Farmland Preservation Plan Steering Committee - Regular Meeting

Order. I guess we will. What time is it? It's 04:36 on November 17. I will call the Dane County Heritage Preservation Commission to order. We have a quorum of four people in the room and possibly one online. And first order of business is consideration of the minute. Has everyone had a chance to take a motion to approve?

I so move. A comment, though?

Let's get a second before we

ask any questions.

You'll second? Alright. What's your question?

No big deal. Just refer to me as Garig rather than Fox Garig.

Okay. Thanks.

Okay. You prefer that in general?

It's like Frank Lloyd Wright. His last name is Right. Yeah. My last name is Garig.

Okay. Gotcha. We'll make that correction in a minute. Are we ready to call the questions? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And it's passed. Oh, I should say, any nos, abstentions? It's passed. Next order of business is reports to MIDI's. There are no presentations. Right?

Correct.

Okay. So the first is a staff update on historical markers and process. I'll turn it over to Benjamin.

And just to introduce Majid to my right here, Kurt is under the weather. So Majid is with planning and development, and he's gonna be my sidekick, especially with the Zoom stuff. Alright. You get maybe screen share. There you go.

Alright. So last time we talked about getting quotes and or getting bids and sending out quotes. So they were sent out to 11 companies with input from Wisconsin Historical Society about what companies, they have on their website and Dane County Parks, also with who they use for their signage. So 11 companies were, we sent out RFQs to you, and we got four bids in September from American Sign Letters, BSG, Fossil, and CEWA. It's very tiny.

Think it's maybe you can still see. Okay. So here are the four quotes we received. It's it's a lot of information, but the the main gist gist is, CEWA came in, roughly the same as BSG. BSG charges $600 for shipping, whereas Siwa has shipping included.

So when you kind of add everything up, considering shipping, Siwa does come in slightly cheaper. Additionally, SiWA charges less for a QR code than BSG, and they charge a little bit more for Dane County seal at the top. But, again, if you add everything up, SiWA is the lowest one. Timeline was something that we talked about in previous meetings. We're a little concerned that Siwa was gonna come in in about six months, but they, said it might be twelve to sixteen weeks, so three to four months.

So it could come in quicker than we originally anticipated. And then well well, I'll get to this. I think maybe next slide. Yes. So there's a little bit of a lag. Hopefully, it works. Okay. So we'll talk about this later, but the dugout canoe site in Shorewood Hills, we still decide what we want at

that location. So

we will probably come back to this screen to look at the options. One of the companies that came back with a sign option for that location is Fossil. They make these I'll call them interpretive signs, laminate interpretive signs that you sometimes will see at national parks, for instance. They have two and these these aren't what ours are gonna look like, but just as examples of what they do are on the right hand side. Just realize I'm not talking. It's the mic for recording. Okay. So then they have a cantilever option and a traditional option. So if we decide to go with this sort of sign at Shorewood Hills, those are two options that we would have to decide between.

Can I make a point with those?

Yeah. Yeah. Feel free to jump in whenever you guys want to.

I I believe these have a much shorter lifespan than the aluminum markers.

Yeah. Ten years, I think, is what it was Okay. Warrantied for Okay.

For these. So we should keep that in mind.

Yep. Definitely. Here's an example of what the sign could look like from CEWA. So the Dane County seal could go on the top there. And then we had talked about having the QR code on a separate sign. Siwa doesn't do that. They have kind of a industrial paste, I guess, to put the QR code on, and that would be in the corner. It doesn't take away any text. You know, we have this text limit that we're assigned to with the sign. It doesn't eat into that at all because it's so small, but that is one thing that CUA offers is to have it embedded in the sign itself.

I do think that we could probably put something over it, you know, if we need to change the QR code. But, again, the QR code is linked to a website, the website information can always be updated instead.

Mhmm.

There are different styles, and and we could certainly look at all those styles that CUA offers. But we are looking at the Georgia style when we made the quote for the number of letters. So that's what that sign would look like. And then Rick, Kurt, and I met a month ago or so and looked at the different color options. And we talked as a committee last time about doing something that stood out differently than the Wisconsin Historical Society or the Dane County Historical Society.

And so they offer a green option in either ivory, which is on the left hand side, or gold, which is on the right hand side, just to differentiate. So we kind of we're liking those colors, that style. Again, we're something to discuss as a a committee today about what we want, and we can look at the other options at the website together too. Looking at estimated costs, aida deer and a hairy white horse would be two sided with the same text on on both sides as we discussed before. It would have the Dane County seal and a QR code be just shy of $2,500.

Oh, I gotta go back and show you one more thing. So the Ho Chunk Village sign, we're talking about having it on a rock. So BSG offers it for $6.78. This is just the sign itself. The rock would be additional money. Siwa is $8.50. Again, if we look at that shipping of $600, Siwa comes in lower at this point. But we're looking at, again, just the just the sign itself for the Ho Chunk Village that's just shy of a thousand dollars. Dugout canoe, I

just put in

the the interpretive sign for now, about $1,500, and then the Robert Valentine in Vandenberg Heights sign. We did a seal, QR code, and possibly a photo. We're we'll talk about that in a little bit too. That's about $3,000. So in total, we're looking at roughly $13,000. Again, that doesn't include labor or the rock at the Ho Chunk Village. Our budget is $30,000, so we're obviously under that mark. I did hear from the Wisconsin Historical Society about who they use for labor. And if it's below a certain threshold, we don't have to bid that out again like we did for this. So I'm hoping that's the case.

And so I think it was Vindorf that they use. So, you know, we got $17,000 to work with. I think we'll be pretty well set.

