Common Council - Regular Meeting

The hour of 6.30, having arrived, I will call to order the Common Council meeting of Tuesday, June 9th, 2026, and ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Thank you. Alder Lankella. Here. Alder Lankella is present. Alder Lieberman. Here. Alder Lieberman is present. Alder Madison.

Here.

Alder Madison is present. Alder Martinez-Rutherford. Present. Alder Martinez-Rutherford is present. Alder Matthews.

Here.

Alder Matthews is present. Alder Mayer.

Here.

Alder Mayer is present. Alder O'Brien?

Present.

Alder O'Brien is present. Alder Hovish is excused. Alder Pritchett?

Here.

Alder Pritchett is present. Alder Tischler? Here. Alder Tischler is present. Alder Revere? Here. Alder Revere is present. Alder Vitterer?

Here.

Alder Vitterer is present. Alder Zhang?

Here.

Alder Zhang is present. Alder Duncan?

Here.

Alder Duncan is present. Alder Evers?

Here.

Alder Evers is present. Alder Field?

Here.

Alder Field is present. Alder Figueroa Cole?

Here.

Alder Figueroa Cole is present. Alder Glenn? Alder Glen is present. Alder Ugar. Alder Ugar is present. Alder Harrington-McKinney. Alder Harrington-McKinney is present. Madam Mayor of Corm.

Thank you. I'd like to start the meeting by acknowledging that our community lost a bright light recently and asking everyone in the room to join us in a moment of silence in memory of Michael Johnson.

Thank you.

As usual, I'd like to remind us that we're here to do the business of the people of the City of Madison, and I ask that we do that with grace and kindness and respect for each other, and that all concerned refrain from using profanity in your remarks. and i would also note that we do have a number of things that we will be doing on the agenda today many of them celebratory and but that can take some time so when we get to it those from the public who are registered to speak will have three minutes do not feel obligated to use your whole time and members of the council

Likewise, should not feel obligated to use the full 10 minutes that's allocated to you on any given motion. Please be mindful of your colleagues and the amount of time we're here.

That said, our first item is possibly the most exciting item on the agenda, President Madison. It is item one, an honoring resolution, Legislature 93371, recognizing and commemorating June 19th, 2026, as Juneteenth and Freedom Day in Madison, Wisconsin. And we will start with reading the resolution. And if the list that I have is correct, Alder Pritchett, are you first? It's on Alder.

Whereas June 19, or Juneteenth, is Freedom Day, and whereas this day not only celebrates freedom, but honors and punctuates the quest for the civil liberty of freedom, and whereas Juneteenth, at its genesis, symbolically commemorates the end of slavery in America and the beginning of the road to freedom for black people, And whereas while symbolically America gained its independence on the 4th of July, symbolically all people gained their freedom on Juneteenth. And whereas after the Civil War, the institution of slavery remained in effect, with many choosing to ignore, resist, and defy the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the end of slavery in states that seceded from the United States. And...

Whereas on June 19th, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. The final stop for these troops on their march across the Confederate South delivering the formal news and Whereas the troops who were charged with enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation advised the community that they are free and that they have been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years prior. And whereas approximately six months later, the 13th Amendment, which stated that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been Duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction as ratified and.

Whereas a such Juneteenth observations and celebrations started in Texas in 1865 and whereas in 18, in 1989 the Greater Madison Community first started formally celebrating Juneteenth. And whereas the city of Madison first recognized Juneteenth as a city holiday in 2021, and whereas in 2021, Juneteenth became the 11th federal holiday in the United States. whereas black youth have played a central and often under-recognized role in advancing freedom in the United States, organizing through schools, churches, and community institutions to demand justice, equality, and full citizenship both long before and throughout the civil rights movements and

Whereas in 1960 black college students sparked a national movement through sit ins challenging segregation, leading to the creation of the student nonviolent communicating coordinating committee. a youth led organization that transformed the civil rights movement through direct action and grassroots leadership. And whereas black youth and young adults led voter registration drives, freedom rides, freedom schools, and organizing efforts across the South, demonstrating courage and strategic leadership that helped reshape national policy and expand democracy. And whereas black children and teenagers courageously participated in direct action protests, including the 1963 Birmingham Children's March, where thousands of young people faced arrest and violence to challenge segregation and awaken the consciousness of the nation. And...

Whereas black students organized walkouts, boycotts, and protests, many of which went unreported at the time to challenge unequal and segregated school conditions, directly influencing legal strategies that culminated in landmark decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education, which further ignited the fight for equal and equitable conditions, and whereas the actions of individual young people outside of organized or movement-specific activities have additionally spurred widespread change, such as Claudette Colvin getting arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white woman, which then set the stage for the response to Rosa Parks and the resulting Montgomery bus boycott, and...

Whereas these instances of black youth advancing freedom were met with racial terror, violence, and intimidation through numerous means, whether it be the use of dogs and fire hoses on protestors, segregationist mobs blocking desegregation efforts, bombings, lynchings, or incarcerations, among others. And whereas while young leaders persisted through this racial terror, violence, and intimidation to advance freedoms, it has also resulted in trauma that can be felt today. And whereas many leaders of the civil rights movement began their activism as young people with youth-led efforts serving as training grounds for lifelong leadership, civic engagement, and community transformation. And...

Whereas the leadership, courage, and vision of black youth, both before and during civil rights movement, continue to inspire generations of young leaders today. Affirming that youth are not only the future, but are also essential leaders in the present. And whereas the city of Madison recognizes that today's black youth, like those sitting here today, of the civil rights era are leaders, organizers, and visionaries within their communities, and that investing in their voices, leadership, and lived experiences strengthens our city and advances equity for future generations. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City of Madison and the Madison Common Council recognize and commemorate June 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth and Freedom Day in Madison. Be it further resolved that the official Juneteenth flag was raised on June 2nd, 2026 in the City of Madison.

Thank you, Alders. We will take that as moved by Alder Pritchett and seconded by Alder Glen. And we have a number of people here to receive the proclamation. And so I'll ask you to come up. to the mic as I call you. We will start with Dejanae Lavelle, who was nominated by Sarah Colson from Rooted at Badger Rock Neighborhood Center. And... Sarah writes, in her time with us, Dejanae has worked with her team to write and receive five grants to fund projects to address food insecurity and provide educational opportunities to youth and families in her community, including designing and building a chicken coop, an aquaponics system, season extension structures for the garden, a food forest, and to build new raised beds for the Badger Rock Community Garden. Congratulations.

So I could talk about Dajanae all day. I have known this beautiful young person since she was just starting sixth grade. She's now a graduating senior. She also did her junior and senior years at the STEM program in Madison College, and she will be heading to Edgewood College in the fall. So Dajanae is a leader from within. She is not a person who likes to be in the spotlight, in the limelight, but she is such a strong, beautiful leader in her own right, and she is so deserving of this recognition and more.

Thank you, thank you.

Good photo. If you're okay with it. All right, Dylan is right here. He's going to pop up and take a photo, but this is for you. Has your name there to recognize you. Come on up, Sarah.

Thank you, and next we have Dejanae Banks, nominated by Maddie Fagerlund of Bridge Lake Point Winona Neighborhood Center. Come on up. And Maddie writes, a strong relationship builder and a good friend, she's been very important to helping build a sense of community in our middle school program. She is also creative and helping Bridge Lake Point Winona staff create our 3D printing club for this summer. Congratulations.

So I was a little mean to Dejanay, and I told her to write a speech to kind of talk about herself and brag about herself, because she is really an important part of our community as we've been rebuilding our programming at BLW. She started coming last year, and it's been a real pleasure to get to know her and to see her grow as a person. She's going to be a rising seventh grader at Senate this year, and she recently just got into AVID, so. Yeah, all right. Go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead. Hello, my name is and I have been going to B.O.W. since last summer of 2025. One way I have been a leader at B.O.W. is cooking breakfast in the summer and help pass out breakfast to the little kids each morning. Another way I have helped create activities and field trips ideas for middle school. So far I have enjoyed doing field trips and activities with Miss Maddie even though I was with eighth grade boys this whole year. Thank you.

All right, next is Kenzeria Patterson, nominated by Clyde Mayberry. Come on down. Clyde writes, through her role with the dynamic badgerettes, she consistently leads with discipline, confidence, and heart while serving as a positive example for younger youth in the community. Congratulations.

Thank you. My name is Clyde Mayberry. I have been knowing Kenzaria Patterson since she was in elementary school. Kenzaria has been a huge part of my organization's growth in the way that we shape and form our leadership. for ages to come. She was an AVID student and also in the senior academy through MATC and Memorial High School. Kenzaria will be exiting Madison and going to Jackson State University.

Hi, everyone. When people think about leadership, they often think about being in charge. But for me, leadership has never been about a title. Leadership is about service, sacrifice, consistency, selflessness, and showing up for people even when no one is watching. It's about inspiring others through your actions and helping them become the best versions of themselves. One of the greatest leadership opportunities I've had is serving as a leader on my dance team. I started dancing about seven years ago, and what was just a fun hobby quickly turned into a passion, which led to this becoming one of the most important parts of my life. I became the head captain, which is a role I'll probably continue to hold today. And being head captain has taught me lessons that no classroom ever could. It taught me how to communicate, how to motivate others, how to remain strong during challenges, and how to lead with grace. Most importantly, it taught me that leadership is not about being the loudest voice in the room, but it's about being the person others can trust, depend on, and look up to.

next we have atavia johnson who is nominated by tiffany loomis of the boys and girls clubs of dane county and tiffany writes atavia exemplifies youth leadership that strengthens her peers and the community she leads by example devotes her time to others and continues to grow as a strong advocate for safety, service, and positive change. And I would just like to add that I really appreciate both of you being here tonight, given everything that's happened.

See, now I get to introduce Atavia. That's great. I'm Jacob. I'm the club director over on Southside for the Tap Street Boys and Girls Club. Atavia has been here the whole time I've been here. She is always, she's just helping out. She comes over, works at our community events. She's now finishing up her junior year at the MATC STEM program as a junior in high school. She was our Youth of the Year candidate. All in all, she cares about everyone in her community and probably needs to put herself forward a little more, and then we can do that. But yes, you happy about that, Tavia? Let's do it.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. I just wrote this when I first got here because I didn't want to go off the dome. Today I was nominated to talk about my leadership or like brag, as Jacob likes to say. One of the things I would like to talk about is my leadership in the Boys and Girls Club. whether it's just helping out with the events, the back to school drive, pantry events, helping out with cooking or just doing my work to get the teens motivated to do theirs as well. Another form of leadership to me is enforcement. I was put on the West High School Safety Committee because I kept emailing the principal about, as he likes to say, how to do his job. So I guess he got tired of it. And when he made that decision, I left the opportunity to basically just help out the school, creating restorative justice circles, put it into new security protocols for the school, or just creating community to inspire people alongside me or people after me to get encouraged to do so as well. Thank you. Thank you.

And next we have Dahana Crowder, nominated by Brittany Sinclair of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. And they write, over the past decade, she has consistently demonstrated exceptional musical talent, earning medals every single semester through her dedication and hard work. Dahana truly shines as a leader within her community and school. Congratulations.

So I'm going to introduce Dahana. My name is Brittany Sinclair. I'm with Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. And I met Dahana through our program SuperString. So it's a free strings lesson program that we have. And she immediately shined right when I met her. And she proves it every recital because she wears her medals to prove. how long she's been with us so uh she definitely uh deserves this reward and she says she's ready so i'm gonna go ahead and kick her off with her speech um i'm dahana um i am a member of the lgbtq community i try to represent

pretty well in leadership and guiding kids who are afraid to come out to do that. I live in Kennedy Heights, a place where kids need to feel more like they're at home more than them being kept in like a box or something. So I try to help them be out and I feel like also more help is needed in the community center. So I like to guide through in the YSO by bringing my medals. I have a whole bunch, so I bring them all just to motivate the little kids that are in there that are trying to get where I am. I'm trying to motivate them to keep going and to get in the position I am in. I am very grateful, thanks to my mom, Stefano, over there. She helps me through everything. She's made me who I am now. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I am. Even though we go through ups and downs, I still look up to her, even though sometimes she feels like I don't. I love you, mom. So thank you.

I'm trying to be. Good job, good job.

We have two more folks that we're honoring tonight. And the first is Julian Walters, who, as a leader in Madison, is showing the next generation what is possible when you combine vision, hard work, and a commitment to community. And I think Julian couldn't be here, so Jonetta Walters is going to accept the proclamation for him.

Hi, everybody. I'm Janetta, and I work for my brother alongside him as a development associate. Julian left me with some words to say. One is that he has been inspired by many leaders in Madison. One he felt important to mention today is Michael Johnson, who has been supportive throughout his life since high school. Julian was the 2013 Youth of the Year, as well as the Avid Topps student. And today, he just wanted to make sure he mentioned, I mentioned that Mike was very important in his journey. a little bit about eminent development we are new refresh we have a building that is near and dear to Julian's heart it is on Park Street it's called Park lost it is a 44 unit 11 of those units will be allocated to those who have aged out of the foster care system we also have another development on the west side off of Whitney Way called Ellis Potter, which we are a JV partner with, with Horizon Development and those are going to be 65 units and they'll be allocated to those 55 and up. We also have Juju's Block Party, which is a street ball tournament and a back-to-school bash where we just kind of use it as an opportunity to give back to the community that has poured into not only me and my brother, but our family, our friends, and yeah. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, and last but definitely not least, I would like Ms. Annie Weatherby Flowers to come up.

You could say a lot of things about Miss Annie, not least that she is one of the moving and motivating forces behind the fact that Madison does celebrate Juneteenth every year.

But I think tonight what I would say about Miss Annie is that because of her vision and dedication

literally generations of young people in madison have grown up seeing black excellence black joy and black community be celebrated thank you miss annie thank you welcome i just i have a lot to think about i was sitting here watching these young people and what people don't you know what people don't know is that i was a teen mom and that i had struggles And now I went through being a teen mom, but I grew up in a community that embraced me. I grew up with women who poured into my life. I grew up with teachers who kept me in. When I went to Lady Fitz, they kept me in my advanced classes so I could continue. And so that's important to me, is that each one reach one. And we have to do that. And Jackie, I'm standing here with Jackie. I met Jackie when she was rebuilding her life. Julian and all of them were part of the network that I created, introduced her to people, helped her get established. She's been planning the parade at Juneteenth. Anything I do, she's right there, and now I watch her shine and do those things. That is what Juneteenth is about. It's about reaching back and looking at the collective. and that the accomplishment that black folks have made since slavery. When slavery ended, black people couldn't read. In less than 30 years, 50% of the black people were illiterate. And so we have done astounding things Jackie was a 4.0 average student and people would have wrote her off based on that. And now, second generation of beautiful, diligent, and successful children. So we have to start with us. And it's not like we have to depend on a lot of people, but we need a circle of folks who get behind us and who help us. And so I just wanted to say that. And I am a retired city employee. And I'm an old lady now. And so I'm transitioning out of Juneteenth. And so Jeanetta, She left. Jackie's daughter is heading the parade in the retirement of her mother. So generationally, Juneteenth has been a generational event here in Madison, but also in Milwaukee is where I learned it. And Milwaukee's is 50 years old. And I'm also on the national. Everybody needs money because the political climate is really affecting Juneteenth across the nation. So if you can help, if you can be an advocate, you can be on our board. Jackie's on my board. So we need board members, and we need deep pockets. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I would like to ask the room to join me in one more round of applause for all of our honorees tonight, but also their parents and families and nominators. Thank you all so much for being here. It's a real honor to hear all of the work that you're doing and the ways that you're contributing to our community.

And thank you, President Madison, for organizing this.

All right, we do have before us the actual honoring resolution, which has been moved and seconded. And so then I will ask, is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, we will record that vote. And I'm just gonna stand us informal for a minute while folks go out to take a picture. Okay, and then we'll go on to item two, which is legislature 93438, recognizing June 2026 as Pride Month in the city of Madison. And we will start the reading with Alder Duncan.

Whereas the city of Madison has a long and proud LGBTQ plus history and recognizes the broader history of the fight for LGBTQ plus equality from the black night brawl to the Stonewall riots. And whereas in 1975, the city of Madison became the first place in Wisconsin and one of the earliest in the country to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by amending its equal opportunity ordinance and

Whereas the city created the state's first domestic partnership registry in 1990 by ordinance affording limited rights to same-sex couples. And whereas black and brown LGBTQ plus people have been leaders in advancing social change as well as creating and shifting culture. And whereas since 2023, the Madison Common Council has had at least a quarter of alder districts represented by LGBTQ plus alders. And whereas, the City of Madison has a proud history of protecting LGBTQ plus rights and advancing LGBTQ plus equality and continues to do so. And.

Whereas, the City of Madison recognizes the contributions of organizations such as G-SAFE, Fair Wisconsin, Outreach LGBTQ Plus Community Center, Freedom Inc., and Aurelio Latinx, among others, who work to uplift and empower the queer community in Madison. And whereas our LGBTQ plus youth, especially transgender youth, have faced discrimination in Wisconsin communities and schools and have bravely organized to fight back against unconstitutional partisan attacks in the Wisconsin state legislature that aim to divide and distract our communities from real problems we face. And

Whereas the LGBTQ plus community currently faces attacks from politicians across the country, whether it be the Trump administration rolling back the rights of transgender people or the already 530 anti-LGBTQ plus bills the ACLU has tracked in the state legislatures in 2026. And whereas, regardless of these attacks, the city of Madison will continue to stand with the LGBTQ plus community and...

Whereas the City of Madison Common Council considers bodily autonomy and privacy to be fundamental rights and the foundation for gender equality and justice, including the ability to make decisions about one's own body and life, and to be free from violence, discrimination, and coercion, and whereas the LGBTQ plus community, both locally and globally, have been historically strong and resilient and will continue to be, And whereas having pride itself is both an act of bravery and joy. And Pride Month is about celebrating the beauty of all LGBTQ plus people.

Now, therefore, it be resolved that the City of Madison recognizes the LGBTQ plus community as an important part of the diversity of the greater Madison community and appreciates their contributions to our economy, culture, neighborhoods, and city. Be it further resolved that the Madison Common Council is committed to protecting the LGBTQ plus community from harassment, discrimination, and violence, and commits to promoting LGBTQ plus acceptance in the community. be it finally resolved that the City of Madison declares June 2026 as Pride Month in the City of Madison.

Thank you, Alders. We will take that as moved by Alder Duncan and seconded by Alder Field. And I believe we have with us Doctors Brittany Allen and Jennifer Ream from the PATH Clinic to accept the resolution.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. We are grateful to the Common Council for recognizing the importance of celebrating pride and supporting the LGBTQ plus community. As pediatricians who have had the privilege of caring for transgender and gender diverse youth, we'd like to take a moment to share why protecting this healthcare matters so deeply.

14 years ago in 2012, a mother walked into our clinic carrying a copy of the Endocrine Society guidelines. for the care of transgender youth. She told us her daughter would soon be ready to start estrogen and that she should be able to start that in her own community. She told us she needed us to be ready when her daughter was ready, and she told us to get to work.

Since then, we've had the privilege of working alongside an incredible team of medical assistants, nurses, physicians, social workers and families. We've cared for patients who are loving, determined, fearful and incredibly brave. Watching young people grow into themselves, gain confidence and build lives that reflect who they truly are has been one of the greatest gifts of our careers.

As many of you know, our ability to provide this care changed drastically in January 2026. It has been heartbreaking to continue our commitment to children's health while being unable to provide that care we know many of our patients need. Many families are hurting and understandably afraid, yet they continue to inspire us with their courage, resilience, and love for one another. They have spoken at the Capitol, shared their stories with reporters, shown up to protests, and helped each other navigate barriers that no family should have to face.

As physicians with expertise in pediatric transgender health care, we know that this care, when provided thoughtfully and with appropriate support, is safe, effective, and medically necessary for many young people. The evidence comes from decades of clinical experience and research involving tens of thousands of patients. Even a comprehensive review commissioned by the state of Utah, an effort that examined more than 200 studies and over more than 28,000 patients, concluded that these treatments improve mental health and wellbeing and have a strong safety record.

Every child deserves the opportunity to grow up healthy, supported, and hopeful about their future. Every family deserves access to medically appropriate care for their child. As a community with a long tradition of LGBTQ plus advocacy, we hope that the Common Council will continue to stand with transgender and gender diverse youth and work to ensure that they know they are valued, welcomed, and belonged here.

Thank you so much and thank you for recognizing pride in our community.

Thank you. All right. That also has been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, we'll record that vote. That will bring us to item three, which is legislature 93442, presentation in honor of Make Music Madison. I'll invite our artists up, please.

Good evening. First, I want to thank you all for allowing us to present tonight. My name is Nakia Agueme, and I am the board treasurer for Make Music Madison. So on Sunday, June 21st, there will be more than 500 free performances at over 160 sites across the city as part of Make Music Madison. We will join 18 other cities in Wisconsin and over 2,000 cities worldwide in celebrating International Make Music Day. Make Music Day was launched in 1982 in France as Fête de la Musique. It is not a typical music festival. Any musician, regardless of age, experience, or genre, can share their music with friends, neighbors, and strangers. There is no audition process and everyone is welcome. Over 1,500 individual musicians are expected to participate in Madison and every show is free and open to the public. Make Music Madison was founded in 2013 by city leaders and dedicated volunteers who recognized the promise of the event. Thank you for your consistent support along with that of the Madison Arts Commission and the Room Tax Commission. We continue to thrive with this event. And we are proud to say that Madison is the largest event of its kind in North America and we look forward to maintaining that status this year. Our mission is to provide free and accessible live music to every community in Madison while supporting local musicians and encouraging the public to invest in the creative economy. We invite you to learn more and explore our interactive map at www.makemusicmadison.org. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook and please share this event with your constituents. Now, to celebrate the value that music brings to all of our lives, we have invited some local musicians to share a song with you. The Pomona Choir is the official singing group of the Philippine American Association of Madison and Neighboring Areas. They will perform at Make Filipino Music Madison, a special event celebrating Filipino music, food, and community hosted in Garner Park in District 11. Omar Dumdum, Board Secretary of Pomona, will share more about the event now.

thank you nikia and thank you mayor alder madison and the city council uh thank you for inviting us to this meeting so pamana was founded in 1984 or 42 years ago to foster community and connections among filipinos in madison and south central wisconsin pamana in filipino means culture or legacy Music plays an important part in our culture, and Make Music Madison provides us a perfect opportunity to gather and share our culture with the wider Madison community. Pamana's summer programming this year has three main activities. One is a summer day camp for kids to learn more about Filipino culture. The second is our annual summer picnic, which is a much-awaited potluck gathering where hundreds attend to celebrate our culture. And third is the officially listed event for June 21, which we call Make Filipino Music Madison. All these events are free for the public, thanks in part to the council's generous support as Pamana was recently awarded the Madison Arts Commission Arts Grant. As Nikia earlier mentioned, Make Filipino Music Madison will be at Garner Park on June 21st from 1 to 9 p.m. Our lineup of Filipino performers is perhaps one of the most eclectic and musically diverse, ranging from a pop rock band and choral groups, to solo artists, including an indie bluegrass musician who fronts a Madison favorite band, as well as a church pastor singing contemporary gospel songs. Our director here, Shaddai, the one in blue, she will also perform solo, and last time I checked, she's the only artist in Madison for Make Music Madison whose genre is opera. So this is fitting, as Garner Park is also home to the opera in the park. Make Filipino Music Madison also serves as our celebration for the Philippine Independence Day, which the country commemorates on June 12. So tonight we will give you a sample of what you will hear and experience on June 21st at Garner Park. The Pamana Choir will sing a Filipino song titled Iduyan Mo or Rock My Cradle. This song is from an important Filipino period drama film in 1980 titled Aguila. This song is from an, I would like to read an English translation of the song's chorus. It says, rock my cradle, gently make it sway, and if it's possible to spin the world back, I wish that you could rock my cradle again. So once again, here's the Pamana Choir singing Iduyan Mo.

