Common Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Just testing my audio for a second. Can anybody hear me? All right, thank you.

Yes, we can hear you. The hour of 6.30, having come and gone, I will call to order the Common Council meeting of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026, and ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Thank you. Alder Mayor. Here. Alder Mayor is present. Alder O'Brien. Yes. Alder O'Brien is present. Alder Ojovich.

I see Alder Ojovich. Present.

Aldo Hovich is present. Aldo Pritchett. Aldo Pritchett is present. Aldo Fishler.

I'm here.

Aldo Fishler is present. Aldo Revere. Aldo Revere is present. Aldo Vidover.

Here.

Aldo Vidover is present. Aldo Zhang.

Here.

Aldo Zhang is present. Aldo Evers. Here. Aldo Evers is present. Aldo Field.

Here.

Aldo Field is present. Aldo Figueroa-Cole. Here. Aldo Figueroa-Cole is present. Aldo Glenn. Glenn is present. Aldo Ugar.

Here.

Aldo Ugar is present. Aldo Harrington-McKinney. Back. Aldo Lankella.

Here.

Aldo Lankella is present. Aldo Lieberman.

Here.

Aldo Lieberman is present. Aldo Madison. Here. Aldo Madison is present. Aldo Martinez-Rutherford. Present. Aldo Martinez-Rutherford is present. Aldo Matthews. Here. Aldo Matthews is present. Madame Errol Coram.

Thank you. Our first order of business is a special order of business, and that is item one, an appointing resolution, legislature 94145. And forgive me about to be all there. Tell me how to pronounce your last name. Say that again. Enzegwu. Enzegwu. Appointing Devine Enzegwu as alder for District 1 to serve until the Spring 2027 election. On item 1, can I have a motion please? Moved and seconded to adopt item 1. Are there questions? Is there discussion? Seeing none of either, is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of our new colleague? Seeing no objections, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor. Congratulations, Alder. And now we will swear in the new Alder.

Repeat after me. Turn it? It is on?

OK.

Thank you. Okay. I state your name. I, Divine and Zegbu. Do solemnly affirm. Do solemnly affirm. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. The Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. And the Charter of the City of Madison. And the Charter of the City of Madison. And will perform the duties. And will perform the duties. Of the Madison Common Council. Of the Madison Common Council. In and for the Alder of District 1. In and for the Alder of District 1. City of Madison. City of Madison. To the best of my ability. To the best of my ability. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Congratulations, Alder. I will ask all of you to have patience. We may move a little slower because we have a new colleague who's learning the ropes here. One of those ropes, however, that we all have to learn tonight is that we have a new microphone system. I trust you all have the instructions and you have perused them. I saw some of you testing out the system earlier. So I think it will go smoothly, but just to make folks aware. And feel free to ask questions if you don't understand a motion. Certainly your colleagues can help you, but you can also ask for a point of information if you need something that we're going through explained. And everybody here needed something, so don't hesitate. All right. And then as usual, I will just say that we're here to do the business of the people of the city of Madison. And I ask so that we do with grace and kindness and respect and that all concerned who are speaking tonight refrain from using profanity in your remarks and to treat the business of the council with the respect that it deserves. I will also say that everyone who speaks does have a time limit, whether that's people who are here for public comment or alders on the floor. You should not feel the need to use all of your time, particularly alders who have a 10-minute time limit. It's not necessary to use that much time. I do expect that we will have a long evening and ask, again, that folks just be patient with each other as we work through the agenda. All right. So our next order of business is honoring resolutions, which is item 2, register 94589, proclaiming September 2026 to be National Recovery Month. We do not have anyone here to receive this proclamation, so I would ask for a motion, please. Moved and seconded to adopt item two. Is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection. Oh, I'm sorry. We do have one person who wished to speak on item two. Do we have Barbie Jackson of Dillon Drive with us? Doesn't look like it.

This is Barbie. I am here. I'm sorry. I thought we were going to the next agenda item. I have to get out of the kitchen and back to where I can read this. Are we ready?

Yes.

Please go ahead. Thank you. Good evening, President Madison and Alders. My name is Barbie Jackson. I'm a 59-year resident of Madison, a member of Moses and Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ, which is one of 21 congregational and nonprofit organizational members of Moses. I am grounded in these affiliations, but tonight I am speaking to you as a private citizen, not on behalf of either organization. I am registered in support of Agenda Items 2 and 60, which I will address later. Item 2, sponsored by all members of this body, proclaims this month as National Recovery Month. From the SAMHSA website, this week's theme is Reducing Stigma Through Storytelling. The second point within this theme is that authentic storytelling in community spaces, police precincts, city councils, and public forums can shift how policies are written, how resources are allocated, and how people in recovery are treated. So let me tell you a true story, although secondhand. I know a man who suffered for 15 years with severe mental health issues at the end of the last century. Toward the end of these struggles while living in Texas, he saw a bright light in the night. He heard a voice telling him to walk into the light. So trusting this inner voice, he did so, only to encounter police dealing with a serious matter. The police wrestled him to the ground to keep him from interfering, and while he struggled to get free, he was roughed up and injured before they were able to handcuff him and take him to prison. He was ultimately released without charges, and a few years later, after self-admitting into a mental institution at least one more time in his life, he finally recovered and has lived a productive and happy life for the past 30 years. He recalls that one officer had a shotgun, but he tossed it into the police car before helping to restrain him. Thankfully, no shots were fired. I want to ask each member of the Common Council to reflect on this story and to think about any personal life experiences they may have had with people suffering from mental health challenges. Were they moderate or severe? Did they include hallucinations or other forms of disconnection with ordinary reality? Was adequate mental health treatment and other services provided? Was the individual housed? Did the person turn to street drugs as a way to cope with depression or some other feelings?

We have about 30 seconds left.

As we honor National Recovery Month, let's honor people with mental health and substance use issues as they strive to live their lives. And let's remember that Corey Ruiz struggled mightily as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the registrant on this item? Seeing none, then is there any discussion of item two? Seeing none, it's been moved and seconded. Is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor? Seeing no objection, recording unanimous vote in favor of item two. And that brings us to disclosures and recusals. Are there any disclosures or recusals on items on tonight's agenda? And let me just pause and explain that if you have either financial interest or any kind of organizational relationship with any of the items on the agenda, now would be the time that you would say For example, I work for the University of Wisconsin and there's an item, you know, item 33 is about the university, but that's not going to affect my vote because it's a different department or whatever. Or if your family had a liquor license on the agenda, you might recuse yourself from that because it would be in your family's financial best interest to to have it go one way or the other. So that said, are there any disclosures or recusals on today's agenda? Alder Harrington-McKinney?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Item 112-94609, I'd like to recuse myself.

Thank you, Alder. Are there any other disclosures or recusals on tonight's agenda? Seeing none and we'll go to the presentation of the consent agenda president Madison Thanks mayor a consent agenda is moved.

Oh, can you hear me now?

Bring them they're very directional apparently these mics now

Better? Yes. Do I have to be like all up? Okay. All right. So a consent agenda is moved with the recommendation 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. Agenda items that are supermajority items. Please note, supermajority vote items will be recorded as unanimous votes unless a roll call or exclusion is requested. Agenda item 48, legislative file number 94633, amending the 2026 adopted parking division capital budget to transfer existing budget from the single space meter replacement project to the Overture Garage LED slash electrical upgrade, District 4. Report of engineering division, 14 votes required to adopt under suspension of MGO 2.055. 15 votes are required to amend the budget. Agenda item 59, legislative file number 94250, a substitute amending the 2026 Economic Development Division, EDD, operating budget by transferring $75,000 from the other agency budgets to EDD and authorizing intra-departmental transfers within EDD. Approving program materials and authorizing the Economic Development Division to administer a Williamson Street Business Stabilization Program. District 6, Report of Finance Committee, 15 votes required. Agenda items with recommendations different from the agenda. There are no items in this section. Agenda items excluded by one request of Alders or two speakers by noon on September 8th. Agenda item four, which is legislative file number 93802, appeal of the Landmarks Commission's approval of a land division at 113 Eli Place in the University Heights Historic District. Legislative file ID 93071. uh agenda item number nine legislative file number nine three eight nine four approving a landmark nomination of the property located at two two two east olin avenue as the wonder bar in district fourteen agenda item number fourteen legislative file number nine four one eight three which is a substitute creating section twenty eight point zero two two zero zero seven five nine of the madison general ordinances to change the zoning property located at 8302 McDowell Drive at the northeastern corner of Midtown Road and South Pleasant View Road from Temporary A Agricultural District to TR-UT, which is Traditional Residential-Urban II. District and creating Section 28.022-00760 of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of property located at 8302 McDowell Drive from temporary A. District and creating Section 28.022-00819 of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of property located at 8302 McDowell Drive from temporary A. District 1. Okay. Agenda item 15, and I'm going to move around this and not have all of these little extra things, y'all, so, but you have the papers, Alders. So, agenda item 15, legislative file number 94184, creating section 28.022-00757 of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of property located at 1001 Wisconsin Place from P.D. District to amended P.D., DISTRICT AND CREATING SECTION 28.022-00758 TO APPROVE A SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTATION PLAN IN DISTRICT 2. AGENDA ITEM 59, LEGISLATIVE FILE NUMBER 94250, A SUBSTITUTE AMENDING THE 2026 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIVISION EDD OPERATING BUDGET BY TRANSFERRING 75,000 FROM THE OTHER AGENCY BUDGETS TO EDD AND AUTHORIZING INTRADEPARTMENTAL TRANSFERS WITHIN EDD. approving program materials and authorizing the Economic Development Division to administer a Williamson Street Business Stabilization Support Program for District 6. or agenda item 60, which is legislative file number 9-4261, amending the 2026 adopted operating budget by transferring $28,500 from the contingent reserve to the Office of the Independent Monitor for additional staffing and service costs and directing staff to provide a full accounting of costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd, 2026 and September 8th, 2026. Agenda item 68, which is legislative file number 94196, authorizing the mayor and the city clerk to execute a contract between the city of Madison and SEH for planning, engineering, and public engagement services for East Washington Avenue. And Schroeder Road, which is Districts, this covers Districts 3, 12, 17, 19, and 20. Items introduced from the floor. Legislative file number 94616 authorizing the finance director to execute a contract amendment with ClearGov, Inc. to add software modules for capital budgeting and financial reporting from Finance Committee 9-4, I'm sorry, Finance Committee, September 14, 2026. Back to Council, September 22, 2026. Legislative, Legistar, file number 94641, directing the Chief of Police to report on the status of the recommendations regarding the policies and procedures of the Madison Police Department, Alder Glen, Police Civilian Oversight Board, September 16, 2026. Comment, Council, September 22, 2026. Agenda items with corrections. There are no items in that section.

Thank you, President Madison. I'd like to note that the registrant on item 15 withdrew but is available for questions, so we will not be separating item 15 unless an alder requests that. Are there other items that members of the body would like to see excluded from the consent agenda at this time? Seeing none, explanatory comma for our new alder. The consent agenda is we're passing basically everything on our agenda except for the items that the council president just read. So we won't work through each and every item on the list. We'll just skip to the ones that are pulled off. And everything else will be passed on consent. Seeing no additional items, let me just go over that one more time. So noting that on item 48, 14 votes are required. We will be separating items 4, 9, 14, 59, 60, and 68. We have two introductions from the floor. All right, anything else on the consent agenda? Seeing none, then President Madison, a motion, please.

Motion to adopt.

Moved and seconded to adopt the consent agenda. Is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of the consent agenda? Seeing no objection, we'll record a unanimous vote in favor of the consent agenda. And that will take us to public comment. so our first item for public comment is agenda item number four the appeal of the landmarks commission's approval of a land division at 113 eli place in the university heights historic district our first registrant wishing to speak is laura collier of district 5 to be followed by aaron gary to be followed by robbie quintana do we have laura Yes, I am here.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. Go ahead. So I am writing to urge you or I'm speaking to urge you to reverse the Landmarks Commission approval of the land division at 113 Ely Place. I concur with the concerns outlined in the June 2022 appeal submitted by my neighbor, who will also be speaking, Erin Gary. Those who attended the Landmarks Commission, myself included, witnessed what I would describe as confusing information presented by staff to the commission. And I feel that decisions of this significance should be based on clear, accurate, and complete information. Yet I personally feel that that was not the case during the June 8th hearing. I would also like to highlight an additional concern that while the June 22nd appeal references a lot size of approximately 4,001 square feet, the survey map that was submitted by the owner clearly shows that this figure includes a narrow panhandle portion that connects the lot to Summit Avenue, which is not buildable. And so therefore, the buildable area of the lot appears closer to be 3,500 square feet, which would make it approximately half the size of the smallest adjacent lot. So this important fact was not clearly presented to the Landmarks Commission when describing its size and the size of adjacent lots. And so therefore, I feel that the Landmarks Commission members were not therefore left without an accurate understanding of the lot's true buildable area and its relationship to surrounding properties. So I respectfully ask that the Common Council reverse the approval and ensure that any future consideration of this proposal is based on complete and accurate presentation of the facts. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Aaron Gary of District 5, to be followed by Robbie Quintana, to be followed by Ruth Kearley. Do we have Aaron? Aaron, I'm going to ask that you only speak into the mic because we have people on Zoom that can't hear you otherwise.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. This is an appeal of a Landmarks Commission decision approving a land division in University Heights. Madison ordinances require the lot created in a land division to be compatible in size with adjacent lots. 17 neighbors appealed the Landmarks Commission decision because this standard was not satisfied and the Landmarks Commission used an erroneous legal standard. so what property are we talking about 113 ely place is this property right here it's kind of an l-shaped this map was generated by the landmarks commission i added the blue markings to identify the salient features the existing property 113 ely place is this l-shaped i have marked the new lot with an x it says 4001 square feet what does that lot look like it looks like this it's a dense green space it's an urban forest it's been vacant for 130 years there are multiple trees on it that are more than 100 years old the application for land division proposes to make it a buildable lot If a house is built here, it will be more than a million dollars. That is not affordable housing. That does not contribute to solving Madison's housing affordability issues. So this map right here, as I said, generated by the Landmarks Commission, This address is 167 North Prospect. This address is 1806 Summit. This address is 101 Ely Place. Those are the only three adjacent lots to the proposed new lot. These figures, 12,000 square feet for 167 North Prospect, more than three times bigger than the proposed new lot. The others, 9,500, 7,000, Those are almost twice as big and about two and a half times as big. You can see in the bar chart right here that the new lot in red is much smaller than the adjacent lots. Finally, what I would like to highlight is that What you see here in the figures, the properties identified, that's the property described in the register of deeds records.