Mhmm. Yeah.

So before I jump to this next part, I think maybe we wanna talk about well, let's not we'll talk about this one next. Let's talk about the options for Siwa, what people's thoughts are on the Georgia style. Again, I can bring up the other options, but this is the one that is the the size parameters that we put in the bid along with the character amount, and then the colors too. I can bring up a color chart too if you wanna see other options as well.

So why does

so this is not the Georgia style? Because Georgia style has a bigger

Correct.

Lump.

Yep. But you can we can put that color into the Georgia style. That was okay from CY. Yeah.

I like this one.

You like the color or

the shape? Both.

You don't like the Georgia style as much?

I don't hate it, but I think this looks more that looks more old fashioned.

Mhmm. This this style also have 08/1948

So let me see if I can even figure out what style. It was on their color site. So let me see if I can get that quick.

Did you see are you seeing Bill's email's patients?

Yes. No.

Okay. Alright. Let me get to their website quick, and we can look at this.

So we're a complicated seal. It's gonna be super tiny. And

Yeah. We're complicated. I think so. Yep.

But that's fine. I think County Of Dane is really the only important piece of information

on the Alright.

Let me get the right oh, I'm not sharing the right screen. Sorry. Let me get that. Okay. Alright. So that's color chart. Let's see if I can figure out oh, yeah. I can figure out what it was. Alright. This one, the revised Ohio. So we have to click on it. Yeah. Hit the names. Alright. Got 39 by 43. We pull up the Georgia, what that size was.

So many variations? Yeah.

Okay. So here, this oh, you can't do it side by side. Sorry. Let me get my entire screen to share, and I think yep. Okay. So what do we have on the left? We have the revised Ohio on the left and the Georgia on the right. And we were looking do you remember what size it was? For Georgia, it would have

been 24 by 36.

Okay.

So the closest thing we could do is a little bit larger at 26 by 36.

That mean you'll have a bigger character count, probably.

Probably. There's another thing that is back here. There's a place to go where I can see the size littering guide. Here it is. Okay.

So we're at the revised Ohio Yeah. 26 by 36. There's also Eerie Lane

there. Eerie Land. Yeah.

It gets you another 250, 175 letters characters, I should say. How many? Another 125 characters. Another 125. Yeah. So oh, yeah. You can't even see that. Let me see if I can get this bigger so people will see what I'm seeing. You get anywhere? Not really.

Yeah. So the 24 by 36 Georgia It was 24 by 36. Is that right? I believe so. Okay. That says 08/25 and '26 by '36 a thousand and eight. That's for a five eighth inch letter. Which company are we talking about? This is CEWA. Just the difference between the revised Ohio and the Georgia.

I'm losing track. So with CEWA, it's I thought it was 08/1948.

Yeah. I thought so too. It's different I wanna see now. I mean, this church isn't the right one. Yeah. They did quote me at the August for the Yeah. For the Georgia. Okay. But I think, generally, I would think that you could get a few more characters than in the larger.

It all depends on how the sentences break.

Sure. Sure.

Before we get too much more into character count, do both of those work with the seal, the Georgia and the revised Ohio? That I would have

to ask the seal again if if that would work or not.

Well, that's a limiting factor too, I guess.

Because the picture has it as

where are we at?

Refined file.

I guess when I was writing the seal here. Writing the text, I kind of assumed we were gonna go with the same style as the historical society. So that's I wrote them all to that 848 character count. So if we go with the revised Ohio, I think we'd have to revise the text. I wouldn't mind having more space.

Or go with the one inch.

I'll get raise the font. Yeah. Either. Either way, I think it would still require some level of revision of the text, which makes me a little sad.

Oh, I mean, I think they would just center it differently.

Say again?

I think they would just center it differently. It's no Oh. No. I don't think there's any problem having little little extra, quote, unquote, white space in this case.

Yeah. That's a question, though, whether or not they can bring the margins in. I don't know if that's how it works. I mean, they set these letters. They're, like, hand laid out with type you know, some sort of typing typed letter.

The other thing I'm noticing is again, I don't know if it makes a difference, but on the Georgia one, it's all the pair all the paragraphs are left.

Left centered?

Yeah. And and there's a little indent on the on the revised Ohio Oh. Which changes you know? And and they're they're both see, it's got a little just a little indent. Just may or may not make a difference. But

And there's multiple versions too. So if you look up at the screen too, there's this is also revised Ohio, but oops.

I think they need to do a better job at their letting or whatever it's called just because, like, those big I like the I like okay. So this one's center justified. Right?

Mhmm.

And these two are both justified to the edge, which makes it look nicer from far away unless the spaces are just wacky.

Like you said, they can probably adjust the letting and the, whatever you call, the line spacing.

Yeah. I would hope so. And

then one of them, I think, two over, it looks like it's block paragraph style, so there's no indent, and it's square both right and left.

Probably ask for whatever you want. Right? If they're all different, and then that affects your words too.

I do know that when I talked to the owner, he was saying that the Wisconsin Historical Society, they have a special mold just for them. So, yeah, I think they can be they can change these a little around a little bit.

I picture a technician that's sitting at a desk and typing in the words, then just like we would at our home computers, set the margins. And it tells the machine what to do, and that's how it turns out.

Yeah. Siwa is a very old traditional company. I think they use metal cast. Oh. And, they pour aluminum into the cast, and it's not as computer based as you might think.

Here we go.

Just to show some other options too as long as we're talking about this here, the other ones. If anything sticks out to anybody, let me know. I can click on it and look at it more.

So the Georgia one is not exactly the same as the Wisconsin one? You're saying the Wisconsin has its own mold?