Thank you.

Iduyan mo ang duyan ko unti-unti Itulad ko at kung maaaring nahiting Ang mundo paali sana iduyan mo Thank you for watching.

Oh Holi!

Thank you. I hope that everyone will take advantage of Make Music Madison. It's really a wonderful day, and not only can you hear great things like that, but pretty much any genre, including opera, that you might want as you make your way across the city. Alder Figaro Cole, did you wish to speak? nope nope okay all right well then uh that will bring us to disclosures and recusals are there any disclosures or recusals on items on tonight's agenda alderfield

Thank you, Mayor. I have a disclosure for items 106, 136, 176, 179, and then because they sent a letter on 94, that one too, I'm an employee of UW-Madison, but that will not in any way affect my vote on those items.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Tischler.

Same here. I'm also an employee of UW.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Mayer.

Ditto here, Mayor.

Thank you, Alder.

Alder Matthews. I'm also a UW employee, and that will not affect my vote on any of the items that Alder Field mentioned. Thank you, Alder.

Alder O'Brien.

I'd just like to disclose that I'm an employee of Fair Wisconsin.

Thank you, Alder. Are there any other disclosures or recusals? Alder Revere.

Thank you, Mayor. I wish to be noted as recusing myself on the alcohol and entertainment licenses respectively for Madison Elks Lodge as I am an officer of that fraternal organization. So this would be agenda item 15 and for the alcohol license and

The clerk suggests item 90.

Yes, I finally found it. Agenda item 90 is the entertainment license. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Are there any other disclosures or recusals? Alder, hearing to McKinney.

Thank you, madam. Mayor, I'd like to exclude myself from item number 19 on the agenda for the Elks Lodge.

Thank you, Alder. Are there any other disclosures or recusals from the body? Seeing none, I would like to disclose on item 132 that my partner is an employee of Slipstream. I did not have a role in either writing the RFP or selecting the contract, nor will I be directly involved in overseeing the contract. right then that will bring us to the presentation of the consent agenda president madison

Thank you, Mayor. A consent agenda is moved with the recommended action listed for each item on the agenda, including public hearings except, one, items which have registrants wishing to speak, two, items which auditors have separated out for discussion and or debate purposes. This document lists supermajority items, agenda items with recommendations different from the agenda, items for exclusion, items introduced from the floor, and agenda items with corrections. Here are the agenda items that are supermajority items. Please note that supermajority items will be recorded as unanimous votes unless a roll call or exclusion is requested. Agenda item 16, to grant the following 2026-2027 adult entertainment tavern license renewal for Stanuto LLC 2009 Freeport Road. 14 votes required to adopt under suspension. Agenda item 128, legislative file number 93414, establishing in-person absentee voting locations for the 2026 partisan primary and general election. 14 votes required to adopt under suspension. agenda item 129 legislative file number 93177 re-approving a certified survey map for property owned by s3 housing llc and located at 1804 through 180 i'm sorry 1802 1804 roth street in district 12. um this requires 14 votes required to adopt under suspension Agenda item 130, legislative file number 92735, substitute amending the 2026 Economic Development Division capital budget and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a $2.8 million tax incremental finance loan to assist in the renovation and development of office, manufacturing, and research and development space for Rialto Fusion Inc. at 910 Mayor Avenue in the project plan area of 1054 in District 12. This requires 15 votes. Agenda item 131 legislative file number 92931 authorizing the City of Madison via its Community Development Division to accept up to $50,000 in grant funding from the Bloomberg Rockefeller Philanthropies to implement the Youth Climate Action Fund. authorizing the mayor to sign a YCAF program charter with a grantor to formally accept these funds and amending CDD's 2026 adopted operating budget as appropriate to recognize the additional grant revenue and commiserate expenditures. This requires 15 votes. agenda item 134 which is legislative file number nine three one four nine substitute amending the 2026 edd capital budget which is 1057 and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a two million dollar tax incremental finance loan to odana apartments loc or it's assigned to construct approximately 227 units of affordable housing and approximately 132 parking stalls located at 5559 Odanna Road and 5542 Medical Circle in a proposed creation to TID 57 and District 19. This requires 15 votes. Agenda item 135, legislative file number 93150. Substitute amending the 2026 EDD capital budget for TIF 56 and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a $2.9 million TIF loan to GT Apartments LLC, or it's assigned to construct approximately 302 units of affordable housing and approximately 148 parking stalls at 6518 and 6526 Grand Teton Plaza and a proposed creation to TID 56 in District 19. This requires 15 votes. agenda item 137 legislative file number 93161 amending the 2026 academic development division capital budget by 4.165 million and authorizing the execution of a purchase and sale agreement with stark weather llc or their successors and assigns for the purchase of four properties addressed as 111 north walter street 31 North Walter Street, 3471 Chicago Avenue, and 3470 Canvas Road in Madison, Wisconsin, zip code 53703 for land banking purposes and authorizing the expenditure of $135,000 of in the 2026 adopted EDD capital budget for environmental assessments, title work, closing costs, holding costs, and pre-development costs totaling $4.3 million. in District 15, and this requires 15 votes. Agenda items with recommendations differ from the agenda. There are no items in this section. Agenda items excluded by one, the request of auditors, or two, speakers are registered by noon on June 9th. Item number four, or 94, sorry, which is legislative file number 92491, approving roadway geometry for Regent Street. It's in District 8 and 13, a report of Board of Public Works, and speakers are registered. items introduced from the floor there are no items in this section agenda items with corrections agenda item 119 legislative file number 93205 awarding public works contract number 8834 resurfacing 2026 asphalt based patching and base patching grinding district 15 and district 19 reported board of public works removed district 19 from the title

all right thank you alder are there any other items that alders would like to have separated from the consent agenda at this time alder tischler yeah just a quick clarification do we have speakers for item 134 yes we have additional speakers on several other items okay so that okay just want to make sure that's not on the consent agenda okay thank you thank you alder Are there any other items that members of the body would like to see separated just for clarification? We also have speakers wishing to speak on items 130, 134, 135, and 137. Seeing no other separations, just going to double check on the registrations. That is it. All right. So then I'll just go over that one more time to make sure everybody is on the same page. Items 16, 128, and 129 require 14 votes and will be recorded as unanimous. Item 131 requires 15 votes and likewise. We will exclude from the consent agenda items 94, 130, 134, 135, and 137. And then we have a correction on item 119. We are removing district 19 from the title. Are we good? Good. Okay. So then President Madison, a motion on the consent agenda, please.

Motion to adopt the consent agenda. Second.

Moved and seconded to adopt the consent agenda. Is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of the consent agenda and the recommendations therein? Seeing no objection, we'll record that vote. And we'll move on then to public comment. The first item that we have registrants wishing to speak on is item 94. which is approving roadway geometry for Regent Street, Randall Avenue, to Park Street in District 8 and District 13. Our first registrant is Alicia Liu of District 19, to be followed by Ben Knopfke, to be followed by Josh Olson. Do we have Alicia? Yes, I'm here. Yep, go ahead. Just a sec.

Sorry, I was at the work.

Go ahead, Alicia. You have three minutes.

Yeah. All right, so the current design features two 14-foot travel lanes wider than interstate highways. Narrowing down those lanes to standard 11 feet and cutting down one parking lane yields 13-foot extra widths. It's a shame that the fire department doesn't want those 13 feet to be used for sidewalks, but the current design is the very worst use of that space. Wide travel lanes encourage speeding, and parking ranks the lowest in the public engagement survey i drew up an alternative that uses those 13 feet for bike lanes 74 across 1000 uw students prefer the bike lane option over the current design in my informal survey this poll only confirmed city service findings although biking infra did not rank high madison residents clearly prefer it over parking I'm only a layman, and my survey does not aim to supplant city staff's hard work and expertise, but it showed a clear community preference that should not be ignored. All I ask is to give this option a chance on the drawing board and before the commissions and boards. This never happened in the previous meetings. Transportation Commission were only allowed to vote on one option from the get-go. Bike infra was considered incompatible with emergency vehicles. While I appreciate Mr. Moore's reply to me that retracted this narrative, this misconception still played a major role in the range of options considered and in the commission votes. I certainly understand the reservation about bike lanes because of the nearby southwest pass. However, first, there are many possibilities for those 13 extra feet. We could use it for bus slash emergency lane, another unexplored option. Second, I caution elders against putting your own gut feelings before community preferences. Even if double-sided parking makes sense to you, it doesn't make sense to your constituents, according to the official and informal surveys. Last, emergency access is important.

You have about 30 seconds left.

or a bus lane for those 13 feet, they can add to the clear width, exceeding the requirement of 28 feet by the fire department. The current design barely meets this requirement or fails it per another measurement method. That's all from me. Thank you.

thank you that's your time and our next registrant is ben naufke of district 11 to be followed by josh olson to be followed by benjamin wolma do we have ben

Hello. Hi, I'm Ben. I'm from the District 11, the Westmoreland neighborhood, and I'm a member of Strong Towns. I don't support the current design on the grounds that the lanes are too wide. So, as Alicia said, that there's a recorded 14-foot width, and Alder Evers put out an FAQ that clarified that there's an effective 12 feet with a two-foot cutter. However, 12 feet is the typical size for a highway. And I don't think that's the kind of street we necessarily want in such a busy commercial corridor. It exceeds the National Association of City Transportation Officials, or NACDO. I think you'll hear that acronym more later on. They recommend 11 feet for transit and truck, and it's pretty widely considered that 11 feet is plenty of accommodations for snow. So really what these widths are also doing is that they're increasing crossing distances for pedestrians, which, according to community surveys, is the number one priority in the area of safety and the pedestrian experience. And so every additional foot of crossing degrades that pedestrian comfort, and it reduces safety by increasing their exposure on the roadway. We typically expect our streets to last for 30 years, so we should really seize this rare opportunity and do our best to include as many pedestrian accommodations as possible. And just a little personal perspective on that 30-year thing. This is a hard thing. It's always contentious and understandably so. The reconstruction is our best opportunity to actually implement real lasting improvements and designs so that we can meet our goals. And I think we would all agree that if we could actually make tweaks along the way, we could probably get a better process and a better outcome that actually meets the needs of people as they change. 30 years is a long time. A lot of things change. And unfortunately, the built environment tends to lock in human behavior. And so if our streets could evolve alongside people, we'd probably be happier. it it's hard but i think we should challenge ourselves to still try and do things in that 30-year time frame to make improvements as we evolve the way we move around so i think we should try to do more quick build experiments that prototype out different designs so that we can experience them together figure out what works and doesn't work instead of speculating on simulation results or feeling apprehensive about change that's going to happen all at once

You have about 30 seconds left. Thank you.

So I ask you, please be open to these experiments so that we can work on a consensus over the course of the lifetime instead of jamming it into a year of design time. And that we can meet our goals for Vision Zero and improving transportation sustainability. But for tonight, my immediate ask is please reject the design so that we can improve pedestrian safety and comfort by reducing lane widths and reducing crossing distances, most importantly. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Josh Olson, Fitchburg, to be followed by Benjamin Wolma, to be followed by Nicholas Davies. We have Josh.

Can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Josh Olson. I'm a former resident of the Regent Street area. As a student, I never considered walking on Regent because the cars were erratic and the sidewalks were too narrow. This design is an improvement on what exists now, but it has more potential. That potential is outlined in multiple planning documents and guidelines, Complete Green Streets, Vision Zero, NACDO, and All Ages and Abilities. We could achieve this potential now if city staff designed the street like the guide suggests we should. Staff went a different route, which is why I'm here tonight. I'm also a Strong Towns member, where we think streets should be safe and productive. That means narrow, open for business, and prioritizing people more than cars. The founder of Strong Towns recently noted that staff did not make decisions, they advise elected officials on the consequences of decisions the officials make. That means you are responsible for this street geometry. I think there are serious consequences for approving this design as it stands and council should grapple with them. Sasha Rosen died four months ago when a car sped down South Park Street. Another victim died last week from a speeding car on East Washington. Three others have been killed on our streets this year, and an unnamed victim died three years ago when a truck went right on red on Raymond Road. Speed kills, but it's not the only factor. It's our responsibility to narrow lanes as much as we can, even when streets aren't known for speeding. It's also our responsibility to reduce risks for non-speeding crashes, like turns and intersections. My friend has nearly been hit twice in the last week by reckless vehicles turning right onto Fish Hatchery. This is the same intersection he was hit two years ago. He still goes to physical therapy for his injuries. We encourage this with the current design of a slip lane turn onto Park Street, and the problem won't go away until it's fixed. Alders, many of you have stated safety should be prioritized over vehicle throughput. There are improved aspects to this design, but in my opinion, it started from a point of prioritizing vehicles. Staff are acutely aware of level of service issues, but not about pedestrian crossing times. Staff stated an appropriate outcome would be longer signal times that discourage pedestrians from going to a more chaotic intersection. This intersection is dense student housing, where walking should be easy. The initial design also favored wider lanes for vehicle access. This is a core street in the core of our city. If cars are prioritized here, we will not have a safe or productive area. If this design started with safety as the priority, I think these design elements would not have been here at all. If we want to be a Vision Zero city, it starts with the streets that we own, even the tough decisions where incumbents may have to change their routines. But I think reducing the risk for loss of life is more important than entities avoiding desired change. Residents have stated their support for Vision Zero through their votes and through city surveys. I hope you all do as well.

please vote no refer this back to transportation commission and explicitly ask for a safety first design with documented variances from the current proposal thank you thank you our next registrant is benjamin wolma of lakewood gardens to be followed by nicholas davies to be followed by jessica hanbert you know benjamin

Oh, thank you. On the same day as a pedestrian was killed on East Washington Avenue and a cyclist was in a collision at East Johnson and Fordham Avenue, during the Vision Zero progress report, Director of Traffic Engineering Yang Tao said, we need to do more. We need to further prioritize safety. We need to make investment on safety. While this was answering what his magic wand solution would be to achieve Vision Zero, it doesn't need a magic wand. Tonight, you can vote to send this plan back to the Transportation Commission with guidance for staff to do exactly what Mr. Tao said. Additionally, Mr. Tao talked about building more positive safety culture in our community. His department is the most vital in accomplishing this change. Sadly, instead of doing that, we have had several presentations from Tom Moore about why we're not going to, but instead continue to prioritize moving and parking cars. Worse, Mr. Moore is using the complete green streets guide to justify street reconstruction that prioritizes automobiles rather than using it as a tool to help educate people with status quo bias. The presentation tonight includes a slide that says, quote, the pedestrian experience is the core of reconstruction. But this is blatantly false, as demonstrated by slide after slide of vehicle levels of service, queue links, adding left turn lanes that are not needed for current traffic volumes, and adding a dedicated right turn lane on a southbound Park Street. Indeed, in discussing the new lane on Park Street and signal time, he suggests that pedestrians will likely just avoid it if they can. Is that really the sort of thinking you want guiding reconstruction projects that require land exchanges and will likely last multiple decades, especially given the residential density of Park and Regent and its proximity to health services, businesses, and the BRT stop? Some quotes from Complete Green Streets and Vision Zero in the Vision Zero Action Plan. Just as a reminder, a complete street is designed and operated in a way that prioritizes safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who use the street. Another. A city with a complete streets policy and a Vision Zero plan is well positioned to dramatically shift its transportation planning approach away from motor vehicle efficiency and towards safety, accessibility, and sustainability. A combined strategy can aggressively address unsafe road conditions while also creating streets that are compelling places that support people making sustainable transportation choices. This is only the most recent and most egregious example of traffic engineering prioritizing automobile convenience over safety.

About 30 seconds.

Voting to reduce West Washington Avenue to two lanes at the commuter path crossing took much longer and more staff time than needed because engineering leadership didn't start with that as a solution because cars. The new multi-use path in West Wilson crosses two slip lanes that only exist because cars, not because of safety. Trying to cross East Washington on foot off the bus towards the public market requires standing on an island in the middle of First Street So two often empty right turn lanes can have a green arrow because cars. Johnson and Fordham constantly have at least one green light for motor vehicles and convoluted pedestrian bike signals because cars.

That's your time. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Our next registrant is Nicholas Davies of District 15 to be followed by Jessica Hanbert to be followed by David John Rizzo. Nicholas?

Yeah, good evening. Regent Street has at least 571 off-street parking spaces. And that's just the service parking. A huge portion of this corridor's acreage is already devoted to parking, regardless of what street parking the city provides. And this is what makes it so galling when the city prioritizes street parking over even the most basic level of inclusion for cycling. On the south side of the 1000 block, for example, there's one property, the SSM Clinic, that has 98 parking spots on it. So the street parking proposed for that side of the block is only 7% of the overall parking capacity. In exchange for that, we're supposed to be riding in over-wide travel lanes where cars are going to pass you close, cut you off, or double park. Madison is not on track for Vision Zero, and we're not going to get there if we keep making these terrible bargains, like trading safety for 7% more parking. I was also able to get in touch with Juliana Bennett, one of the original sponsors of Complete Green Streets, who confirmed that excluding cyclists from the street was never meant to be part of Complete Green Streets. And yet this plain policy that says streets are supposed to be, that streets, I'm sorry, will be built to the lowest level of stress possible, in the strongest language pot available. Despite that, it's being twisted into justification of exactly that, exclusion. This is worth getting right for the thousands of residents who will live directly on Regent in the coming decades. Five or 10 years after this reconstruction is completed, people aren't gonna care how much of a relative improvement it once was. They're gonna value whether it meets their current needs. And this preferred alternative is perpetuating a network gap. What's ironic is that if the city rebuilt Regent Street as it is today, then making it safe and bikeable in future could be a straightforward aftermarket fix, but the preferred alternative will make that later fix more complex and more costly. But that also means we don't need to wait for a reconstruction. The city could implement a low cost, no build trial of a new configuration of Regent Street today by closing a parking lane to create a temporary bike facility and test out the ideas that you're hearing about tonight, just like the city has tested out ideas on Mifflin and Williamson. I'm here tonight because I know that our city is capable of a better street design than this, even if it takes slightly longer to get there. So I urge you to refer this back to Transportation Commission and direct them to prioritize safety, as residents have been saying since the beginning of this process. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Jessica Hanbert of District 13, to be followed by David John Rizzo, to be followed by, sorry, I am having scrolling problems, by James Kraft. David, or sorry, Jessica?

hi everyone my name is jessica hannah bear and i'm a member of strong towns i've been a resident of madison district 13 for just over three years now and i'm here because this decision directly affects me and my neighbors i'm happy to call madison home i've made wonderful friends i've started an intense but very rewarding career at epic i've learned how to navigate downtown attended many community events explored the parks and the lakes and gotten involved with at least half a dozen different community organizations. I have done all of this without a car. I made a decision about six years ago to live car-free for financial, environmental, and personal reasons, but I also recognize that this is a privileged choice. Many people are forced to live car-free because they do not have the money to afford a car. On the other hand, many people are forced to own a car because, by design, it's the only way for them to get around. Living car-free, I get around at least twice as slowly, relying on buses, my bike, and my own two feet, all of which have a lot less infrastructure here than cars. I also spend a lot less of my travel time protected by a metal vehicle that would shield me from a crash. I am happier without a car. But it's far less convenient and less safe. And it doesn't have to be. All of this is the result of intentional planning, and it can be undone with intentional planning. I am here today to encourage you to imagine a world where living car-free is the default choice, where the price tag of owning a car is not a requirement, and where we can truly reach Vision Zero. I believe that the current design for Regent Street does not accomplish this because it takes for granted the idea that cars must be the primary method of transportation in District 13 and in Madison as a whole. I want to acknowledge the progress that Madison has already made on that front. My lifestyle would be impossible without the existing bike and bus infrastructure in Madison. But I can also see many ways in which Madison can do better. For one thing, I've biked along Regent Street more than I've ridden a bus or a car there, despite the lack of bike lanes. My bike does not need 12-foot lanes, and neither do cars. The way I see it, cars should only be justified extra space when absolutely necessary, and it's not necessary here. If we design around cars as the status quo, they will remain the status quo. But making space for people over cars, smaller lanes, and more infrastructure for people will make us all healthier, safer, and a stronger community. I ask that you please reject the design. and try to find something that is safer and more accessible to people who don't own a car, just like me. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is David John Rizzo of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, representing the Italian Workmen's Club of Madison, to be followed by James Kreft, to be followed by Caleb Haugen. Do we have David?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Madam Mayor and council members, my name is David John Rizzo and I'm speaking in support of the design put forth by the Transportation Commission and Board of Public Works. I'm a member of the Italian Workmen's Club. Our club owns the brownstone building at 914 Regent Street, which our members built in 1912. It stands today as one of the last remaining structures of the old Greenbush neighborhood. I've been involved in Regent Street redesign and redevelopment committees and boards for the past 10 years. I'm encouraged by the thoughtful planning that went into this proposal and I'm satisfied that all perspectives have been respectfully considered. I support this proposal because the TCBPW approved design properly identifies Regent as a community main street, which recognizes number one, the importance of on-street parking, loading areas as a high priority for the health of local businesses. Number two, its unique character in that it's a destination street for shopping, food and drinks. Number three, that it's also a truck route, event area, commuter route, bus route, and emergency vehicle route. Number four, it's not on the All Ages and Abilities Bike Network in the Complete Green Streets Guide, and therefore bike lanes are not a requirement. That said, both on-street bike lanes and one-sided parking options were discussed both internally and at public meetings, but the drawbacks of those options were deemed greater than the benefits they provide. Still, the plan does provide connections to the southwest commuter path and includes accommodations to improve bike crossings of Regent. Number five, that all needs cannot reasonably be accommodated and therefore the need for identifying priorities and making trade-offs is paramount. Number six, that alternative east-west bicycle routes already exist near Regent, including the southwest commuter path immediately north of the corridor and lower stress neighborhood streets to the south. Additional features of the design which help garner my support are the wider sidewalks, shorter pedestrian crossing distances, mid-block bump-outs, wide terrace areas, installation of new trees, and upgraded lighting. They all combine to provide a strong emphasis on pedestrian safety and support the goal of creating a streetscape character for the corridor. I respectfully urge the Council to approve the proposed design, which will set in motion a series of events that will at long last give the business owners, residents, and visitors of Regent Street the improvements and enhancements they so richly deserve. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is James Kraft of District 13, to be followed by Caleb Haugen, to be followed by Aris Blevins. James?

