetery is kind of an adorable site in and of itself too and leads it to that kind of pull off mentality to pull off and read the marker and see the church too. Yeah. I think the double up benefits the commission for sure, benefits the marker. I

like the idea of working off this list. It simplifies things for now.

I'll just go back to the are we gonna have more than one dugout canoe sign? You know? Or or do we just go with this one and see what happens?

I think Bill, are you still on?

I'm just gonna ask if Bill has thoughts. And Bill's here. Can you hear us, Bill?

Well, it it'd be nice having you know, it's nice that Shorewood is very interesting. If they're interested in cost sharing. That's healing. But as far as accessibility and visibility, would we get more exposure at the Park in Middleton?

Bill just unmuted himself. So do you wanna say something, Bill?

Hello, Bill.

Hi, guys. Yeah. That that Shorewood Hills one, it's interesting, I think. I've been to that site quite often with those race recent discovered dugouts, and that that's the access site, that they usually use, the historic site, at least to gain access to the the immediate location overseeing where those dugouts are located. And I don't I don't really I I don't know if there is any other opportunities that I've been I've seen where folks are interested in creating signage of some sort to document, the the historic finds in Lake Bedolla.

And so taking advantage of the Shorewood Hills area there, it'd be interesting to do that. I'd I'd and it's, I mean, you're not gonna get closer by land to where these dug out. You know, the ones that they had discovered, were brought out, plus, the remaining ones are still there.

So

and I'm pretty sure if you considered moving forward with signage in this area, you know, the Wisconsin Historic Site, you'd probably wanna take a prominent lead in assuring that the wording is developed and created in in in likeness of what they wanted to kinda portray there. So so it'd be interesting to see what that signage would entail, whether if they'd actually be, you know, able to participate in, sharing funds for that process along with shore, you know, with Sherwood Hills as well. So, I mean, it it is going to draw a lot of attention if the unveiling of that sign right there, not only locally, but probably nationally. So

Hey, Bill. Is that location the boathouse at Sherwood Hills Beach?

Yeah. Parking lot that's two blocks away. Then you walk down that pathway, you know, underneath that bridge or that underneath the road, and then it it ends up at that that boathouse on the bottom. So

Is it a handicap accessible beach?

Well, I don't it isn't so much a beach. It's

a Right.

It's just a boathouse, and that's why I'm wondering because you can't even really see it from the from the road. Right.

But it is still public access. And the parking that's above it in the street, it probably, it I guess you'd have to take a good look at the site. You site visit to these, you know, as a group is is, you know, is worth a thousand words. Right? And and you'd wanna meet with the folks from Shorewood Hills and have the historic site sit alongside you and see what the best alternatives would be.

Right.

And the boathouse itself, if you it's a pavilion type thing. You go into it. Right? And it is protected from the weather. So the signage, you know, doesn't have really have to be you know, to me, it doesn't have to be too extravagant. I mean, it's gonna tell a beautiful and the view scape from there is what you're really looking for, you know, from depending on the wording of the signage, of course. So what you're trying to relay to the signage. To me, it's like, if they're they're offering, you know, to support the process, I think we should give that some consideration. And that's the walkway through there. Now it is not I don't think it's totally, you know, handicap accessible, but I think it is.

But I pushed carts down during the middle of the winter. That that was my thing. I've never visited in the summer summer like this, and that is the that is the pavilion type setting right there. So, yeah, that shoreline itself. There is a dock, you know, somewhat of a dock out that you can

Oh, that's right.

Pull up there, and that's how we get in and out of the boat and stuff. So

Mhmm. I

see. Anyway, that's that's that was my 2¢ for it. So

It's interesting that you say that it that the point would be to have the vista to have the lake view while you're interpreting the sign. Right? And I'm just the reason I'm kind of weighing it is whether you catch somebody's eye was they're driving by and it's right at the top of the walkway or if it's Well, like, what's that?

What's that? Signage goes. You know?

People make sure.

And it is, you know, passed on by word-of-mouth to some degree as well too. And I I think it would be one of those things that if you saw that, site right there and talked about that, that's that would be the retain the retention of people visiting the site. So and and I have no idea what they're doing for trail maintenance or if they're going to improve that down there or what what is Mhmm. Processing files. So you'd have to take all that into consideration too. So

Got it.

Little fluffy white dog. Nice

picture of

a little cute dog.

Mhmm.

So would it The other marker, the Mendota marker, is a six foot marker. So that might be replacing that might be a project future year.

That's the County Park one, right, across the lake?