I thought that, Brett, at least for the big one, like the the doubles two post one, they don't make that. They make it special for Wisconsin.

Oh, that one. Yeah. Right. Okay. But the two foot by three foot

Yeah. I think it's the Georgia from what

Okay.

Brad was saying.

So did

you have something to add, Patrick?

Oh, I was just gonna say I'm partial to the CIWA. Versus Ohio version. Ohio. Revised Ohio. There's two images on that page, though. You got one on the left with the ivory and the and the gold and but they're different sized photos, so I don't know if they're because at first glance, I was like, well, it seems like the white on green has more contrast, more readable. So that would be what I would lean towards. I sort of like the the simpler look without the gold bordering. Agree.

Just just the rest of them if people are interested.

The Columbus, the South Dakota there, that has a similarly complicated that changed.

Yeah. Yeah.

But there seems to be enough room at the top in the circle for all of the

breast stuff. No. That's, yeah, that's the last one.

South Dakota has more of a

I

don't know.

I think they can probably fit our logo or vest or badge or whatever into whatever one. Just all of the things won't be as visible.

So it sounds like you'd like me to talk to Siwa about if our letter counts and seal can fit in the revised Ohio. And then maybe if it doesn't, our backup is the Georgia, if that

That's good to me.

And you'd wanna check about the seal for the revised Ohio. Right.

And ask them the questions about, like, the indent and the right and left justification. You know? And do we get to choose all that, or do they make an artistic decision that best represents our text? Would kinda hope that they would just do that. But I think it's decisions to make it

My understanding, it's pretty standardized. I've never been asked whenever I ordered a marker from SIWA about

But they were all different. Well There were center more center justified ones, and there were Yep. So

Well, I'm just saying, if we were using the revised Georgia, which I think the state uses Revised Ohio.

Revised Ohio? Georgia is what the state uses. Revised Georgia.

Not revised.

Just just Georgia. Just Georgia. Revised, not Georgia. Makes me

wonder what Ohio looked like. Right?

Yeah. What it looked like. Original original Ohio. Yeah.

So whenever I ordered a marker from CIWA, when I was working with the State Historical Marker Program, there was never any discussion about indents. You could space things differently between paragraphs, but I never Clearly, I'm missing than justified left and right.

There's there's a middle one down there.

I have

different paragraphs. Not Georgia, though.

These are all revised Ohio's.

Revised Ohio's?

Yeah. And they're all different.

Yep. Okay. Well, we are probably just working with I don't see how all of those could be revised Ohio.

That's a shape.

That's really weird. They all got that kind of elongated center hump.

We were using the Georgia, though. Right? The state historical society was using the Georgia Mhmm. Not revised Ohio.

Right.

Yep. Okay. So I'm just saying based on that, we didn't have as much room to maneuver with indentations and things of that nature.

Yeah. I guess it would be good to learn how big the seal is on said sign that we've asked for, and then, you know, if they could if we could see how big it is, you know, like, how much you see or how much you lose and how much we care to have the seal represented.

Right. Are the words more important, or is the seal more important?

Right. Think the words yeah.

Well, the seal is really what's gonna distinguish it from the other marker programs.

Right. But the thing you can really see in the seal is County Of Dane, and that's the important piece of information. I don't know what the other pictures are in there because I can't see them from here. But think the capital is in it.

Minor or you know? No. I'm sorry. Farmer, fisherman Yeah.

It gets lost.

In 1889. I

think a diploma or something. Check the mice.

Some corn and some weed.

So it sounds like the big questions are, can you revise Ohio justification? Can we fit the seal at the top? And can we see a mock up of what that all looks

like? Okay.

Yeah. I guess I just prefer And a number of letters. Georgia, because it would simplify things. And I think we are getting kinda mired in some details and causing timeline to expand again. I thought today we're gonna be able to approve a couple markers and get them going. But

Can you show us the Georgia just to see if, you know, again, maybe since the historical society did so many, they just did them that way all the time. Mhmm. See, they're all that one's

I don't think that's the 24 by 36, though.

Nice if their photos were corresponding to the sizes that they list, so

you wouldn't

have a sense of scale.

Yeah. Yeah. That's more like a although I'm not quite but, yeah, it would be taller than it is wide.

Most really, they can mock it up for us. Right? If you say this is the size we want and this is the text we have, and then we look at it.

I never did do a mock up with them. So I don't know if they can do that. They used to do that years ago, but I don't know if they still do it. If they do, then maybe we can take a look at it.

Veteran is primarily used with an emblem of Signet. Yeah.

If you want Georgia and the rest of us are saying revised Ohio, we should probably take it to a vote then for you know?

Say again?

If you still want Georgia and we like revised Ohio, we should probably take a vote. Right. Because Fill in. K. Okay. Because we want to make sure that everybody's desires are represented. Okay.

Someone wanna make a motion?

I'll move with the revised Ohio with the ivory coloring.

Second. Any

Can we Any discussion?

At what point can we, like, add something to that motion? Pardon? At what point?

Can you amend this? You're you wanna amend it?

Because I would like to say that we still need to see from the company how it would look.

Contingent on Yeah. Well, you're primarily talking about the logo.

Right. Mhmm.

So contingent on the words county of Dane being legible and the county logo on the

Do you wanna second that?

I'll second that too.

Any further discussion? All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Patrick, I guess you're saying aye.

I did.

Okay. I vote no. Okay. So revised Ohio.

I have a bill.

Is he online?