Good evening. I live nearby on Fish Hatchery. And to see Regent and the services provided by the businesses there is a critical part of my community. I cross Regent on my bike routinely. I care deeply about this street, and I desperately want it to be a better place for the people who live on and near it and the hundreds, if not thousands, of additional folks who will live along Regent in the future. I have personally had my life threatened by the people driving cars on Regent Street. My daughter and I have had to stop short at Mills to wait for someone to run the red before we could cross. I've watched pedestrians dodge traffic at Orchard while drinking coffee at Leopold's. This is not a safe street, and the data show that. In eight years, it's entirely possible that my kid, like the kids of so many others in the city and the state, will need to cross Regent multiple times a day to go to class and to work. Imagine then how excited I was to watch the initial process of planning the rebuild. This was the first rebuild of a major street where everything was in place. To build a street as a place, a street is somewhere where people and their safety were prioritized over car throughput. The city controls the corridor. There's no county or state department of transportation to veto a design. The city has passed a series of policies that support building for people instead of cars, such as Complete Green Streets, Vision Zero, and the Climate Action Plan. And there are excellent design guides for urban streets, such as those from NACTO. There is no reason, no reason at all, for the staff to not have the tools and the guidance to put safety for all users, and especially pedestrians, first. I'm 43 years old. This design will be in place until I'm in my mid-70s. I was so excited to see a Regent Street that I could safely stroll across as a 70-year-old as my daughter could as a 17-year-old. But that's not what we got. Yes, there's an additional fee given to pedestrians. And I applaud that. But the vast majority of the space on one of the densest pedestrian heavy corridors is focused on moving and storing private vehicles. Crossing distances are far wider than they need to be because multiple small cross streets have dedicated left turn lanes in anticipation of traffic that doesn't exist. There are bus pull-outs, which will reduce level of service for people in buses, but increase level of service for people in cars, while making intersections significantly wider and less safe for pedestrians. There's parking on both sides of the street and wide travel lanes, wider than an interstate, with nothing, not even a mountable median, to get in the way of someone speeding down the street. The last block is actually being made wider, despite more pedestrian traffic from commuters from the BRT. Ultimately, there are 13 feet that could be given to safety, to people, instead of cars through bump-outs, median refuges, or yes, even bike infrastructure. But instead, we have car storage, turn lanes, and wide lanes. All I ask, Alders, is for you to send this back to traffic engineering with a directive to follow, not just a tortured definition of complete green streets, but the spirit of the document as well. Let's build a region that will help make Vision Zero a reality. Yang Tao said it right in his response to Sasha Rosen's death.

That's your time. Thank you.

We need to prioritize safety for all users. Thank you. That's your time.

Our next registrant is Caleb Haugen of District 17, to be followed by RS Blevins, to be followed by Austin Greisbach. Caleb?

Good evening and thank you Mayor Rhodes-Conway, President Madison, and Alders. Like others, I have spoken to some of you, written many emails, attended information sessions and meetings of the Transportation Commission, Public Works, and this Council on the topic of the Regent Street redesign. No doubt my priorities as one who bikes and rides transit for shopping, commuting, and recreation have been clear in these communications, but today I want to address another perspective, that of the community more broadly. The City of Madison collectively, through representative voice, public surveys and public comment, have made manifest the fact that we value life over convenience. We have done this through the establishment of our vision zero, complete green streets in all ages and abilities policies. I applaud those of you on this council today who have even made the safety of our neighborhoods and streets a priority in your most recent campaigns. Yet tonight, I beg you to reject the Regent Street proposal before you for one simple reason. It is inconsistent with the expressed will of this community and incompatible with the policies that we together have adopted. When Madison passed All Ages and Abilities, Complete Green Streets and Vision Zero, the community believed we were creating a clear hierarchy of priorities, a framework for future street design to follow. Unfortunately, city staff continues to put forward only proposals that prioritize convenience of a few over the safety of all road users. The inevitable consequence of the proposal before you tonight will be injury and loss of life, just as we have so tragically and recently seen on East Washington and South Park Street. But unlike East Wash and South Park, this portion of Regent ranks among the highest pedestrian volumes and lowest car ownership in Madison, making the likelihood of tragedy even greater. While life safety is paramount, there are other considerations, of course. Central Madison has a finite volume of traffic that it can handle. Designing for higher level of service for cars today yields higher car traffic volumes and greater dependence on cars tomorrow. But building for a diversity of transportation modes reduces congestion and dependence on a single mode, making Madison's transportation infrastructure far more resilient as it continues to serve cars, bikes, buses, and pedestrians better. I ask each of you for courage and leadership. Please send this matter back to city staff. This will reinforce the mandate which the people of Madison have given this body through their votes and support, and it will provide clarity to staff on what is most important to Madison. Additionally, I encourage each of you to take note of the letter from the university's transportation director, which may have been missed as I believe it was added to the legislature just this morning. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Aris Blevins of District 13, representing the Greenbush Neighborhood Association, to be followed by Austin Greensback, to be followed by Laura Gundlick-Heitman. Aris?

Hi there. So I'm speaking today both as a resident of Greenbush, which the northbound of our neighborhood is Regent Street, and in particular the section of Regent Street that is part of this redevelopment. I'm also speaking as the president of the Neighborhood Association of Greenbush. And it's been interesting to watch this process. You know, I've been really pleased to see the amount of input the city's looked for, the amount of meetings that we've had with our neighborhood, the amount of engagement just in general that's happened across this. You know, it's challenging to get everyone's opinion across the city and particularly in the community. And I think that the plan that we have in front of us today is a really good compromise. This is something I've been thinking about a lot over the last several months as this has kind of gone through the various stages of discussion. And, you know, I know that there's a strong contingent of folks who really feel that there's a lot more to be explored here. I think unfortunately a lot of that is motivated by sort of a singular focus on bike infrastructure. And while that is a laudable goal, I don't know if that's actually the kind of compromise that's necessary in a situation like this. Greenbush is a confluence neighborhood. It's an area where the students and homeowners and working professionals of Madison kind of come together in a bunch of clashing block to block different communities. And one thing that we have had a lot of discussion about is what we think about Regent Street. And I think some of the biggest priorities that we've discussed are really well addressed in this design. um we value our businesses that's something that's that's really important to us we like these restaurants we like the fact that there's actually kind of a resurgence and a lot of new businesses going in that's something that's fun it's frankly enjoyable for us to have things that we can walk to with our families uh people can students can walk to by themselves we can see a wide variety of the different generations that exist in our community served So we want those businesses to survive. We want them to thrive. We like the idea of having a walkable community that is right north of us, that sort of sits at the edges and isn't too far into our neighborhood where we have a lot of good community space. But we can also walk the edges and have that retail experience. We like the fact that it's easy to move around our city from our neighborhood, right? That's something that we can already do with a lot of great bike infrastructure, mass transit that's continuing to get improved. And so this really does feel like it prioritizes the things we want, which is wider sidewalks, more pedestrian safety. The bump outs are a huge win for us.

About 30 seconds left.

Yep. The addition of trees, the better lighting, all of these are things that we really prioritize highly and had a lot of discussion about what we would compromise on rather than have those. And these are the key issues. So I strongly support this. Our community supports this. We've had a lot of input here and we feel that we've been very well heard and well understood by all the parties involved. So we appreciate that effort and we hope that this continues to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Austin Griesbach of West Washington, to be followed by Laura Gundlach-Hyman, to be followed by Natalia Cavazos. Do we have Austin?

Hear me?

Yes.

Hello, so complete green street says all streets will be built to the lowest bike level of stress possible and to do otherwise. It's a major deviation from the documents principles. And for a community mainstream in particular, it explicitly says that some parking should be taken off the street. If that's what's needed to make room for bike lanes and the loading zones shouldn't be on the street at all. On page two, the document calls a complete street one that prioritize safety and access for all who use the street, regardless of the mode of transport. But we're now told by staff that we cannot and should not expect the city to try to make every street to work for everyone. With attitudes like this, I've become completely disillusioned in the city's interest to actually follow through on its promises of access and safety. At one point, I sent in a written comment to the Common Council on the topic of Regent and nearly immediately got a reply from city staff that my comment wasn't necessary, only to later see emails from that same staff imploring folks who were against bike lanes to make plenty of comments and make their voices heard. Recently, I expressed concern over this design to an elected official I briefly saw in person, only for that representative to scoff at me and call my concerns entirely unfounded. In the FAQ document posted to Legistar for tonight's meeting, staff points out that bike lanes make a longer pedestrian crossing, without even handedly pointing out that the bus pullouts and dedicated turn lanes make those crossings far longer than bike lanes ever could. But those are for driver convenience, so they never have to wait a few moments, so those get a free pass. When I'm walking, I'd much rather spend my crossing time in a bike lane than a super wide car lane. Just last week, Traffic Engineering presented a progress report patting itself on the back for how we're doing on Vision Zero. But the report made no mention of vulnerable road users at all, nor the fact that in the last five years, there have been 53% more fatal pedestrian and bike crashes than the five years preceding Vision Zero adoption. We're told by staff in the FAQ document that the mere presence of pedestrians on Regent will keep drivers from speeding and driving unsafely in these overly wide lanes. You have got to be kidding me. It's a shame the current design's lack of bike lanes will come at the cost of pedestrians, since it will just encourage cyclists to ride on the sidewalk to reach their destination. However, I don't think I'll ask you today to follow city policy and remove a little parking so we can include bike access to Regent Street destinations, because frankly, these last few months have shown me that's probably a waste of breath. And besides, at this point, I'm not sure I trust city staff to give it a fair shot and earnestly try to make it work. I implore you to instead at least make things safer for pedestrians by putting in an emergency vehicle mountable median. This would bring the overly wide travel lanes closer to compliance with complete green streets. About 30 seconds left. What would make for safer and easier pedestrian crossings, would not cost anyone their pricelessly valuable free street parking, and has precedent elsewhere in the city. To instead leave the design as it is would be a continued prioritization of driver comfort and convenience over the safety of vulnerable road users. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Laura Gundlich-Hyman of Mill Street, to be followed by Natalia Cavazos, to be followed by, sorry, I'm having a very hard time scrolling for some reason, by Ada Kreninski. Do we have Laura?

Yep. Go ahead. my name is laura gunlock hyman and i am speaking in strong support and agreement for the proposed region street development i speak not only as someone who has worked on and commuted to and from regent street for the past eight years but also as the executive director of neighborhood house community center neighborhood house is madison's first and oldest community center and we're located less than a block off regent street The proposed plan responds to the diverse and complex needs of neighborhood house users. The hundreds of users that we see at the center each week come from all over Madison and Dane County. They bike, bus, walk and drive. They include older adults, individuals with disabilities, children and families, unhoused individuals and more. The proposed plan prioritizes safety, accessibility and connection for all of our users. Our users, access our diverse services and come from all parts of madison this plan has safe intersections walkways and roadways and also provides parking which our users need i strongly support the proposed regent street development the regent street neighborhood in which we are located is also diverse we have varied neighbors full of businesses hospitals the university and more this plan meets all of their needs i strongly support the proposed plan thank you

Thank you. Our next registrant is Natalia Cavazos of Gilman Street to be followed by Ada Krasinski to be followed by Samuel Brown. Do we have Natalia?

Can you hear me? Yes. All right, perfect. I'm Natalia and I am a nursing student here at UW Madison and have spent most of my time living off of Regent Street and working on Regent Street. I walk it every single day for clinical rotations, class, work. I'm going to my friend's houses and I'm here in support of the city's preferred design. I want to talk about what Regent Street feels like on foot right now. The sidewalks are pretty narrow and barely room for two people to pass. The crosswalks are long and you're exposed to the whole way across. When you're walking it every day, you learn which corners to be nervous at. And I've seen what happens when it goes wrong. Crossing between Orchard Street and Regent, I have seen personally someone get hit by a car and been on the ground holding their head in and calling 911. And it was something you don't forget. This is why this design matters to me. Wider sidewalks are a lot safer with shorter crossings. Bump outs that pull pedestrians out where drivers can actually see them. And these are in small comforts. There's a difference between a near miss and a call to 911. I love living on region and have lived there for so long and worked there and it's full of life, full of students, full of places we actually walk to. These designs keep all of that and make the safer for people moving through it on foot. So I'm in support of the city's preferred design. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Ada Krasinski of District 13, to be followed by Samuel Brown, to be followed by Jennifer Hadley. Ada?

Hi. Go ahead. Hi. Hi, I'm Ada. I'm also a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And I live right on Regent above Lucky's, the bar. And I also do not feel safe on Regent Street walking, biking, or any of that. But I wouldn't bike on Regent Street ever, even if there were a bike lane. Um, I think that the intersections need to be as safe as possible for all students and everyone trying to be in this community. And I am in support of the city's preferred design. I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Samuel Brown of district 13 to be followed by Jennifer Hadley to be followed by Craig Weinhold, Samuel.

First of all, I apologize that I'm a pretty terrible public speaker. My name is Samuel Brown. I own Fabiola Spaghetti House and Deli and Leopold's Books Bar Cafe on the 1300 block of Regent Street and Greenbush Bar on the 900 block. I'm the president of the board of Neighborhood House Community Center and the chair of the Regent Street Business Association. I also live in the neighborhood. I live on Vilas Avenue right in the Greenbush. I'm here in strong support of the city's preferred design for Regent Street. I've worked on Regent Street basically my entire life. I started doing prep work in my father's pizzeria when I was 14. And when I got the chance to open my own restaurants, I really couldn't imagine opening them anywhere else in the city. I love this street, and I believe in its potential to be one of the great urban corridors of Madison. Like many businesses on Regent Street, my business draws all kinds of people from all over this city. Students who walk over for a cup of coffee at Leopold's, young families coming straight from swim practice coming to get a quick dinner, neighbors stopping by on their bike commute home along the Southwest Commuter Trail, and senior citizens, some with serious mobility issues who drive and need convenient parking. A Regent Street that works is a Regent Street that meets all of their needs, and the city's preferred design does exactly that. It radically improves the street for everyone. Sidewalks are widened from roughly five feet to eight, crossing distance gets shorter and safer, mid-block bump-outs make room for outdoor cafes, and it plants 18 new street trees along the corridor that today has none. Just as important, it preserves parking and loading that keeps this street alive. Regent is a genuinely unique corridor. All at once a destination main street, a truck route, a bus route, an event corridor, and an emergency route. And that all, that mix creates challenges that you won't find anywhere else in the city. Complete Green Streets calls it a community main street, a block of locally owned businesses where on-street parking and loading are explicitly a high priority. And unlike other main streets, we have no parking structure or city lot to fall back on. I'll tell you this plainly, my businesses never could have gotten off the ground without adequate street parking, and the next generation of Regent Street businesses, as this neighborhood densifies, will need it too. I want to praise city staff and the process. KL Engineering and Equity by Design ran listening sessions, a survey with over a thousand respondents, and met with residents, students, businesses, and institutional partners. What came back was consistent. Safety at crossings, reliable access and loading, and comfort. Shade, lighting, trees, and places to sit. The design answers every one of those, and it has the support of the neighborhood association, the alder, and the business community. I encourage the City, the Council, to adopt the City's preferred design as is. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Jennifer Hadley of District 13, to be followed by Craig Weinhold, to be followed by Patrick Petrello. Jennifer?

Hi, I live on Orchard Street, and I'm super excited by this proposal, actually. So I mean, I guess you could say that's a vote for yes. I bike to and from work. I walk the neighborhood. We're a two-carrier, but one-car family. So we're on foot most of the time. And we love being able to walk to Regent Street. And we have seen many times how the narrow sidewalks are worrisome, and seeing people step out into the street to be able to make room during football events. I'm super excited about the idea of having wider sidewalks where it's safer, where there's room for cafes. And I bike on the southwest commuter path. I bike in the other neighborhoods. not particularly concerned about uh not having a bike path right in this particular area so um you know thanks for the work you guys are doing and um i'm really looking forward to this project i hope it gets going soon thanks thank you our next registrant is craig weinholtz of dartmouth road to be followed by patrick petrello to be followed by paul bailey craig all right thank you

If you haven't seen it, UW Transportation did submit a letter late into Legistar, and it's worth taking a look, again, if you haven't. There's so much to like in this plan. As many people have said, the wider sidewalks, it's gonna be a fantastic facility. But the Transportation Commission was really conflicted. This was a six to five vote for it. And just a little bit of history, Transportation Commission has had over 1600 votes that are unanimous. They've only had 28 roll call votes and only five of those have been split decisions. The last one on infrastructure was in 2019 about speed humps on Spade Street. More recently, the metro redesign was the last major split vote. They are conflicted. If you listen to their deliberations, they know it's a good plan, but they know they're excluding a major constituent. And it's not bikes. People think, oh, bikes, spandex, whatever. Think scooters. Think electric skateboards. Think e-vehicles zipping up and down. If they're not given a place on the street, they're going to be on those generous wide sidewalks. So they're gonna be zipping along there, just like they already are today on the five foot sidewalks. You can see the bikers going up and down them. A little bit of, people have mentioned complete green streets. And you can argue, does this agree with complete green streets or not? Complete green streets is a policy. I've got a little bit of history. When rush hour lanes were first added to Regent Street, this is a Wisconsin State Journal editorial from 1960, January 1960, about adding rush hour lanes to Regent Street. The proposal to remove parking in the late afternoon rush hours on Regent Street will make another in its seemingly interminable string of appearances before the city council tonight. We see no reason why the council shouldn't impose the restrictions sought for more than two years. The council, after all, has established a policy of restricting parking at certain hours as a means of letting people in cars get to and from work with a minimum of delay. This has hurt some merchants, and regrettably so, but the council has acted for what it feels to be the greater good.

You have about 30 seconds.

A policy to be valid must be applied impartially. That means Regent Street, as well as the many other streets in the city where parking has been restricted. If the policy isn't applied impartially, then it had better be discarded. So again, 1960, it's got some echoes of today, complete green streets. Are we gonna honor it or are we gonna discard it? Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Patrick Petrello of Regent Street representing Stella's Bakery, to be followed by Paul Bailey, to be followed by Michael Zentz. Patrick?

Hello, my name is Patrick Petrello, owner of Stella's Bakery at 1219 Regent Street. We recently We recently renovated the formerly vacant and blighted building at 1219 Regent Street. We support the current proposed main street design. Our business would not survive a winter without street parking in front of our business as 80% of our business in the winter arrives in vehicles. The proposed design removes half of the current parking stalls on Regent in favor of pedestrian safety, which we support. There is no public parking structure on or near Regent Street in our customers. Many who are elderly will not circle the neighborhood looking for parking. I wish we could. move buildings and make all of the space big enough to accommodate everyone. But the main street design with street parking is known to allow businesses to survive. And there have been many vacant buildings on Regent Street over the years. And I fear that removing street parking would have that effect. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next registrant is Paul Bailey of District 11, to be followed by Michael Zenz, to be followed by Matt Fair. We have Paul.

hello thank you madam mayor members my family uses regent street for work and school and i'm a strong towns member uh and i read complete green streets and was excited to see the redesign and how madison can design a street that's not just safer than existing streets for pedestrians but actually safe and complete dream street says that design that you have to design seats for not for traffic level of service. This is called out as the old and broken system and instead says that you should be designing for pedestrian safety and all road users. Then I went to the meeting and saw that the city's presentations were focused on traffic level of service. I was seeing the old broken system play out. I'd rather not be here, and I'd forgive you if you'd rather not be hearing me right now, but Complete Green Streets, if it had never been adopted, I probably wouldn't be hearing you. I would accept, I probably wouldn't be talking now. I'd accept this as a will of the city, but Complete Green Streets did pass. And so I'm here to draw your attention to a street that's way outside of contemporary safety guidelines from NACDO and indeed our own design standards. These lanes are way outside of the norm. Minneapolis is designing similar streets on Lindale and Nicollet that are 11 feet and 10 and a half feet wide for bus lanes. And we're designing 14 foot lanes, and yes, they include the gutter in their widths. NACDO says in no uncertain terms that a city street should never exceed 11 feet in this context. Not only is Madison not on track for Vision Zero, but no progress has been made. You do not have the width to make decisions like this without injuring Madisonians. Please send this back to TC and end Sorry. And with a request to remove left turn lanes and left turns onto the low usage streets off Regent and narrow the crosswalks for pedestrians. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Michael Zenz of Dahl Street to be followed by Matt Fair to be followed by Barrett Kilmer.

So I think this is a really weird plan. So I actually talked to my wife, who doesn't follow this stuff at all, before this meeting. And she said, oh, no bike lanes on Regent? That's really weird. That's weird for Madison. So I guess my only message is it's just really strange that there's no place for bikes to go during, say, rush hour. So say at 4.30 PM, I want to ride down the middle of Regent Street. Can I do that? Am I going to get arrested? I'm just not sure. Should I ride down the sidewalk? It's just really unclear. So this change is maybe I don't understand the plan. So maybe, you know, inform the public if that's not the case. But with only one traffic lane in the east direction and then sidewalks, it's just really unclear where bikes should go. And if the message is that bikes shouldn't go anywhere here, then tell people that because it's just really unclear. So thanks.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Matt Fair of Arden Lane, representing UW Health, to be followed by Barrett Kilmer, to be followed by John Nguyen. Matt.