You have about 30 seconds left. Pardon me? You have about 30 seconds.

That is what a lot means. The property described depicted right here The Landmarks Commission erred by relying on invisible historic plot lines instead of looking at the lots as described in the Register of Deeds records, which is the definition of lot under MGO 41.02. Please reverse the Landmarks Commission's decision. That's your time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Robbie Quintana of District 5, to be followed by Ruth Kearley, to be followed by Chamin Liu. Do we have Robbie?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Robbie Quintana. I am the owner of 113 Ely Place. I wear a lot of hats. I'm a grad student, PhD student here at UW. I'm a business owner, and I'm a faculty at Madison College. One thing I am not is a land developer. So I want to address the reason for doing the slot split is to get market value of my lot and my land. not at this time to develop any kind of housing properties or destroy any trees. So I just wanted to raise two things briefly and then I'll get out of here. One thing the appeal itself doesn't address is that they argue adjacent means immediately adjoining lots but under that exact standard my own existing lot that directly borders the new lot isn't included in these math in this math or these averages. So So using their own preferred definition correctly applied, their own math is incomplete when they're doing these averages. The appeal also argues lot must be read as the same as parcel everywhere in the code. The city's attorney memo, which was just uploaded to this file this morning, says the opposite is true. Here specifically, my property's parcel already contains multiple historical plats. Lot and parcel aren't interchangeable at this address, and this is from an objective source on the matter, not me, someone who has a vested interest, and not my neighbors who also have their own interests. So I'd ask you to weigh this against the reading of the professionals with no personal stake in this outcome, the Landmarks Commission, the city attorney. Interpreting their job is to interpret the ordinance, not mine or my neighbors. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Ruth Kearley of District 5 to be followed by Chairman Liu. Do we have Ruth? I don't see Ruth in the room. Ruth should have permission to speak online. Ruth, you should be able to

Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay. My husband and I, Shimon Liu, and I support the appeal of the June 8th landmarks decision. In our written submission to all alders earlier today, we focused on key fallacies that led to the approval of the proposed lot subdivision. Could Mr. Gary please display the bar chart? The red bar, which shows the size of the proposed lot, is not compatible in size with the three blue bars, which show the adjacent lot sizes. But it took the commission nearly 58 minutes to determine the opposite. To reach such a conclusion, one would need to argue, A, that the blue bars don't represent lots, or B, that those lots aren't the only adjacent lots, or both. First, are they lots? At the June 8th landmarks meeting, staff did not define lot, yet its definition is key to the decision. It has rectified that omission for this evening's hearing. Staff argued then, and in its submission for this evening, that these are parcels and not lots. But council in enacting MGO 41.02 defined a lot in this way, quote, lot means attractive land designated by meets and bounds, land survey, minor land division or plat recorded with the Dane County Register of Deeds, end quote. You can go to the Dane County Register of Deeds, as Mr. Gary has done, and verify that these tracts or parcels or properties are duly registered. They may be other things, too, like parcels, but at the very least, they are therefore lots, unambiguously per MGO 41.02. My husband, Shimon Liu, will continue when his turn is available. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final registrant wishing to speak is Shimon Liu of District 5. I believe he's in the registrant list online. There you go. You should be able to unmute. You should be able to speak.

I'm speaking.

We can hear you now. Go ahead.

Okay. Sorry for the glitch here. So I just wanted to continue what my wife began. So the second question is whether these lots are adjacent. and in plain English as well as historical precedent in these very chambers, adjacent means having a common border. Could Mr. Gary please display the map showing the proposed lot and the lots adjacent to it? These three are the only lots having a common border with the proposed lot. Of course, Mr. Quintana points out that his lot also does, his other lot does. It's also larger, as I recall. So staff led commissioners through a variety of observations. We're talking about the June 8th Landmarks Commission meeting through a variety of observations unrelated to adjacency. These are quotes, quote, we've got the swoopiness that happens here in the heart of University Heights, close quote. Quote, these would not even be the smallest lots on the block, close quote. Now it so happens that our lot, Ruth's and mine, is the smallest lot on the block, but it is by no means adjacent. Another quote, quote, the lot configurations and university heights are messy, close quote. None of these observations have to do with adjacency. Staff's observations, these observations obscure the simple fact of adjacency clearly shown on Mr. Gary's map. In conclusion, I hope you can see why 17 households, including ours, have petitioned to appeal the June 8th decision. We ask you to anchor your decision in the plain language of MGO 41.18 and MGO 41.02. Grant the appeal and overturn the landmark's decision. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. We have no other registrants wishing to speak on item four. Are there questions for any other registrants on item four? Seeing none. And it will go on. The next item that we have registrants wishing to speak on is item 9. Item 9 is approving a landmark nomination of the property located at 222 East Olin Avenue as the Wonder Bar in District 14. We have two registrants wishing to speak. First is Dan Connelly of District 13 to be followed by Alex Saludos. Dan?

All right. Yeah. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, members of the council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I do want to particularly thank Alders Lieberman and Alder Evers for all their time and attention on this matter over the last few months. I'm Dan Kennelly with Range Hill Partners. We're the prospective developer of the property. I'm also a resident of the neighborhood. I live about four blocks from this site. I've lived there for 18 years, so not just a developer seeking to develop this site. This is also my neighborhood, which I care about very much. I'm here to ask you to agree with the recommendation from the Landmarks Commission and the preservation planner to deny the request to landmark the Wonder Bar. I'm not an expert on historic preservation, but the Landmarks Commission is, the city's historic preservation plunder definitely is, and they reached the right conclusion here. The Wonder Bar really does not rise to the level where it should be designated a landmark for a couple of reasons. One, a lot of the stories about this building are really myths, and myths and folklore can be meaningful. They can have a place in a neighborhood's history. But when it comes to the city using its power to designate a landmark, there really should be more historical evidence behind that. Second, a lot of the purported history of this building is really about its connections to organized crime and violence and exploitation. And we shouldn't sweep that history under the rug, but I think it's problematic to really try to elevate it with a landmark building. And then third, there's just a practical reality that this building is obsolete. It's small. It's past its useful life. There's no viable economic way to repurpose this building. There's, you know, been conversations about keep the building on site and build something next to it. Previous developer looked at that. If it worked, it would have been built by now. We took a close look at it. There's just a variety of reasons why that approach doesn't work. So ultimately, this is a decision about community priorities. We're working on a plan for redeveloping this rare regional mixed-use site for a really high-quality mixed-use building on this gateway location. And the alternative, if the building becomes a landmark, is the most likely outcome without buy-in from the owner is it will just continue to sit vacant. So again, really ask you to affirm the recommendation from your subject matter experts on the Landmarks Commission. and vote against this nomination. If you have any questions for me, happy to answer anything you have. Thanks for your service and thanks very much again.

Thank you. Our next and final registrant on this item is Alex Saludos of District 5.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm one of the four sponsors of the Wonder Bar nomination. The council must refer this nomination back to the Landmarks Commission with instructions. The ordinance and your own city attorney's advice require it. Our written comments include a suggested motion. Five reasons for this. First, the staff report recommends denial on a standard that is not in the ordinance. It says, quote, not a history that the city of Madison should promote or celebrate, unquote. MGO 41072 lists five standards. None asked that. MGO 41076 requires that you vote, quote, based on the standards under sub two. Those five and no others. The commission's own policy manual states where decision making standards are listed in the ordinances, the commission must follow them. The city attorney's office told this council in 23 that their vote on a nomination is quote, based on the standards set forth in 4107-2. Second, the report states two material facts with no evidence and staff has refused to produce it. It says the property, quote, deliberately aligned itself with a racist movie, unquote. It says other businesses renamed themselves after the film. The commission's vote was based on these claims. I asked for the evidence of these claims three times. On Friday, the preservation planner wrote that she would not provide it. Third, a vote to deny tonight makes this new standard the city's rule without this council ever voting on it. If you want to use this standard, amend Chapter 41. Fourth, in 21, the preservation planner documented the building's history, the plan commission, and landmarks commission found it historically significant, and the plan commission denied a demolition permit on that basis. Nothing has changed since. Fifth, the commission adopted no findings and named no ordinance standard. Its own staff told it to. Its own manual requires it.

Recording stopped.

I'm sorry?

Go ahead. I think we're having trouble with the Zoom.

Okay. I'm just about done. A referral does not overrule the commission.

Recording in progress. Sorry. Go ahead.

Okay, I'll restart here. Referral does not overrule the commission. It sends the nomination back to be decided on the ordinance standards. You have two choices consistent with Chapter 41. Apply MGO 41072 as written or amend it. A vote tonight to deny landmark designation does neither. Finally, about the myths, the crime, and the violence Mr. Kennelly referenced, None of them are in the nomination. They're a myth, and they have nothing to do with the nomination. Thank you.

Thank you. That's our last registrant on item nine. Are there questions for either of the registrants? Seeing none, then we'll go on to our next item. I do not seem to have the ability to unmute. I don't know if the tech staff can hear me, but I don't think I can give myself the CCB 201, the ability to unmute.

Teams them, please. Thank you.

We're going to stand informal while we figure out this technical issue. Thank you, Alder, for alerting us. Oliver, can you hear us now? Can anyone who's on Zoom hear us? Yes. Yes. OK. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. So let's try that again. Those are the registrants we have on item nine. Are there questions for either of the registrants? And the next item that we have someone wishing to speak on is Agenda item 14 which is a substitute creating sections of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of a property located at 8302 McDowell Drive from Temporary A Agricultural District to TRU2 and creating sections of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of that same property to CCT which is commercial quarter transitional, and also to TRU1. On item 14, the only registrant we have wishing to speak is Bonnie Wendorf of District 1, representing the Tiburon Condominium Homeowners Association. Do we have Bonnie?

Yes, you do. Go ahead, please. Yes, go ahead. I'm Bonnie Wendorf. I am the president of the Tiburon Condominium Homeowners Association. And we are not necessarily opposed to this particular item. If we're talking about the development itself, you know, we'd rather leave it a farm field. But since It's not going to happen that way. We are certainly in favor of the proposal to the extent that it reduces the density on several of the lots in the development and makes it a little bit more palatable for our owners, some of whom have been there many years and who are used to having unlimited views to the west. And now they're going to have a lot of large buildings in their way. And so to that extent, the density has been reduced significantly. I don't think anybody would oppose it. We have certain concerns that we just want to reiterate again with regard to this development. One is traffic and the opening of Mayo Drive. Mayo Drive is going to be the only, looks like the only east-west path through this particular subdivision. And from the perspective of Mayo Drive, Mayo Drive is not built to handle large amounts of traffic and it is a narrow as it passes our our building and there's a there's a kind of an odd intersection with star grass we have some concerns about that and we just want to register that again so that the city takes a very hard look at that and make sure that that traffic flow is being handled correctly we we have some concerns for the character of the neighborhood some of the proposed zoning changes have addressed some of those in that they are going to ease the density in the three lots immediately adjacent to the neighbors in Midtown Commons. And I think we like the rezoning to the extent that it reduces the number of units on each of those lots to 58 instead of 100 and whatever it was. But I noticed in the notes that they talk about a a height uh a height allowance of like five stories which would for us be really a hard hit because right now there's no building on our on that side on our side of the the the lot line that would be above about three stories so that would be a change i don't know how much easing that would be to put five-story buildings uh on the lots closest to us you have about 30 seconds left Oh, OK. All right. And I will also just mention setbacks. We have the line of trees. I know there's a tree preservation plan in place, but I think that we would like to see some consideration for setbacks that would preserve the trees and provide some green space in between us and these buildings that they're going to put in. And that's really all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the registrant on item 14? Seeing none, then we'll move on to... Item 59. Item 59 is a substitute amending the 2026 Economic Development Division operating budget by transferring funds from other agency budgets and authorizing intra-departmental transfers, improving program materials, and authorizing the Economic Development Division to administer a Williamson Street business stabilization support program in District 6. On item 59, we have one registrant wishing to speak, Chip Cruz of District 6, representing WMBA. Do we have Chip? Chip, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Hello, Mayor Satya.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I am speaking as the president of Wumba right now, and I appreciate you giving us this time to advocate for the businesses in our district. I'm just going to be real with everybody. The businesses are in dire need of your help. And it's because of the actions that have been taken in large part by the city for over a month and a half. And What I need to say right now is that there are many businesses that are in danger of A, going out of business, B, losing employees, C, not recovering whatsoever. And people who work here, in which case this stretch of businesses, 30 businesses, represent hundreds of employees in our district. And right now, we are failing them as businesses, as a community, as a city. And a large... onus of responsibility has fallen upon us as a community to come together and literally help everybody out when we need it the most. On our behalf, we have literally tried to clean up these streets ourselves. We have, with a lot of help, raised over $50,000 that we were able to get out instantly. And we came to the city looking for help to help the citizens of our community. And it went from $300,000 down to $100,000, which if you split it up in the 30s, it's going to be about $3,000 apiece. And at the end of the day, it's just not enough. And Mayor Satya, you and I had a very good conversation. We talked about our fear of something, if something were to happen, the Cafe Coda, Hannah Taylor, one of the only black owned businesses in this city period, but one with the liquor license that he's in danger of going out of business. Marcos at Baraka, also another black male with a liquor license struggling to survive. These 30 businesses represent the most diverse community of business owners and employee of any stretch of two blocks in this city. And the fact that if I ask anybody to defy that and tell me another two blocks, they can't. That's fundamentally a problem. And so I'm coming here today. We are asking for help because unless you've been in this neighborhood, which many of you in that room have never been to this neighborhood in the past month, I would know I'm there every day.

You have about 20 seconds.

That's great. Thank you. Because I'll tell you what, when I go to these businesses, when I talk to employees, when I talk to people on the streets, they're angry, they're upset and they're scared and they're looking for help. And so I invite any of you to come talk to me or come to our businesses because we need it. But I will take you on a tour, and I will show you the pain and the suffering that everybody in this community is going through. Thank you.