He'll

no, unfortunately. We tried a few other things, and I said, please try this and let me know. And he hasn't responded. He said, I'm gonna try one more time to do the I don't know if there's some issue with how we have it listed on the agenda where folks are getting stuck in some sort of waiting room. You would think it would show up in our thing. But, anyway,

he said you may have

to just carry on without me. So Yeah.

Is Clor

still a quorum? Mhmm.

Clor is Clor. Can he call in?

Since from his last email that he was frustrated.

Okay. I know he didn't call you. His phone really would change the outcome. Right. So so I guess we're gonna move ahead with the revised Ohio.

Okay.

But you wanna see a mock up with it with the seal. You wanna know how that seal is gonna fit in there. Yeah. If it's gonna fit in there.

See if it's well represented in that.

Okay. And then I guess we'll need to see the character counts, what those are gonna look like.

Can we send that information out before a meeting, or do we just just for information just to not hold it out much longer?

We still have to meet and vote on it, but, yeah, we would get it before the meeting.

And so anybody that's curious, the logo, the upper left quadrant in the background, it's a looks like a farmhouse in silo with cows in the foreground. A capital building. Upper right is the state capital. Lower left, it looks like somebody's fishing.

Mhmm.

Lower right. The what do call the graduation cap? Mortar. Mortar and and a scroll, which I'm assuming is supposed to be a diploma. Mhmm. Oh. And then the ears are corner between the county of Dane and Wisconsin.

That's still weighed heavily, Madison.

So It's But all I care is that you got the sort of the crisscross symbol in the middle with the county of Dane around. Yeah. And there is

a color version of that to use on the sign. Correct? Color of our seal?

We would have to sign it to them. Yep. But, yeah, we have a color that we could send over.

Mhmm.

Okay. Well, let's dig into the revised Ohio and see where that puts us. Sounds good. I can do that. But then we'll revisit that in the next meeting. K.

Alright. So that was that. Okay. This was gonna be Kurt's thing, so allow me to struggle through it while he's gone. So the Lake Mendota dugout canoes.

Remember at our last meeting, talked about how we would like to see those closer to the water, whereas Sherwood Hills staff or not the staff, but the committee at Sherwood Hills wanted it closer to the the road. So they wanted it up here, whereas we wanted it down by the gold stars. We want it up by the orange star. So, Kurt reached out, and the full Short Hills Parks Commission met and agreed to locate it closer to the water. They recommended that the sign be near the boathouse rather than the overlook.

As a recall, this was the overlook. On the boathouse? Like, the second story? They didn't say where. They just said they'd rather have it there than at the look lookout. So that's something we need to work out with Short Hills about where exactly at the boathouse it would be, but they didn't want it at the overlook.

Okay. And we're talking about some fossil design for that.

Possibly. That's that's the next bullet point. So now that we've got a relative location determined, we need to decide on the type of sign that we would be okay with. Obviously, we have to work with the the village on it, but some options that we put out in the quote were a one-sided sign, a two sided sign, a two post sign, like a, you

know,

big highway signed sign, a wall plaque or a laminate interpretive sign. And that last one would be the fossil example that I showed earlier. And just as a reminder that the park is undergoing reconstruction, so it's not gonna be completed until 2027. We were thinking that makes makes sense to put it in about the same time. Maybe we could have a ceremony prior to 2027, but not install the sign until that point. And, again, our staff would have to work with their staff on what they what they would like to see, but we wanna get some guidance from the committee on what you would like to see at this point as far as the type of sign. I don't think there was anything else. Nope. Just some pictures of the renderings.

Redesign there, and that is that what they're Yep. Anticipating it'll look like?

Yep. For the boathouse. I don't think it yeah. There's a redesign of the overlook too, but that's not relevant anymore because I don't want a sign there.

Well, now that we've painfully went through it. Choosing a sign, why would we choose a whole different one?

What's what's that?

Like, these are not revised

Ohio. Right.

So we could we don't we're not stuck with that for all of our locations. Right? We don't have to do a revised Ohio for all of the locations.

We could do something different. Budget that can handle a lot more than just a marker a metal marker.

Mhmm. So if we if we were I mean, we could do the revised Ohio there, or we could do something different. But we at our last meeting, we talked about kinda throwing it all out there in our RFQ, and then these that's what we got back. So we got back quotes on the one-sided sign, two side sign, two post sign, wall plaque sign, and the laminate sign. I'll point out to this American Sign Letters.

It quoted a sign at a $103. But after talking if about it more, it was more like like you'd see, like, a bathroom sign laminate sign, not like a inter big interpretive sign. So I would ignore that. But see what doesn't do the laminate signs if that was of any interest to people. It only does the, like, the historical markers, the large signs.

Is it just because we have so much more text here? Or that we were

We're talking about, you know, you could put images of the canoes on there a little bit easier. It could have a lot of pictures on there. It could be a little bit more interactive perhaps than a historical marker. But that was just what was discussed, I think, two or three meetings ago. But Yeah. Yeah.

I like the idea of pictures because they're not gonna be able to see the canoes. Hopefully.

I think maybe that's I think that's what was discussed. Yeah. And, obviously, we could still do the QR code on the other signs, but somebody would have to snap a picture and go to the website instead of having a picture right there.

I I'll point out that you probably are gonna need a professional to design it. Mhmm. So even over and above the cost, there'll be another financial factor.

Mhmm.

That's not in my wheel option. Oh, I'm sorry. It's not in my wheelhouse, so I can't do that. Do

they offer the the fossil that sort of,

I mean, think

that the the the the very nature of the

They may have someone in house that does that layout, but there there'll still be a certain amount of work in drafting text and finding images.