Thank you, Mayor. good evening everyone it's good to be back in the room my name is matt fair and i'm here representing uw health where i work as a program director of local government relations uw health is in strong support of the region street redesign alternative that's before you tonight which as you all know got passed by or approved by the transportation commission and the board of public works and i apologize in advance i'm going to say some things that have already been said but But UW Health, as far as I'm sure you all know, has two facilities on Regent Street, both at the intersection of Park and Regent. Our clinic at 20 South Park is within this reconstruction and redesign boundary. I should say that tonight I'm also representing our partner, UnityPoint Health Meritor, whose hospital, as you probably also all know, and emergency department is located a few blocks away at 202 South Park Street. UW Health and Meritor had two main concerns going into this redesign process. One, that any new design improve the overall safety, circulation, transportation flow for the entire street. And two, and more specifically, that the Brooks Street intersection be improved to provide safer, more convenient, and predictable access for patients and staff visiting our clinic or the hospital. whether they access these facilities via emergency vehicle, personal vehicle, foot, or bike. And we believe the compromised design that's before you largely accomplishes those objectives. Reducing four of the five blocks from four lanes to two lanes with street parking, designated delivery areas, shorter crosswalks, wider sidewalks, all the things you've heard about, sure seems to set up a slower and safer and more predictable transportation corridor for everyone. especially for emergency vehicles headed east toward the emergency room. And as all of you I'm sure have heard many times from our esteemed fire department, every second counts when it comes to these emergency situations. We're also encouraged by the improvement on the 900 block, specifically between Brooks and Park Street. We're hopeful that by adding a left turn only lane at Park and Regent, the backups that we see now that go through the Brooks Street intersection will be less severe, making what is a difficult and sometimes dangerous turn for our patients to navigate today more safe and accessible when the design and the reconstruction is finished. Additionally, as a member of the Regent Street Business Association, we think the compromise overall or design before you does a very good job of being just that, a good compromise. It's a design that centers safety for all users, especially pedestrians, which I know is a top priority among the over, what is it, 1,000 folks who participate in the survey and the focus groups. The design meets the needs of small and large businesses alike. As you know, Regent Streets is a unique corridor with a huge entertainment venue on the one side being Camp Randall, large system clinics on the other. Wow, time goes fast. Small businesses in between and a lot of growth coming up in the future. Skipping ahead. So at the end of the day for us, for UDLB Health, our priority is to provide accessible, high-quality healthcare for people throughout Madison, Dane County, and beyond. Access to care is a catchphrase that dominates conversation for us. Wow. That's your time. Okay.

It's different on this side of the microphone. It is. It very much is. Thank you. Our next registrant is Barrett Kilmer, to be followed by John Nguyen, to be followed by, oh, no, sorry. Barrett Kilmer is the last registrant wishing to speak. Barrett?

Hi there. This is actually JJ Kilmer, Barrett's wife. Okay. So Barrett and I have owned Indy Coffee on Regent Street since 2004, and we've seen a lot of changes throughout the years. The current plan for reconstruction scared us a little bit at first, we have to admit. We were worried about losing parking, but we've come to believe that the current plan has taken many factors into account, and we feel better about it. We have been worried about pedestrians throughout the years as well, and this plan improves the neighborhood for people on their feet. A note to the passionate biking contingent, we ourselves commute by bike often and feel there's no better way to get to the coffee shop than the bike path, just a block away. The exit to Indy, by the way, is at Orchard Street right by the Big Dish. We have lots of bike riding customers, by the way, being that we are also in the heart of budget Bicycleville. At the same time, we do have lots of customers who come via car. Our customers are from all ages, all walks of life, all abilities, and some accommodations for the people who drive cars are important. Overall, we feel the current plan is well thought out and will create a better environment for pedestrians while also taking into account the needs of local businesses like ours. Thank you so much. Thank you.

That is the last registrant wishing to speak on this item. So I'm just going to refresh and make sure that's true. Are there any questions for any of the registrants? Alderland Keller.

Can we extend a minute for Jim Kraft to summarize and also Matt Fair to summarize?

Requests for an additional minute for Jim Kraft and for Matt Fair. Is there any objection? Seeing no objection, then Jim. We'll take Jim first and then Matt. One additional minute.

Okay, that's fine. Oh, sorry. Yank has said it right in his response to Sasha Rosen's death. We need to prioritize safety for all users over vehicle level of service. We serve people, not cars. Thank you.

Thank you. Matt.

Thank you. I'll just maybe try to paraphrase what I was going to say. I was saying access to care is something that we think about all the time in health care and sort of all kinds of health systems around the country. And certainly, access is a complex term. We're talking about health care. It involves, it's layered, it involves all kinds of things, but physical access is one of those things. It might not be the most important. It isn't the most important when you think of insurance and et cetera, et cetera, but it's important. And so simply put, we have patients who come from, come to our clinics and to the hospital from all over the region on a regular basis, as well as many who visit from neighborhoods very close and nearby. And regardless of where they come from, how they get there, We believe they deserve to do so in a very safe reasonably convenient way So we're just glad that this design we think reflects that and we hope you support it. So, thanks.

Thank you All right Other questions for registrants Alder Madison Thank You mayor.

Just a quick question for Laura Gonlock Hyman or Hayman.

Mm-hmm if she's still available Do we have Laura still?

There's no person by that name still in attendance.

The other person is Aris Blevis. Do we have Aris...

Yeah, Eris Blevins.

I just give you, just retitled your name here. Sorry about that. But you mentioned a little bit about walkable space, community space, trees, better lighting. I guess I wanted to hear more about, like, do you foresee something in the future where the walkable space may, I don't know, I guess be more engaging? I guess I'm just trying to understand, like, what are you imagining after this project is completed?

Well, so this is interesting. I was thinking about this as I was looking out the window at Indy Coffee on Monday morning. It was sort of raining out and I was sitting there. And we have a new development that just went in on the corner of Orchard and Regent. And that has a nice setback with some of the good policy that the city has put in place on new construction. And it really expands that sidewalk in a pretty great way. It was hard for the developer to do it because they had to pull back. They aren't changing the line of that sidewalk. In front of India, it gets tighter. And actually, across the street at the Red Zone Annex, which is a performance space, it is absurdly tight. It's something where you can't really get a stroller with a child in it and have people walking on that sidewalk. And as I was thinking about this project and sort of looking at that space and watching people walk down the street, it occurs to me of just the promise of being able to have people walking next to each other talking, right? People walking and not having to dodge around light poles, people walking and having some shade in the middle of the summer. Those are things that don't exist right now. And we still have a great street. It's not like Regent is like a total dump. There's a lot of great things there. And so when I look at this and think about what we're adding to it, it really does bring about a lot more convenience, a lot more comfort. It will aesthetically look better. because it you know despite it having all these good businesses if you look at it from you know going uh east if you're at the far west end over towards camp randall you you really kind of get a sense of things being a little bit dicey to sort of walk right and doesn't feel that welcoming and i think that this just takes it a little bit more seriously as this vibrant space that's there and is really going to double down on it i think that as we get more of the high density developments that are mixed use that have space for commercial uh to go in it's just gonna really promote more small businesses and more variety to come in there so i'm really looking forward to that i think it builds on what we're already seeing in the community um you know i i don't think that that some of these other ideas that have come up will like undercut that but i do think that they're you know as as uh patrick said there's just there's physical reality here and i think this is a really nice compromise a step in the right direction it takes our this part of the neighborhood seriously and really treats it with sort of the value that I think has been missing a little bit in a way that ends up in something that's really attainable. It's really going to improve the quality of the residents' lives. And I think it just generally gets to a place where people are going to feel a lot more comfortable using that space that they're already using, but just adds to it. And it's going to embrace the more residents that we're going to see on region as well.

Thank you.

you elder additional questions just a different speaker okay there's no one else for this one uh are there uh alder matthews is it for heiress no alder pitchett for heiress yeah any any registrant who is pro or kind i would speak to i would like to ask a question um although you're going to have to pick somebody So we'll go on. Alder Madison, I'll come back to you, Alder Pritchett.

Yep. So just if Ada Krasinski is still available.

Do we have Ada Krasinski still? there's no person by that name in attendance okay thank you alder alder matthews um i just wanted to move one more minute for ben walma to finish his comment uh is there any objection to another minute for benjamin walma seeing no objection ben

So just my conclusion... was to point out that approving this plan will make it abundantly clear that this body does not take Vision Zero seriously and will affirm traffic engineering and continuing to abuse the spirit of complete green streets and prioritize the movement of motor vehicles over safety. Please vote to refer this plan back to Transportation Commission, insisting at the least that the new left turn lanes are removed and the new right turn lane onto South Park Street is removed. And since you're so generous as to give me a minute, I'd just like to remind people that the bump outs in this design are in the middle of the blocks, not at the crossings. The left turn lanes that asked to be removed, wide in the street at the crossings, the bus pull outs wide in the crossings. If the street was built as safely and for as low of a speed as it ought to be, 20 miles per hour, you wouldn't need any bike infrastructure. It'd be perfectly safe for people to bike on the street. It'd be perfectly safe for micromobility devices that I believe the representative from UW Wisconsin mentioned. That's another minute. I appreciate it.

Thank you. All right. Alder Matthews, anything else? No? Alder Pritchett. Yes. Alder Pritchett has indicated a few people she would like to talk to again. As you wish, whoever wants to come first. And just identify yourself again, please.

Hi. Were you pointing at me? Yes. Sorry. Yes, hi. My name is Jessica Hanepair. Alder? Thanks, Jessica.

My question is this. Do you foresee Regent Street becoming a magnet for more cars? And if so, knowing that you are a walker, what do you think the fix should be?

Yes, I do think that the lanes, that the wide lanes proposed on Regent Street will make Regent Street more of a magnet for cars. And I recognize that there is bike infrastructure on the surrounding streets, and I personally am not here asking for bike infrastructure. I am simply looking for narrower lanes on this street to support the variety of mixed use that occurs on this street. And as others have mentioned, if the lanes were narrower, that would make it easier for all users, including bike users, to use the existing infrastructure.

Thank you. Thank you. And for the business owner. Same question, Alder. Same question.

I mean, I think that it's an inevitability, unfortunately, not necessarily because of the construction of this street, but there's just tremendous more density coming to the corridor. I remember hearing Rob Gottschalk, who is from Vander Wallen Associates and part of the Regent Street Group, which I have belonged to over the last 12 years, said that there is potentially 4,000 new residents coming to Regent Street. between the development of the Davis-Stewardine site, the development that is coming to the Cholls Hong Kong Cafe block, the Mill Street block. So we are going to see a tremendous amount of density coming, and that's going to bring a certain number of cars to the street. I think that is something that's really important, especially for like older patrons of mine still providing some street parking so that people who don't live right around here are able to come down to this area. You know, a lot of the surface lots on Regent Street that are currently used by my patrons at Greenbush and at other bars, those are going away and there's greater density coming. There's no city lot planned for this area, so that's why I think compromising and keeping a small amount of street parking is so important to help support the businesses that are currently there, plus also the kind of commercial development that we're hoping to see in these new buildings that are slated for redevelopment.

Second question, how do you get your supply? What's delivery like for you?

I see about 40 deliveries a week from various different companies, some who park on Regent Street, some who are able to park on South Orchard. The construction that's been happening next door to us forced a lot of our delivery drivers onto Regent Street instead of South Orchard. I think businesses along Regent Street, especially because there's a lot of restaurants in this corridor, see multiple deliveries every week. And we need to take that into consideration and where those delivery drivers are going to go. If we don't create accommodation for them, they're just going to park in the middle of the street. And that's why I think these creating some additional loading zones is so important because, you know, there can be the law and then there can be what delivery drivers do. And if we don't create spaces for them to go, they're going to impede traffic.

So there's a limited amount of space for deliveries.

Yes.

And we know how deliveries can clog the system.

Yes.

So once again, knowing that and knowing that there will be individuals who will take over the loading space for delivery.

It's a war down there in some ways. It's going to be a struggle, but I think that this plan, which provides for some parking as well as loading zones, is the best compromise that we can reach, given that Regent Street is kind of a tight site and we have a lot of development that's coming there. And I think that this is a good compromise.

What about the tollways that take place on Regent Street? There are many. I've seen them. Tollways? Tollways. You park too long, you're supposed to be... Oh, yeah.

This plan does, I believe, does away with the flex lanes. So there is no longer a flex lane. I think Tom Moore can speak to that better than me. I'm just a pizza man at the end of the day. So not a traffic engineer. But I do remember Tom mentioning that we are seeing kind of the inverse of rush hour traffic, where we're now actually currently seeing more traffic outbound in the morning and more traffic inbound at night. So there is some belief that the flex lanes would not have kind of outlived their effectiveness. and that they also make pedestrian traffic especially dangerous. And I can say for one, as someone who's had to run through the street because there's a car coming that isn't stopping for me, that Regent Street is its most dangerous during the flex lane times when there is two cars going in a single direction.

Last question.

Yes.

Football Saturday.

Yes. Yes.

Football Saturday on Regent Street.

uh right now uh i you know read football saturdays are a day that we just kind of have to work around it brings 70 000 people uh to the neighborhood uh the wider sidewalks i think are going to create a much safer environment for pedestrians um you know game the face of game day is changing there's going to be less surface slots in that space and there's greater density as i said earlier coming to that area I think that this plan provides wider sidewalks. It provides better lighting. These are two things that are gonna make Regent Street a hell of a lot safer on a game day.

Thank you.

You're most welcome.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Zhang.

Also for Samuel Brown. Sorry. No worries. I have a few questions. You mentioned that your surface lot is going away. What is going to be happening in place of that?

Not my surface lot is going away, but there are, you know, there's the Davis-Durdeen lot, which currently sits unoccupied. And then there's also the One South Park site owned by UW Health. You know, those lots, the Davis-Durdeen site is being sold. I don't know if it's been sold yet, but it's on the market. And the One South Park site is eventually slated for redevelopment. Matt Fair can probably speak to that better than I can. I know that's happening at some point. So, you know, there's going to be there's going to be shrinking parking options along Regent Street. It was my point, but that's not my lot in specifically.

Okay. And then my next question would be, how will you and maybe business owners in general deal with deliveries during the construction period?

I think the answer is poorly. It's, you know, construction is a struggle. You know, we have a failing stormwater what would you call it, infrastructure underneath the street that has to be repaired. There's been construction crews out there doing work on Regent Street and there's been water main issues the whole time that I've been on Regent Street run businesses. We had a crushed sewage lateral at one point. So the infrastructure desperately needs to be improved. I think the businesses on Regent Street understand that. um and you know there's always a period of hardship uh with road construction you know that's just inevitable uh but we're gonna just do the best we can and we're gonna try to support each other and uh the business association is gonna do its best to try to encourage people to come down to regent street during this tough time because it's not unheard of for businesses to lose 50 of their sales uh during road construction so it's you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sugarcoat it it's gonna be a tough time But we'll make it through it because, well, we have to.

My final question for you would be, what kind of change do you and maybe other businesses project to happen to your patron volume after the construction period? And then maybe if you could speak to it being a result of pedestrian accessibility versus car accessibility.

Well, I can't really speak to necessarily what it's going to do in terms of, like, can I put a number in terms of how many people are going to come out? And a big part of this also has to do with, well, what is the final, you know, street design, you know, end up looking like? Are we going to, if this design is passed, I can, you know, maybe speculate on that. But, you know, I haven't really given it too much thought. I will say that as a business owner, I'm very excited. Regent Street is a tremendously dark street. and the pedestrian experience is poor. And I personally am most excited about pedestrian-friendly lighting through the corridor and a wider sidewalk. I think it's going to make Regent Street far more pleasant to walk east-west. The majority of pedestrian traffic on Regent Street is currently north-south, and it's student-driven going from the Greenbush neighborhood to the campus. It's one of the reasons why safety at those intersections is really kind of a paramount concern because people get hit crossing Regent Street, not the side streets. But I really do think one of the things that will make Regent Street a far better place to do business will be an improved pedestrian experience walking the corridor.

Thank you.

You're most welcome.

Thank you, Alder. Alder, do you mind? Alder Mayer has a question for him as well.

i'll come right back to you while they're done thank you uh mr brown uh i've enjoyed the uh badger football tailgates in your lot thank you very kindly hosted by dj nick nice vocal legend um so my question so you're also is it the president of the business association correct so speaking to um your your members are they mostly in favor of the parking i mean you're going to lose a lot of parking along regent street But do they accept what's there?

The business community understands that we're not going to see the same street design that we currently see and that there were going to be compromises made. We also understood that, you know, Regent Street really, in its current form, doesn't work for anyone. It doesn't work great for pedestrians. It doesn't work great for cars. It doesn't, you know, it's not an ideal street. And, you know, I think we were clear-eyed that there were going to be some compromises and that, we were gonna have to probably adjust to somewhat less street parking. We've been very pleased with the response that we've gotten from Traffic Engineering. Tom Moore and his staff has worked hand in hand with our committee, along with other groups throughout the neighborhood. K&S Engineering reached out to us as well. And Equity by Design also did sit downs with both the business community and the community writ large. We feel like we've been included in this process. And we're happy with the outcome. And how often does the business community say that?

Then as far as deliveries, I think Regent Street businesses share a little bit of with State Street where there's not really an alley system or driveways. Do you think there's sufficient room for deliveries too?

I mean, there can always be a little bit more room for deliveries. And, you know, in a perfect world, if I got the street design that I want, that would be included. But I see the architecture of this plan as a good compromise, and we're happy with it. All right. Thank you. You're most welcome.

Thank you, Alder. I think that's it for you. Thank you very much. Alder Zhang, additional questions? I have a question for Alicia Liu. Do we have Alicia still? Yes, I'm still here. Yep, go ahead, Alder.

Would you be able to, in your comments, you said that there was an extra 13 feet of allowance. Could you clarify where that extra 13 feet would come from?

Yeah, so the current travel lanes are 14 feet. And so the standard or rather the maximum recommended for community main street would be 11 feet. So that would be two times three equals six feet from narrowing the lanes. And then if we cut down one parking lane, just do one-sided street parking, that's another seven feet. So that amounts to 13 feet.

Thank you. My next question would be, you said that there isn't enough space consideration given for sidewalks, but given the curb cutouts in the current geometry and just the generally quite wide sidewalks, could you clarify that argument?

I... Maybe I said something in that line, but not exactly in those words. But basically, the bike lane option I included in my informal survey, or rather, the alternative use of that 13 feet allows the same width for the sidewalks. So my objection to the current design regarding pedestrian experience is mainly against the wide lanes because the wide lanes would encourage speeding and would make it more dangerous for the pedestrians.

Thank you. Does anyone else have questions for Alicia? Alder Matthews? Yeah. Go ahead, Alder. Thank you, Alicia. My last question for now would be for Matt Fair. Hello. So my question is for you. It was noted that the hospitals had requested the 28 feet of width of clear access. However, this kind of width doesn't exist even in front of like the UW Hospital by University Bay. What is the reasoning for it on Regent Street?

Yeah, just to be clear, we didn't actually formally request that, but that was something that I believe traffic engineering and working with both, you know, fire department, police department says and thinks that is needed. And I assume if I talk to folks who, you know, are emergency respondents, emergency folks who come to our hospitals would think that's a good policy, but it wasn't actually something that we formally requested, but.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, Alder. Additional questions, Alder? Oh, Alder Pritchett, do you have a question for Matt? Matt, come back, sorry. Alder Zhang, I'll come back to you. Alder Pritchett? Oh, I'm...

So, Matt, you, at one point in time, sat on this side of the river.

Yes.

So my question to you is this, and I want you to dig deep before you answer the question. Dig deep.

There's a lot of trauma here, you know. Pardon? I'm just kidding. It was a joke.

Just dig deep. And I want you to tell me, who is the true winner? And who's the loser? Should this project move forward, the true winner and the true loser, and defend each?

I mean, I don't think I'm, I'll be honest right away and say I'm probably not going to answer like you're asking it. Because I guess I just truly don't see it as winners and losers. You know, it's been said a zillion times now, but I really do think it's a good compromise. We were... you know, as part of the business association and just, you know, being a huge system and a big player on the street, if you will, because we're the largest employer in Dane County, we were reached out to by the city. And so we've been in traffic engineering, we've been at the table, so to speak from the beginning and, but not just us. I mean, the neighborhood, the small businesses, students, et cetera. And so I just truly think it's a good compromise. It's not perfect. But I mean, we've all been down that street many, many times, lived on it, ate on it, drank on it, whatever. And we know that it's just a messy, complex street in a good way. And so we're doing the best we can. I guess that's sort of how I'm thinking about it. You know, so I don't see it like in those terms, I guess.

So you use the term compromise. What should the average or the typical person on foot, the person who uses a bicycle and they're trying to navigate, you know, their way down Regent Street, you know, what would you say to them? You know, should they? What would you say?

I mean, again, I'm here representing UW Health. We're not really taking a position on whether this is perfect for bikes or how they should get to a business on Regent Street via their bicycle. I assume that, you know, in that five block area, if they didn't want to ride their bike on the street, which probably isn't a good idea, they'd have to get off the bike and walk on the sidewalk to the business. I mean, but that's how I would do it. I don't know, you know.

The reason why I'm asking, because you're asking, you're asking the typical person who's on foot, you know, to look at it this way. And then you're coming from a business perspective.

Okay. Okay. Yep.

And so having said that, It seems as though you are pro the approach then that you're taking is primarily from a business point of view.

I mean, it's really thinking about it through our patients and our staff. So how do people access our clinic and the hospital? And they do that in all kinds of ways on all modes of transportation. I mean, if we're being honest, mostly in vehicle. That's just the reality. And so... We were thinking, like I said earlier, specifically about the Brook Street intersection. We think major improvements are made there via the lane that's going to be added at the Park Street side of it. But I think this is better for pedestrian. So for instance, if our staff go out for lunch or go out after work for a drink or something like that with colleagues, it's a better street to walk on. For folks who are coming in from Mount Horeb or Dodgeville or wherever to an appointment where they might have some anxiety about that appointment or are sick or have relatives who are sick, we hope that this makes it a little bit easier for them to get there. You know what I mean? And that's truly how we're thinking about it.

Okay. Thank you, Alder. Thank you, Matt. Alder or Matthews?

My question's also for Matt. Oh, sorry, Matt. So I know you said that UW didn't request the 14-foot lanes, but that does seem like what is somewhat driving the configuration that we have before us. And so I guess my question, from watching some of the Transportation Commission and reading all the emails, there's definitely some question of where is the proof that this is actually a route that the ambulances need to take to get from UW Hospital to Meritor and SSM? And I have some ideas about that, but I was wondering if you could give your perspective on what you think how ambulances do go from those two locations and you know, what's kind of possible.

So my understanding is that, uh, emergency vehicles coming from, you know, the west side, um, and then from our, from like UW hospital to Meritor or just that area to Meritor, you know, as we all know, this is one of the only east west connections. So this is a route that they take to get to the emergency room. And, um, 28 feet, and again, I think these are probably better questions for Tom Moore and others, is what apparently the fire department wants there to be for safe passage. And so when we heard that, honestly, we were like, well, that sounds great because we want to make sure that our, as we all do, folks can get to the hospital in the shortest amount of time possible in the most predictable way. And so... That's why we're, I guess, supportive of that. But we're, again, supportive of the whole overall design, so.