That's our last registrant on item 59. Are there any questions for the registrant? Seeing none. Then we'll go on. Our next item with registrants wishing to speak is item 60, amending the 2026 adopted operating budget by transferring funds from the contingent reserve to the office of the independent monitor for additional staffing and services costs and directing staff to provide a full accounting of costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd, 2026 and September 8th, 2026. On item 60, our first registrant wishing to speak is Avi Ivatori of District 12, to be followed by Rachel Ravinsky, to be followed by Amelia Royko Maurer. Do we have Avi? Doesn't look like we do. Then do we have Rachel Rovinski of District 13 to be followed by Amelia Royko Maurer to be followed by Jacob Lang. Rachel, you should be able to speak.

Hello. I'm speaking today in support of using the $28,000-something dollars of contingent reserve funding to fund the Office of the Independent Police Monitor program. Community members have been saying for weeks now that the Office of the Independent Police Monitor needs to be fully funded in order to not only properly investigate Corey Ruiz's death, but all of the other misconduct that MPD does on a weekly basis. I will say again that previously this item that was put forward by Alder Matthews and seconded by Alder Glenn had a provision to fund the office with the amount accounted for for how much was spent on policing from July 22nd to September 8th. And from the finance committee meeting, I understand that 2026 budget money must be used up in 2026. And so I would like to ask that money in the 2027 budget may be allocated to the Office of the Independent Police Monitor as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Amelia Reiko Maurer of Arena, Wisconsin, to be followed by Jacob Lang, to be followed by Liz Light. Do we have Amelia?

Do you hear me?

Yes, go ahead. Okay.

I want to thank Vice President Carmela Glenn for posting every day about the 177, which is now, I don't know, 300 something recommendations that were made to the police department and to the city in effort to avoid having someone killed again and Officers and communities and businesses and people and individuals and families totally traumatized to avoid having massive loss in confidence, to avoid traumatizing children, to avoid... Massive lawsuits. I mean, this is an example of city attorney Michael Haas's risk management plan. What you're experiencing right now is just that. Another committee to talk about. Deadly force. I mean, I have a list of hundreds of people who contributed to the 177 plus. If you weren't there, you had every opportunity to be there and give input. But now you got to have your stamp all over it. And it's just like people are dying. So I'm asking you, you have an alder who's leading very clearly on real risk management, sustainable risk management. That is Vice President Carmela Glenn. Not only is she leading, In this arena, she has a background of criminal justice. You've got a police civilian oversight board. You have an office of the independent monitor that you are paying for. We all are. They are experts. Hundreds of people and organizations contributed to the 300 plus recommendations. The only problem right now is lack of political will, lack of political spine. vengeance. It's literally like some adult version, just call it mean women, just seriously going after people as retaliation and making the whole city pay for it. Can we please stop? People are dying and being traumatized. You heard about all the businesses that could shut down.

Is this about 30 seconds left?

About 30 seconds. Please support the tiny amount of contingency funds that are supposed to be used for emergencies being shifted to the Office of the Independent Monitor. All of this is being recorded. It is a legacy that will follow everyone around like a shadow. Please stop obstructing, and please shift funds in examining how much this whole debacle has cost thus far.

Thank you. That's your time. Our next registrant is Jacob Lang of District 12, to be followed by Liz Light, to be followed by Steve Verberg. Do we have Jacob? Doesn't look like we have Jacob in the room.

I don't see Jacob online, Mayor.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Liz Light of District 12, to be followed by Steve Verberg, to be followed by Devin Snyder. Excellent. There you go.

Is this working? Amazing. Thank you. Okay, my name is Liz Light and I live and work in District 12 on the north side of Madison. I speak today in support of Agenda Item 60, Alder Matthews' resolution to transfer the $28,500 from the Contingency Reserve Fund to the Office of the Independent Monitor and to direct staff to provide a full account of costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd and today. Personally, when I organize, gather, and protest with my community, I believe we are communicating something to our fellow community members and to the people who have the power to move the needle, you all. We continue to tell you how to help us. Yes, we keep us safe, and you can help keep all of us safe by supporting independent oversight of MPD. Some of you continue to respond to this request by vilifying protesters, repeatedly telling us what you cannot do, and then directing us to navigate what often feel like toothless channels. And these channels feel toothless because these are the channels you control. And so far, you have been unwilling to tell us what you can do in many cases and what you're willing to do. I keep thinking about the ask from the city leadership to respect the family in response to the protest and community organizing efforts. And I wonder, how are you all respecting Corey Ruiz's family? Is it respectful to Corey Ruiz and his family to sick cops on people working to keep his case alive and tended to? Is it respectful to Corey Ruiz and his family to pay MPD to surveil the site where they executed him? Is it respectful to Corey Ruiz and his family to debase the oversight body that is their pathway to justice? I continue to wonder about the next family. If members of this body continue to justify state violence, minimize their own legitimate power, and blame unrest on the community seeking accountability, you are all but guaranteeing there will be a next family. Your votes, your attitudes towards your constituents, and your distortions of what is actually happening on the ground are all being noted. Justice for Tony Robinson, justice for Richard Lee Johnson, and justice for Corey Ruiz. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next registrant is, I'm going to ask folks in the gallery please not to applaud. Snapping I'll let you get away with, but we need to keep going because there's a lot of people that want to talk tonight. Our next registrant is Steve Verberg of Wendy Lane, to be followed by Devin Snyder, to be followed by Adrian McClure. Do we have Steve? Doesn't look like we have Steve in the room. Steve is not online, Mayor. Thank you. Then our next registrant is Devin Snyder of District 4, to be followed by Adrian McClure, to be followed by Miriam Hassan. Do we have Devin?

Here, can you guys hear?

Yes, go ahead.

All right. Good evening, President, members of the Common Council, and members of our community. My name is Devin Snyder, and I'm proud to serve on the Police Civilian Oversight Board. Yet I find myself here once again advocating for adequate funding for the Office of Independent Monitor. Independent police oversight is not optional. It is essential to building public trust, ensuring accountability, and promoting transparency. The PCOB and the OIM were recreated because our community recognized that accountability matters and that residents deserve competence that policing is conducting fairly and partially and with integrity. Today, however, the OIM is operating with a debilitating shortage of resources while facing extraordinary demands. We cannot expect effective oversight without providing the personal and funding necessary to perform that work. That is why I strongly support Elder Matthew's resolution to transfer $28,500 from the contingency reserve fund to the OIN. This funding is necessary to address urgent staffing and service needs and to ensure the office can continue carrying out its responsibilities. I also urge the council to direct staff to provide a full accounting of all costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22, 2026 and September 8, 2026. Transparency must remain a guiding principle, especially when public resources are involved. Finally, and most importantly, I urge you to fully fund the Office of Independent Monitor in the 2027 budget. This is about more than dollars and cents. It is about whether we are willing to invest in an accountability, transparency, and public trust. The residents of this city have made it clear that independent oversight matters. Now it is time for us to demonstrate that commitment through action. I respectfully ask you to support this resolution and ensure transparency regarding recent expenditures and provide full funding to the Office of Independent Monitoring 2027. Thank you for your time, consideration, and service to our community.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Adrian McClure of District 2, to be followed by Miriam Hassan, to be followed by T. Banks. Do we have Adrian? Adrian, you're breaking up on us.

Connection is bad, but I will say something. Adrian, we're getting about half of every word. We can't understand what you're saying. Adrian, I'm going to suggest that we come back to you and you see if you can get to a better connection. I'll keep you on the list and come back.

So let's go then to Miriam Hassan of District 15, to be followed by Tee Banks, to be followed by Autumn Jarkas.

I think my foot's asleep. I'm Miriam Hassan. I'm a resident of Madison. I don't know my district number, but I'm in Dean Anina's district. I'm writing to, I'm actually here speaking to you to ask for your support for the transfer of the 28 grand emergency funds to bring up staffing at the Office of the Independent Monitor for the rest of the year. This is an emergency stopgap measure to get through the rest of this extraordinary time. Please think about the people who have just learned about the monitor's office and have submitted complaints about MPD. Those residents put their trust in the office to look at their complaints, do fact finding, identify trends, assess them to identify policy recommendations, and report on them so that the findings can be part of the public record. That's a really important step towards accountability. That trust was earned. Please do not betray it. It's obvious from the tension and angst around the monitor that there are some values or personality conflicts going on. And I'd like to just put forward for your consideration that Their duties require a somewhat adversarial posture, and maybe that rubs people the wrong way. But in any case, it looks to me like the office is under the microscope with very scant resources. And in 2027, I'd love to see this office be able to do their best work with truly adequate resources. Finally, I'm wondering if there's anywhere I can see what the city's expenditures to date were associated with the memorial for Corey Ruiz. I believe the mayor said it was estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a news interview, so I'm very curious about the line item costs and how the city found those funds, if there was a proposal to spend contingent reserve funds or what. I'm guessing some overtime was paid out to some city workers, and it seems to me like we get more for our dollar bringing up a part-time position to 1.0 FTE than by paying overtime wages, other things being equal, which of course they aren't. It seems to me like the 28 grand won't make much difference in whether the city can respond at the same level for the next crisis especially when you factor in what the city will have to pay out to settle lawsuits if mpd continues to carry on with impunity please consider the complainants and i thank you for listening thank you

Our next registrant is T. Banks of District 14 and then we'll circle back and see if we have any of the folks that we missed. Avi Evatori, Jacob Lang, Steve Verberg, or Adrian McClure. Do we have T. Banks? Yes. Go ahead.

T. Banks, District 14, and T. Banks, I support. T, you're also really breaking up on us. I don't know if you can move to someplace with better signal.

A little bit better. Oh, hold on just a minute. Can you pause the timer, please?

Could you ask an alder to try speaking who's online to see if it's us and not these speakers?

Well, considering that some of the speakers have been able to be heard.

Right, just because we had the disruption earlier where the Zoom dropped and Alder has been frozen on the screen. It's just a suggestion.

Can we have one of the Alders who's online?

I can talk. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.

Thank you, Alder Tischler. All right, let's try again for T to see if we can hear you. Okay, can you hear me? No, I think you're still breaking up.

Okay.

Can you hear me now? That's a little better.

I actually come to experience the registry, and then I go out and get to do it here.

Yeah, I'm sorry. You're really breaking up on us. I'm going to put you again to try again after Adrian and see if maybe you can find a better signal before then. Thank you. Sorry. All right. So then let's circle back. Dewey, and I'll ask our tech staff. Oh, excuse me. Alderjohn?

If after circling back once or more than once, if we can't hear what... People have to say I would suggest maybe if they could email us their comments Yes, thank you all there.

It's a good point we do ask that if anybody is either not present when their name is called or Can't be heard for some reason that you send an alder to Excuse me an email to all alders at city of Madison comm with your comments. So the council can read them and I think most alders if not all have their laptops and can read their emails in real time. All right, so then circling back, do we have Avi Evatori, Jacob Lang, or Steve Verberg?

Mayor, I don't see them in attendance online.

Okay, thank you very much. And then let's try again with Adrian McClure of District 2.

Okay, can you hear me this time?

Oh, that's so much better.

OK, yes. Well, I wanted to speak in support of moving funding to the Office of Independent Monitor. The Williamson Street area is very important to me. A lot of things that are important to my social life is there. It's been for me and I think for many other people, a place of comfort and refuge. So it was disturbing to see it. become a place of violence especially knowing that there was another police shooting of a young black man not very long ago and uh that we i want to and many other people want to find ways to keep this from happening we're all grieving over this and some kind of action needs to be taken and i'd like to remind you all that the people of madison are watching you and will remember how you respond to this moment that's all thank you all right let's try again for t banks of district 14.

It's a little better. Let's try it.

I'm sorry. The council's shaking their heads at me. They can't hear you sufficiently.

but that did seem a little better, so let's try a few more registrants and I'll circle back again. All right, so let's try then for Autumn Jarkas of District 6 to be followed by Ariel Haber-Fawcett to be followed by Tessa Jade Price. Do we have Autumn? Doesn't look like Autumn's in the room. Autumn, you should be able to unmute yourself. You should have a there you go.

Okay, you can hear me. Yes, please go ahead. Okay. So, my name is autumn. Um, I am speaking in support of item 60. um. I spoke a lot last meeting, if anyone might remember, but just echoing what I've heard many people say today. This action item has been defanged. There was more money requested for this, but you've put it down at $28,000. Like I heard someone speak a few speakers ago, this is really a stopgap. I just wanted to say that I feel strongly that police oversight needs to be Actual oversight, well staffed, regardless of who is actually in the office and the position, the office itself should be staffed to counteract a police budget that has a really fat, fat budget. I think that it's pretty cheesy that this is coming from the city emergency funds in a time when everybody is hurting financially, maybe including city workers, including other areas that could be addressed. I think it's ridiculous that this money didn't come from our police budget. I personally want police oversight because I've witnessed too much harassment from police to civilians. I think that that's all I just want to say. I cede my time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Ariel Haber Fawcett of District 6, to be followed by Tessa Jade Price, to be followed by Tara Wood Taylor. Do we have Ariel? Okay, it doesn't look like we have Ariel in the room.

Ariel's not online, Mayor.

Thank you. So then Tessa Jade Price of District 12, to be followed by Tara Wood-Taylor, to be followed by Gregory Golombiak. Do we have Tessa?

Sure do. Can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, cool. I'm here to urge you all to support agenda item number 60 to fund the OIM 28.5k of over 1.5 million reported in the 2026 contingency fund from the finance committee. I'd also like to thank VP Glenn, Alder Matthews, and Monitor Glass for doing your jobs and fighting for the people. The city of Madison has the blood of Corey Ruiz on its hands. The least you can do is to fund the accountability process. We cannot close our eyes to the disparities. If we do not have someone analyzing the data, demonstrating the disparities, we can't fix them. For instance, this is a lovely little law, statute, whatever, obtained from the data analysts. It's 62.09, parentheses, 13A. And this says, the chief of police, it's not written in there, but it's by context, shall obey all lawful written orders of the mayor or common council. And I would urge you, both the mayor and or the Common Council, to direct the chief of police to suspend Kiel Badinger-Peterson indefinitely. That is a power that you appear to have, and that seems like something that you should be doing. I watched the violent response to the civil disobedience by police raiding Memorial, and it was brutal, and it was nasty, and it was, frankly... You declared war on a peaceful protest, and the people will never forget that. And to hear the mayor clutching her pearls at curse words is frankly ridiculous. I debated whether or not to read you George Carlin's seven words you can't say on TV, but I'll spare you the fuckery. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Tara Wood-Taylor of District 12, to be followed by Gregory Glembiak, to be followed by Sadiqa DeShazer. Do we have Tara? Doesn't look like Tara's in the room. Ah, Tara, you should be able to unmute.

