Park Commission - Regular Meeting

The hour of 5.30 having arrived, I'd like to call the Park Commission to order, please. Call the roll, please. Chair Thorson? Here.

Supervisor Postler? Postler, here. Goforth?

Present.

Banks?

Present.

Excused is Eicher, Bauer, and Markle.

Okay. Consideration of the minutes. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second.

Okay. Any discussion or corrections? If not, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Next is referrals and resolutions. The first being 2026 resolution 117, authorized in a memorandum of agreement between Dane County and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for the Glacial Drumlin Trail Connector. Is there a motion?

I move.

Okay.

Second.

I assume Alex.

Yep. Thanks. We're dividing and conquering in place of Jolene tonight. Three of us are making it work in lieu of her. So yes, this is... for the Glacial Drumlin Trail Connector between the City of Madison and the Village of Cottage Grove. So this piece is approximately a mile and a half segment that we got state grant funding for, and are also putting in a significant amount of Dane County capital improvement dollars to construct starting in 2027. And this is all within Dane County. Portions of it are in the city of Madison. However, let's go to the right thing here. I'll pull up the slide to just give you a map for reference here in the actual contract. And so just to give you a little bearing on where this is, it's between the interstate and County Highway AB in the Blooming Grove Drumlin's natural resource area. And you... You're not seeing my steering light on. Have you seen the map?

No, sometimes there's a lag.

I'll try this. Sorry about that. Let's go this way. Yeah, there we go. So this is between the interstate on your left or west and between County Highway AB on the right or east here. It's about a mile and a half long and it's going to be constructed via a state-led contract, but this is mostly on DNR properties. So we got to go through this effort to have this memorandum of agreement with the DNR for us to construct the trail, but then also manage the trail after it's constructed. So you've got parcels one, parcels two, parcel three, and parcel four kind of highlighted there. And then those purple areas, those are Dane County owned lands already. So we currently manage and maintain those properties. And this trail will be built along all of this corridor here in 2027, anticipated completion in 2028. So this mental random of agreement is required for that process. It's also required as part of our DOT grant funding requirements. We have to secure all the ownership of the property in order to solidify and utilize the grant and make sure that we've done our due diligence there to satisfy their requirements. Okay.

Any questions? If not, I have one, and that is, I assume DOT's grant is applying for all of that area.

So the DOT grant is about $8 million. Our portion is another about $4 million. The city of Madison's portion is also going to be constructed at the same time. So overall it's about a 14 to $15 million project. And theirs extends even further to the west to Bondurant. So that'll tie all this together. So there's a significant amount of state and federal dollars in this as well as county funding. Okay.

Because I know both the feds and the state have a fair amount of DOT money. So I want to make sure we're utilizing it as much as we can. Definitely. Okay, any other questions? Christy?

Alex, do you know what pot of money the DOT is using to fund that? Is that TAP or?

It's the Surface Transportation Program. Got it, okay, awesome.

Fantastic.

Okay, there's no other questions. The motion is to approve. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, next item is Resolution 118, Dane County Conservation Fund Grant Award to the Clean Lakes Alliance and the Committee to Preserve Lot 3, Sunnyside. Is there a motion?

I'll assume there's approval.

Okay, second. Well, we don't need to have motions, actually, under the Comfort.

But we do anyways.

Yeah. Okay. Any motions or discussion?

Yeah, so this is our first resolution for the grants, for our first grant cycle. So this is pretty exciting. And this is the group, the committee to preserve Lot 3 Sunnyside, which was the neighborhood group. They formed together to raise funds to purchase the 7.85 acres in the town of Pleasant Springs, right across from Lake Adonis State Park. There you go. So yeah, they came and presented to our group a couple months ago. They were able to raise all their funding. They were able to do it? Yeah, that was their one major contingency. So they have all their funding, and they are ready to go. The resolution to transfer the land to the DNR is actually kind of going through as ours is going through. So we'll close actually with Clean Lakes Alliance, who was a co-applicant on the grant. They will actually purchase the property and then immediately turn around and donate it to the DNR.

Okay. And that's all in motion? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yep.

Any questions? If not, all those in favor of approval, signify by saying aye. Hi. Anyone opposed? Okay. Where did I put my agenda? Okay. Next presentation on La Follette Park. Wish we could be there. By the way, I should mention everyone. I really appreciate everyone, especially, you know, Stephanie was willing to step up and I really appreciate your coming or accommodating because we wanted to make sure this stuff moves. Thank you. Sure. Go ahead.