Yeah, thanks. And just, I guess, to confirm, like, right, other than, I guess, taking, like, a bunch of side streets, there are basically two streets that could maybe be taken to get from UW Hospital or west of, to Park and Regent and it's East Johnson, well, Campus Drive to East Johnson, or getting to Regent and taking Regent. Those are the two streets that exist. Okay, thank you.

Thank you all there. I think you're good. Because I have no other alders in the queue with questions, I have no other alders in the queue with questions, so we will go on then. to the rest of our public comments. Next item that we have speakers on is item 130, which is a substitute amending the 2026 Economic Development Division capital budget and authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a tax increment finance loan to assist in the renovation and development of office manufacturing research and development space for RELTA Fusion at 910 Meyer Avenue. in the project plan area of TID 54 on Pennsylvania Avenue in District 12. And wishing to speak on item 30 is Bonnie Rowe of District 11. Do we have Bonnie?

They both work. Give your necks a break. Good evening, chair and council members. I'm registered to speak on items 130, 134, 135, and 137. But to respect your time, I'm lumping my comments all in on this one. Tonight the city is proposing to authorize $2.8 million in new borrowing to act as a venture capital partner for a nuclear fusion startup complete with frozen tax, or pilot structures lasting until 2050 and a subordinated mortgage risk profile. When challenged on expenditures, the standard response is to point to the rigid firewall between capital borrowing and operating funds. But this is a question of systemic cash flow and political priorities. Every dollar of general obligation debt authorized for private real estate partnerships directly increases our debt service, which is the second largest expenditure in the operating budget, heading toward 18%. Look at tonight's agenda alone. In one single evening, this council is poised to pass item 130 to hand $2.8 million to a tech startup, item 137 to spend millions more land banking properties at Voight Farm out of TID 55, and items 134 and 135 to distribute another 4.9 million in developer loans. In one night, you are effortlessly routing over $10 million in capital debt, financial risk, and tax freezes toward real estate development. Just look back at legislature number 92015 where the city authorized $4 million in TID borrowing to play public landlord on Cottage Grove Road. Together, these files prove that city leadership possesses a high appetite for long-term capital risk. and immense financial creativity when it comes to economic development. Yet when it comes to the core essential duties of local government, the city suddenly adopts a posture of strict fiscal conservatism. We're told there is no money to support our flatlined 492 police authorized strength cap in our rapidly growing city or provide the increased civilian record staff required to process modern public safety data and evidence for accountability. If we want the both end of an Office of the Independent Police Monitor and the body-worn camera technology they need to execute their investigations, you have to change how you think about the budget. If we have the structural capacity to absorb... About 30 seconds. If we have the structural capacity to absorb the debt and revenue freezes of 205,000 square feet of commercial space in TID 54, we have the capacity to address our broader revenue streams. The city is operating under two conflicting fiscal philosophies, one an open spigot for capital development projects and artificial austerity for the daily operational realities of first responders and others on the street.

With permission, since she's speaking on four items, five items at once, another minute.

Thank you. I'm almost done. I ask that the council channel some of tonight's structural financial creativity toward funding the vital operational back end of our emergency services and accountability services rather than accepting total financial paralysis under state law. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Thank you. Any questions for the registrant on items 130, 134, 135, or 137? Elder Harrington-McKinney?

I'm going to wait for staff questions.

Thank you, Alder. All right. Then those are all the registrants we have wishing to speak. I will note that we did have another registrant on 1.30 who then contacted us and said that he was available for questions, did not need to speak. So I'll just ask again on item 1.30 if there's any questions for any of the registrants. Alder Vidover?

Could we ask, I think it's Dominic to speak. Sorry.

Dominic Bindle, is that who it is from Rialto?

Yes. So to ask, just speak to talk a little bit about what this investment from the city will bring in terms of job development, in terms of economic development to the city, and sort of what the return on investment would be from the city investing in the company.

Dominic? So this is Dominic Mendel of Middleton representing Rialto Fusion.

Yeah, I'm happy to speak on behalf of Rialto Fusion. I'll note very briefly that I'm accompanied tonight by two additional members from the Rialto team, Chief of Staff Emily, as well as our Director of Facilities Matt Lewis. They're available for questions as well. So thank you, I'll try to be brief. Again, I'm Dominic Bindel, Vice President of Technical Development at Realta. We are focused on developing fusion energy, and I know that you asked specifically about jobs. I'll try to get to that as quickly as I can. I think it's important to understand what fusion is and what it is not and why we've been focused on it for so long. I'm happy to take follow-up questions on that. Since the question was specifically about jobs, I'll talk briefly about where we are at relative to the property in question. So we spun out of the University of Wisconsin, currently operate a large fusion experiment there in partnership with the University of Wisconsin. We are currently planning effectively phase two of operations for our company, which envisions building a larger version of that device as a prototype device. we hope to have that prototype device operating in the years between 2028 and 2030 as we ramp towards full operation and while there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty in front of us and anyone else who's endeavoring to commercialize fusion energy it's quite clear to us that it's it will be very difficult to operate that device with any fewer than 200 staff members and all those members will need to be working hands-on on that machine I will say that we are likely to be a much larger team than 200 at that time, although there's a significant amount of uncertainty as to where those individuals will sit specific to that device. But that device is going to require 200 hands-on people.

Do you have any sense of the addition of 200 well-paid people coming to the community or staying in the community, what economic impact overall that will have on the community.

So we have not done our own economic development analysis, but I can provide some context. Our early phase of growing the team has focused on very high skilled, very niche job roles. These roles are well compensated. Our average salaries are far in excess of six figures, and we have been attracting talent globally. Over 60% of our team has moved here from out of state. We are currently located in Madison. I believe that's already been said. And we anticipate that the average salaries will sustain at a relatively high level through that period, although we will be expanding the roles as we, you know, fill some of those highly specialized roles. We anticipate bringing on people from a more diverse background to serve a more diverse number of needs. That device that we spoke about, those 200 people, will include technicians and operators who have the opportunity to learn skills on job. We'll be working with local workforce development agencies, including local universities, colleges, and even in high school as part of our community engagement initiatives and also workforce development plans. Does that address your question, Alder?

Yeah, thank you. Don't go away yet, I suspect. Alder and Matthews?

Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to ask you a follow-up question. If you could briefly speak to the safety of the operations on the site and, like, what it will mean to be operating the device and, yeah, with regards to the fusion aspect of it.

Yeah, happy to address that. So certainly it is a laboratory, number one, and is also a laboratory scale fusion, commercial scale fusion energy device. So there are various risks to those operating on the machine. High voltage electrical energy, cryogenic fluids, very cold things that you could burn with very cold. It's also a radiation source, much like all the fusion machines that are operating on campus. I should mention that these systems are on campus, have been operating for decades. They have not been operating with what we consider fusion fuel. They're operating with hydrogen to simulate the conditions that we would need at a future power plant. So we will not be bringing radiation on site, but there will be forms of radiation created when operating that device, including x-rays like are created in hospital environments and other radiation sources. So much like hospitals design facilities to accommodate those devices and those radiation sources and protect their people and the public from unhealthy exposure, we will be designing whatever site we ultimately select to contain those radiation sources in the same way that the hospital would. Any member of the general public or ourselves could live on site just outside the wall of the facility all day, every day, and be exposed to no more than the radiation exposure they would get from walking around experiencing that from the sun or other radiation sources like that. Does that address your question?

Yeah. And then just to clarify, there will be no fuel going on site at this location either?

That's correct. We will not be bringing radioactive materials on site.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. My question is around the employment. You indicated that approximately 200 staff would be used, and the comment that it would impact the growing opportunities for a team. So could you, and I heard skilled employment, so could you share with me any other opportunities that would be available because you highlighted skilled, you highlighted very highly compensated. Well, in that realm, what other opportunities might be available for those systems?

Yeah, thank you for the question. So this prototype device, I think that's the center of the discussion this evening, is a very large machine, effectively. And we need to build that for the first time. So there will certainly be the need to have people on site who can build this machine. These are skilled tradespeople, welders, fabricators, machinists, etc. After that machine is built, it will need to be operated for the purposes of scientific discovery. Our team has been growing today, largely focused on scientific discovery. So these are PhD trained plasma physicists, aerospace engineers, mechanical engineers, et cetera. That's what we've been focusing early recruiting on. And that is largely what our team is comprised of today. But when those teammates are learning from this machine, that machine needs to be operated. And our view is that this machine needs to be operated much like a manufacturing line. We bring questions to the machine, It's operated and outputs data and information that we can then use to learn how to better operate the machine and better build the machine. Operating that device will be done in a way that looks like operating a manufacturing line, following very standard written procedures to charge capacitor banks, bring energy into the system to provide that energy to the system, and collect information through very standard written procedures. Those types of roles on the team do not require advanced degrees. They do not require detailed understanding, quite frankly, of the plasma physics dynamics or any of the other scientific principles operating. It requires that somebody be able to follow written procedures under the supervision of supervisors and managers. So that's focused on the machine itself. And then around that, there will be smaller versions of that with kind of a microcosm of that workflow. You'll have scientific leadership, operations professionals, and then support staff manufacturing, maintaining, tweaking.

The final follow-up question is that around that realm, would there be opportunities to, and I think I heard it, but I need to make sure that I heard it, is training opportunities for those, not those highly skilled areas, but those transitions for those areas that might fit someone who's not highly skilled and Do you see where I'm going at?

I think I do understand, yes. Okay, thank you. And what I can say, I think, please redirect me if this doesn't address the essence of your question, but there is a zero person pool of candidates who have operated a fusion machine in the past. So we need to bring people in who we think can be trained into those roles so that they can then support our team in that way, right? So the essence is if we feel that people can, follow written procedures well, document things cleanly, communicate well, maintain a safe operating environment. The expectation is that we can then train those individuals to operate the machine. That will certainly be some fraction of our workforce.

on the record because as this moves along, I really want to have the opportunity for those individuals to have a pathway in. They may not be at the skilled level, I'm not expecting that, but at least a pathway in those opportunities that might be at a level where they can have a sustainable employment. So thank you. I just wanted to make sure that that was on the record. Thank you, Alder. Thank you, Alder.

A couple more Alder Figueroa-Cole questions. Thank you. And to follow up with those questions, are you anticipating on working with local vendors that perhaps may increase their opportunities for a larger range of job skills?

Yes, we do anticipate working with local vendors in a myriad number of ways. I can give one small anecdote just because it's front of mind. We have discussed, you know, in the context of laying out our facility whether or not to include a cafeteria. And we think that that is an opportunity to engage the community in which we live writ large and access some of those services without duplicating them at our facility. It's a very small anecdote, but I think that that provides some insight into our thought process.

Thank you. And that brings me to my original question. So do you have, are you able to provide an idea on the cost of the building reconfiguration? We all know that that site has been sitting there for, I don't know how many years, vacant and unused. So I understand the plan and part of the reason for asking for funding is that the cost on reconfiguring the facility is be a burden and a significant impact. So can you talk a little bit about that, please?

I can, yes. So we, I must state and I can't overemphasize that any work that we have done to evaluate the facility has been strictly preliminary for the purposes of site selection. Following our formal site selection, we will then begin detailed design of the facility. But given the information that we have today, it's clear that the investment into that facility from our perspective using our dollars is well into the tens of millions of dollars.

Thank you. That's all I got for now.

Thank you, Alder Zhang. My question, so my partner and several of my friends are nuclear engineers, so this is awesome. But what kind of interaction will Rialto Fusion have with outside nuclear organizations and companies?

Yeah, thank you for the question. So Fusion is inherently an international activity. There are only several dozen operating fusion experiments on the planet. And a lot of the supply chain that exists for fusion today has been developed internationally to support what's referred to as the ITER project in the south of France. So I'll first just start by emphasizing that this is an inherently international activity. Our collaborators are inherently international. Our supply chains are inherently international. And collaboration is not really an option, quite frankly, because of the magnitude of the problem and the state of the information landscape and supply chain as well. There are a handful of dozen fusion companies on the planet. Call it 50 companies commercializing something looks like 75 different ideas of what a fusion machine might look like when we finally get it to its commercial state. There are not really any true competitors in fusion and we're all motivated by the same goal. So we as a company are highly collaborative within a ecosystem which is highly collaborative as well. RILTA is one of a smaller subset of fusion companies commercializing the core of the fusion plant. Of those 50 companies, some of those companies are focusing on elements that surround the core of the system. We could consider them to be supply chain companies. So RILTA is already engaged in several strategic partnerships with other fusion energy companies. There have been several public announcements made. And we anticipate that will grow moving forward. And given that we are focusing on the core, which is a required element of many of these other technologies, while there are no specific plans, and I have nothing to announce to you at this time, it wouldn't be unreasonable to imagine other organizations wanting to establish some set of activities in close proximity to us.

Thank you. Thank you all there. Okay, I have no other Alders in the queue. So I think, oh, wait. Not yet. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. And then just to make sure, no other questions on items 130, 134, 135, or 137? Alder O'Brien, not questions? Okay. Alder Biddefer?

On item 137, if we have either Helen Bradbury or Joe Krupp available?

Do we have Helen or Joe with us on 137? So just to remind folks, 137 is authorizing purchase and sale agreement with Starkweather LLC for colloquially known as the Voight Farm Project.

This is Helen Bradbury. I'm available.

Fantastic. Thank you, Helen. I wonder if you could just very briefly, give a refresher of the overall project, how long it's been underway, how many different iterations there have been of pieces of it, and sort of how we got to this piece, and how the negotiation for the selling price was achieved. I know that was a lot.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll give you a brief history. The project, we started the project over four years ago. My daughter was pregnant with my grandchild who will be four in September. That's how I remember that. And in general, it's a 60-acre parcel that about the lower 30 are developable into housing, and the upper 30 is a beautiful pond and nature space. So the concept was to turn that into a city park and to use the lower 30 to do housing. A range of housing and various densities. So that's how we began four years ago and We finally submitted for our plot. There's about 13 I would think 13 parcels that are developable as housing in, again, various densities. And then there's some outlots. That'll be a community garden and a playground and open space for the entire community. We approached the city looking for TIF. When it's finally fully developed, it'll be close to 1,000 units of housing. We had several neighborhood meetings. We promised the neighbors some owner-occupied. So when we started our negotiations with the city on TIF, I believe, and I don't know if they're there tonight, it was either Matt Wachter or Matt Mikloszewski that had the idea of taking the lower density parcels. There are four of them. basically having the city land bank them. We had, our group had been in negotiations with Habitat for Humanity and Madison Area Community Land Trust to do some owner occupied townhouses. So it just kind of evolved into using our TIF to enable the city to help these organizations do lower density owner-occupied. We then, Stonehouse Development and Threshold, our Starkweather, we're 50-50. We'll do the higher density rental units, a combination of market rate. There's one under construction right now by Threshold on Joe Krupp, and that's gonna be about 150 units of market rate. That'll be the first project that'll open. He's also going to do a second market rate along Starkweather, kind of a sister project to that one. And then Stonehouse is hoping to do a, multifamily LIHTC deal on one of the parcels in the next year. And what else can I tell you? That's pretty much where we are today. We are thinking that the roads are under construction right now, and we hope to have all the roads, the infrastructure, the roads and the stormwater finished by late this summer and go from there.

And Helen, can you just remind us sort of how the purchase price that we're seeing here, the $4.165 million, how that was negotiated?

It's a combination of what all of the... Per square foot, each lot is bearing their own per square foot cost of the infrastructure, what will become city roads and stormwater. And that is the amount that was assigned to those lots.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Pritchett, questions for the registrant?

Yes, one question I have is I'm looking at the tally for the figures, $4,165,000, and then I see the $135,000, and I'm assuming that, no, I'm not assuming, I know now that that is a part of the $4,000,000 that was requested. Now, could you give me some idea as to when we look at what this $135,000 is supposed to be allocated for, and it says here, capital, but environmental assessment, title work, closing costs, holding costs, and pre-development costs. Could you define for me what does the pre-development include?

I think that's a question that would be better answered. That's not our number. I believe that's a number that city staff has come up with. So I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question.

Okay, second question then. So when you look at the environmental assessment that you're saying would come out of this $135,000, suppose everything goes wrong. And environmentally, it doesn't work out. So who loses money? Does the city lose money? Or who bears the burden for that?

Yeah, I believe that's part of the city's due diligence. They're actually not going to purchase the lots until they've done this site assessment. Someone from the staff can stop me if I'm wrong. But whatever they spend on environmental engineers, Would be out there at their expense is my guess.

And they are meeting the city.

The city yeah.

Although I think city staff would probably be better equipped to answer that question. I appreciate that.

Okay, thank you, I wouldn't really. Thank you all there. I like to get some answers to them.

and we'll get on we'll get to questions for staff um i have no other others in the queue with questions on these items okay so that brings us to the end of public comment alder o'brien would it be possible to take a 10-minute recess please alder o'brien will move and alder vettiver will second a 10-minute recess which would bring us back at 9 40. Okay, we're about a minute out from coming back. okay if i can have the alders please return to their places and other folks return to the gallery please and i will ask the clerk to call the roll thank you alderman keller

Alder Lake Hill is present. Alder Lieberman. Alder Lieberman is present. Alder Madison.

Here.

Alder Madison is present. Alder Martinez-Rutherford.

Here.

Alder Medusa-Rutherford is present. Alder Matthews.

Here.

Alder Matthews is present. Alder Mayer.

Here.

Alder Mayer is present. Alder O'Brien.

Here.

Alder O'Brien is present. Alder Orhovich is excused. Alder Pritchett.

Here.

Alder Pritchett is present. Alder Tischler. Alder Tishler is present. Yes. Alder Verveer. Alder Verveer is present. Alder Viverer. Alder Viverer is present. Alder Zhang. Alder Zhang is present. Alder Duncan. Alder Duncan is present. Alder Evers. Alder Evers is present. Alder Field. Alder Field is present. Alder Figueroa-Cole.

Yes.

Alder Figueroa-Cole is present. Alder Glen.

Here.

Alder Glen is present. Alder Ugar.

Here.

Alder Ugar is present. Alder Harrington-McKinney. Present. Alder Harrington-McKinney is present. May I have a quorum?

Thank you. All right, so we will move on now to item 94, which is legislature 92491, approving roadway geometry for Regent Street, Randall Avenue to Park Street in districts eight and 13. On item 94, President Madison, a motion please.

Motion to adopt.

Moved and seconded to adopt. We'll start with, I believe, a brief presentation from staff and then go on to questions for staff. From Traffic Engineering, we have Tom Moore.