Yeah. And that that one there, again, what I mentioned earlier is years ago was our first visit to the county park. It was, our dugout canoe journey in 2022. And and we stated matter of factly to, the county that signed. It's very dated, very opinionated, and it's

Yeah.

We changed. And they they agreed that they were going to address that and and and haven't yet. So

Yeah. We'll definitely work with you on taking that down or replacing it, either one. So all that said, how do people feel like using this list as the basic list to go forward?

Yes.

Okay. It

wouldn't hurt to just ask for anybody who wants to change their opinion or their ranking at this point or affirm it. And if everybody affirms it, then you should feel pretty good about of having we've had additional time to think about it and reconsider if anybody changed their mind. And if if they didn't, it just adds more impetus to what we wanna do, I think.

Yeah. And people feel this was the cream of the crop of what we were submitted outside of Madison.

I still do, for a while.

Yeah. I see ahead, Bobby.

Yeah. I agree too. I think this is a great list to work with here. So

Okay. And maybe we do that one pager, and we come back next month, something like that. That makes sense?

Well, did we just move? So we've just unanimously affirmed this list to move forward with.

Right.

And so

But Yeah. Still we still haven't really surveyed most of them, the owners, to see if it's really feasible. So we need to get that information together.

Yes.

And then maybe we can suss out the partnerships with local governments that might be available to us.

How about how about this? We take action and approving this list, giving priority to the items that are five to or, staff to pursue conversations with community partners. So now you you give basically, the motion here is to go forward with this list with direction to staff that they are you know, when they they can communicate with

Yeah.

For example, Shortz reached out that, yes, the commit the commission has identified this as a project we are going to pursue and explore for staff to explore the

Yeah.

The partnership, that in this example, Shore would willing to commit to.

Yeah. I would just amend that to say

the staff.

Yeah. Then we could be free to meet with, like, forward staff, get their

Yeah.

Input on get their input on location, get some you know, and maybe I could get some fresh pictures of where what's most visible in one hand and where like, Bill was talking down at the pavilion. And then, you know, we could have an assessment of the site saying, okay. This is what Shorewood is bringing to the table. They're excited about the project. Here's the site. Here's the access point. If we move forward with a, you know, a single poll at at this size, here's what the cost would be for Shorewood. They would help with installation. Or or or we would pay installation. They would pay ongoing maintenance or something like that.

And I think I would

think part of my motion to prioritize still use this list as

our priority projects. Direction to talk with property owners, communities, or partnership, question if it's on private property, and to draft language for each black. And that'd be something for the committee then to consider as also dictate potentially the size and cost of the science. And maybe we could get some estimates on the cost so we know whether or not what we have budgeted could cover this full list. And if not, then we would need to prioritize.

Right. So

Still so moved. It's a wordy motion. How about it? Any seconds?

You got a second.

You got a second?

Yeah. I said second. So if we're even amended Robert's discussion ensues. So the question is is

Oh, I'm sorry. We don't need a second.

Right?

Well, it's a yeah. I mean

I'm so used to doing it.

You know, anyways, the the the did I understand correctly that you only want that you're prioritizing the the scores five?

I'm saying we we put these in a rank order. So pursue them to the degree we can with within the budget.

Gotcha.

So and if it's you know, what's available only funds top five, well, we rank the top five. But if it's less than that, then we need to prioritize. I mean, if it costs more than, say, for we can we have enough money for four when we need to decide, okay, what of that top five goes?

I will say that AdaDir is probably as good a a project as we've got right now. So but we'll see how it all pans out.

I mean, given the owner's enthusiasm?

Yes. And I think how they feel in Fitchburg, the city might actually be a partner for that one too. But, yeah, we'll do some more research and bring that back to the committee and see how things lay out.

So Patrick mentioned language. Did you want to work on language for

Yeah. I've done some research on the ones I put in the slideshow. So once we get an owner that says, yeah, I'm excited about it, and here's the marker that I here's the location and the marker I'm comfortable with, and I can get into putting some text together.

Okay.

I have a question. Back to the canoes again. As we were discussing, if the historical society says, wait a minute, we really want to do that, should we let them?

Who's the historical society? Which one? Dane County?

No. State Historical Society. They want to

do that.

If they get a whiff of it and think, oh, we'd rather have a state plaque on that, do we let it go and let them have it? I don't know if that's going to happen. I'm just

Well, we have been in touch with the state archaeologist, and she's recommended some things in terms of placement of the marker. So they do know that we're thinking about it. But usually the state doesn't fund their own markers. It always comes from

Oh, that's right.

Some applicant Never mind. To fund it for them.

But they but they might wanna get involved with it.

I would think we'd wanna work with them on the language. Absolutely. Okay.