Suggest that since, you know, if we want our signs to be memorable and noticeable that it that the graphic designer puts this up at the top and has a seal in the middle just like we do on the other side so that because we're trying to be noticed as this is the County Of Dane stuff. I mean, it's true. We do need a graphic designer to just lay that again unless they do it in house. But you know what I'm saying? To have even though it's a rectangular sign, it still would have that sort of shape with the seal in the middle at the top as part of the design so that it looks like our other signs. Oh. That we're trying to have some some continuity here.

Yeah.

Because, again, you know, we're going to the effort of choosing a sign that that represents us, and this one should too, even if it's a different form.

Well, I don't know if they can accommodate that. But It's

part of the drawing. It's part of the the graphic design.

Oh, it's still on that same shape sign.

Nope. No? So we're just drawing it on there.

Like this, and it has this at the top and then all the rest of the graphics that we asked for. This is part of the design.

For fossil? Yeah. For them to do this wood for

because the signs that they have are

Right.

Rectangular.

So I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure they can do that. We'll have to ask.

Well, anything that we put on there, they I mean, they can do this, so they can do that. They'll just draw this

in within the square sign. Yep. Okay. You'll imagine you'll put a border in there.

This is the rectangle. This is the stuff on it. Yeah.

So that's

Yeah. But I think the first question is, do they design it internally, or do we find somebody to design it Yeah. It's layout the information.

Yeah. You're gonna need someone to kinda write the text on that. Again, it's not my wheelhouse. So it's a different

Well, the text is your wheelhouse. It's just the pictures and the layout and everything.

I I see a logo and the the long the photo of the long sign. I see a park service or forest service logo in the upper left hand corner. See, that's how they did it. That's their logo, I believe.

Yeah. US forest service or whatever.

Forest service. Yeah.

A lot of empty space with that.

Well, yeah, I I think we should talk to Fossil about all of this and get some broad price quotes to see if it's something we wanna spend money on.

So is this the preference of the committee is to pursue this if the price is right, or should we or do you just wanna do the COS signs?

Well, price is probably the biggest factor. That that's whatever the cost of layout in writing it's gonna be.

Yeah. It would be helpful to to learn what their graphic design options are if the company offers that and what that how that affects their price.

I really like the idea of this because it has the opportunity for a photo of what's underwater that the visitors can't see as opposed to that kind of sign we were talking about for the other sites. Yeah.

I imagine we can get some photos from the State Historical Society. Maybe a photo of them carrying it or something too. This is a this is a bigger project, for sure. And this

one isn't as imminent, I think, as the other this one isn't as imminent as the other four. We've got some time on this because of the McKenna Right. Park So we made an

introduction to it this year. Mhmm. Gotcha. Yeah. This is kinda longer time horizon in terms of what it needs to be done, and but, also, we're not as tight in time.

That said, I don't personally think that we should have a ceremony before we get the sign.

It's Yeah.

Nothing to point to.

Mhmm. Yeah. I don't see the advantage in that. No.

It'd be after we got the sign. It just wouldn't be installed is what we talked about last time. So if we wanted to do that, otherwise, yeah, we could wait until it's actually installed to have a ceremony.

K.

Okay. Like, give you what you need for that. Yep. I can talk to them about the graphic design stuff.

And even though we're throwing all these extra questions at you, I've got to say this is great.

Like, this is a really

good appreciate all the work that went into this document so we could get

to where we are. We just have so many more questions. It happens. No. Thanks.

Moving on.

Yeah. So we're at the website. So Kurt worked on website stuff. So this would be linked from the QR code. So this is just a placeholder right now, but this would be aided here.

For example, picture that he just threw in the text that we're gonna have on the sign for now. But her, nephew wanted to contribute to the website and provide some more information about her, so we would put all that onto the website. But this is just an example of what we're thinking about. There would be one for each sign, so we could click, the QR code and then, has our information about the commission and the marker program itself at the bottom. And we could have any number of pictures on this too.

Yeah. It's something we can build on over time.

Which is exactly what the third bullet point says. Thanks, Rick. Expand and filter the message, photos, or information around each marker. Great. So with that in mind, Rick found a photo from Wisconsin Black Historical Society and Museum of Robert Taylor Valentine. So the next question for everybody is so the we could put pictures on the signs. Siwa said that they can put numerous size signs or pictures, I should say, and I can get back to the sizes on that chart again. But the pictures would take up words. I know and this is a question for you, Rick. The I I have it in here.

The Monona sign, for instance, which is around the corner from my house, I always saw that there's a sign. Right.

They used to be able Yeah. To do

And I asked about it, and they said they don't do that. Oh. It has to be embedded in the sign. Here's an example. Oh, hey. I wonder if this is the original Ohio. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the pictures the colors unrevised Ohio how they're incorporated into the sign. So the original photos, what they close-up, and then how they look in the text. But, again, the the owner see what said for every picture that you put in, except for this one up top, obviously, because it replaces the logo. It takes up the words that and the characters that you're putting in. Right. So we could either do that. We could just have it in have that QR code and link somebody to the website where there would be photos.

I asked BSG. They quoted us $700 for a photo. I asked them, you know, is that something that we could put on to another marker? How does that work? They're they're not very responsive, I will say. I haven't heard back, even emailing them maybe a week and a half ago now.

Which one was this, you BSG. BSG. B. BSG.

I can't remember what the b stands for. Sign something or other. I even had to remind them to submit a quote. So I guess those are the three options is I could wait to hear back from BSG about putting a sign separate, which would look like this, maybe. Come on. Or embedded into the sign itself or just on her website that would have a photo.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Why would we do BSG for one and COF for the other?

Just for the the a marker or a photo outside of the sign like this one.