Hello. Yes, I was just unmuted. Thank you. Hello. My name is Tara Wood-Taylor and I am from Madison. I actually live in your district, Mayor. I am incredibly disappointed in all of our protectors of our Madison Killer Cops. Our Madison Alders voted no to the contingency funds to fund the Office of the Independent Monitor. I am looking at you, Sabrina Madison, Sean O'Brien, Tag Evers, Bandri Lakella, Michael Verveer, and Regina Vidaver. Apologies if I've gotten any of your names wrong. People mispronounce my name my entire life. Corey's family still has no justice. You have yet a reminder. You have yet to arrest the officer, Kil Peterson, who completely executed a man in broad daylight. We all know what we saw. Refusing to fund your police accountability? is protecting your cops, your killer cops. I support Alder Matthews and Glenn's resolution to transfer only $28,500, which is mere pennies. from the $100 million of police force that was unnecessary that we all know could go to our beautiful Madison parks and protecting our lakes and our isthmus that's just gorgeous that we live on. But instead, you have chosen to fund police who kill our citizens. I don't feel safe when I see an officer. But what I did do is I felt safe for the two weeks that we had a memorial for Corey and I had no problems. I left my purse out. I was able to leave my personal belongings out. I don't know about any of y'all. Maybe when you go to a coffee shop, you can do that. But when I was there for two weeks, I felt safe. I do not feel safe with our hill peterson out there being able to go on a nice vacation wherever he is and the rest of those officers so i implore you implore you please direct the staff to provide a call a full accounting cost because we need it this is critical and the longer you take the more this fire is going to continue to get bigger your citizens are waiting about 30 seconds left They are waiting on you. We are waiting on you to have some accountability. Please stop with refusing to have any accountability. Thank you for your time and justice for Corey and justice for every other single person who has ever been brutally murdered by a police officer.

Thank you. Folks, you really can't, because we need to keep moving through. Snaps are okay. Our next registrant is Gregory Golombiak of Second Street, to be followed by Sadiqa DeShazer, to be followed by Alexander Wilburn. Greg?

Go ahead. What's up? Monitor Glass and I, myself, are being defamed with an avalanche of falsehoods. I would like to start with Alder Evers' false statements attacking me at the Finance Committee. He referenced two Facebook posts I made. He said of the first that I posted a picture of a white police officer holding a gun to the head of a black resident. Except the reality is there were no residents or civilians in the picture. It's a promotional picture from a film, and all the figures in the picture are police officers and clearly identifiable as police officers in police uniforms. In the post, I was writing about NPD being completely out of compliance with ordinance, acting lawlessly, but not providing records to us, even aside from records from the Corey Ruiz case. Referencing a second Facebook post of mine, Evers said that things, quote, have not improved, end quote, even after withdrawal of the ordinance amendment, because according to Evers, I posted criticism of the sponsoring alders after that point, but the reference post was actually made on July 26th, before the amendments had been withdrawn. Evers also said that I, quote, said it was a pernicious attempt in continuing with Tagg's statement. And pernicious, I don't need to tell you, means evil intent. Describe the evil intent of the alders who are trying to do this, end quote. Alder Everett needs a dictionary. Pernicious actually means harmful. And they actually wrote, quote, this is the post about those pernicious ordinance amendments. I didn't describe evil intent to Alders, and I didn't use the word pernicious with respect to Alders. I'm not going to say that Alder Evers lied about me because a lie requires intent to deceive. Rather, I believe that he was unfortunately so consumed with personal animosity, so biased and full of self-righteous ego, that he couldn't tell fact from fiction that his mind concocted. I also wish to speak about the latest memo from attorney Haas. Reading the memo is like reading a set of allegations from one of Trump's DOJ prosecutors without having any other information. It uses a combination of misrepresentation, some outright falsehoods, distorted one-sided claims, verbiage written to lead people to believe something untrue without technically making a false claim, etc. For example, Haas states, quote, the lack of a timely notice being published or regarding issues related to closed session discussion or other compliance with open meeting law. He doesn't, for example, actually say that the PCB violated timely notice requirements of open meeting law because no such violation occurred. You're falsely led to think that such a violation occurred. The one recent violation of open meeting law that I am aware of is at the August 5 executive subcommittee meeting where at Haas's behest, the first hour of a closed session noticed as, quote, independent monitor evaluation, end quote, was instead spent talking about city procedures for contracting attorneys or consultants. It's the usual pattern of the rules are for thee and not for me. Ha showed no compunction about having the PCB violate open meeting law under his lead when he wanted to instruct and lobby the PCB outside the public eye.

You have about 30 seconds left. What's that? You have about 30 seconds left.

I'd like the speaking time to go through the remainder of the items, but I wish to note... That's your time. Thank you.

We're going to circle back to Tee Banks and see if we can get them from District 14. To be followed by Sadiqa DeShazer, to be followed by Alexander Wilburn. Tee?

Hello, can you hear me now?

Oh my God, yes. That's so much better. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Tee Banks and I am a resident of district 14 and I support Alder Matthews resolution to transfer funding of the $28,500 from the contingency reserve fund to the office of the independent monitor for additional staffing and service costs as they are operating with debilitating shortage in funds in the face of an emergency. an emergency that you all caused. How much in overtime was paid that was your fault for handling this crisis dangerously and violently? How much are businesses and staples to our community, how much are they suffering due to your negligence and the violence that you let occur? Arrest that killer cop, Killer Kill Peterson. He needs to be in jail. He needs to be accountable. for killing Corey Ruiz. The least that you could do is give these pennies so that people that are actually brave enough to hold the cops accountable, because you won't, like the Office of the Independent Monitor, have more funds. The least that you could do for having killer cops occupy our streets is for the staff to provide a full accounting of cost associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd, 2026 and September 8th, 2026. Because I bet those hundreds of thousands of dollars could go to the office of the independent monitor. I bet that they could fund the cares unit 24 seven and make them have their own number. I bet all that money that the city has had to pay out to the past victims of police brutality could fund the true accountability and residents of Madison to intervene instead of armed police. Fully fund the Office of Independent Monitor for the 2027 budget. That's the least you can do. I yield my time.

Thank you, and thanks for your persistence. Our next registrant is Sadiqa Deshazer of District 17, to be followed by Alexander Wilburn, to be followed by Grace Mikulski. Do we have Sadiqa?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, elders, and fellow community members. Item 60, we should obviously fund... um since before the murder of corey ruiz i've asked for oversight from the city of madison and boards and council that lead our municipality sadly if this is the best we can offer we must multiply and renew our efforts to address critical issues currently the community has broken trust and lots of harm has happened Currently, Mayor, you have not held account for how you moved. You have not held account for your anti-democratic processes, such as not informing any of the alders about what you were going to do, proceeding to sign the city up for what is likely to be millions, just based on the past patterns of spending. in follow-up to this police response, what is likely to be millions in the civil payout, while we are unlikely to hold the killer cop to account in a, excuse me, in a, excuse me, the legally, we should hold them to account and will hold them to account civilly. You will end up paying as you have in the past, and we will continue to pay if we don't address these harms that are happening in our community. The police need oversight. An example I have from personal experience is working with the city in a partnership at the Macava Gardens Campground, the Madison Street Medicine Dairy Drive Project. I'm not speaking on behalf of Madison Street Medicine, no longer work with them. The point that I'm getting at here is that when we asked for accountability from the police and incidents that happened on site, we were told by the city in meetings with Jim O'Keefe that Everyone would be held to account, the police, the operators, everybody had actions that they needed to be accountable for. Yet when looking at the police reports through a Freedom of Information Act, it was clear that he assured the police that we would be the ones talked to. So if this was the lack of accountability that we receive in a low-stakes community partnership, what level of accountability can we expect when the stakes are lethal? This failure of accountability is so glaring that when the city brought in people to advise them as far as their independent board, excuse me, their Office of the Independent Monitor went, it was pretty much advised that the city needs mediation. I've heard all of theirs continue to hammer the Office of the Independent Monitor on that, like it's all their problem. Mediation takes two parties. I'm hearing a lot of alders who need to own their responses and take some accountability in that mediation. Figure out and lead. That is an example in how we should move as a community. You are in positions of leadership and you can't figure out a mediation? That's a damn shame. We've now had 60 people registered to support this funding measure, and that was in the finance meeting. The committee unanimously voted to deny it. Where is the democracy? Where is the representation of the people? This city is fiscally irresponsible. Mayor, you should resign. We're going to spend billions of dollars on retroactive police. That's your time. Refuse the baseline for accountability.

Our next registrant is Alexander Wilburn of Madison to be followed by Grace Mikulski to be followed by Barbie Jackson. Do we have Alexandra? Doesn't look like we have Alexander in the room.

I don't see Alexander online, Mayor.

Thank you. Then our next registering is Grace Mikulski of District 13 to be followed by Barbie Jackson to be followed by Kayla Riley. Do we have Grace? Doesn't look like we have Grace in the room. And I assume, Grace, you should be able to unmute yourself. You should have a prompt to unmute yourself. It might be hidden under a window. Ah, it's the other Grace. Tech staff, can you, there you go. Now you should be able to unmute yourself.

Hello, my name is Grace McCleskey and I, can you hear me first of all? Yes. Okay. And I am a resident of District 13. I am speaking in support of Agenda Item Number 60. I would like to urge everyone to support Alder Matthews and Glenn's resolution to transfer funding of $28,500 from the Contingency Reserve Fund to the Office of Independent Monitor for additional staffing and service costs and to direct staff to provide full accounting of costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd, 2026 and September 8th, 2026. and to fully fund the Office of Independent Monitor for the 2027 budget. I am also speaking as somebody who is utterly exhausted of seeing supposed leaders of this community fail to listen to their constituents, Also to dehumanize the most marginalized and vulnerable people in this community. And to see community members step up time and time and time again to urge people, to urge supposed leaders to do their jobs. And this includes my alder of District 13, Tag Ebers. I am incredibly disgusted by the number of times, almost immediately after the murder, that he called the vigil, which was a beautiful space and a very safe space, the homeless encampment in a derogatory way. And he did this on his blog post multiple times. And it is things like this that alders get away with and other leaders in this community get away with that is just so sickening. And you all are complicit in murders such as these. And you need to be, the least you can do, like T-Bank said, is to move, pennies literally just pennies this is a city that despite its deficit millions of dollars of deficit has such an inflated police budget and i remember when the community made sure back in the spring that the flock um contract was not renewed um that multiple leaders all urgently about 30 seconds left all urgently made sure that this police department that we so trust and love did not lose their $80,000 that was originally supposed to be spent on the contract to renew the renewed contract for Flock. And the least you can do is to support this agenda item. I yield my time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Barbie Jackson of District 7, to be followed by Kayla Riley, to be followed by Lizbeth Warzonik. Do we have Barbie?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Hello again. I hope the members of the Common Council will seriously consider voting in support of this operating budget amendment, as well as directing staff to provide a full accounting of costs associated with the city's critical incident response. This item was presented to the Finance Committee on August 31st. I listened carefully to the lengthy comments as they debated this proposal and then unanimously voted no and recommended placing it on file. While some of that discussion directly pertained to the specific request and the availability of funds, More importantly, from my perspective, most of the discussion was about various perspectives about the PCOB, the OIPM, and independent monitor glass following the police killing of Corey Ruiz. I believe all commenters spoke from the heart and with considerable emotion while having widely divergent perspectives of the authority invested in the OIPM and IM. and widely divergent perspectives about the, quote, activist community, which represents impacted people, whether they be unhoused community, those grappling with mental health or substance issues, the Black community, and simply those just struggling from day to day due to lack of sufficient resources for healthy and successful living. In view of these divergent comments, which, by the way, a few members of my church have expressed to me and other advocates for systemic change, I realize it is natural to have different views based on various life experiences and awareness of other people's struggles. But this is why I asked in my previous testimony for each of you to reflect on your direct experience with mental health and substance use issues. Tonight, I specifically want to address a comment Alder Evers made at the close of his remarks in August, in which he stated, quote, If things don't change, I'll be voting no in November. While I've taken this out of the context he painted, much of the context was with reference to specific individuals' remarks or behaviors. I find this to be deeply troubling. The OIPM and the PCOB are a critical component of the systemic change that must occur in Madison policing. While not speaking on behalf of Moses tonight, I will state that Moses fully supports both offices and full funding. I am thankful that President Madison and PCOB Chair Pearson were able to reach an agreement in July to, quote, pursue restorative justice, to rebuild trust, and to create a stronger foundation for the important work of police oversight, end quote. I call on the full Common Council to respect the restorative process toward assurance that there will be no future efforts to interfere with the independence and authority of the OIPM and the PCOB, and to assure the ongoing funding of these offices in 2027. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Kayla Riley of District 8, to be followed by Lisbeth Rozonek, to be followed by Sydney Zettler. Do we have Kayla? Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Kayla Riley. Many of my comrades know me as Moon. Three minutes here is not enough time to address and correct Satya's countless lies alone. Certainly not enough time to say everything I'd like to. So I could get up here and talk to you all about how out of touch with reality most of you are out here. I could talk about how deplorable your constant lies are. I could talk about the community birthed from tragedy, a community of beautiful people that alchemize their pain, love, anger, and rage into tangible action and community care. I could talk about the strangers I've come to love and trust more than some I've known a decade. I could talk about how most nights at Cory's Memorial, I felt safer to sleep on a mattress in the middle of that intersection than I did to drive home at night for fear of police pulling me over. I could tell you about the times I've been followed by police since Corey's murder. Or I could talk about the night my comrades and I were stalked and verbally harassed by an officer outside a private business for a private event. I could talk about the countless times I've seen on-house folks, our on-house neighbors, be harassed and arrested for no reason on Willie Street. Oftentimes, those of us stewarding that corner are the only ones to witness or record those events happening. I did have a section here I was going to address, Council President Madison and your claims of harassment. I know your son personally, so maybe we could talk about that later since you blocked me. More examples of lies being upheld and lack of accountability. Satya, you've been telling us to take appropriate avenues for action, and it seems to me that the IOM is not one of those avenues that we're supposed to take. Maybe you should fund it then. Yet here we are again, begging for the bare minimum, yet again. We've remained peaceful. We've played by your rules, the ones y'all are not even following. Even based on your own city policy, Cory's memorial should have been handled as a tier 2B encampment and given 24 to 72 hours to move. We were gaslit and lied to. You lied about a respectful transition. You lied and told us you would preserve memorial items and mutual aid. You didn't. You lied and told us the city would preserve that manhole in the street and you didn't. We protest genocide and war crimes you send in police to beat and bloody us. We protest police brutality and you send in police to brutalize us. You have the money to fund the IOM. You have money for drones on us, lighting candles. You have police in riot gear. Y'all have money for the IOM. There's no reason why y'all can't give this $28,000 to the Office of Independent Monitor. It's the bare minimum, really, and we're done begging for the bare minimum. The people are out here. We're united. We will not be defeated, and we will not be silenced. And next, we will take back our power, and next we'll come for y'all's jobs that y'all don't seem to want to do. I'd also like to end with reminding everyone, you cannot be violent towards inanimate objects. That's your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next registrant is Lisbeth Warzonik, to be followed by Sydney Zettler, and then we're going to circle back to the folks that we missed. Do we have Lisbeth? Hello?