And as well I do

know with the state, they recently, I don't know, banned all state travel and field work at this time due to budget constraints. But Okay. I don't know if it's because of the end of their fiscal year or if it was just that they ran out of the funding for

Only Charlotte. Right.

The history center as well, so they might have been squeezing the penny right now when there's

Right. They froze funding, froze travel.

They could walk to

Shorewood. Yes.

So should we vote on Yeah.

They can they can still walk, I believe.

So Or canoe.

Let's vote on Patrick's motion. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any nos? It's unanimous. Thank you, Patrick. That was good motion. Okay. Made progress. Report and possible action for I think have we pretty much covered that? Action on recommendations for for inside the city of Madison? We kind of

Inside now? Seems like

It seems like we we've covered that now. So we had a separate list inside the city. We said we're gonna put that aside

for now. K.

So So are we tabling it? Or are we

I guess we can table it.

There's no need.

No need? Yeah. Okay. Future meeting items and dates. Next meeting will be May 13. We talked about not having it, but I think maybe we should. Given how we've left things here, we wanna do some additional research.

Will that give them enough time to report back?

I think it get it'll give us enough time. What about what about you with your language, Rick? Do you

think that would give you enough time to draft something up and research the projects?

Not all of them. No. No. No. Absolutely not. I mean, I feel like I could put one or two together in really rough drafts. Mhmm. So I can put some of that together. Is one or two enough for the committee to meet may, or do

you want to push it back until a full the full six potentially could be considered for language?

I'm fine waiting till June, except to me that you really think you can compete with all those folks. We

we could wait.

Start making arrangements. Something about had a handful reach out over that excited. So Alright.

So the next meeting I have after May 13 is August 12. Is that right?

Well, we we could schedule one. This is June or

Yes. That's that's where the regularly scheduled meeting is on August 12.

But we could we could do a do it all and do something sooner than August.

So does that mean are we getting rid of the May 13 meeting and just

I think we're talking about doing something three months from now in June. Is that right? Or June.

Not necessarily two months. Yeah. I'd I'd rather not wait till August if there's some language for us to consider. I mean, staff is working on making arrangements for signage placement. And what what work is there for the committee to do in May? Mean Yes.

If there's no language to react to, it doesn't make sense.

Okay. So let's, yeah, let's put it off till June. But

maybe in that time as you develop, you know, some some location, you work on some language that can help, you know, even provide the staff. Just sort sort of a a version of some text to go on a sign so we can sort of, like, mock up, you know, a sign and precise and whatnot and start getting cost estimates.

Sure. Sure.

That work?

Sure. AI could come up with nice sign language for the intro.

The thing the thing we just need to know if it's gonna be that city marker or something smaller. I mean, I I foresee someone like the Harry White Horse sign just wants something smaller that goes on the house rather than a pole in the middle of their yard. Mhmm. So that could change the funding structure a little bit.

Right. And if if Ada Deer and Harry Whitehorse are both building mounted on the side of the building kind thing instead of placards, then or we could or we could just come up with a metric saying, if it's a this size, here's the price. If it's a that size, here's the price.

No. The price is based on size for the most part.

Because the one thing I thought of when, Alfonso brought that up is we can either use it to limit the number of signs or the size of the signs, and it's up to the commission as which way to go with that. So if if the choice is more verbiage on three signs instead of smaller blacks on five signs. Yeah. It's up to the commission to choose those things for sure.

Because we have 28,000. So is that right? 28, I think, is the budget?

Don't remember what the number

I wanna say it was, like, 6 we estimated, what, 6,000 per

Yeah.

And does it have a do we need to spend it at by the end of anything? How long do we have it?

I think

It's in the capital budget.

Items so we can carry it forward. But yeah. Thing is is if we wanna do another round, then we haven't Yeah. We can carry it. Okay. Or I'm just trying to I'm just worrying about Next year. Fund subsequent.

No. Yeah. We'd have to spend what we have before you fund get another round of funding.

Looking ahead, you know, '26 budget on the operating side is looking it's gonna be incredibly, incredibly great budget. And

you're not quite sure what the federal funding looks like? Or

Yeah. That's before even Yeah. It was looking very, very tight, for the whole federal funding.

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Might be a double whammy here. Alright. Well, we'll pinch some pennies here. Yeah. So was was there any public comment? Do we have a registrant still?

We had a registrant that was not registering To speak? To speak or in favor of any agenda items.

Okay. That's all. Any other business as allowed by law?

Move or adjourn?

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. For June.

Thank you, Bill.

See you.

See you guys are welcome. Enjoy the evening.