La Follette. I'll give a brief update. It's like we're there.

Annalise would want to get her feet flat.

I know she would. She's not missing out. That's all right. This is La Follette County Park. There's a leg. I will try to go along with that. So this is in the southeast portion of Dane County in the town of Pleasant Springs along the O'Hara River. It is on the southeast side of Lake Agonza State Park and it has a long history with Dane County. It was acquired for dam development as was Babcock back in about 1938 or so. And the intention there is to control water levels and improve navigation. So that was kind of the reason that Dane County acquired the property. It was named after Robert M La Follette. And we have this historical marker out there describing his significance as a former governor of Wisconsin and a US Senator. He made a short run for US president that was unsuccessful as well. And why did this property get named in his honor? Apparently, back in sometime pre-1970, there was some effort for some of these parks to get voted on for names, and they chose some of these historical figures at that time. So you've got... Correct. And you've got like La Follette, you've got Goodland, and you've got Babcock named after some of these significant figures from way back when. So that's really how his involvement and his namesake got attributed to this one. He didn't really live right there. I think he lived in the town of Primrose at the time or something along that effect, but that's why his namesake is attached to this park. So it's about 30 acres, and I kind of described it before, but really the amenities there are shore fishing and canoe access of the O'Hara River and Lake Kaganza near the Lock and Dam. People fish there all the time. And there is a nice picnic shelter, restroom, and reservable shelter and playground area. And I've got just a couple photographs to kind of give you a glimpse from the 1970s was as early back as photographs as I could find. This is kind of the rail corridor from the road between the road and the lake. And then this is the informal kind of beach that was down there. And then today, this is kind of the look and the setting that we have currently. So there's this nice shelter with this nice walking path from the parking lot. You've got the railroad tracks and the lake in the background. And then on the other side of Williams Drive, you've got the lock and the dam and fishing and canoe access and kind of the weapons in the background. Here's kind of a shot of the railroad corridor and the utility corridor, what that looks like. Looking south. Yeah, looking south and then obviously the serene landscape and what's left of the beach. Now there's not really access that we're promoting across these railroad tracks. In fact, we discourage people from crossing the tracks and utilizing the tracks at all. Maybe one day we'll have the Loria Haro River Trail run through here, and I'll kind of touch on that a little bit. But we do have a restroom facility and these nice, big, beautiful oaks. So it's a really cool little picnic spot. You get a lot of people that stop down here and eat their lunch and hang out or go for a run and hang out down here.

Is that an active railway?

It's a very active. I say very active. There's potentially up to four cars a day. Oh, wow.

I love this part.

I've never seen it. Yeah. So this is also the future. segment of the Loyahara River Trail. And so obviously you can see on the lower right here how the follet kind of ties in with the future trail connection. So we kind of talked about the state park and glacial drama. And so obviously a few years ago we built phase two of the Loyahara into Lake Kaganza State Park here on the northeast side of Lake Kaganza. And it just kind of dead ends right now. at that point. So the future plan is to continue to petition the Office of Commissioner Railroads, which we are working on our testimony right now to resubmit here at the end of this month, beginning of next month, for that railroad crossing, which I'll zoom in a little bit here in a second, for this trail to continue. And one of the major factors for that is Williams Drive in the town of Pleasant Springs is kind of the tentative timeline. And we've coordinated with them for reconstruction of that road to kind of encourage them to restore the bike lanes that are no longer really visible on that roadway so that this trail can kind of have an on-road connector until such time as Dane County or others are able to continue this feature So the roadway is going to be the next best scenario for the interim.

So I guess one question would be, you know, the tracks are actually pretty close to the lake on that east side. And the corridor would be looking at east or west of the tracks.

Yeah, so the proposed crossing that we petitioned and were denied on and are re-petitioning the Office of Commissioner Railroads on is this piece right here, which is on Williams Drive. So connecting Williams Drive into the state park. It's an old former road right-of-way. People have been actively parking there for years. The railroad and the state park have kind of tried to shut that down. It's an attractive nuisance, the state park. I mean, people are going to want to get to it. So this trail is proposing to be routed through the state park as part of another agreement we have with the DNR to use the on-road facilities that they have and then exit the park at this location and then If Williams Drive is reconstructed with bike lanes, that creates, obviously, connected bike pedestrian facilities for people to get between La Follette and, like, Gonza State Park, and even down into Stoughton, where the Lower Hart River Trail continues and carries on. You can see those existing segments down there in the city of Stoughton and around Viking Park there. So that's the ultimate destination. So this is currently ongoing. We're The saga continues, but we're pushing on this. So you're actively working on this.