Go ahead. Oh, boy. I was sitting down and writing a little blurb that I could share about my thoughts on the budget for this year and next year and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just tired. I'm tired. Friends of mine are tired. People are angry. We've been going through this for... at least six weeks as far as, as Corey, but it's beyond that. And I don't know how much I can really give you to, to just put it into the budget. Um, it's the reason why I find this so, um, is that, you know, this actually would save quite a bit of money. If we had an oversight, an office and an independent police monitor, like that person would literally bring down the cost of police officers. That's the goal. So it doesn't make sense that all these people are trying to say it over again in many different forms and try to make it clear that this is what they want because we are the people. I'm the person. You're the person. You know, like, that's what we're here to do is to, like, finally try to get it through your head and, you know, Mayor and, you know, all the... Like, it doesn't make... It makes me feel so angry and yet so... I don't even know what to say, but I will just try to say a couple blurbs. Currently, we tape... pay to people already at low amount and service costs as they're operating with low shortage in funds. If funded, OIM would bring incidents down and not as many police incidents is a smaller number than the fewer and then fewer budget. And more things like upgrade on more equipment or staff in the independent monitoring. You have about 30 seconds left. As for accountability, and if they don't have it, then they're fired and someone else who's more qualified enters. And transfer funding from the $28,000 from reverse line so OID can add additional staffing and service costs. Emergency costs funding for OIM so that they can investigate a case or more. It's an easy fix.

Thank you. That's your time. Our next registrant is Sydney Zettler of Clark Street, and then we'll try again for Ariel Haber Fawcett and Alexander Wilburn. Do we have Sydney? Doesn't look like we have Sydney in the room. You should be able to unmute. Yeah, you should be able to talk, Sydney. Hey there. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead.

All right. My name is Sydney, and I'm here to urge the council to adopt all three parts of the resolution and agenda item 60. Madison's Office of the Independent Monitor is the only entity in the city empowered to independently investigate police conduct. I want to talk about some ways that it's already worked. This work has already changed the official record on at least one death in police custody. Independent Glass's investigation into the death of Richard Lee Johnson found that Madison police officers caused Johnson's death through prone restraint, excessive force, and failure to render aid. And officers admitted key details about their use of force from official reports. The Dean County medical examiner ruled the death an accidental cocaine overdose, but Glass's independently retained forensic pathologist found no active cocaine in Johnson's blood at the time of his death and concluded the actual cause was prone restraint cardiac arrest, a finding the medical examiner's own office had missed. That kind of scrutiny takes time, expertise, and money. Since July, the Office of the Independent Monitor has been at the center of the city's response to the officer-involved death of Corey Ruiz, including a dispute over the office's authority to subpoena records from MPD and the Wisconsin Department of Justice during an active investigation, a controversy that has consumed staff time and resources. An office already operating at capacity cannot absorb a crisis of this scale, Cory Ruiz's death, and the city's response without additional support. And asking it to do so with an empty tank does a disservice to every resident who has needed its support and may need its help next. That's why the $28,500 contingency transfer matters now and not later. A full accounting of the costs the City has incurred responding to the critical incident July 22nd through September 8th is a reasonable and necessary companion step. It gives the Council and the public a clear picture of what this response actually cost before the 2027 budget is finalized, rather than guessing. An independent monitor's office is one of few tools that a city has to hold its police department accountable to the residents most affected by that disparity. There's a disparity between how Black and white people are policed in Madison, one of the worst in the country. Underfunding the office of the independent monitor now in the immediate aftermath of a death in custody, Corey Ruiz's death, an officer-involved shooting, and a public dispute over the office's own authority sends exactly the wrong message and signal about whether the city is serious about oversight when it's actually tested. Fully funding the Office of the Independent Monitor in 2027 and now is how Madison backs up its stated commitment to equity and accountability with resources to make it real. Any action short of backing these three items into item 60 is on the wrong side of history.

Thank you, that's your time. All right, let's see if we have Ariel Haber-Fawcett or Alexander Wilburn. Doesn't look like either of them are in the room. Mayor, they're both not online either. Thank you very much. Then our next registrant is Shadira Kilfoy Flores of District 6, to be followed by Robert Michael Petz, to be followed by Ashley Smiley. Shadira?

I can't express how disappointed I am to have to be here tonight. To have to beg for $28.5 thousand for the Office of the Independent Monitor to be able to do their important work. I'm really disappointed by some of our leadership's lack of response. Tomorrow will make six weeks since Corey Ruiz was killed. Have you offered condolences to his family, Mayor? It's a very simple thing. It would mean a lot. I don't appreciate the fact that I've worked side by side with many of you and given some of you stories when you've asked for it, and then in return, I was lied to. Prior to the memorial, it wasn't just an encampment, it was a memorial where people came together to mourn. Because this continues to happen. We continue to have people killed by our police who are supposed to protect and serve us, and then we're supposed to have leaders back us up as civilians. I want to say thank you to my alder, Davey Mayer, who's been showing up, who's been there in person, to Carmela Glenn, who continues to show up. And where are some of the rest of you? I saw you, Alder Yannet, leave the room and not even listen to Chip Cruz, the only person that bothered to call in. You left the room, and then when there were people talking, you talked right over them. What kind of leadership is that? You're here to listen, because you're here, you've been appointed to lead. Make some difference, make some change for the better. This Alder's work group, what a joke. There's a work group that's already been put in place to go through the MPD's policies and procedures. There was already an ad hoc committee. There was already an evaluation. And there is now the Police Civilian Oversight Board, About 30 seconds left. You have a bunch of people who are out of touch on that group as opposed to using the police civilian oversight board who are a bunch of people who have been chosen by the community. Why would you do that? To undermine the PCOB? Shame on you.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Robert Michael Petz of District 6, to be followed by Ashley Smiley, to be followed by Alex Saludos. Do we have Robert? Doesn't look like Robert's in the room. Robert, Michael, Petz, if that's you listed as Bobby, you should be able to unmute yourself. If it's not, you maybe unmute yourself and let us know that. Okay. We're going to move on and come back then. Next is Ashley Smiley of District 12 to be followed by Alex Saludos to be followed by Erica Bach. Do we have Ashley?

Thank you, Mayor. Go ahead. Thank you. First of all, I would just like to say thank you to a few alders who have taken time to speak with me in the last few weeks. So thank you to Julia Matthews, who's my alder, Carmela Glenn, and also to Tag Evers, Joanne Pritchett, and Sabrina Madison, who all took time to speak with me within the last week or so. It is my impression that we are all on the same team, effectively, that as a community, we would all like to see more funding in the Office of the Independent Monitor and that the conflict is really when that funding will be administered, whether it is in this budget year or next budget year, and how much money and what that money will effectively support. I am in the process of communicating with NACOL and the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice to get some recommendations on what adequate staffing costs would be and how many staff would be needed for a city of our size with a police force of our size to effectively run this office. So you can expect my emails on that shortly. In the meantime, I know we're all feeling really frustrated with where things are right now. And so I wanted to read an excerpt really quick from a MPD document entitled, One Year Later, Madison Protest Event Review Final. Under the header for Recommendation 5, it says, MPD should collaborate with community representatives to identify and train a group of community dialogue representatives, individuals outside of MPD who can be briefed on protester and MPD expectations for the protest and who can identify the changing needs of the protesters to MPD in ways that will maximize the ability of MPD to facilitate peaceful protests and prioritize life over property while striving to protect both. In reply to this, in this document, MPD provided this update. MPD has added information and educational materials to the Madison Police and City Parks Department websites, which can be viewed at the below URL. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. Additionally, the community dialogue team, that's part of MPD, will help create a cadre of community dialogue representatives.

About 30 seconds left.

If you're interested in being a community dialogue representative, please email Captain Ed Marshall of the East Precinct. He's very interested in talking to you. I'll see the rest of my time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Alex Saludos of District 5, to be followed by Erica Bach, to be followed by Eric Howland. Alex?

I don't know who's luckier tonight to have me up here twice. I support the OIM's mission and goals. They're as important now as they were in 2020 when you created them. We have an excellent ordinance. It's not perfect. There's certainly room for improvement. I've listened to the impassioned and heartfelt comments by Alders Glenn and Matthews about this resolution at last week's finance committee. and many more similar comments tonight. In the scheme of things, from my perspective, $28,000 is a small percentage of what the OIM needs to fulfill its mission. I understand if you won't know on this resolution given what you've seen and heard. Both sides have legitimate issues about the OIM's powers that need to be sorted out in a mutually respectful way. Here's my ask, which I know won't be popular with my neighbors and friends who support the OIM and PCOB. I urge them to step back and ask you, the alders, the council, what does the OIM and PCOB need to do to regain your trust and be funded appropriately so we can fulfill our mission that you gave us? I urge you. The Alders, the council that created this agency and holds its purse strings to be frank and tell the OIM, PCOB, what they need to do to earn your trust. And if you don't support their mission and goals, then be transparent and say so. I urge the OIM, PCOB, and their supporters to listen with an open mind and use the feedback that you get to make changes. Without your trust, the council's trust, not going to get the funding that they need worst case the oim and pcob don't have the council's trust their independence will be compromised if not eliminated let's fix the problems not the blame let's focus on the issues not the people thank you thank you our next registrant is erica bach of middleton

to be followed by Eric Holland, to be followed by Bonnie Rowe. Do we have Erica? Erica, you should be able to unmute.

Thank you all for your time here tonight. Although it is your job, I still appreciate you being present and hopefully with your listening ears. Many different sources, including security.org, have listed that the best police departments in this country are such because they have police oversight. The amount of money that we are talking about here in item number 60, $28,500, this is a soft lob for you all. This is an opportunity to show your constituents, both those who support the police department and those who are horrified by what they witnessed from our police department, in order to say that you are willing to support the urgent staffing solely through the end of 2026. It is a very bare minimum, as your constituents have told you, that all costs between July 22nd and today, September 8th, should be accounted for. From a purely financial standpoint, there's absolutely no reason why you all cannot use your police powers as dictated by statute and ordinance in order to ask your Madison Police Department how much money they are spending. On the Dane County... side of things, I know that they need to have approval for anything over $10,000. Anywhere in scouring the internet, find out what is the amount of money that the Common Council gets to approve as a pre-expenditure. So one, I think it needs to be very clear and transparent to your constituents. How much money can a department spend without Common Council approving that? And that should apply to the Madison Police Department. And the two, that needs to be held to account. If there is a set amount of money that this council needs to approve from any of the other departments, HR can't spend over a number of dollars, how much can the Madison Police Department spend? And if it is any more than $20,500, this is very small to the OIM. Things are getting extremely personal.

It looks like we lost Erica. How much time do they have left? Okay, if Erica logs back on we'll give her her last 50 seconds. So let's go on then to Eric Howland of District 13 to be followed by Bonnie Rowe to be followed by Indigo Erlenborn. Do we have Eric?

Yes. Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor and Council, for the chance to speak. My name is Eric Howland. I'm a member of MOSES, but speaking for myself. I've spoken before about the value of the independent monitor, and I don't want to repeat myself. I can just say that I agree with the MOSES Cap Times op-ed that itemized the benefits of the office of the independent monitor, like a previous speaker here did tonight. I'm going to make an argument about workload. Almost everybody agrees that police oversight is important, regardless of their other opinions about how oversight should be accomplished. Additionally, it's clear that the workload for the Office of the Independent Monitor increased relative to the events surrounding the death of Corey Ruiz, and also because of the increased requests for investigations resulting from the increased awareness that the office exists. In the mayor's proposed 2026 budget, The Mayor's 2025 budget proposed cutting the Office of the Independent Monitor by 46%. With a budget note, given delays in staffing and setting up the office, the 2025 budget was the first opportunity to right-size the budget for ongoing operations. Fortunately, about half of those cuts were restored in 2005. But the budget for the Office of the Independent Monitor has been significantly reduced relative to the initial estimates of what was needed. This is not the moment that the Office of the Independent Monitor will be right-sized. But it is a moment that the Office of the Independent Monitor can be supported through the rest of the year with this additional workload. That seems like beneficial for everyone. I request that you support it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. It looks like we have Erica back. Can we let her finish?

Thank you all. I appreciate that. I think I cut off when I was saying that this is getting extremely personal between elected officials and members of the public. And what I'd like to really ask you all to do is bring this back to the public trust. Some of the money being proposed tonight is specifically to attend NACOL, building public trust through law enforcement accountability and transparency. There's absolutely no reason that as elected officials, you wouldn't want that public trust with your police department. Based on my personal experience at the memorial for Corey Ruiz, sometimes from 7 a.m. up until at times 3 a.m. About 30 minutes or 30 seconds left. Thank you. In the days that followed the tearing down or the destruction of the intersection, I was one of four individuals. There were eight officers and 14 different squad cars that drove through that intersection over a 40-minute period. Each and every one of you should be questioning the amount of overtime that is getting paid so that we can right-size, that we can avoid the excessive use of deadly force that followed, and that we continue to build this public trust instead of these personal conflicts. Please authorize 20.5, and we'll continue the rest of the conversation.