Can't do

the photo. Yeah. Exactly. Siwa can't do a photo, a separate one outside of the marker. They only put it on the markers themselves.

They used to do that, but they don't anymore. But BSG does. I don't

know if they do. I I emailed them back for clarification. I never heard back about if they do that or not. They just quoted me $700 for a metal photo sign, and I didn't get any more clarification on

that.

So we need to clarify that. Yeah. Because that's what I would prefer if we could do that.

The photo sign?

The photo off of the marker itself and post it on the post.

I really like having the photo somewhere. That's Yeah. That that tells how he passed for several generations as a white man.

It tells a story in and of itself. I was so amazed when I got that photo.

But why why would we order from BSG?

Because Siwa doesn't do it.

Well, Siwa could you please pull up the next thing that you were showing us that was Siwa and with the photos?

Siwa do it in the on the face of the marker itself. They embed the photo into the marker itself. So the one on the bottom left, do you see those two photos embedded in

it? Yep.

And we'd lose text for another thing.

I just think we should stick with the same Marker. Yeah. Regardless of what we're putting on them. And if we and if we really need to have pictures, then let's look at BHG for the other one. You know? Like, now we're talking about three completely different signs, which just gets away from the we want to be recognized for having these markers.

To to clarify, it would still be the revised Ohio sign from CIWA?

For clarifying.

Yep. We would just put a BSG picture on that post. Got it. That makes sense?

Yep.

Okay. So we still haven't figured out if they do that photo or not, if that's an option.

Yeah. They didn't get back to me, unfortunately. They their their quote I the quote was, can you provide me a quote with a bid with a photo marker on a metal plate that's outside of the historical marker sign. They said $700, and then they wanted to clarify what size. Would it look like this? And then I I didn't hear back.

Okay. We don't know if we can do that.

So I think the question would be, do we I can wait to hear back from BSG, obviously, about that sign. Do we even wanna consider something like this where it's embedded that would lose text. Should we wait on BSG and try and get ahold of them again about this if we are interested in photos? Or should we just do the website and leave it at that with a QR code?

Got other photos for some of the other markers.

Yep. And I've got that later in the presentation too Yeah.

To show people.

So this will hopefully, I was I was hoping for a separate photo leak of a photo.

But we're talking about Ada. Right? We're talking about Ada, or we're talking about Robert?

I think we're talking in general.

In general right now, Robert, but I'll have a

a great photo. Mhmm. The Ada photos the photo that we talked about is with her and a bunch of other people, which would be bigger and harder to see her, that one. I mean, it's cool, but it's cool when it's big like this on this screen. I don't know if it's necessarily cool if it's on a marker.

Other picture of her in in her obituary was nice too. Yeah. So it's just a question of do we need, you know, do we need her picture on this?

We can go sign by sign. I've that's kinda how I have it set up in the presentation if you wanna do that. If you wanna look at Valentine first and see do we wanna what kind of sign what kind of picture if any do we want on this one? And then we can go sign by sign.

It's okay with me. Okay.

Well, but Ada's before Robert.

That was just an example for the website.

Okay.

So we we'll do Ada, I think, is next. So for Robert Valentine, what are people's thoughts? Do you want, we'll call it BSG sign? Do you want an embedded sign, or do you want just the website?

Well, I

guess I've already said I prefer the black posted on the post. I think it'll give up your image.

And I don't have a preference yet about where the image would be, but I would like it would like the picture on the somewhere on the sign as opposed to on the website so people would see it. They're more likely not to go to the website. I don't know if they're going to go to the website before they go to visit. But either way, it's it's more obvious to people on the site. Guess we

can't decide unless we know for sure if they'll do it. They won't call you back.

Pretends poorly for the future delivery of their product.

Yeah. But you you can state your preference. So

Yeah. I agree. I think you can state your preference, and we can move from there.

What's the preference?

The preference is that the photo be separate from the

plaque. K.

The on the stem, the plaque.

Yeah.

I like that. Yeah.

I do too.

I do too.

And if they can't provide that, are people interested in the embedded Yes. One? Okay.

Yeah. I think it's still worth looking at that too and learning from them their experience. How big does the photo need to be to be represented well? And if then then how much text do we lose? Right?

Depends on how much you wanna the photo, how big you want it too.

But, hopefully, they would say,

in our experience, with this size sign, the photo needs to be x in order to be seen. And in that case, here's how here's how much room we have left for letters.

Yeah. Of course.

Yeah. They have guidance. The owner said he could do that. Yep. The owner of Siwa, who I will

say has been responsive. And what does he say?

He said that he can work with us on how big the photo is and how much text, but he can't he couldn't say that off the top of his head when I spoke with him.

Okay. But did he have a general recommendation about how big He would. Yeah. He would?

He would, but he didn't at that time.

Okay. We don't know

because we we didn't have the photos to talk about at that point.

Do we

have to draft text for the back Valentine?

Yep. We approved that at that last meeting.

Oh, okay. I was looking for it in this document. How many letters are in?

I think we're eight forty eight. Right? Around

to eight forty eight.

Because of the revised Ohio, we have the additional space for a 100 and some what is it? 75 or

50 or yeah.

Could be. So maybe that allows for room.

Oh, yeah.

That's a good point.

Right? You may not lose much text if at all. So it sounds like do you have enough to be able to order a marker, or do you have to come back for us

one more time?

I think I have to come back with you because of the revised Ohio to show to see what people think with the seal and the Okay. The centering, justification, all that stuff.

Okay.

Otherwise, after tonight, I'm hoping that we will have four techs approved. Tonight? Yeah. Because we've approved two of them. We've approved Valentine and Oh.