Yes, I am here. Thank you. Let me see. I'll share my screen here. Try to keep this as brief as possible, but I did add a few slides during public comment. So, but I will go through here as quickly as I can. So, first of all, thank you for considering and thank you for going through a lot of documents related to this. There's been a lot. So I'll try to keep it brief. So here's existing Regent Street, wide pavement, wide crosswalks, narrow sidewalks, narrow terraces. I think we've all familiar with it. Pretty poor pedestrian facilities. Overhead lines on the north side of the street. So we're looking west here. Street lighting on the south side. So overall with this design, Complete Green Streets covers everything. Everything that we do is underneath Complete Green Streets. As mentioned, this is a community main street, is the street type. And within that, there's priorities called out in complete green streets. So the priority for a community main street is the terrace parking area. So that's called the flex zone. So it calls out some different things here. Higher demand for high street parking, more frequent turnover, pedestrian-scale streetscapes and amenities that encourage people to walk. Parking may be a higher priority. Loading zones, if needed, should be provided around the corner on the intersecting minor streets. The walk zone then is a medium priority, so that is the sidewalk. But overall, the thing to keep in mind with Complete Green Streets is that it's designed to provide a clear, consistent framework to help city staff and community members weigh trade-offs and make decisions amidst competing priorities. Now go through those priorities. So trees, there are no existing street trees on Regent Street. And that's something called out in Complete Green Streets Guide that because of the tree score, we should provide wide terraces on the north side to plant trees. It's a designated city truck route. That's also in Complete Green Streets Guide. So we need to accommodate that. It doesn't have current bike facilities. It is an emergency vehicle route, highly used to the hospitals. So then again, there's hospital access just for the average person that's going to the hospital. There's bus route, so that's something we need to consider for street design, lane width, major events, business delivery, loading, parking, and it's a major commuter route that kind of hasn't been discussed as much tonight, but this is a major east-west commuter route. So all of this is competing for the 66-foot right-of-way. If we had more space, we could include everything. But there is really limited space, especially with the building faces right on that right-of-way line. So this requires trade-offs and this is mentioned multiple times in Complete Green Streets Guide that we need to consider trade-offs and it helps us decide how to make those trade-offs and how to prioritize the design. So the main three things competing for space on Regent Street are the pedestrian facilities, basically sidewalk, terrace width, The bike lanes, and we're calling them OK bike lanes. I'll get to that in a little bit. And the delivery parking space for businesses. So the design, before you, prioritizes the pedestrian facilities and the delivery and parking for businesses. And I'll get into that. So why focus on pedestrians? Pedestrians are at the top of the modal hierarchy. When we initially went to the Transportation Commission, we went without a plan. We just brought the limits of the project and asked for feedback and direction. The direction at that initial meeting was to focus on the pedestrian improvements and then also focus on connections to the existing bike network. Public feedback was similar with a major focus on pedestrians. So we had an online survey with over a thousand responses. We broke that into groups and every group, residents, students, businesses, and commuters identified pedestrian comfort and safety as the most important success measure for the corridor. So why focus on the business loading and parking? And this is probably the most complicated thing to explain since parking is at the bottom of the modal hierarchy. But this is called out in complete green streets specifically for community main streets. So regarding the modal hierarchy, on some streets, the priority of uses will be different based on context and overlays. The hierarchy represents the default starting point in broad city policy. A little bit later on, on modal hierarchy, On streets with small local businesses, main streets, and the street typology, the importance of on-street parking is well recognized and is a high priority. So in Regent Street's case, there aren't great opportunities to do the side street loading at corners. good alternative parking and loading options. Like you'll see other main streets in different areas that have rear lots or a parking structure nearby or wider side streets that can handle loading. And Regent Street just isn't set up that way. So there really is a reliance on the on-street parking and loading. So why not focus on bike facilities? So from our initial engagement, Kind of what we heard is that you know there's the existing Southwest path. That's kind of what we heard from the public. We went to that Transportation Commission meeting and it was a similar feedback there that we've got it kind of good pretty much parallel routes and maybe focus on the connections to those routes, rather than on street facilities which will compete for space. So yeah, just look at improving existing networks. So this is the All Ages and Abilities Network with the rectangle around the project zone, just to provide an overall network view of what it looks like. The other main consideration with the bike facilities is that we could get bike facilities on this stretch, but it would be a segment. We wouldn't be able to continue them east-west under the current conditions because of space constraints. both at monroe street and then east of park street so regardless of whether we put bike lanes with this project um you're still gonna have to access the street from the north or the south um you know that could change way down the line but we don't have any plans for that right now and then um So this kind of shows the connections that we're improving to the bike path with this design. And we're also improving on the south side, the east-west route on Bowen Court. And then there's the Oakland Avenue connection that then goes to Mound Street. That's also a connection that was set up when Monroe Street was reconstructed. So we plan to improve that. We did look at designs for Regent Street bike facilities. This is the design that the public commenter, I think, provided with removing parking from one side. The issue is that any design that includes bike lanes on Regent Street will cut into the available pedestrian space. So as you can imagine, if you have a bike lane on the south side instead of the parking loading zone, that's going to take out any sort of curb extension or amenity like that. And additionally, that bike facility on street is going to have moderate stress. It's going to be a bike lane that's pretty narrow next to a narrow travel lane that has truck use buses. When those larger vehicles drive there on that lane that we have drawn here, they're pretty much going to be driving with their right side tires on the bike lane line because they're going to use that entire lane width. This is a design of bike lanes while maintaining parking and loading on both sides. This also cuts into the available pedestrian width and terrace space. This is an issue for trees on this design because cutting into that terrace space would require us to eliminate about nine trees from the design. And because of the tree priority area on the north side, Complete Green Streets calls for adding trees specifically on the north side. So the design that has been approved by the Transportation Commission and Board of Public Works improves the pedestrian experience, shorter crosswalks, wider sidewalks, undergrounding the utilities to allow for tree plantings on the north side, bump outs mid-block, For the rectangular rapid flashing beacons, we have two existing on this stretch, one at Orchard and one at Brooks. But with this project, we plan to add push buttons on all four corners. So you can be on any corner, push the button, get the rectangular rapid flashing beacon, where right now you've got to be on a specific crosswalk. And we plan to improve the street lighting. So right now it's just the overhead lighting on the south side. We're going to add lighting on both sides, both overhead and for the pedestrian level. And then for the businesses, we're supporting both the existing business and hoping to draw future businesses. It allows for street activation with the bump-outs, so like sidewalks, street cafes, maintains the loading and deliveries, and maintains short-term parking. change up the parking designation to shorter term. And then we'll divide it up by time of day. So there'll be times for loading, times for short-term parking, things like that. And this kind of shows the addition of the pedestrian and terrorist space. So this is pretty significant from what it is today. Crossings become much shorter. Existing crossings are about 50 feet to get across the street. With this design, it goes down to about 35 feet. And in context of an arterial street that carries the traffic that Regent Street does and everything that's going on, these are pretty short crossings for pedestrians. There's question about reducing the crossings further. We can't reduce them much further because of the turning movements. So because it's a truck route, we're maintaining kind of like the smaller truck delivery turning movements. So those turning movements kind of control the intersections. As far as the 12-foot lanes, which is a big topic, So that 12 feet provides 28 feet clear zone for a fire truck to navigate the center of the street when the street is congested with drivers, allows drivers to pull over to create that space for the truck. This was based off of meetings and discussions with fire and police. I gave some facts about the fire department use of Regent Street. So they do use it quite a bit. And this is just showing how a truck or a bus would take up the space within that lane. So they're 12-foot lanes to the edge of the pavement. But for a large truck, It's not totally unreasonable. And we have some comparisons to existing streets. So kind of the main dimension we're looking at is the travel lane plus the parking lane. This design was kind of based off of existing Willie Street on the east end where it's 21 feet for that travel lane plus the parking lane. Fire and police have a lot of experience with that street. Felt that that was the minimum to go down to to provide that access down the middle of the street. This is narrower than Monroe Street, narrower than the west end of Willie Street, narrower than Atwood. So in summary for the 12-foot lanes, considering everything, the emergency vehicles, truck route, bus route, the fact that Madison gets snow and people park farther away from the curb in the winter, 21 feet is probably the right dimension. Without the emergency vehicles, we could go down by a foot. Without snow, we could probably go down by another foot. But, you know, Regent has all these things that we need to consider. Additionally, I wanted to bring up the fact about 12-foot lanes on Regent Street versus a highway. It's not totally an apples-to-apples comparison because a 12-foot lane adjacent to parking is different than a 12-foot lane adjacent to a shoulder on a highway. I think we all know when you get into busier areas, parking, pedestrian activity, loading, traffic just tends to slow down. That's what we see right now on Regent Street. And existing Regent Street is three feet wider at most times of the day than this. So we don't have a major speeding issue on Regent Street right now. So we wouldn't expect that by narrowing it by three feet. I just wanted to go through the process that this has been discussed a lot. Engagement with the public was last fall. We had an initial Transportation Commission meeting for direction with the design. We then went back in March with an alternative to get feedback on that, which is very close to this existing alternative. We tweaked it a little bit, improved pedestrian amenities a little bit, and then that was approved. That was the six to five vote in April. Board of Public Works then revised it a little bit, went back to Transportation Commission. They revised it a little, went back to Board of Public Works. They approved it. So this has been a very collaborative process. It kind of is called the staff design. I don't really like that because this has been a collaboration with TC, with the public, with the Board of Public Works, and it has been tweaked. I think those tweaks made it better. So we're proud of this design. We like it. And the next steps is if it's approved tonight, we would continue final design through 2026, hoping for an early 2027 construction. There may be a pause and then a finish up in 2028. I think if it's not approved, that would push things probably to maybe a mid-summer 2027 start, and then a pause for winter, and then probably close to a full year in 2028. So thanks, happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Tom. Are there questions for Tom or any other staff? Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Tom, thank you very much for that presentation. And you hit on the questions that I had jotted down that I heard during the presentations and the comments. Unique compromise, a good compromise, talked about projected density, talked about emergency response considerations, and balancing competing priorities. And I heard that brought out in your presentation. And I'd also like to add that Ann Kovitch sent a, she couldn't be here for personal reasons, but I'd like to read it into the record. When looking at.

Alder, is it a question for staff?

Yes. yes it is a question and so when you're looking at um the presentation of of this amendment how does it fit with the complete green streets and that came up several times that it was um contrary to complete green streets. And so I need you to speak to the unique compromise. I need you to speak to projected density, but I really want you to speak to how it aligns with the complete green street.

Yeah, good question. And this has come up a lot. So complete green streets kind of provides the framework with the different priorities that need to be considered. And it mentions that quite a bit in the guide. So the main issues were the lane width. But we kind of went through the process for that, the reasoning for that lane width. And then inclusion of bike lanes. So if this were on all ages and abilities bike network, then complete green streets would require some sort of bike facility. Since it's not and it's adjacent to an existing all ages and abilities route, that's not required here. We always try to add bike lanes or some bike facility, kind of the lowest stress, but The competing interest here and specifically to community main streets is unique in that the parking and loading zones have a higher priority and that's What's surprising is that that is specifically called out in the complete green streets guide about community main streets. And it's, and it is not called out about any other type of street, but specifically to community main streets. So, so we feel that it does. It does align with complete green streets, the trade offs that are made and, and the priorities.

Director, how did you want to respond to that as well?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So yeah, thank you all for the great question. So I just want to second Tom. You know, we believe both the process and the design of Regent Street is in accordance with Company Street's guide. I am actually one of the two staff executive sponsors of Company Green Street's guide when it was developed. You know, it's actually, it warms my heart to hear many of our residents, uh, you know, mention it, you know, they want to hold us accountable to it. Uh, so I really want to thank them for that. Uh, however, a couple of green streets is a, you know, a pretty complex Nancy document. It does lay out a general, uh, model hierarchy. Uh, but it also has a couple of other important concepts. One is overlay of different priority networks. Again, the concept of Green Streets is to create a network of high-quality connected facilities for every mode of transportation. But Green Streets help us to balance those trade-offs when we come down to individual projects. So for Regent Street, a couple of important characters. Tom mentioned all of those. I just want to summarize, highlight that. One, it's called out as our local truck route network. So that's our priority network, says we should prioritize truck and commercial traffic. And I want to also point out that it's not on the AAA bike network. And Regent Street is also designated as a community main street, which, you know, requires to emphasize pedestrian treatment, you know, which, as Tom summarized, you know, really trying to put that as the highest priority here. And also, you know, community main street also recognize the needs of local businesses. So, you know, because of those, we really felt like, even though I understand, right, you know, as a year-round bike commuter myself, I understand, you know, the disappointment. disappointed from some company members about not being able to fit in a bike infrastructure on Regent Street. But in our opinion, and also from our opinion of one of the original executive sponsors of the company Green Sky, it does fit into that structure. With that said, though, I'm sure we're going to build a lot more streets that will be able to prioritize bike traffic. such as a lot of projects we did previously. You know, Idlewood Avenue, Wilson Street, you know, Bicester Street, Hammersley. So I'm sure we're going to do a lot of other streets as well. So thank you. Hopefully that helps. Again, we really need to, you know, I think anything is possible. It's just, you know, different trade-offs that company green streets help us to determine. And I think we are following that guide in making those trade-offs. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Tao. Alder Harrington-McKinney, any additional questions? Thank you, Alder. Alder Fields.

Thank you, Mayor. So question for Tom. So you had mentioned that the Complete Green Streets Guide calls for tree canopy here because of the priority tree area to the north. There was a good slide in the materials to Board of Public Works, but I wonder if you could tell us a little more about what the tree canopy condition looks like north of Regent Street and how the guide is accounting for that and how that shows up in the recommended space for trees on the north side in the flex zone.

Yeah, so the guide has resources for checking the existing tree canopy or tree priority score. The south side of Regent Street scored low. And this isn't just taking on the street, this is taking the parcels as well. So the north side of Regent Street scored high enough or low enough, however you put it, priority-wise high enough that it is within the tree priority overlay within Complete Green Streets. So that means that we should have wider terraces and plant trees as we can. So that's one of the other things we think we can fit in or we know we can fit in trees between the parking loading zones and the sidewalk similar to what we've done in other streets. But with the bump outs we can provide large canopy trees with the project. I don't know if that answers your question but

Yeah, thank you. I think that's a good example of how the guide is meant to be flexible based on conditions. Can you remind us why we can't put canopy trees along the south side of Regent Street and the importance of some of the infrastructure slated to go in under there?

Yeah, good question. So there's an existing storm sewer box which is failing that runs along the south side of the street. And that's one of the reasons or the major reason why this project is so needed because of that failing storm box. So with this project that would be replaced, it's about 20 feet wide and it's right below the pavement. So there's just no space for the tree roots on the south side. So that kind of also makes the north side more important for getting trees in. We're still looking at, within the final design, whether we can squeeze something in on the south side, but can't promise anything. It'll be really close.

Thank you. I'm good for now.

Thank you, Elder. Elder Madison, questions?

Thank you, Mayor. Just I think one quick question, and my apologies if it's already been answered. But in the time that it takes folks to cross the street, if this design was passed, does You know, with the wider sidewalks, it seems like the area will become a bit more walkable. But does that change? I guess I'm trying to just understand, like, when folks are crossing the street over there, are they still feeling fairly unsafe, more safe? Does the time it takes to cross the street change? You know, how does how do things slow down, I guess, to make sure people are still safe crossing the street?

Yeah, so existing, the crosswalks are all pretty much the same. They're all about 50 feet long. With this design, they're going to be reduced down for the unsignalized intersections down to about 35 feet. So it's a pretty major difference. The signalized intersections won't be reduced down as much, but less of a concern there because there will be the signal for the pedestrians to use.

Thank you. Thank you, Alder. Alder Lieberman?

Thank you. Just a couple questions for Tom, I believe, mostly. You mentioned that final design will be going through the end of the year. Can you give some examples of what sort of decisions remain to be made as part of that design, and then if there is, what chances people have to provide comment on those decisions?

Yeah, that is a good question. So file design includes design of all the underground structure. We can kind of continue with that regardless of what's happening up on top of the street. But yeah, what we're trying to get here is the curb set. So we can make minor changes above the street. We still need to work out where specific poles go. um how the curb ramps look we're still looking at how we're going to handle bringing bikes up uh on some of the north south streets like orchard and mill street um so there's some tweaks there some little things you know getting bikes up to to access the rfb um So minor things like that, but yeah, what we're really looking for is this overall design so we can continue with the, we can't really continue with the grading, the curb work, the water drainage, that type of thing. If the curbs were to change significantly, we'd have to completely redo that. So, um, but yeah, small things can be changed.

Okay. Um, somebody brought up that the, uh, The bump outs are most pronounced in the middle of some of these blocks. That will mean that it's a shorter distance to cross in the middle of a block than it is at an intersection. Do you anticipate that folks will sort of create a desired path there and just start crossing in the middle of the road if it is 14 feet shorter than some of these intersections where they would have to cross?

yeah um we don't think so um kind of based off the existing pedestrian movements so orchard street is a major north south route mill street is a major route anything in between is kind of it's less used um could we see that in places probably um but i don't think it's going to be a significant issue

OK. People have been sort of using parking and loading interchangeably in some of this discussion. I'm curious, are there going to be, and maybe this is one of the decisions that gets made later, are there going to be time limits or pricing placed on the parking spots that will remain on Regent Street to make sure that they are available for loading and aren't occupied long-term by single passenger vehicles?

Yep, yep. That's something we need to get into in the details. But right, today, a lot, since there's so much available curb space, a lot of the loading kind of just takes place wherever they can pull over around parked vehicles. All the parking is two hour. So we do plan on changing that. And it will likely be how a cutout is designated. There's loading during a certain time period, typically in the morning, and then it becomes short-term parking after that. We've done some of that work already with the businesses, but we do need to finalize that.

And then my last question, the letter we received from the university transportation group mentioned concerns about the new design's ability to handle game day traffic. Can you just talk a little bit about that? What considerations were made for being able to handle the influx of both cars and pedestrians on specifically football Saturdays?

Yeah. So, yeah, this was a major consideration. So right now for game days, we restrict parking on this entire stretch. It kind of becomes two lanes in each direction. It's heavier westbound pregame and then heavier eastbound postgame. So there is some traffic congestion there. However, I think the pedestrian congestion is worse than the traffic congestion. So this design is providing that extra space for pedestrians where they don't have to walk in the street. Typically see that on every game day where pedestrians are walking in a travel lane just because there isn't enough space on the terrace and sidewalk. So between the two issues, we think the greater issue is the pedestrian's needs and the pedestrian space. So that's what this design provides. If we were to create a design that provides the extra space for vehicles, then we would have to have the trade-off of reducing the pedestrian space. So we've discussed this with Madison Police. One of the things that we plan to do is provide routes south of here to allow people to get out to Park Street and go east-west. We don't do that right now. It gets completely parked up, and it's very hard for people to drive two-way traffic on a lot of the streets. So that's one of the things we do. We'll restrict turns for that period post-game. Police does that right now. So it will likely take a little bit longer for traffic post games, but we think the benefits to pedestrians outweigh that extra time for people in vehicles.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Mathews.

Thank you. Can you also clarify for the letter that we got from UW, I believe it was dated sometime in April, but had you received that letter prior to today?

No, we saw it for the first time today, this afternoon.

Okay, we were also emailed it, I think for the first time today. So I wanted that to be out there. My other question, so we've gotten some emails and questions from folks asking about the possibility of like a bike lane that could also have a loading zone overlaid on top of it. Is that something that we see elsewhere in the city and how do you see that Interacting with the like, what would that mean for the overall safety of the street if we had a bike lane that could have a truck parked in it.

Yeah, um, you know, overall, we don't think that's a good idea. We see this issue in different places throughout the city. I've got a lot of slides and went into a lot of detail on loading and a truck delivery driver thinking when they're loading, and then the food, Uber Eats, DoorDash type of thing. It's very hard, very difficult right now, not just in Madison, but any city. to deal with this issue. So we met with parking enforcement to talk about it. There's really no answers. A lot of the drivers know, they know the rules. Sometimes they just take the risk or they know that if they can come out and leave while the parking enforcement officer is there, they can get away. So it's just a very difficult thing to keep a bike lane clear and allowing that to be legal on Regent Street would create additional issues on other streets. You know, you would pretty much be doing away with loading zones and it would kind of become chaos for existing bike lanes more than what it is right now.

Thank you. I see is a hand up director. How did you want to add anything?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I Yeah, I appreciate all those questions regarding the UW letter. I just want to provide additional information and update. We received another communication from UW communications late in afternoon, clarified that the letter dated in October 21 was intended for a previous meeting. So So thank you.

Thank you. Then I guess the other question that I had is just, or no, I think I'm good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Elder. Elder Mayer?

Thank you. Question for Tom. In the beginning of your presentation, you had the list of choose two of three priorities, and one of them was the OK bike lane. And you gave a bunch of good descriptions of why it's only OK, but one of them is that it's a five-foot lane between, of course, traffic and a parking lane. Can you compare that to what would be in another urban setting or even greenfield development? What's the optimal width for an on-street bike lane?

Yeah, so we typically like to have a buffer, especially a buffer on both sides, both a buffer between the travel lane and the bike lane and a buffer between the bike lane and any parking or loading on the right side, just for that door zone issue. So we typically try to get... A good example would be like a two-foot buffer between the travel lane and the bike lane and a three-foot buffer for the door zone. You know, there's different ways of handling it. So sometimes we get down, we've gone down as low as like a six-inch buffer where, if you can imagine, East Gorham Street, where it kind of looks like a double white line. So we'll put in whatever we can, but... But with this design of an on-street bike lane that's that narrow, it is going to be very uncomfortable when there's a truck because they use that entire space. And what we hear from Metro bus drivers is unless they have an 11-foot lane in each direction, they start to have issues with mirrors because they pretty much take up that entire width. So unless they have an 11-foot lane in each direction, they don't even like to be on the street.

Thank you. And then a question about the going from Well, let's see. So right now in Regent Street, there are, during rush hour, there's three lanes, right? So alternating. And so on Willie Street, of course, we had the testing last year or this year when we ended up permanently removing the rush hour lanes and everyone decided that was a successful test. And most people are quite happy with that, including businesses. Have you done any such tests here or do you have other data that tells you that two permanent lanes and no rush hour lane will be sufficient?

We didn't test it, but we modeled it and it's kind of worked out well that the volumes here are pretty similar to Willie Street. So we kind of have Willie Street as the test subject for what it would look like here. We modeled Willie Street as well, and what we're seeing in the real world matches the model very closely. So we expect to see the same thing here. We think that the data that we have and the modeling provides a pretty clear picture of what it's going to look like. The difference between Regent Street and Willie Street is the events and those higher peaks of traffic. So on a typical day, everything will be fine. Things flow well, but then you have those unusual days where there's higher peaks of traffic on Regent Street than what we see on Willie Street. Willie Street's more consistent.

Thank you. And my last question, and other elders answered or asked bits of this, but I understand there's no dedicated loading for deliveries for the businesses, but you might do that maybe in the morning, dedicated.

Yeah, so we would work with each business, work out what they need for delivery, look at their delivery times. So we'd really kind of cater each parking cutout to the businesses at that location.

And so we're getting more and more residential on the street. It's getting much more built up. Is there any potential for dedicated Amazon food delivery ride share spots to prevent those drivers from double parking and causing chaos?

We could look into that as well. So right now the city is kind of going through a curb management. Sure. build out program. So we're going to kind of use that in conjunction with this redesign. We'll have some of the same staff and working on that. So we think we can get pretty creative with how we designate those cutouts.

Thank you very much. That's all.

Thank you, Alder.

Alder Pritchett? Yes, thank you. My question is for either one of you, but I think I want to direct it first to Tom. Have you considered in your planning, I'm thinking about things that affect people each and every day, and that's garbage pickup. Have you considered perhaps putting into the plan garbage pickup times. Meaning, I have observed, say for example in New York City, they pick up garbage like at four or five o'clock in the morning when there is less traffic. That's important because I can see a truck coming down Regent Street trying to pick up garbage and you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. And there are these disruptions that just creates all kinds of stress for people. So garbage pickup then, is it possible to include in the plan times for garbage pickup? That's very important. I'm also thinking, how do you make this more palatable for people who know, especially when there are apartment buildings, there are many, many dwellers in apartments, and you've got to have garbage pickup for people. That represents another disruption. And so if you begin to plan for it, and know that this is the day and the hour when garbage is going to be picked up, wouldn't that solve some of the problems and make things a little bit more palatable for people? I'm thinking, too, about the disruptions. In your presentation, you mentioned 2026, 2027, and then pausing for winter and things like that, assuming that everything goes according to plan. Business is going to lose. because of disruption. I'm reminded of what happened on Monroe Street. So how do we come up with a plan? If we don't have to implement it, that's one thing. But we should have some way to begin to address the many disruptions that we're going to have. That's important. Now, going back to, and I think Director Tau can answer this question, and this one relates to traffic. If we don't plan for some of these things, you know, and then people are calling the city, asking what happened here, what happened, you don't have the answer. Well, if you have a plan, you could tell them, this is what's going on. So please incorporate into this whole notion of making Regent Street turn into a metamorphic butterfly. Have a plan in place so that you can address these problems as constituents and businesses ask those questions. Is that fair?

Am I out of my mind? No, those are good points. One thing about the garbage collection, so this section of Regent Street is a little bit different because it is like a business district. A lot of that type of thing happens off of Regent Street, where when you go further west down Regent Street, it's all residential. Garbage collection, recycling happens on the street. But for that type of thing, we work with the streets division on that. If there does need to be times designated for street sweeping, street maintenance, brush collection, things like that, we work closely with streets. Other maintenance things, we do typically come up with or have a maintenance plan regarding snow removal. Included in the plan set that that we then know who's responsible for what that could be engineering or streets or parks. Depending on the location. So we will do that with this project. We haven't We haven't gotten to that point yet, but that'll be kind of part of the part of the final design.

Thank you. Thank you, Alder. Alder Evers.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple of questions. First for Yang, for Director Tao. You said that you are a year-round biker, a bike enthusiast yourself. Is that correct? I heard you say that.

That is correct. I ride on my bikes to work every day throughout the year, almost every day.

Bike enthusiasts in District 13 reached out to me just recently when I posted the Regent Street FAQs. I'm going to read one sentence and lead into a question from Bill Brumsickle on West Lawn. He said, I agree with your assessment that dedicated bike lanes do not belong on Regent Street. I am an avid biker, but realize that there are many existing safe options to bike within a block of any location along that stretch of Regent Street. Consider pointing folks to the city's low stress bike route finder. Could you describe briefly what Bill was referring to and the low stress bike network that would allow people to get safely to any point along Regent Street?