That's your time. Thank you very much. All right, so our next registrant is Bonnie Rowe of District 11, to be followed by Indigo Erlenborn, to be followed by Sarah Lowenberg. Do we have Bonnie?

Yes, good evening, Mayor and members of the Common Council. I was relieved to witness a unanimous no vote on this item at the Finance Committee meeting. There are many good reasons for that, and I hope you will all stick with your vote despite intense political pressure. I believe I'm speaking for the majority of silent Madisonians on this issue. Those of us who want civilian oversight of police, but who want a fair and objective oversight, unlike what we've seen in this ongoing iteration of the Office of the Independent Monitor. I strongly oppose any additional funding at this time. Social media rants and other public statements by the staff of this office demonstrate strong bias and a complete lack of professionalism and objectivity. Outcomes are predetermined before even conducting an investigation. There's no way the staff of this office can fairly investigate anything having to do with the Madison Police Department. We need police oversight, but it needs to be legitimate. This office, by the statements and conduct of its staff, appears to have prejudged any and all matters before conducting an investigation. Many residents I have spoken with or seen on social media have lost confidence in this office. The office, with its current staff, is a huge liability for the city. It operates with complete disregard for city APMs and processes. They fail to adhere to budget instructions and attend an important budget meeting. They have hired at least one investigator without a legal contract. They have retained legal counsel with no scope of work, contract, invoice, or retainer. They have failed to adhere to city processes and procedures established as protections by the mayor and council, opening up the city to financial and reputational risk. The office appears to have violated the state's open meeting laws. The office is refusing to be represented and advised by the office of the city attorney. There have been compliance issues with Fair Labor Standards Act and ordinances on overtime. There are concerns that an employee in the office was working from another country without a valid telework agreement on file. There have been allegations of stalking and coercive behavior by an OIM employee. There are many more issues. As you probably know, the city cannot afford this level of liability and risk. And why should an office that does not follow rules and procedures itself be paid more to give oversight to the police department and expect them to follow policies and procedures?

About 30 seconds left.

All right, thank you. Have a good evening.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Indigo Erlenborn of District 12, to be followed by Sarah Lowenberg, to be followed by Christina Tenuta. Do we have Indigo?

Go ahead. Wonderful. My name is Indy, but you can call me Indigo. I'm not going to speak to you ideologically or emotionally, but I will spit facts from the heart. Instead, I'm going to speak in a language you do understand. Here are some things that you guys have spent money on from the contingent reserve in the past. In 2021, you spent $35,000, a little bit more than this, on outside private legal counsel and property tax litigation involving Section 42. The contingent reserve regularly functions as a budget shock absorber for just random stuff and bad budgeting all the time. 1.9 million in 2023 was appropriated for misbudgeting. 2.1 million for projected agency shortfalls in 2025. And what's my point? Okay. So this year... uh you've used 70k for madcap 100k for facility maintenance and 400 000 for election uh deficits But of the full $2.2 million contingent reserve, as of today, there is $1.58 million available. That means that 73.5% of it is unspent, and there's only 31% of your fiscal year left. If you fund the OIM, it will take up 1.33% of the original reserve and 1.8% of the remaining reserve. In other words, you'll still have $1.55 million to spend in four months. you will still have 72 percent of the reserve left instead of the current 73.5 that you have right now clutching your pearls about that is frankly embarrassing the city of madison budget i will elaborate more beyond the contingent reserve is wait for it 452.7 million dollars We are requesting 0.0063% of the budget of the city of Madison, a whopping 0.029% of the police department's budget, which I know firsthand to be $98.3 million, as Chief Patterson answered me face-to-face when I asked him if it was $98.5 million at the end of the first press conference after Cory's murder, perhaps you remember.

You have about 30 seconds left.

Which, in other words, we are asking you to devote six thousandths of 1% of the city budget in order to somehow monitor the recipients of one fifth of the city budget. Over 20% goes to the police who walk around with guns, qualified immunity. That's your time. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next registrant is Sarah Lowenberg of District 6, to be followed by Christina Tenuta, to be followed by Janae Thompson. Do we have Sarah? Doesn't look like we have Sarah in the room. Are you online? Yeah, go ahead, Sarah.

Okay. I am Sarah. Honestly, I am tired and you guys have had the opportunity to hear the community over and over and over and you've chosen not to listen. So I don't think that me reiterating or saying things differently is going to get through. I implore you to act with integrity. I support giving the money and allocating the funds for police oversight. I'm not going to Reiterate, I'll just say that I echo all of my community members before me, and I do want to amplify the voices of my children. I have a 10-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a four-year-old. Mayor Satya, I did show my 10-year-old. As a family, we spent lots of time at the memorial. We were there nearly every day for several hours. including my children. I showed my 10-year-old your press release about the memorial and he looked at me in confusion. I did not preface it by saying anything. I just showed him the press release just to see what he thought of what you said. He looked at me with confusion and he said, did she ever go there? What is she talking about? I didn't see anything of that. And he was very confused. And my kind of crass eight-year-old, who I joke is an 85-year-old stuck in an eight-year-old butt spotty, just goes, nope, clearly she wasn't there. So act with integrity. You say you support your community. You haven't since you were elected. You speak out of one side of your mouth and you do not actually in tangible ways support the community when we are asking directly in many different ways. Do better. Like police oversight should be a no-brainer. It should be a given. It should be something that everyone wants. I yield my time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Christina Tenuto of District 6, to be followed by Janae Thompson, and then we'll circle back for Robert Michael Petz. Do we have Christina?

Go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Christina Tenuta and I'm here to support Alderman Matthews resolution number 60. I'm here to urge the council to allocate emergency funding to replenish the neglected office of the independent monitor so the office can properly investigate police killings. I'm asking the council to fully fund the office of independent monitor in the 2027 budget. I am a resident of district number six. I live two blocks from the intersection of Willie and Baldwin where Corey Ruiz was killed. I saw two things when I went there. First, I spent time at the intersection and witnessed the vigil and memorial for the life, the lost life of Corey Ruiz. It was a place of community, compassion, humanity, and healing. It was an exercise of civil disobedience. I saw something else. I also saw the intersection of Willie and Baldwin on the morning that the vigil was destroyed. It was a forceful use of state violence. I turned the corner on two occasions and was met with a wall of police officers. This was a location where state violence forcibly took action against people, vulnerable people, unhoused people, mentally ill people, and hurting people. This is why oversight is needed and why this resolution should be passed. I urge the council to pass resolution 60. Thank you. I yield my time.

Thank you. Our next registrant is Janae Thompson of District 17 to be followed by Robert Michael Patz. Do we have Janae?

Hello. So for all of the reasons all of these other community members have mentioned, I'm in support of the $28,000 that the Office of Independent Monitoring is asking for. But also I want to raise that we shouldn't be distracted by what's going on. We are right now currently in this meeting in a rat race for scraps. These are not the demands that community has been uplifting for over a month. We talked about strengthening the Police Civilian Oversight Board and Office of Independent Monitoring. And we're talking about at least 2% to 5% of the police budget when we're talking about strengthening the board, right? These recommendations come from national committees that have policies on oversight. And in actuality, the people of Madison, we want to go above that. when we talk about empowering the Police Civilian Oversight Board and Office of Independent Monitoring, not just 2% to 5%, actually 5% to 10%, and at least 5% of that money coming from police pensions, especially when misconduct occurs. Because time and time again, it is the residents who are bearing the burden of police and state sanctioned violence in our communities. Another demand that we talked about was handing all the evidence over to the Office of Independent Monitoring so that they can conduct complete informal investigations into the misconducts of the Madison police. And instead of pouring millions into state-sanctioned violence through occupying armies, investing in community... community care, and defunding the police. When we talk about victim services, when we talk about mutual aid, when we talk about community care, education, housing, all of those things that were occurring at the memorial site, those are alternatives to policing that community is looking for, not state sanctioned violence what the mayor promotes. And so all of these different things, especially when we were here on April 21st talking about the ordinances and they were eventually deferred to the August 4th meeting, the day y'all so violently raided the memorial sites. We talked, y'all had the opportunity to hear directly from community about the impacts of the Office of Independent Monitoring, of the impacts of the Police Civilian Oversight Board, what it looks like when victim services aren't funded, when state sanctioned violence is funded instead, all of these things we predicted long before Corey Ruiz was murdered, long before Tony Robbins was murdered. So I ask y'all how many of our community residents have to die before y'all strongly consider that the decisions that you make are moral documentations, the budgets that you hold are moral documents and they matter more than your votes, They matter more than the press conferences that y'all do, the interviews that y'all do with media outlets instead of going to the memorial site and actually engaging with the people, all of those things. $28,000 is not enough, and it will never be enough in a world where police and state-sanctioned violence exists.

Thank you. I'm just going to check. I see you all there, but I'm just going to check one more time if we have Robert Michael Petz either in the room or online.

Mary, I don't see Robert online.

Okay. Thank you very much. So that is the last register we have wishing to speak. Alder Harrington-McKinney?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I request a recess of five minutes, ten minutes.

Can we see if there are questions first? Yes. Let's just check, Alder. Thank you. Are there questions for any of the registrants on item 60? Seeing none, then Alder Herring to McKinney moves a 10 minute recess. Is there a second? Moved and seconded for a 10 minute recess. Is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of a 10 minute recess? Seeing no objection, let's say we come back at 9.10. All right, folks, 910 has arrived. If I can have the Alders on Zoom come back and turn your cameras on. And the Alders in the room, please take your seats again. If I can have the Alders in the room, please take their seats. Alder Verveer. Alder Figueroa-Cole. Alder Martinez-Rutherford. Alder Pritchett. The hour of 9.10, having come and gone by one minute, I will call the Common Council back to order and ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Sorry, Alderman is present. Alderman Zegwu. Can you hear me now? All right. Thank you very much. Alderman Zegwu.

You say you're present. You just you can just say it. It's OK.

I'm present. Thank you all in Zego is present. Although Brian O'Brien is present, although which or how much is present or Pritchett or Pritchett is present or Tishler.

Yep, I'm still here.

Tishler is present all of it or. Here there is present all the young. Alder Evers. Alder Evers is present. Alder Field. Alder Field is present. Alder Figueroa-Cole. Alder Figueroa-Cole is present. Alder Glenn. Alder Glenn is present. Alder Ugair. Alder Ugair is present. Alder Harrington-McKinney. Alder Harrington-McKinney is present. Alder Linkella. Alder Linkella is present. Alder Lieberman. Alder Lieberman is present. Alder Madison. Alder Madison is present. Alder Martinez-Rutherford. Alder Martinez-Rutherford is present. Alder Matthews. Matthews is present. Madam Mareway of O'Quorum. Thank you. All right. Apologies. Alder Revere is present as well.

Thank you. Let the record reflect. All right. Our first item then to take up is item four, which is Legislature 93802, an appeal of the Landmarks Commission's approval of a land division at 113 Eli Place in the University Heights Historic District. And on item four, we're going to start with an overview from our planning director, and then we'll go to questions for staff. Director Tuttle?

All right, good evening, Alders. I have the privilege of starting this item for you tonight, and I get to start with all of the fun things about what are you doing with this item. Some of this may sound familiar because we've seen a couple of appeals of various items at the Council over the last several months, and I know that we have a lot of discussion about how to help you navigate the specific standards of the ordinance that you'll be reviewing so I'm going to start with just a bit of an overview about that. So for those of you that are may not be familiar this item relates to an appeal of the Landmarks Commission specifically to an approval for a land division within a historic district. Throughout this presentation we are probably going to refer to this application as a certificate of approval or a COA. This approval was issued by the Landmarks Commission to divide Eli Place into two lots. This approval has been appealed by a neighboring property owner. And when decisions of the Landmarks Commission are appealed, they come to the Common Council for a decision. In this process, the council will be acting as what we call a quasi-judicial body. That means that it's your job to review the Landmarks Commission's ordinance, and specifically the standards that apply to the application that was made, and decide if the outcome of the Landmarks Commission's action was consistent with the standards that they needed to review. in this case the standards that you will be looking at are under mgo 41.18 subsection 4. this is for standards of approval for land divisions The action tonight is not about making policy or deciding if we like or don't like what is proposed before us or speculating on what might happen on the property as a result of any action to look at this appeal. The council is really asked to look directly at the information about this land division that was submitted to the Landmarks Commission and make a determination on whether they consistently applied the standards of approval or not. The preservation planner, Heather Bailey, here in just a second, will actually run through a couple of slides to just make sure that everyone is briefed on the issue that the Landmarks Commission reviewed, as well as the standards that are used to make determinations about land divisions in historic districts. We also have Assistant City Attorney Kate Smith here. If you have any questions about this ordinance, about this process, appeals, and your role in it, she can help us with those. I also want to note that some of you, maybe many of you have received communications from folks that have an interest in this appeal about other things that the property owner may wish to do with the property. That is also not relevant to tonight's discussion. If there were to be any further development or alterations on either of these properties, since they're in a historic district, they would be required to submit applications for that work, and they would be reviewed under the standards that apply to whatever that work is at that time. We do also know that this applicant has not submitted the formal application to divide this land under a different part of our ordinance. So we're not making decisions on that tonight either. We're specifically looking at whether the land division can be approved from a historic district perspective. So as I'm finishing up here, I'll just ask Heather to go ahead and pull up the slides that she's gonna share with you. After considering the appeal tonight, you can take any of the following actions, and the council should state its findings related to a motion that it might make. One option that you can take is to deny this appeal. You would take this action if you find that the Landmarks Commission applied its standards of approval appropriately, and that you agree with that use of their standards. You could approve the appeal, and in approving it, either reverse or somehow modify the Landmarks Commission's action. This would be appropriate if you think that the Landmarks Commission erred in some way in applying its standards to this application. In this case, you should specifically cite what you found was interpreted or applied incorrectly. And finally, you could also refer it back to the Landmarks Commission with specific direction on how they should reevaluate the application and act. So, Heather will outline more of the details about what was proposed here and will be available to answer any questions that you have.