Tonight is Did you send out the most recent version of the tracks field?

Yep. Yep.

I did. Mhmm. Okay.

On Friday. So I've got, yeah, Vandenberg and White Horse tonight.

Okay.

So that's so the problem is that what it's you're concerned about the length of time that see what takes the longest, and that's, like, four months. And then

I think we said it wouldn't take four months.

Yeah. Three to four months. We're thinking six months originally. Now it's only three

to four months. Right. Okay. Good.

When are we talking about dedicating this, though, installing and dedicating?

I think we in some conversation with Sun Prairie, we said the spring. Right?

Late yeah. Mid late spring. Yeah.

So once it's ordered, we'll know for sure how long it takes to get back. And

And then it's May, which is good. You

know? Right. For Right.

Events outside.

Right. Yeah.

So it might work out. Might work standing out in a field in February. Yep. But

the others are in flux right now.

Yep. We'll talk about that later too. Okay. I've got it all on the agenda.

I I'm sorry, but I am gonna have to leave a little early tonight. Yep.

Okay. So Robert Valentine, we want a picture referred outside of the sign. Secondly, inside, as Patrick pointed out, revised Ohio might help us with the wording on that. Third, if none of that works out, website. But I think my number one thing is to finally get a hold finally have BSG get a hold

of me.

Okay. Thank you on that. And then as a reminder, this is where Ballantyne is. We approved the language last meeting. Rutland is very excited about it.

Okay. Is the next one. This is the sign that we had. We also have the obit pictures Erica pointed out. My thoughts on this one, outside of the sign, in the sign, or just on the website?

Think based on what I'm seeing here on the Monona's birthplace one, the outside of the sign works for this actual image.

Images too. So if we did wanna put it on the face of the sign itself, there's other options that would have her as the only person in the sign in the photo. Oh, I guess what I'm hearing is or your first press release would be for a sign on the post separate from the face of the marker. But if not, then a different photo for the face of the marker.

Yeah. Maybe I don't know what the others think about this photo. I mean, it's nice that it's an action shot, but it's not immediately clear which one she is.

Right. Mhmm.

If there's room for captioning on the photos, aren't there?

I would have that BSG get back to me.

Yeah. If

there's room for captioning, we can clear that up.

But we'd have to identify everybody in the photo.

Yeah.

Who's signing, what what the event is.

Yeah. It would take a lot more description. But what I did like about it is there's some other native folks here in it. You know?

And they look native. I like that.

Yeah.

The photograph.

But, yeah, that mean that means a lot more text on the photo rather than just her. Unless we can find another action shot of her doing something cool.

Yeah. Standing up and waving her arm.

Yeah. Her

her nephew was really excited about this and wanted to contribute, so he might have stuff. Eric was just saying that there might be other pictures out there, and her nephew was interested in contributing something to it, so he might have pictures. Yeah. I don't know.

There are other places. Anybody else wanna weigh in on their preference for a photo either on the post or in the body of the marker? Or

I think we should do the same on everyone, whatever we're gonna do, and we already like to build on this on this post. Well, unless we can't.

Okay.

Anybody agree with that? If we do one on the marker itself on the post on the post, separate plate on the post, is that gonna work for people with aided deer?

I think so. Fine.

Okay. Any concerns about maintenance, vandalism with, like, a sign that could be pried off as opposed to the the top sign?

There must be a reason why they don't do it anymore.

Because of vandalism, you think?

I don't know. I thought it was a little low for a snowbank. But

I I've just a newcomer here having done none of this, my first thought is where is it relative to eye level? In other words, if the sign is at a certain height, is it below or above? And then you're trying to draw the connection in terms of, you know, to be the one We do have the choice. To me, like, if you know, I'm gonna have to squat down a little bit. Alright. What what is that? But not seeing one like that in

real life, so it's

hard to envision.

We do have a choice between a seven foot post, which I assume this is. That's a standard or a 10 foot post. So we could do a higher it's a little bit more money, not much, $200 to put a post that's three feet higher if that's a concern if we wanted something higher up for people.

I don't know if we'd want it three feet higher. That would make it too hard to see.

Yep. That way. I don't know. Maybe the tenth foot includes what's underground.

I I think it's fine. I I know that marker. Every time I drop off my car at Monota Motors, to see that marker.

That's that's right. That's on my block. I walk by it. Every day. It it's it's not

Does it work?

I think it works. Yeah. I do too. I mean, in this case, this you're what you're walking on the street is lower than the grass. So not, you know, not significantly lower, but you can see it. It's probably chest level,

I would say.

It shows something to do with this marker. Or this is not a Dane County?

It's a Dane County. No. I wasn't with the Dane County Historical Society.

This is revised to Ohio. Right?

I think it's I

think it is.

Oh my gosh. Is it?

That'd be great.

Just like.

But it does look like that elongated version of the

Well, it's an arrow sign.

So I think the revised on that. I'm losing track.

Alright. Well, we've Where are we? Done with that. No. Let's keep it.

Alright. Alright. We did aided it sounds like aided year. We are we're we're we're preferring to sign outside of the CIWA sign. Do we come to conclusion on that? I think I saw a thumbs up. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Yes. Okay. Yeah. That's right. Alright. Vandenberg Vandenberg Heights, Capehart Housing. Reminder, it's gonna be in this park. Right? Actually, this red post is. Sun Prairie. Oh, also I'll mention, the cost for installation are gonna be lower on Sun Prairie and Rutland because they are going to install it for us.

So here's the language that Rick came up with after input from the city of Sun Prairie and the African American studies department at UW. So this is their, not to use the word again, but revised version. If people got the chance to look at that on Friday, any feedback on that? And after we discuss this, then we could approve it We could consider to approve it, for tonight's meeting.