Sure. Thank you, Aldo Evers. That's a great question. So, you know, as I mentioned, we do have a AAA bike network. that's part of overlay is kind of different layers in the public green streets guide. And we are right now in the process of updating that AAA map using a federal grant that we got. So in one of the Tom slides, so Tom actually showed us part of that. So for here, North, right now from here, we're talking about a southwest path. So that's pretty close to the north. And to the south, we're also trying to improve a couple of other corridors to make it a AAA level. So that's All Ages Abilities Bike Network. And then with the project, what are we going to do is that we're going to identify the major connections on the side of the street, for example, Mill Street, Charter, Orchard. And we're going to connect all those different points of Regent Street to those low-stress AAA bike networks to the north and to the south. So that's what we hope. And also, we want to provide a convenient parking for bikes in the now more generous furniture zone that Tom showed, maybe underneath those trees, in those bump-outs, in front of businesses. So we feel like those connection would be useful and those bike parking facilities at a strategic locations going to serve the bike community, including myself. Actually, I backed down there today as I was heading from my office to the Venice Park to attend our annual crossing guard recognition event to thank for a service over the year. That really came to my mind. I think again i understand right my my final uh you know by commuters uh you know the disappointment uh but meantime uh i think we're working hard uh you know to address their concerns uh as well even if the council decides to move forward with the design alternative that's recommended that's approved by uh by tc and bpw so thank you

Well, thank you. Next question's for Tom. Tom, the UW letter has been referenced a couple times, including from some public comments who asked, public commenters who asked us to take another look at it. I did look at it when I first saw it this afternoon. It's my understanding that this letter was not directly sent to transportation engineering staff. I saw that you weren't copied on this. So you were a bit surprised by this as well.

Right. Yep. I was very surprised. We reached out to UW during our engagement. We had quite a bit of engagement with UW. This goes back to September of last year. Just for transparency, I had one email with a UW staff in February just answering some questions on our project, which is very similar to what it looks like right now. And that was the last I had heard. We did give a presentation to the Joint Campus Area Committee a couple weeks ago. We didn't really receive any feedback at that meeting. So I was very surprised to see the letter come in this afternoon. That was the first I've heard of any of those issues throughout this entire design process.

So your statement or what you're trying to say, I guess, is that staff solicited feedback from UW that this wasn't a matter of staff ignoring input from UW. Is that correct?

That's right.

And then either you or Director Tao, there are some factual statements that they make. They seem to be making similar claims that the preferred alternative does not track well with complete green streets. So would you It seems odd that they had an opportunity to engage city staff on the plan, but make factual statements that are actually not accurate. Would you agree with that statement that the claims they're making are not accurate?

Right, I would agree. I was a little surprised by the letter in that some of the things that they're requesting are competing interests themselves. So I was trying to envision what sort of design they were envisioning. But yeah, I would have liked the opportunity to reach out and ask those questions prior to tonight.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder, are you here?

Thank you, Mayor. Question for Tom. Actually, Tom, I was going to ask you to summarize what you thought the foreseeable consequences were if we narrowed the travel lanes by another foot or if we eliminated the parking on one side. But I think you've covered that in your responses to some of the other Alder questions. What I did want to ask is, you made that comment that as things stand right now you really we can't if we tried to put a dedicated bike lane here we're not in a position to extend it either to the east or to the west of the project right now there's some obstacles but i think you said that in theory maybe something could be done But just what's the magnitude of those obstacles that would prevent us from extending a bike lane in either direction?

It's basically the right-of-way width on either side. We would likely need to acquire some right-of-way to make those connections. East of Park Street, that would be maybe trying to get to East Campus Mall or further east Further east, it's kind of an issue along that entire stretch from Park Street to West Washington Avenue. To the west at Monroe Street, we can't make the connection right now to the Southwest path by continuing west on Regent Street because of the constraint there. There's buildings kind of right there on the railway line. So it would take some fairly big projects to get those connections in place. Okay, thank you. That's all.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Zhang?

um okay a few i'll start with um questions that are kind of shaped by public input um so a few speakers had referenced an extra 13 a potential extra 13 feet of space hypothetically if one If the parking lane was removed and the lanes were narrowed to 11 feet, how much functional width would be added given gutter space and lines and such?

That's a good question. I'd have to do some math. We did draw up the design that was proposed by Alicia Liu. And that was one that I showed in my presentation. And that maintains parking on the north side, the parking loading zones and the street trees. If we were to remove all parking from both sides, then that would change the picture. I think we'd have nine. Right. We'd get something like that. Kind of the issue that we have with that, though, is the turning movements at the intersections. We can't. Because the lane widths are, let's say the lane widths are 11 feet, that doesn't mean we can make the crosswalks 22 feet, because we still need to accommodate those turning movements. So the crosswalks would stay very similar to what they are in our design. We'd be able to shorten them up a little bit. But the turning movements is what controls the design at the intersections. And then, again, A whole other host of issues with that design with emergency vehicle access. Loading zones, things like that so Right. We did drop the design with one side parking, but with that design takes out a lot of pedestrian space on the south side.

Thank you. Another question from the public is, it seems that there's been frustration with the process that this design has taken. And it feels like there has only been one design seriously considered despite the pushback. And so my question is by what process are formal design options presented and how can specific individuals, alders, or the public push for specific options to be presented?

Yeah, good question. So this is the reason we go to the Transportation Commission multiple times. So we went in December without any plan, just talking about existing Regent Street. What would we like to see improvements? So at that meeting, it was discussed that the Southwest commuter path is to the North. There's neighborhood quiet streets to the South. The pedestrian facilities are what need the most improvement. So we went, took that feedback and then came up with our alternative. We did provide different options at the next Transportation Commission meeting. One of the options was an all ages and abilities bike path on the south side of the street. At that time, we didn't show an on street bike lane. It's kind of a process of You have to start narrowing down your designs because it's hard to design fully each different potential item. So we're kind of gauging this off of feedback that we hear at each meeting. So there was an opportunity at that time. March Transportation Commission meeting for the decision to be to look into a bike facility or focus more on a bike connection on Regent Street. We didn't hear that, so we didn't do that. The feedback that we had was the design is good. We just need a little more pedestrian improvements. So that was what the changes we made. And then we went back to the Transportation Commission. So it's kind of a back and forth process of getting feedback, using that feedback to come up with a design and then moving forward. I would say Other than the December 3 meeting, the March meeting, the April meeting, there was a lot of public comment like we heard tonight pushing for bike facilities. And if that was the direction that the Transportation Commission wanted us to go, we would have gone that way. So it's That's kind of why I take issue with the staff design. It's more than just staff putting forward a file design that then gets approved. It's more of a collaborative process for that.

Thank you. What is the typical process for redesigning streets and how has this particular process followed or differed from that?

Typical processes, public engagement, public information meetings. We've been doing a lot of surveys, not a lot, but we do typically now on the major street reconstructions do online surveys. We post the public information meeting. For Regent Street, we probably posted more than any other street. We had flyers on the street. We had changeable message boards on the street advertising the meeting. We hired a consultant to do the engagement. We do that for bigger projects. The consultant then had stakeholder meetings with key stakeholders, meetings with UW businesses, different groups. so we typically do that engagement before showing any design and then we'll have another public information meeting where we show alternatives or our preferred alternative based off of the engagement that we received so that's what we did here um this went to the transportation commission Additionally, more than what it typically would just because there was that back and forth. And then there was the revision from the Board of Public Works that took it back to the Transportation Commission. But as far as engagement and process, there was more engagement on this project, I think, than any other project that I've worked on. It was... It was a lot. We held off on engagement in public meetings until students were back. So the original plan was to start this in the midsummer of last year, but we held off until September when students were back. So we really tried to do everything that we could to get as much engagement as we could. So, yeah.

I appreciate the consideration of students. Will... Would you be able to briefly discuss improvements nearby for bikes on perpendicular and parallel streets?

Yeah, so each street connection between Regent Street and the Southwest Path, we plan to add bike lanes or connect existing bike lanes that aren't connected right now. So that includes Randall Avenue, Orchard Street, Charter Street has an existing facility, and then I think the biggest improvement is probably on Mills Street. So for Mills Street, we will remove the on-street parking to provide buffered bike lanes to the southwest path. And then we plan to provide um protection for the bicyclists at regent street so we're still working through that with the final design whether that's a curb in the street level or bringing bikes up to the sidewalk level we're still looking into that brook street doesn't connect to the southwest path so we did not have plans for additional bike lanes there But then going south from Regent Street, we plan to extend bike lanes on Randall Avenue south to Bowen Court. Same thing on Orchard Street. We plan to allow Bowen Court right now as a one-way westbound street. We plan to add signing and marking to allow it to become a two-way bike street. while maintaining a one-way westbound motor vehicle street. And then Mills Street, we'll plan to go south to Milton with this project. And we have plans to go further south on Mills Street, but that would be part of a separate project. We plan to have that as a Safe Streets Madison project. We'd like to do some additional neighborhood outreach on that one prior to implementing that because it will require removal of residential parking.

Thank you. My final question after this, if this geometry were to be approved, what additionals to the final design would be possible to prioritize the pedestrian experience? This isn't a commitment, but just some avenues to explore.

Yeah, for final design, we're looking at signals, lighting, pedestrian ramp width, things like that. I kind of mentioned Orchard Street and Brook Street with the RRFBs. so we we really have tried to put in everything we could with this project um for pedestrian amenities but right if it's something small that can basically maintain the existing geometry we can we can still add it in thank you thank you elder color figure a call

Very easy question here. Earlier, Aldo Madison asked about the improvement of the crossing for pedestrians. So during public testimony, the design was compared to the interstate and East Washington in terms of length. But could you please put into perspective the crossings for Regent Street versus East Washington in the terms of complete

entire distance to go from one side to the other sure yeah um so regent street on the unsignalized intersection so those are the ones that we're most concerned with because that's where pedestrians are more vulnerable um we're around 35 feet which is a reduction from the existing 50 feet today compared to east wash to get across one side of East Washington, it's about 50 feet. Then there's a median, and then it's another 50 feet to get across the other side. So in total, it's a little bit over 100 feet to cross East Washington Avenue. So the overall crossing distance, I think, is one of the big improvements with this project.

Thank you. And then earlier when you said that if transportation commission had requested for bikes to be prioritized and according to the policy for this particular street type, you will still have to prioritize some parking and some drop off infrastructure. Will that mean then that pedestrians will follow below or off the grid for improvements on the street?

Right, yeah, so one of the designs I showed was a comparison of our curb line to the on-street bike lane curb line. And basically what happens if we maintain parking delivery zones for the businesses and include bike lanes, the sidewalks remain basically the same width as what they are today. We could add some bump outs in, but the mainline sidewalk is going to be about what it is today. It might be able to get one foot wider. Um, but then an additional concern with that is we'd have to remove trees, which, um, about half the trees that we had planned. So the fact that this is a tree priority area makes that a concern.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue with questions for staff on item 94. So then item 94 has been moved and seconded. Is there discussion? Alder Evers.

Thank you, Mayor. As one of the sponsors of this particular piece of legislation, I'd like to share with my colleagues some background information, particularly about the Regent Street Group. Which is a stakeholder group that's been meeting for several years now to envision the future of the street realizing there's potential here that is unmet. And that development is coming. What can we do to uncouple the streets dependence over dependence on camp Randall. Have a more year-round population, have a diverse retail base that caters to that year-round population? And what can it look like? What would it feel like? The street right now has a bad vibe. For some time now, yes, a bad vibe. Don't giggle. There are complaints from elderly residents and Greenbush that it's simply unsafe to cross Regent Street, and they don't go down as a result. We've heard the word compromise used by several advocates and those who are in favor of this proposal. And the compromise for the businesses is they are, with this proposal, losing some parking spaces. But those compromises don't run counter to complete green streets. Weighing trade-offs is a phrase that's right in the text of complete green streets. So the insinuation that somehow staff has been irresponsible, even some have accused staff of lying to the public and presenting this proposal is just false. It's not accurate. It doesn't track. It's important that we move forward with this proposal. We've heard from one person who testified that If we do move forward and don't create a bike lane, scooters and electric bikes and bicycles will use the sidewalks instead. I hope that's not true because it's illegal for that to happen and it's patently unsafe. And we have a low stress bike network currently where anyone on a bicycle or a scooter or an electric bike can get to any portion or block on Regent Street. So we have a proposal, a preferred alternative that meets the needs of a diverse population, multiple stakeholders where trade-offs are necessary. It's a good proposal. It's a solid one. And there's been tremendous amount of engagement already. And I imagine my older colleagues who sit on Transportation Commission would rather this not go back since it's been there already many times and maybe they would like to weigh in. I'll close by saying that I think it's very important that you all vote yes in favor. of this proposal and that we move forward with the reconstruction of Regent Street. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder O'Brien?

Yeah, thank you, Alder, or thank you, Marin. Thank you, Alder Evers. I've been seeing this come before Transportation Commission for now five times and five many hour long discussions about the competing needs of this, and I think, As you look over any page of one of my notes that I've either taken at TC or at one of the meetings, the number one word you'll see is compromise. Whether it's compromising between the businesses and their needs or the pedestrians or the hospital. balancing those has been a feat. Um, but that's really where that complete green streets guide has come in. It sets up a framework for us at transportation commission to make these decisions when it is, when we have to make a compromise. And that's exactly why we have complete green streets is to help staff and help Alders and the city figure out how to balance these competing objectives. Um, I'm not going to reiterate a whole lot of what's been said because, as I said, it's been discussed many, many times and also for years even before it's coming to council. And so I just would really encourage everybody to go watch those meetings and to see the depth of discussion that has happened, whether it's also been at Board of Public Works or the Joint Area Campus Coordinating Committee, like there's been a lot of discussion about it and it is a good plan and it does balance the needs of the businesses and it does balance the needs of the hospital and the pedestrians and it does make significant improvements to pedestrian safety and street lights and the usability of a road that I've had the privilege of using for many, many years. So I'll be supporting this design. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Wittifer.

Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to express a really deep appreciation for traffic engineering staff, in particular Tom Moore. He has been extraordinarily responsive to so many different interests whether it's alders whether it's the commission whether it's members of the public i mean you you heard him say that you know they drew up plans based on what a community member suggested this is incredible service to our community and we should really recognize what amazing staff members we have This has been a long process. I've seen at least four different iterations of this. And again, Tom has led this project throughout and done so with grace. Stoicism I would say and just really, really appreciate him and the work of all the traffic engineering staff in helping us get to this point, I do think it is the best possible place that we can be at this time, thank you.

Thank you older older you care.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to support this and vote yes. Having said that, and certainly agree with Alder Widower's comments about all that staff has contributed to this process, I do have a lot of empathy for the enthusiasm, the passion, the sense of urgency that we have heard from some of the opponents tonight. I get it. We would like to have everything. This is the one that's under consideration right now. There's that natural urge to try to get everything that we possibly can into this. That all makes sense. And however we decide this, I hope that people will not lose their passion for continuing to create a city that has the best possible network for pedestrians and bikers and a reasonable arrangement for automobile traffic. Noted that a couple of the registrants and some of the other comments that we've received from the public on this refer to a place like Amsterdam and the Netherlands and their fantastic network there. And I'd have to say, indeed, Amsterdam, it's the utopia, the nirvana, the Valhalla of pedestrian and bicycle networks and so forth. But there's a reality there too that I'd refer us to. I have sort of a movie recommendation for you on YouTube. Put in Amsterdam, colon, a spin on a new bike with Amanda. Now that sounds cute. and maybe a little silly, but in fact, it's very serious. It's two American expatriates biking around Amsterdam and looking at all of the different street topologies and talking about the traffic engineering and the decisions that were made that go into that and make it such a great city for that kind of activity. What you'll see if you really look closely as they go to these things, what you're gonna see is all kinds of compromises. They had to make all kinds of compromises because while it's a very dense place compared to Madison, they still had all kinds of physical restrictions and canals and so forth. And so while you see some streets that have everything, you know, two lanes of traffic with a median in between and then a broad bike lane on both sides and a huge sidewalk and plantings and so forth, then you'll see places that are extremely narrow and they had to make all kinds of compromises. And that's really the process that they went through and it's what we three, so even in a place that's as accomplished as that, I often say, when I was there in Amsterdam walking and biking two years ago, I noticed one of the things that you will see there, which is just a different culture there than here, is that things that get really narrow and there's bikers with an inch from the bus and the tram and so forth. I asked a British tour giver there, I said, how do they make that all happen? Because they do it with civility and so forth. And they said, they have almost no lawyers. They have a different, so it's a different culture. I'm sorry, Michael. But we have to recognize the cultural differences and so forth, and maybe we'll get there eventually too. But I just want to say that even in a place that has as much perfection as you're likely to see in this world, with regard to pedestrian and bicycle opportunities, that they still make the kind of compromises that we have to do here and the kinds that we've made in this particular situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Maybe they don't have risk managers either. Alder Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. So I really appreciate all the discussion and I also appreciate all the emails and public comment that we had tonight. I, you know, District 12 is pretty far from Regent Street, but I have worked off of Monroe Street for almost 10 years. You know, well before that I went to UW-Madison. In undergrad I didn't have a car, so all I did was bike or bus or walk. But in my time working on Monroe Street, I do often drive. And when I drive, I think all but two of those years, if I had to go to the office in my car, I would have to go on Regent Street at some point. And I think someone said, like, right now, Regent Street doesn't work for anyone. No offense to the city at all, but I wouldn't, I can't say that that's incorrect necessarily. And So I'm just going to share very quickly kind of my experience driving on Regent Street. I know that no one really wants to hear from someone driving right now, and that's fair. But with regards to what I've seen for pedestrian safety, and then I also talked to a few of my coworkers who primarily commute to work via bike and have for... even longer than I've been there. But so for my experience driving and how I think that it will be different with this new plan is with getting rid of the flex lanes. There are several times where I've seen, and I know it happens way more than that, but right, like you stop for the flashing lights and then someone tries to swerve around you. And I think that that swerving and weaving in and out of traffic is... where we have seen some of the worst crashes and the worst fatalities are people who are I mean, I don't need to go too much into that, but it does involve weaving in and out of traffic. And so having it go to just one lane for the vast majority of that amount of space, that stretch, I think will be really significant for pedestrian safety. I also think having the street trees added is going to be really significant for pedestrian comfort on the street. I think when you're walking, all you have is the shade if it's hot out. When you're biking, even if it's really hot and really humid, which I'll say I did go out once biking to the office on one of those days that it was a heat advisory and I just didn't know that it was a heat advisory. But right, even if the air is very muggy, you're still getting some breeze when you're on a bicycle. And when you're walking, you get, the shade, unless it's really windy. So I think that having the street trees is really important. I also know that there's been a lot of concern stated about the width of the lanes, whether like that's what they're painted or however, but just the amount of space. And I do totally agree, even from a driving perspective that the smaller the lanes, the way slower that I will be driving. But with the way things work on Regent Street, And I've driven it basically any hour of the day from 9 a.m. to maybe 9 p.m. sometimes. And I guess maybe only up to like 7.30 or 8 p.m. It's still almost constant flow of traffic down Regent Street because it is one of the two streets that that you can drive on to get from the west side of Madison to the east side of Madison through the isthmus with Lake Wingra, because we have that little bonus lake down there, unless you're weaving through the very narrow residential streets in that area. the flow of traffic is so constant that I don't think that I've ever had an opportunity to even accidentally speed going down Regent Street. It's usually pretty backed up every time that I'm on it at enough points that there's just, it's not like East Wash where you could presumably just keep going with no one in front of you. And I do understand, I think one of the emails mentioned that the concern isn't during those peak hours, it's after, it's in the late evenings, it's outside of those times, and I can't speak to that. I do think that the nature of that street being what it is as that main, one of the two main arteries through the Isthmus will help some with that traffic, with that speed control, at least. And then just quick to mention, from talking with my coworkers who do a lot of, like, bike commuting, they all take the Southwest commuter path. And I won't say that they were quite as extreme as one of our commenters who I appreciated mentioning she would absolutely not bike on Regent Street even if it did have bike lanes. but they definitely are aware of the other bike infrastructure and having that low stress ride. Because even from seeing the few folks who do bike down Regent Street, and with me being in the car, it seems stressful. I don't know that I would want to bike down Regent Street, even if there were bike lanes personally, especially when it is so easy to get to that Southwest commuter path and where this plan is making it easier to get to and from that path as well. So I really do understand that it does seem crazy and it seems extremely weird that we wouldn't, be putting bike paths into a street as the City of Madison. But I do think this street does have a lot of really unique aspects. It's a really weird street, which has been spoken to a lot already. But thanks, everyone.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I ditto everything that I've heard, but I must put this into the official record. And it's from Ann Colvitch, and it's her personal observation. And this summarized everything, and I am supporting what's before us. When looking at any single aspect of the proposed design, one must consider how that fits with the entire design, as well as how it fits with the transportation network in the area and the city. Madison's complete green streets guide is a thorough and lengthy document which takes a network approach or perspective with the goals of building a complete network in the city for every mode of travel. In addition, when you read something in one paragraph on a certain page in the guide, you have to consider how it fits in with everything else included in the guide. And so for that, I am supporting what's before us. And in her final statement, improved pedestrian safety crossings and experience remain the highest priority and so as a member of the transportation commission i want to make sure that that is in the room improved pedestrian safety crossings and experience remain the highest priority and i would hope that the colleagues would join us in supporting what's before us thank you thank you alder alder jean

Where are my comments? Okay, so I will start by saying that I am a UW student. I bike most of the time. I biked here. I will bike home. Having lived on Regent Street, having family off Regent Street and friends, this project was one of the reasons I wanted to be involved with Council, and it has been a crash course in public engagement, infrastructure, and navigating my inbox. No, but I adore the amount of public engagement that has come in. But in conversations with staff who might have even more of a thankless job than we do, I have seen a dedication to competing needs between pedestrians, drivers, businesses. and cyclists, even in the face of frustration from different stakeholders. And in thinking about comparative high pedestrian streets like University Avenue and Johnson Street with relatively wide travel lanes and extremely high pedestrian volume, I do see the main benefit coming to Regent Street being wider sidewalks and nighttime lighting and I really appreciated the contextualization from Tom about the widths of Monroe and Willie Street shedding light onto how this design is functionally more similar to the still quite backed up streets that characterize Madison rather than highways and also having talked to Alicia Liu, who has admirably collected almost a thousand responses and has shown up to several committee and commission meetings with her findings and this immense preference for a bike lane. My initial desire was also for bike lanes, but Considering the practical implications of narrow bike lanes with narrow travel lanes, it does feel fundamentally unsafe and irresponsible to put cyclists in such close proximity. with two cars. And I also appreciate the consideration of facilities nearby, such as Boeing court and the Southwest path, especially lighting that is coming to the Southwest path soon. And that it is accommodations in the physical environment that painted lines alone would not provide. And so for all of these reasons, I am voicing my support for this alternative. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Lieberman.