Okay. Thank you. So, I have a rather confusing drawing up here on the screen and I will talk through some of those details in an attempt to make it less confusing. So why we are here. So this is for what Director Tuttle already said, an appeal of a certificate of approval that Landmarks Commission approved for a reconfiguration of this property. So the property contained two platted lots and this little sliver of a third lot. And so the final new configuration would still have two platted lots. So what I have up here is on the left hand side we have the current configuration. And so we have the outline of the property in question that's addressed as 113 Eli Place and it already has that flagpole that comes down around another property. On the right hand side, we have a drawing that shows the reconfiguration would have all of the buildings on one lot and then the other lot would be vacant. And by vacant, I mean it currently doesn't have any buildings on it. So right now, for the property lines, there are two platted lot lines that run through the garage. And so you see that there on the left-hand side, there's a kind of faint outline there of where the garage is that is behind the house. So the proposal would move that lot line and get rid of the little smidgen of the other one and move it so that it is on the other side. So the garage and the house would be on one property and then the other property is currently undeveloped.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll just briefly interject here to say that the map on the left that you're looking at includes both parcels in the way that you might think about a parcel if you were buying a property, what you might see on your deed if you were to see a map of your property that you were purchasing. It also shows the orange lines that represent the way that neighborhoods were legally basically established. We call those old platted lines. And in the case of people applying to the city to change the boundaries of property, we look at both of these types of boundaries. and when folks are actually applying to us to change property boundaries we look at opportunities to clean up those underlying legal lines and make modifications to them to make them more consistent with the broader you know property that they may see so we do look at both of these in different city processes and in the case of the landmarks commission's review of land divisions and combinations, we do look at both of these patterns of lots in making a determination.

Okay, so Director Tuttle talked through the standards of approval. Here they are up on the screen. And I want to say the way the ordinance is written, it's in the affirmative in that the direction there is that the Landmarks Commission will approve land divisions and combinations unless, so there needs to be something that would prevent the Lambros Commission from doing the approval. And so for this particular property we were looking at, would it be incompatible with adjacent lot sizes? And Lambros Commission spent some time talking about how you go about assessing what is compatible for the adjacent lots. And adjacent lots would be those that share a property line. So how are we looking at the ways in which they would be compatible? And so with that, part of the discussion was they were looking at, okay, so for those adjacent lots, what are the sizes of the properties that are touching those lots? And they use that as for looking at how they would judge what would be compatible for the adjacent lots. Also for that gets more fine grained and then we can step back for a larger perspective or fail to maintain the general lot size pattern of the historic district. So that's looking at the history of the development in a given historic district and the history of development in University Heights has had a lot of changes over time. One of the things that was brought up by the appellants was the definition of lot and looking at several different definitions and state statute in MGO 16 and 28 but the definition that we have to use for land risk mission purposes is the definition that's in chapter 41 which is the historic preservation ordinance. So What Megan was talking about earlier, that we have to look at the legally platted lots. Yes, there is the legal lot of record, which is what shows up on your property deed. But the language for this particular property says that it's got, I think it's lots one and four and a portion of three of the rosé replat. So yes, there is the parcel boundary, which is the legal lot of record. And then we also have to take in consideration, highlighted the or up there, the legally recorded plat. And so for this particular property, it was the rosé replat, which was recorded a century ago. So I've outlined both of those there, that we have both of those things that we have to take a look at. For the policy, I want to say the historic preservation ordinance is about sensitively incorporating redevelopment. It is not a tool for exclusionary zoning. It is the ways in which these places change and the design tools to look at making sure that these places are able to continue to convey their historic associations, why they are significant. So all of the work that happens at Landmarks Commission is about reinvestment in these properties and redevelopment of these properties. It is how these places change. So with that, any new construction that may or may not happen on the vacant area of this property would have to meet the standards for new construction for infill in the historic district, which is something that would be reviewed and approved by the Landmarks Commission and it's the same set of standards that are for everyone. Okay, so for council actions, Megan talked through the process, but it comes down to you looking at and finding if the Commission's decision is contrary to the standards for approval. So this is straight from my staff report and sort of written out here for possible findings. That's just language out there for you. You of course are the deciders on this and so for any of the actions that you would take, you need to state your findings, your reasons for why you are making this decision. I think that goes with, oh, I had here for, that somebody had asked how many land divisions happen in the historic districts. The rule for Landmarks Commission approving land divisions and combinations was added to the Historic Preservation Ordinance in 2015. So the first year that we started tracking them was 2016. So you have those there. Of the, well, I will say that one in 2022, the one no ended up coming back in with a reconfiguration that Landmarks Commission approved. So one of those kind of gets double counted. But this doesn't happen with great frequency, but it is something that happens nearly every year. And since 2016, we have had two appeals of land divisions and combinations in the historic districts.

Okay, thanks.

I'm done.

Okay, thank you both. Are there questions for staff? Alder Okovitz?

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Preservation Planner Bailey. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the landmarks discussion around compatibility. Sure. And what that means. Sure.

The language in the preservation ordinance talks about if it is incompatible, but it doesn't define how you go about assessing compatibility. And that is because every property is different. And so you need to look at pardon the phrase, the lay of the land for a particular situation. Different blocks in all of our historic districts have developed in different ways. So what is compatible in this part of University Heights is going to be very different from So this area, well, what I said at the meeting was there's a lot of swoopiness going on. You have more curvilinear streets and very oddly shaped properties, whereas if you get around to the edges of University Heights, it is much more of a traditional grid pattern. The way you would look at what is compatible in the more traditional grid pattern is going to be very different for how you're looking at compatible sizes in this area that is very swoopy.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you, Alder Laberman. Don't press it once it goes on.

I was just waiting for it. Actually, I'm just thinking about, I think that answers my question as well.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Wittever?

Thank you. Director Bailey, I'm going to ask you to one more time revisit the question of Lott versus Platt. I know you explained it and you explained it quite well, but I want you to try to help us through the appellants. argument and their concerns about the lot versus plat issue and how you have kind of helped to guide us in our decision-making about that.

Let me reshare and get back to, oh, come on. The definition. Okay. So The lot, sorry, I'm gonna read words that are up on a screen, I apologize. Lots mean a tract of land, and so designated by meets and bounds, land survey, minor land division. Those are the things that are recorded in the property deed, and so what you are selling, and then what you own. But also, These properties, there is a legally recorded plat, which is the layout of the properties for an area. So to separate out about lots, for something that would come to Plan Commission and not to Land Works Commission, for let's say somebody is creating a new neighborhood, you would plat out the neighborhood. That means you would establish what we call a certified survey map that would lay out the lots in a given neighborhood. But the thing is, after that, for how people deal with the lots, maybe they buy two right next to each other and they convey those as a single transaction. for if you were going to build something that would cross those lot lines building uh code won't allow you to build a building that crosses a property line so you would need to dissolve that so you would need to come back in for legally dissolving that property line all of these lines are imaginary you don't see them um in person but they are that's why we have these recorded maps and properties um So we have to look at both what is legally plotted, planned out for the development, and also what is the reality of the lands that are being transacted. Does that answer your question?

Yes. I just was trying to get to the confusion over lot and plot. And it is a confusion that is common. And we heard it from the appellants and we heard it at the Landmarks Commission meeting as well. And in fact, I asked you there, right, are we talking about a lot or a plat? And you said yes.

Yes.

And so I think you've well described the challenges of that. these spaces. And so I just wanted it to be reiterated because not everybody may have been as involved in this as I have.

Yes, ma'am. And for For the city's purposes, well, so I'm down in the basement of the MMB. So for planning and building division, building inspection, we were talking about that this is an ongoing challenge. This is a challenge that the development planners face with what we talk about, where these underlying unresolved lot lines and, you know, People aren't necessarily seeing that. It's also a difficulty for zoning. When we talk about the, well, you'll need to deal something with this underlying lot line. But we didn't have a way for people to see that. So the maps that are up here are actually from the new public-facing GIS application. for people to be able to see what is actually going on with their properties. And it was this project where I went to our GIS folks and said, can we make something that is available for the public to see? So it's not just people show up and I say, take my word, there is this plat that you need to go find that here are these lines and I can see it on my side, but you can't see it on your side. That's not... That is not the way to proceed. So this is now available up publicly so people can turn on the platted lot lines and so you can see the platted lot lines on your own and not go and do in-depth research at the Register of Deeds to find out what the platted lot lines are for your property or take staff giving you a screenshot of what they're showing from city internal GIS. in an effort to try to provide a little bit more clarity for folks.

Thank you. Alder Shawn. Oh, hold on, there you go.

Okay, one of the speakers tonight mentioned that this area, the new smaller lot has been undeveloped for a very long time. What is the intent, number one, what is the intent behind dividing it into two lots?

So that isn't something we can take into consideration. Okay. The what are you going to do with it? We don't have, the Land Works Commission doesn't have the right to ask that. Okay. And even if that came in, our standards of approval are about the lot configurations. They're not about what are you going to use it for. For the what are you going to use it for, If they're going to construct something on this, then it would need to come in for a certificate of approval for whatever it is they're going to construct. But these are separated. The land reconfiguration is strictly about the standards for looking at the land configuration.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Alder. Alder Pritchett?

Could you put the options up there again, the ones where we could either accept the appeal, deny the appeal, and or the third of which was to reevaluate? Could you put those options up there?

So the options are that you can deny the appeal if you found that the Landmarks Commission complied with the standards of approval. You could approve the appeal if you thought that they incorrectly interpreted those standards or incorrectly applied them somehow. Or you could refer it back to the Landmarks Commission with some kind of specific direction about how to reevaluate.

So my question is this. Is there a portion of number three that's embedded in number one?

No. I believe, and Attorney Haas can weigh in here, or Assistant Attorney Smith can weigh in here, I believe if you take action on number one, the appeal has been decided, and the appellant's option at that point would be to appeal it to court. That would be considered a final action. So you can't do number three and number one together. I think if you had a concern that something had not been reviewed sufficiently, you would use option three and send it back to the Landmarks Commission with some direction about what you need them to look at again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Tischler?

Yeah, I have a question for Heather Bailey. Do we know historically how we kind of got to this point with the parcel, with the configuration? I'm thinking mainly that kind of sliver that hangs down to an adjacent street.

So that is from the Rosé replat. Why Rosé replatted it that way, I don't know. We don't have any language that says why he decided to configure those properties the way that he did. So yeah, it's been that way for more than a century or maybe a little less than a century. Go ahead.

So it was like a path there or something that somebody wanted to keep shortcut to get to their property.

That would be speculation on my part. I don't know.

Okay. I'm just curious, looking back historically at the cultural landscape. But my follow-up question then is regarding, because it looks like a flag lot, which I understand is a relatively new zoning for the city. But are there any other examples in the historic district of a flag lot?

Not really. Let me get back up to you because you can kind of see. Okay, so over on the far left side, if you go across Ely Place, you can see there's a little bit of a flag lot, but it's not a flag lot going out to the street. It's going out towards the back, and I believe that one's for connecting to a shared driveway because there's not an easy way to get to driveways. This particular historic district has very oddly shaped properties. There are no other ones in University Heights that have a flag lot that goes out to the street. Having said that, this land division would not create the flag lot. The flag lot is already there.

I guess the last one is looking at reading the report there. If divided, is it less than 40% of the average size of the adjacent lots? Is that accurate?

So, again, it depends on how you configure. Because if we're looking at the platted lots, no. If we're looking at the legal lots of record, so what is the parcels, then yes, there is some variation in size there. But then looking at the... Okay, so for the way Lammers Commission looked at the compatibility, they looked at the properties that share a lot line with the proposed properties... that we're talking about reconfiguring. And so with that, for what is compatible in terms of the size, Landmarks Commission looked at, okay, well, what are the properties that are touching these properties and looking at the configuration all around. You can see there's two tiny little postage stamp size lots over there on the far side of this block, right on the opposite side of one of the adjacent there. There is a mix of sizes. The parcels that are on this half of the block tend to be larger, but we also have, again, the platted underlying lot lines that legally could be divided down. So we have to look at all of the configuration there.

But in a previous slide, you had language saying parcel or lot. There we go. Not and or. So when the Landmarks Commission was looking at this, which were they looking at?

They're looking at all of it. Hence, when Alder Wittever asked the question at Lammers Commission of, are you looking at the plat or are you looking at the legal lot of record? My answer was yes. We are looking at both. We have to.

Okay. So either one of them can be correct or both of them.

We have to deal with both of them.

Okay. All right. No further questions.

Thank you, Alder Wittever.

Sorry, I'm going to belabor this a little bit more. Plat, parcel, lot. Can you... So this says lot or plat. And so where does parcel come in?

So it's not in there because parcel is a tax designation. It is something that the assessor's office does. And it may or may not relate to... what is included for the lots of record. It can be larger, it can be smaller, and that can change through the assessor's process. But that, for the parcel size and configuration, that isn't governed by anything that the planning division handles. That is handled by the assessor's office. So the parcel tends to also be the legal lot of record for what is recorded in the Dane County Register of Deeds, but not always. And people can change the parcel configuration and it doesn't require any approvals from the planning division from that side of the shop for the city.

And then I'm going to go back and belabor the adjacent again. I'm sorry. Can you go back to the maps and just show... So the adjacent... Lots, I think. I'm very confused about lots and flats myself. But the adjacent lots, I believe, the one that is due north of what is the current garage at 113 Ely and the one that is due east of the proposed flag lot, what is the size of those compared to the proposed new lot? Yes. Can you just remind us?

I do not remember off the top of my head. That was in my slide for Landmarks Commission, and I apologize. I don't have that pulled up.

That's okay. But, like, I believe that's what Landmarks was looking at. Is that correct, that they found that those were adjacent and that they were compatible? Do I have the right recollection? That is correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the, oh, Alder Figueroa-Cole. Thank you, Mayor.

I forgot your name.

Heather, thank you.

Heather Bailey, sorry. So you answered all the questions that I was going to ask, so thank you for the presentation, but can you repeat again, What, when you were talking about the 2015 work and how this work is, our job is to make this, not to be exclusionary on this process, but to actually promote the protection of the landmark as well as in field. Can you please repeat those words? Because I struggle with, I struggle with, with the expectation that is out there about what these ordinances are about. Can you please repeat exactly what the work that you guys did to update the ordinances actually means when it comes to line divisions such as this one? Sure.