Questions? Comments?

I I like this revised version a lot. Addressed all my concerns.

Yeah. Did you get a chance to read it? Yeah. Okay.

I just remember I thought I thought it's African American in it, but I'm looking for it now, and I don't. Is that true? I know that it's black, black, black, black,

which is good.

I think we did take African American out because I needed the room. Yeah. Black was less letters.

Yeah. And as as long as it's approved by the

Oh, they gave us some guidelines. Right? We didn't show them the marker text.

I did. You did? Yep. Oh, okay. Good. And they're the chairs of the department discussed it.

Oh, great. Mhmm. Okay. So I have no approval. Second?

Second. Yeah.

First and seconded. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Abstentions? It passed. There you have. Sure.

We're cruising now.

Alright. And there is a photo. Oh, you got it here.

Yep. So, sun prayer yours is top left. Right, Rick?

That's the one of True Acts. Okay. It was a dance for African Americans associated with the bass.

So that's one Rick submitted. The two on the right are ones that came from Sun Prairie of the place as it was being under under construction. The top two are also from Sun Prairie, and the bottom is from Wisconsin Historical Society. We could use that by paying a fee to just use it because they have the rights to the photo. So I think those are yeah. So if people have thoughts on a photo for this location, again, either off the sign on the post or embedded in the sign or no photo and just have the QR code.

I think these are better for the QR code because there's so the details are so small on all of them. That's my thought.

You wouldn't put any on the marker?

No. Just I think it's all too small and all too and I don't think this is a compelling photograph.

No. Not at all.

I mean, this is the most compelling is the people, but just so small. And

Well, if it was a plaque, know, eight and a half by 11 or something, I think it would read.

I think it that was my thought.

Okay. Any other thoughts?

Because because it and and I think all of these together tells an interesting story.

Yeah. No. I I definitely think we can go wild on the website and use almost all of them and tell a much fuller story. There's a lot to be said. But for now, we're just trying to figure out the marker and the photo if we wanna include a photo on the marker. And I agree with Erica that none of these work if they were, like, small and embedded on the face of the marker. But I do see the potential for the one, the celebration, the dance. It really gives

What's the event they're celebrating?

I I they're not celebrating.

It's just a dance. Oh, just a happy Yeah. Occasion.

Yeah. But it's not really related to

It's related to Truax.

So if we if we found if there's descriptive text about the photo, it would say this was at Truax or this was okay.

Yeah. I mean, it just gives a face to the men and their families associated with the pace

Yeah. People.

And I think it's it makes it more human and relatable.

I see the value of that.

Yeah.

So should we take a vote on this unless there are more comments? Anyone wanna move approval?

I'll move approval, and then subject to having a little discussion. Okay. Yeah. I move for approval. Is that that one? One on post?

I'll second that. Discussion.

Would that come with a caption of some kind? And if so,

what would

the caption say?

I think it's I think

there is some I think the caption that was in the photo is on there from where I got it, which was a booklet about Truex in the forties. I can't read it from here, but I think it says something to the affected.

Service club dance for Negro troops is what it says.

Right. I don't think that is not

the caption we should use.

No. It's not the language we should use, but I think we can use that as the basis for putting a caption together.

Service club dance for families.

African American families.

About just families? Yeah. Let's lived in these houses. Do we know that? I mean, that's

Oh, we don't know that. So No. We don't know that at all. I guess we'll have to hear back from ESG if they can include a caption. Otherwise,

this photo wouldn't work. What would the caption say?

We don't know.

It was a service stance

on the base. But you're asking if they couldn't you know, let's find out if they can use include a caption. What would the caption say?

We don't know if we can get a caption first.

I I understand, but you're asking. I

think we'd point out that this was a service stance for the black Amran and their family at TruExpert Field in 1948. That could be what it says. I think we'd wordsmith that a little bit more, but I think that was my thought. Are you ready to call the motion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. You thinking?

I'm just agnostic. I'm not gonna go. You're gonna abstain. I mean, it I guess it's just sorta I guess that my first thought when I saw the photo, was are we just sort of tokenizing here? It's like, look.

Here's black faces. You know? And there isn't the association with the housing, and that's what we're highlighting with the with the plaque is and the location is the, for housing for black service members given the amount of segregation. And, I mean, they the one thing I suppose this photo shows is that even in or socializing social events, they're segregated. But I don't know. Was just like Something about it's not sitting right with me. So

Well, if it doesn't, it might not sit well with somebody just walking by and reading it. I don't know. It's what I wanna be. I guess for me, I saw I I see what you're saying, and I saw Black families. And I thought, Prairie, question mark? And, you know, and how like, look. Mhmm. It was a surprise to all of us, and it's a happy surprise.

But it's also not in Sun Prairie. It's at Trierx Field somewhere.

It's at Trierx Field.

Oh, good point.

Well, I'd I'd like to add I'd I like that the men are in uniform, and I'm hearkening back. I hope I don't cry over this, but I'm hearkening back to my deceased friend, from Vietnam who was part of a marine detail that brought remains back from Vietnam and saw that they were distributed to the right burial sites. And, of course, the arid forces were integrated at that time, but he said that he had to verify there was a body in there, and he'd look. And he said if he saw a marine uniform, he got full honors. He didn't care if it was a black or white guy. He looked for the uniform. And I like that this shows that the men were giving their making their sacrifices and being stationed here were in uniform.

Mhmm.

I don't know where that leads me, but that's my emotional reaction to the photo.

So you voted aye. Did you vote

Erica on the motion?