Thank you. I agonized over this vote. I was going to say more than any other, but I've only been an Alder for six weeks now. Still, I've had a few sleepless nights this week because of this. Pedestrian safety is the most important thing for me. My views here are very much guided by the tragic death of Sasha Rosen that we saw on Park Street earlier this year. And I am very receptive to the arguments people have made that these crossings could be safer for pedestrians. And at a certain... And at any road where there are cars, you could do more to make the crossing safer. But what I have heard in my conversations with and the testimony from city staff, from members of the Transportation Commission who have seen this design over and over, I think they've put care into the finer details of this street where, there are things in place that will prevent this type of tragedy. There are more frequent stoplights which will prevent cars from building up the speed necessary to prove fatal to pedestrians. There are not going to be areas where somebody will be trying to swerve around a car that has stopped for a pedestrian at a crossing as there was on Park Street. the lanes themselves, because of the left turn lanes, which do widen the crossing for people, the lanes themselves do not go straight through, which means drivers will have to be more attentive to stay in their lane and will therefore be paying more attention to the road. My colleague put it very well. The city, the traffic engineers have a very thankless job, and I think they have done their job very admirably in making sure this design balances all of the needs of this street. I will also say as a biker, as somebody who has a very dark bike ride back to the south side after this meeting, it would be ideal to be able to take my bike onto any road directly up to any business. That is the ideal for me. But the amount of infrastructure changes we would have to make to make that possible, given the current state of our roads and the cost that it would have to other forms of transit like buses, like pedestrians, I I think we have to be fighting for something that makes bike commuting possible, if not perfect. And the changes that will be made to make it so that people can come off of the Southwest commuter path or come out of the neighborhoods and have dedicated bike lanes on those side streets to get to any block of Regent and then to cross Regent in a safer manner. Those are the changes that I would want to see in the streets near me to make it so that our bike network isn't just trails for hobbyists, but a real secondary network of transit for people who go by bike. So with all of that, I am going to be voting in support of this. I want the people who advocated for more safety to know that it is not that I didn't hear or do not care. I think that this is going to be a safe road. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Madison.

yay it's finally my turn okay so living on the far east side where the highway is right outside of my door it seems I had to take a sort of a different approach to educate myself about this project and so for me I took I was a no so I was absolutely a no until I can educate myself and understand the ins and out of it and what is the overall goal. So over the last couple of weeks watching, you know, transportation committee meetings, getting caught up on a bunch of the attachments and ledger star, meeting with folks who are avid bikers, meeting with folks from the business community, including UW Health and the owner of Leopold, talking to Equity by Design about their survey and how that went and what the results were and to break the survey down to me. um talking to some of the folks who emailed us on both sides of this um item um the more conversations and the more digging i did or educated myself and the struggle got a little difficult but I think what I ended up coming up with is that it just didn't seem to be much more options for pedestrians. I spent a lot of time trying to understand the commuter path nearby, so it seemed like bikers would have another option that would be nearby. But I think it was the speakers tonight, I think it was Laura Aris, and there was one more person, I think Ada, who said she would not bike Regent Street, who sealed a yes in support of this item. Because talking to Equity by Design, we spent a lot of our conversation talking about the pedestrian focus of these updates. I felt, at least for me, They were the most centered. They're the most at risk of moving around no matter what we're talking about, but especially on Regent Street. As someone who tries to avoid Regent Street, because I'm always nervous about accidentally hitting someone because people seem to be darted in and out of traffic over there, I am encouraged about what I learned through educating myself and having several several meetings and some long conversations to help me understand all of this um so i will support it because there was something that laura said um and i think i only heard this described maybe with annette miller but laura described all kinds of folks who are moving in and out of that area i think she mentioned the neighborhood house she talked about all kind you know all folks all modes of transportation the diversity of people And I feel more comfortable supporting this because The diversity of the people she mentioned is also the diversity of the people that I'm most concerned about when we're moving around any neighborhood in the city of Madison. So yeah, I'm going to support it. But I also want to just quickly, Sue, shout out to Transportation Commission members, shout out to staff who worked on this, and to the speakers, and to the folks. Regardless of where you land on this or whether you support it or don't support it, I do think with the wealth of information that I came across that this had like engagement level at the next level. I don't know, engagement was like next level for this from what I can tell. So that's where I'm at. I am going to support it and would encourage others to do the same.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Pritchett.

Yes. A couple of things. You know, I sat here and I took my own unscientific tally of those who supported and those who were against the project. I'm also mindful, too, of the surveys that were done, surveys especially those, especially students who live in and around the area, as well as thinking about the businesses that were supportive of the project. The one thing that I am very mindful of, a similar project but somewhat different. And this was after the railroad tracks were taken out on the bike path. This is a Southwest bike path. And it had been functioning for three or four years. And then all of a sudden, they wanted to put in lighting. And I'll never forget the neighborhoods of Nacoma, Westmoreland, Medvale, and what was that? Desert Monroe. There were many, many meetings. And they were opposed to putting up lights on the path. And so there were many surveys done. And they were going to be putting bright lights out there. They were worried about habitats being lost because of some of the nighttime owls, et cetera, et cetera. But in a nutshell, what they did, more so than anything else, was they continuously did surveys because they were using I think at one time, at one point they were using, God knows what else, but they finally compromised on the lighting. They adjusted the height of the lighting. They did all those things in concert with the very, very people whose backyards fronted that path. And in doing so, they were able to come together and make good decisions about what was best, not only for nighttime animals, but for those who would lose streets because of lighting. So when I look at this project, I'm thinking and I'm saying, I do hope that they will continuously survey that if there's an opportunity to tweak it, if there's an opportunity to modify it, if they're putting something down roadways or whatever and it's not working, don't just continue to do it. Make sure that you find out whether or not this is going to work, not only short term, but long term. So walking in here, I was going to vote no, no, no, no, no. But I'm saying now that I think the project can move forward provided we continuously survey. We ask those questions about whether or not this is working or it's not working. And if we do that, I think we're going to have every party involved in this. Businesses, students, cars dropping, going up and down, Saturday, football. Winter, basketball, whatever. You know, I think everyone will be consoled and happy, you know, with the results. But we got to ask people. We got to talk to people. We can't make the decisions for them. We're going to have to work with them towards coming up with the kinds of decisions I know we need to make to make this a workable project. Thank you. Thank you, Elder.

Alder Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I'm a huge bike advocate. I think a lot of my colleagues know that I like to brag about having grown up in Madison and never owned a car here. I bus and bike and walk everywhere. On the way home tonight, District 6 has an almost embarrassment of which is as far as bike facilities are concerned. When I bike home tonight, I can get all the way without biking on a single street. It's an off-road pass the entire way. And I want to see that for the entire city. I think we're on our way to doing that. But looking at Regent Street, I found Regent Street on a map from 1878. It was labeled Washington Street. So in a way, we're very constrained by both the geometry of 150 years ago and then the needs of today. And I think that street desperately needs larger sidewalks. I've been there when people are walking in the road on game days. We need the parking. I mean, I like to cut down parking any time I can for storing vehicles on public streets. But we know that those businesses need, even more than customers, they need access to delivery trucks. It's a very important thing. There's nowhere else to get them there. And so what I was afraid of when we were looking at how to fit that little five-foot-wide bike path or bike lane on either side of the street with no buffer zone on either side of it, I think what it does is provide the illusion of safety when it's actually a really unsafe situation. And we brought up the similarity, too. East Johnson, which I avoid at all costs on my bike because I do not feel safe on a street like that, so close to traffic and park cars. So I think that the plan put forth by the Transportation Commission is the way to go tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue wishing to speak. Item 94 has been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of item 94. That will take us to item 130, which is legislature 92735, substitute amending the 2026 economic development division capital budget and authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a tax increment finance loan to assist in the renovation and development of office manufacturing and research and development space for rail to fusion at 910 Mayer Avenue in the project plan area of TID 54, Pennsylvania Avenue in district 12. On item 130, President Madison, a motion, please.

Motion to adopt.

Moved and seconded to adopt item 130. Are there questions for staff on this item? Aldo Ugar.

Thank you, Mayor. First for Matt. These are all I'm going to ask questions and then be done for 1.30 and all those that are here to follow. But I think I'm correct in saying that this is all tiff financing and therefore part of our test is that but for doing this those projects would not happen the economic benefits they're from would not be forthcoming and it's not like they would happen anyway and they would immediately add to the appraised value subject to the regular levy, is that correct? Yes, that's correct. On all of these, whether it's an employment TIF or a standard TIF or so forth, correct?

Yes.

Okay, the other question I have might be more appropriate for David Schmidicke. When we do the borrowing for a TID, does it have an impact on our borrowing capacity or interest rates or so forth for our geo borrowing?

Alder Ugar, when we borrow for projects within TIDs, that is geo borrowing. It's repaid with increment generated in the TID, but it is general obligation borrowing. Now, it does not sort of, you know, it's not a part of the levy limit calculation per se. And nor is it a part of the expenditure restraint calculation either, but it is a part of our total general obligation debt, which is, and we're not close to this limit, but is subject to a limit under the state constitution of 5% of our property value.

For some years, we have indicated that we want to keep our debt service under a certain percentage of the operating budget in order to sustain a very favorable borrowing rate. But would I be correct in understanding that the debt service going in a different process for the repayment on TIF borrowing is not part of that calculation that we use to self-constrained our use of debt service that goes into the levy. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. When we talk about those percentages, it's general funds supported GEO debt. debt service on that as a share of the general fund budget so geo borrowing for projects in a tid that are repaid with tax increments generated in that tid are not a part of that calculation okay so

the borrowing that we're here to potentially approve tonight is not, it's really in, if we wanna call it a separate bucket or a separate consideration, it's really not going to impact our ability, to be able to undertake other projects or so forth, or be subject to those constraints from the state that have an impact on our ability to support the police or ability to support the independent monitor or any of those other kinds of things. Correct.

Yeah, none of that, none of the debt, none of the geo debt affects the levy limit. In other words, it's outside of the levy limit. And so if there were no debt service, then funded from the general fund, that would not change the amount of levy limit available for the operating budget.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Elder. Elder Figueroa-Cole, questions?

Thank you. We extensively discussed this at the finance committee. So if people weren't there, I have, you know, advise you to go and watch that meeting. But one question that I think is important, that was important from that meeting, is have we done this type of financing before related to employment and where? What examples do you have and can you put into perspective how that money that we invested was returned in folds? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Alder. The city has invested TIF funds in three Jobs TIF projects in the past, Extreme Engineering in 2017, Illumina in 2017, and then Exact Sciences in 2017 and 2018. In both of those cases, they created and retained the jobs for the required five-year period significantly in excess of what was pledged. So they over-performed on the jobs. And in all three of those cases, the loans were repaid by the increment generated by the project as contracted with them. As I mentioned, that finance committee in the case of Illumina and Exact Sciences, which is located in TID 46, in large part because of the success of those projects, we had a significant amount of financial capacity in that TID to invest in public infrastructure In particular, some of the bus rapid transit facilities to serve the west side BRT. And the reason for that is for our jobs TIF projects, including the project before you this evening, the city invests only 40% of the net present value of the increment stream that's generated from that project. So that means there's 60% of that net present value that the city can invest in other projects within that district.

Thank you. And the last question. guarantee that this particular project will be a successful, but can you speak to the measures that you put in place to ensure that our investment is protected?

Sure. Thank you, Alder. First and foremost, the agreement that we have structured with the owner of the property and with Rialto Fusion is a post-performance agreement, which is to say that Rialto Fusion needs to generate the new incremental value within the project and the jobs in order for the funding to be dispersed. So We will first see the jobs be created. We'll first see the increment be generated and then we'll disperse funding. Layered on top of that, we also will have a mortgage note on the property and Rural Diffusion will be providing a corporate guarantee as well.

Thank you, Alder.

Alder Matthews, questions? Thank you, Mayor. You kind of said it without me asking, but I just wanted to confirm. When you say that the loan is only able to be 40% of the increment generated, does that mean that this project would actually bring 60% more funds to potentially go to other projects such as affordable housing or infrastructure within the Oscar Meyer area TID district.

yes that's correct so if you think of um the amount of of increment that the project's generating at a hundred percent forty percent is invested back in the company the remaining sixty percent is available for the city for other purposes great thank you so much

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue with questions for staff. So thank you, Director Mikulajewski, Director Smideke. Item 130 has been moved and seconded. Is there a discussion? Seeing no discussion, item 130 has been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of that item. And we will move on to item 134. Item 134 is Legistar 93149, a substitute amending the 2026 EDD capital budget for TID 57, authorizing the mayor and clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a tax increment finance loan to Odano Apartments LLC. to construct approximately 227 units of affordable housing and approximately 132 parking stalls located at 5559 O'Donoghue Road and 5542 Medical Circle in a proposed creation to tax increment District 57 in District 19. On item 134, President Madison, a motion please.

Motion to adopt.

Moved and seconded to adopt item 134. Are there questions for staff? Seeing no questions for staff, is there any discussion? Seeing no discussion, is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of item 134? Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote on that item. Bring us to item 135, which is legislature 93150, a substitute amending the 2026 EDD capital budget of 1056, authorizing the mayor and city clerk to execute a development agreement to fund a tax increment finance loan to GT Apartments LLC to construct approximately 302 units of affordable housing and approximately 148 parking stalls located at 6518 and 6526 grand teton plaza and a proposed creation to tax or commit district 56 in district 19. on item 135 president madison a motion please emotions will adapt moved and seconded to adopt item 135 are there any questions for staff seeing no quest alder pritchett you know i'm looking at the term uh affordable you can i would like to have a a definition

of affordable housing. This is running through several of the projects that are on here. Affordable, what does that mean? Because affordable is very, very subjective. And knowing that it's subjective, and knowing that these units are going up, what are we doing to price out the very, very people that really, really need some form of affordable housing?

Do you know the breakout for this project?

Thank you, Alderman Mayor. I know that it's income average to 60%. I don't, perhaps if Mr. Rolfs is on the call and he has it in front of him, the specific breakdown.

Mr. Rolfs.

Thank you. Again, the units will average around 60% AMI with a mix of units between, I believe, 30% up to 80% AMI. But again, the average is 60% of area median income as defined by WIDA and set forth by the overall average of the area.

Thank you. In case that needs translation, it means that there will be a range of different affordable units in the project, some of which will be affordable to folks who are making 30% of the area median income.

And the definition of affordability, which we use because it is used by WIDA, the state, and the federal government, is that a home is affordable if you are paying 30% of your income to live there. So it is 30% of the income of a person who is making 30% of the area median income, then up to 30% of the income for somebody who is making 80% of the area median income. And they will have a range of units that are available at those different price points.

So in reality, then, we don't have a number then, because we don't know which individuals will be at 30% or 60% or whatever.

Right, so they are obligated to provide units at those levels of affordability to average out to providing folks at 60% AMI. But not everybody will be at 60% of the area median income. It will be a range of different incomes. And so we do know the number of units, but we don't know the exact price points.

So of those 302 units, it's still unknown.

We should know how many. I think in this case, the entire project will be affordable at some level because the highest would be 80% of the area median income. And we would consider an unsumptuized project would be going up to 100% of the area median income or market rate. So every unit should be affordable at some level.

80, 60, 40.

Between 30 and 80.

Between 30 and 80.

Yeah. Mr. Rolfs is going to stop me if I go wrong.

You know, when I think about the whole notion about affordable, affordable, affordable, and knowing that it's subjective. And we know that we do have some affordability issues here in the Madison area. I do worry about people, those individuals who will be priced out. That's a concern that I have.

I very much agree with you, Alder. And I think just to answer your question, it is for the city and for the state and federal programs, it's not a subjective thing. It is very numbers-based. We have a very clear definition of affordability. And so the first principle is that a home is affordable if you are paying 30% or less of your income. And then the second sort of principle is that we look at, And we use the area median income to define then what those levels would be. And I'm sure staff would be happy to share with you what, for example, 50% of the area median income is defined as for the Madison area. But that is what we base affordability on, and it is actually rather highly regulated. And again, we work with the definitions that the programs at the federal and state levels use as well, because most of the projects we're talking about are stacking funds from either federal or state programs as well as ours.

That's for the person who understands the language, but for the common layman out there, affordable is subjective.

It is very complicated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Are there other questions for staff on this item? Seeing none, it's been moved and seconded. Is there discussion? Seeing no discussion, then item 134, no, sorry, item 135, is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of item 135 and go on then to item 137, which is Legislature 93161, amending the 2026 Economic Development Division capital budget and authorizing the execution of a purchase and sale agreement with Starkweather LLC for the purchase of four properties on north walter street chicago ave and canvas road for land banking purposes and authorizing the expenditure of funds for environmental assessment title work closing costs holding costs and pre-development costs in district 15. on item 137 president madison a motion please motion to adopt moved and seconded to adopt item 137. are there questions for staff on this item All there, Pritchett.

Yes, going back, I had asked the question early on about the $135,000 that's included in this $4.3 million for this project. And I'm really trying to get some sense of environmental assessment. What does that really entail? And then looking at pre-development costs. You know, what does that entail? You know, sometimes, you know, spelling out stuff, you know, would make sense. Because you just say holding cost, you know, what is holding cost?

Director Michalajewski, can you detail those items?

Yes, happy to. Thank you, Alden. Thank you, Mayor. So this item, there's 135,000 included or that would be approved hopefully this evening for environmental assessment, title work, closing costs, holding costs, and pre-development costs. So just briefly going through those, the environmental assessment. So assuming we move forward and receive an option to purchase this property, as we often do when we purchase properties, we reserve the right to complete some environmental due diligence And so a portion of those funds would be used to hire a firm to complete a phase one and maybe a phase two environmental assessment. Title work is for us to order title and just confirm that the title is clear and that there's no issues with the title of the property. Closing costs, all real estate closings have costs, some of which are paid by the seller, some of which are paid by the buyer. So this would cover some of those costs. Holding costs refers to maintenance of the property. So as soon as we take over ownership of this property, we're responsible for cutting the grass, shoveling the snow. I mean, really, those are the two holding costs that we'd have in this case, because they're just open fields. So it would basically be grass cutting, snow removal. And then pre-development costs. Our intent is to sell these properties to other entities for the purpose of development. And in some cases, as we are considering our options, we might want to, for example, hire a surveyor to complete some surveying work or even hire an architect to complete some architectural work. And these funds could be used for that purpose.

So suppose then that in the environmental assessment, so you pay out $135,000. So you spend $135,000 for pre-development costs for environmental assessment and things like that. And what would be like a deal breaker? I mean, you've paid the money now. You can't get that back, correct?

No, that's, well, that's not entirely true. So the only of these items that are listed here, the only one that we would spend prior to any significance prior to buying the property is the environmental assessment. And that's more along the lines of three to $5,000. And so there could be a scenario where we would complete some environmental due diligence and then realize that we don't wanna move forward. And we have some contingency ability in the purchase and sale agreement to back out of the transaction. But we certainly wouldn't spend that entire 135,000 because we're not gonna spend closing costs and holding costs and title work and significant pre-development costs if we're not actually buying the property.

Okay, good enough. Thank you. Thank you, Alder. Alder Hange-McKinney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. My question is very simple. And so when we're doing this land banking, these are similar questions of missing information. And I'm saying missing information, that you have all the answers. This is the second or third time there's been a question about land banking, and you have all of the answers immediately. Is there something in the process that we are putting out there that all that information could be contained in advance so that we wouldn't have these these pushbacks and questions. I don't know if I'm being clear about it, but this has been, something similar has been before us related to land banking and all of the questions and concerns were answered by staff. And so is there any opportunity to expand what is publicly presented so we won't get these questions that keep us here later?

I think that's a great question. I think there likely is, you know, perhaps more that we could do in terms of putting more information on in memo forms to include within some of these items, but I don't know that we'll ever be able to capture answers to every single question that everyone may have.

But some of the generic ones that will be flagged, you already know what they will, how they will be flagged. I'm looking at those items that will be flagged that we can put or you can put a better spectrum of what these costs are. not everything, I'm not talking about everything, but certain things will be flagged and you know that we have some constituents that are really looking at what is not flagged and could you go back and take a look at what this might be flagged and incorporate that in the beginning?

yes asking the right question yes we we can look to provide some more explanatory memos with some of these land banking purchases and and try to capture you know when we say holding costs what you know what that is and and yes we we could provide a little more explanation in the form of a memo although i think that's a perfectly reasonable request and and i think that staff would be happy to provide memos on items of this nature in the future

Thank you, Alder. Alder Martinez-Rutherford, questions?

Yeah, I just, Director Michalczynski, both of the land banking issues we've had have been in my district. And I think my question for you is generally when we're talking about land banking, are we not talking about future development of affordable housing?

Generally, yes, although there is the potential that there's some commercial development or even some non-affordable housing development as part of these projects as well. That answers my question, thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue with questions, so thank you, Director Mikulajewski. Item 137 has been moved and seconded. Is there discussion? Elder Martinez Rutherford.

Yeah, thank you so much. I am trying not to take great offense to the fact that there are so many questions around, especially this this specific property that we have worked really hard to ensure that there is some affordability in the future especially in an area that has high rents and and has very little affordable housing available and I just want to say that this specific and well the two specific instances that we have been talking about are vital to the well-being of my district so when people come to me i take it very personally because this is something i've worked really hard on that is all i need to say and i want to say thank you very much and i would appreciate everyone voting yes voting to approve this thank you thank you alder i have no other elders in the queue wishing to speak on item 137 it has been moved and seconded is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of item 137.

Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of item 137. And that will bring us to the end of our agenda. Are there any additional introductions of items from the floor? Seeing none, are there any announcements? Seeing no announcements. Alder Meyer.

Come to Waterfront Festival this weekend at Yajara Place Park.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Lankella. Oh, Alder Figueroa-Cole. The budget engagement meeting's coming up. The budget engagement meeting is Thursday. Please attend.

And also, I ask Community Development to provide a tour of the Senior Center when they do their mural reveal. So if Alder's want to show for that, that would be great.

Thank you.

An informative what they do at the Senior Center. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Lankella, it is your turn.

Motion to adjourn.

moved and seconded to adjourn is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of adjournment seeing no objection we stand adjourned my comments