So you're actively working to get it to move up to the west and back to the south.

Yep. So we're hopeful that that'll come through and we're working with some consultants on that to help us out. This is essentially what we're proposing as a crossing. It was designed with phase two back when we built that segment and we've been working on it ever since.

would it be basically drop guards on the cross? Or just basically you got to stop?

Yep, currently it's a stop with a notice railroad crossing. There's no flashing lights that are proposed. And this is something that we've worked through. And this is pretty much what the crossing at Underdahl on the glacial drumline is going to be, is it's going to be a stop. The difference there is we've got an active or existing crossing on Underdall Road, so we're just improving that one. This one, there's no current crossing, so that's what the petition is, is for this new crossing. And so there's differences of opinions on the benefits of that or where this crossing should be, but Dane County and our consultants are confident that this is the solution. I don't know who that is.

Yeah, he's been gone for a number of years.

That's my memory. He was there forever.

And he was with the airport for the last several years.

He was the commissioner of the airport. Oh, right, right, right. Yes, there is an airport.

Oh, I'm thinking of a different body problem. Or maybe they're one of the same. Or bonding nights. That's what I'm thinking of, something about that.

Alex, when it was denied, what was the reason giving? And are there any changes that have been made with the resubmission?

The new changes are a better focus on what the intent of this crossing is and how it works with the larger system of on-road segments, the state park, and the trail at large. plus the new information that Williams Drive is going to be reconstructed and is going to have bike facilities on it. So with that new information, that is kind of the proposal. We're painting a little better picture before it was kind of more zoomed in disconnect. And the railroads position is different than ours. And that's the jurisdiction of the office of commissioner railroads is for these petitions for new crossings. They're basically the court by which these decisions are, are testimonied against and for, and then ruled upon.

Is there more emphasis on about commuter transportation? Because I think, you know, that's, we want to make things more bikeable, more walkable than communities and counties and whatnot.

And there's updates with the Madison Metropolitan Planning Organization and their active transportation plan showing these connections, showing that these are designed appropriately, that it's not just a connection to nowhere and how that fits in with the larger system and that it's It's designed safely.

And how long has it been since the denial? Probably two years. Yeah. I mean, lots changed in years. Yeah.

Yeah, we've been working on kind of these next phases and the plans for kind of these future phases. And the public's continuing to ask for when's the next phase between Fish Camp and McFarland? When's the next phase between Stoughton? So we're actively trying to do what we can. Any off-road future segments would have... require the acquisition of additional property. So those just aren't feasible at this time. So we're trying to tackle the things that we can.

Awesome. Good luck.

Thank you. I think that's it for LaFalle. I kind of segued that to Loria Har a little bit, but it's all connected down there. Okay. Well, appreciate that update. Maybe we'll get out there another time.

Encourage people to. Any reports to committee? Doesn't look like it. Future meetings are going to be September 23rd at Indian Lake County Park Shelter. And then after that, on October 14th, we'll be at the Heritage Center. Is there any public comment on items not on the agenda? Does anybody else have any other such business as allowed? If not, The commission plans to meet in closed session for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating and purchasing and acquiring property where open discussion of the bargaining positions and strategies would discourage bargaining and harm the public's interest in obtaining properties. The authority for possible closed session is 1985-1E of the statutes. There's three items to be covered under the closed session. Those are listed. Is there a motion to go into closed session?

I'll make a motion to go into closed session pursuant to that statute. Okay.

Second. Call the roll, please. Yes. Chair Thorson. Aye. Posler.

Posler, aye.

Go for it.

Aye.

Banks.

Aye.

Okay.

Commission is back into open session and we have one final item on the agenda and that's adjournment. Before we adjourn, I just would like to thank everybody, Shireen and Alex, Laura for taking over and then everyone who was able to make the change. So thank you. Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Okay. all those in favor of uh adjournments signify by saying aye aye aye anyone opposed having too much fun