The regulatory side of the work that Landmarks Commission does is about conserving these resources for the general public. It is not just for the folks who own those properties. You're gonna hear me say this again for the next project as well. With the historic preservation plan, we're looking at the state of our historic preservation program after 50 years, and we found that it was not particularly equitable. We had been telling a very white, male, and wealthy story, and that is not telling a complete history of the city of Madison. So we are looking at how can we go about being more equitable in how we do historic preservation. Of the stuff that we already have designated, it is for all of the people of Madison, not just for those who live there. I super appreciate the people who live there and continue to invest in those properties. But historic preservation is not a tool for exclusionary zoning. It is not a tool to stop development or keep development out. It is a tool for making sure that the ways in which we are changing these places, that they are still able to convey their historic associations. And I talk about historic preservation not as a tool for placemaking. We talk a lot about, well, in planning division, we like to do lots of placemaking activities. But historic preservation for me is a mechanism for place knowing. These stories are already there. That is our connection to the past, is our connection to the present for the stories that we tell, for the people who we are, and also to something that we as a city, putting a local historic designation on these places, we are conserving them for future generations of people to, again, continue to tell the story of who we are as Madison. So with that, the standards that we have in place are meant to be fair and equitable for everybody and accessible for everybody. They are not tools for keeping people out of a neighborhood.

Thank you. If you don't have anyone on the queue, I'm ready for a motion.

We do have one other question in the queue, Alder. Alder Tischler?

Just out of curiosity, the little sliver that's on Summit Avenue, how wide is that?

One of the... One of the pieces of feedback that we gave them was that for when they come in for the certified survey map to plan commission, they need to show dimensions for how wide it is all the way across for what the street frontage is. I want to say it's 15 feet. Is it closer to 10? But they need to show for the certified survey map, if and when that goes to plan commission, they need to show the dimension across that area. sliver that comes down the flagpole area.

Okay, so we don't, so Aldervidavir was shaking down your head that it was closer to 10, so it's 10, so okay.

But again, we're not creating that, that's already there.

Right, but if we're creating a space that, so we're creating a space that most likely cannot be used for development.

Right. So if the appeal is denied tonight and this land division is allowed to proceed, the next thing that the applicant would need to do is to actually submit an application through what is called a certified survey map, which is our technical process that deals with land divisions. And that would include verifying that all of the requirements for how big this property needs to be to meet the zoning code, how wide parts of it need to be, including in this case, to meet the definition of that deep residential lot or flag lot, that all of those specific requirements can be met, including the width of that section that meets the street.

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other... Alder's in the queue for a motion. Alder, Figueroa-Cole.

I move that we, okay. Heather, I wrote the line here, but can you please bring that up again, thank you. I move that we deny the appeal based on the Landmarks Commission's decision complied with the standard of approvals for this property.

Second. It's a motion and a second to deny the appeal. Alder Figueracol, do you wish to speak to it?

No, I think I... I mean, I don't know if anyone had the chance to watch the... Landmarks Commission meeting, but I did and the discussion there was pretty robust Yeah, I don't I don't think under the current ordinances we are we had the information of the validation to do not to Do not allow for the line to happen so so like that Thank You other other poets

Oh, there you go. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, we talked about it a lot. I was talking about landmarks, but it seems like the lot, the new lot size is clearly compatible with the adjacent lot sizes and it maintains the general lot size pattern of the historic district. I mean, there are lots of the same size all over. As preservation planner Bailey mentioned, this is part of a pattern of University Heights having a lot of lot divisions and combinations. And when we consider not just the current lots, but also the historic plats or the current plats, it still manages to maintain that general pattern. So thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Wittever.

Thank you. So I want to say that I am deeply sympathetic to the neighbors who have stood up for their neighborhood. They love their neighborhood and they want to see its history preserved. and many of their concerns are very much centered on what could be built on this site. That is not the situation that is before us today. I do have deep concerns about whether something can be built on this site should the applicant wish to try to build on the site and would make those concerns known at landmarks and other spaces. But we are being asked to interpret the ordinance as it stands today. And very frankly, I think the ordinance is in need of an update. And I am very much interested in working with our preservation planner and planning director on doing that because... unfortunately, these issues of what does compatible mean and what does lot or parcel or plot mean keep coming up. And so in my mind, I think it's incumbent upon us to work on making the ordinance clearer for everyone's sake. But that's not what we have right now. We have the ordinance in front of us right now. And I do believe and I have I have appreciated the Landmarks Commission and their work and believe that they have made the correct decision, again, on just the lot division. It really will be a stretch, I believe, for anyone to build on this lot. And again, I will be very involved in any conversations around that, but that is not what is before us today. It is simply the lot division. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue wishing to speak. So the motion is to deny the appeal. It's been properly seconded. Is there objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of that motion? Alder Pritchett? Yes. All right. Thank you, Alder. Seeing that there's objection, Alder Tischler, I assume you're objecting as well. So we'll have a roll call vote. The motion is to deny the appeal of the landmarks decision. All those in favor of denial, aye. Those opposed to denial, no. As your name is called, and the clerk will please call the roll.

Thank you, Alder Denial. Alder Mayer. Alder Mayer, aye. Alder Inziguo? Staines. Alder Staines. Alder O'Brien? Aye. O'Brien, aye. Alder Ojovich? Aye. Ojovich, aye. Alder Pritchett? No. Alder Pritchett, no. Alder Tischler? No. Alder Tischler, no. Alder Verveer? Aye. Alder Verveer, aye. Alder Vidover?

Aye.

Alder Vidover, aye. Alder Evers? Aye. Alder Evers, aye. Alder Field.

Aye.

Alder Field, aye. Alder Figueroa-Cole. Aye. Alder Figueroa-Cole, aye. Alder Glenn.

Aye.

Alder Glenn, aye. Alder Ugar. Aye. Alder Ugar, aye. Alder Harrington-McKinney. Aye. Alder Harrington-McKinney, aye. Alder Lenkela. Aye. Alder Lenkela, aye. Alder Lieberman.

Aye.

Alder Lieberman, aye. Alder Madison. Aye. Alder Madison, aye. Alder Martinez-Rutherford. Aye. Alder Martinez-Rutherford, aye. Alder Matthews. Aye. Alder Matthews, aye. 16 ayes, 2 noes, 1 abstain.

With 16 ayes, the appeal... Oh, I apologize.

Forgive me. I'll do Zhang. I apologize. Zhang is aye. That is 17 ayes, two noes, one abstain. I apologize.

Thank you. With 17 ayes, the appeal is denied. And we will move on then. to Item 9. Item 9 is Legislature 93894, approving a landmark nomination of the property located at 222 East Olin Avenue as the Wonder Bar in District 14. On Item 9, this time we're going to start with the preservation planner for an overview.

Okay, so for the landmark designation process, let me, whoop, there we go. So the proposal came in for designating this property as a landmark. The way that process works is it's introduced as a resolution at Common Council. Common Council then refers it to Landmarks Commission for their advisory recommendation on if the proposed nomination makes a successful case for significance for a property to be designated as a landmark. Landmarks Commission provides that recommendation to you, to Common Council, for you to take action on whether you will designate or not designate a property as a landmark. So up here, I've got an aerial image that shows where the property in question is located, and then that's on the right. And then on the left, there is a relatively recent picture that came from the nomination of the Wonder Bar building. So this has come in a couple of times and Megan and I were talking about that actually this is really the third time this same nomination has come in. But for the most recent stuff, this came in, well, there's two different things. All demolitions of principal structures, that means a house or a business, they need to get officially an approval from plan commission. With our updated demolition standards, most of those go to Landmarks Commission, well, they all go to Landmarks Commission first, but most of them, that's where they do a historic value review. If Landmarks Commission finds there is no historic value, then it moves on for administrative review and approval of the demolition. The properties where Lammers Commission gives an advisory recommendation that, hey, there's some historic value here that we want to slow down and take some consideration about, they give that recommendation to Plan Commission, and then Plan Commission does their review for the demolition standards and decides whether or not they're going to approve a demolition. So both... in 2021 and 2026, the Landmark nomination came in as a reaction to a redevelopment proposal that would have demolished the property, demolished the building. So in 2021, Landmarks Commission did its historic value review in, April of that year and then Plan Commissioner approved the demolition. Now for the demolition at that point it was a technical demolition because the development proposal had changed and they were talking about shifting it on the property. So it was a technical demolition where they were going to pick it up and shove it over to a different corner. There was a draft landmark nomination that came in, but that was withdrawn. Well, there was a request for referral from the applicant, so Mr. Saludos et al. for them to continue to negotiate with the developer. So there was no staff report and there was no commission review of the draft landmark nomination. And that was same with the previous round that it was submitted and it was withdrawn. So Landmarks Commission had no consideration and took no action. So there's no, there's no information there for the 2021 for the landmark nomination. But Landmarks Commission said, yeah, there's some historic value here and cited previous historic surveys and the previous draft nomination that said that this was significant due to it being a prohibition era roadhouse and for its association with organized crime. So in 2026, both of these came in again. So the landmark nomination came in again as a response for a new redevelopment proposal because the previous one didn't pan out. So both of those happened to be on the Landmarks Commission agenda at the same meeting, and that was just the way that one worked out. In 2021, they did not come in on the same track. So Landmarks Commission first dealt with the draft landmark nomination. And their recommendation was that this did not rise to the level of significance of being a Madison landmark. They then used that information for, after a lengthy discussion, for their historic value review and said, okay, there is some history here, but we've already said that this does not rise to the level of being a landmark. So we're not doing our big finding of, hey, this is big time historic value. They did what I call the middle of the road finding of there is, history here, but the building in and of itself is not historically significant. But there is a history here and we should talk about it. They did not do their finding of no known historic value. So, For the landmark nomination, it proposed for two different areas. One would be it is associated with the broad patterns of cultural, political, economic, or social history of the nation, state, and community. So in particular, for its associations, it was prohibition era and its ties to organized crime, which ran this as a roadhouse. Also about it defining its architecture, saying that this is a rare remaining example in Madison of a prohibition-era roadhouse. We don't have a lot of buildings that look like this. For the applicable standards, It has in here that the Landmarks Commission may designate, or, well, the city may designate a property. It doesn't say that it must designate. So, I mean, I'm a historian. I could write a history, a research story about pretty much every property in the city just because I can write a story about it and give you... the history or the folklore are related to it, that doesn't mean that it is significant. And that is the role of the Landmarks Commission for looking at the case that was made, did it make a successful case for this is significant as this is something that we want to conserve for future generations of Madison to tell our story. So for the standards there, that's why we have may, not have you written a documentation and therefore we must designate it because you wrote the history of it. So for the, yeah, so that's what that slide is. So after lengthy discussion, Landmarks Commission did a recommendation that, to Common Council that you deny, this request to designate the property. And so your task tonight is to take LAMRS Commission's recommendation into account Landmarks Commission is not expecting you to be a rubber stamp body. They are providing their analysis and recommendation to you. Also consider the standards for historic designation, which was on the previous slide for the criteria for A and D about historic associations or architecture. And so you can vote to designate or decline to designate the property as a landmark. And then I've also got up here for the motions and possible findings, but again you can make your findings as you see fit.

I'm good.

Thank you. Are there questions for staff on this item?

Alder Figueroa-Cole. Thank you. So, again, to confirm, because I also did watch this meeting, but for those who didn't, in fact, I watched both meetings back in 2021. The demolition was approved for this particular thing, for this particular building?

For the current round, the demolition has not been approved by the plan commission. Not yet. It is on an upcoming agenda, but it is not Plant Commission has not issued an approval for demolition.

So what happened to the first one? Was that a different project? Is that what it was? Yes. Okay, so the first project was approved with a condition. I remember that. But this one hasn't gotten there yet. Okay. Yeah, I don't have any other questions at this moment. Thank you. Thank you, Alder.

Alder Pritchett?

One question. You mentioned, and the gentleman here mentioned.

You have to speak directly into these mics. It's different.

Thank you very much. I will speak directly into this object. The question I have is this. We have the State Historical Society and we have the Landmark Commission, etc. And I know from a lot of older buildings, a lot of it is myth, legend, and just weird stories that people have concocted about a structure. So is there documentation, irrefutable documentation, documentation regarding the historical goodness of fit of the structure.

So I'm going to say no, not really. There is some documentation of crime happening at the property, even after the prohibition era ended, but There's a lot of circumstantial evidence about what may or may not happen there, but a lot of that was the stories and the tall tales were a part of promoting this business and this property, the mystique of the white crime families that operated out of here, maybe. So that is part of the story. in terms of are we able to accurately document?

No. Then why not utilize, if you're saying to me that it's stories that people have told, and I know some of the stories can be myth, et cetera. Well, would it be possible to consider letting people know that we don't have ironclad evidence that this happened. So put that in the write-up about the building itself. Because now I'm also hearing that this structure is beyond repair. So why are we leaving it standing?

So whether it is beyond repair or not isn't something that Landmarks Commission can take into consideration for the landmark nomination. That is something that Plan Commission will take into consideration related to the demolition.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Alder Tischler.

Yeah, just a quick question. I mean, I know we're The Landmarks Commission did give it, I forgot the exact language, just like historic significance that had value, but not getting to the level of a landmark. Can you just kind of walk us through what process or what already exists to kind of document photographs, 3D renderings, whatever, to preserve it? once it's no longer, once the building no longer exists?

Sure. So that will be, so that's outside of the scope of the landmark nomination. That will come in as part of when Plan Commission reviews the proposal for demolition. But so for the advisory recommendation on historic value related to the demolition, Landmarks Commission did advise Plan Commission to require, if they're going to approve the demolition, require demolition some documentation of the property. There's already photographs, exterior and interior photographs of the property. We have done some documentation that aligns with what the State Historic Preservation Office does for properties where they key photos to a map and there's drawings of the building. We have some options on that front. I'm actually looking at something a little bit different, but we will see what the options are. I think it is valid to go ahead and do some more documentation of this property. On the other hand, it has been through a couple of public processes that document the history as it may or may not be, and we have interior and exterior photographs of the property.

thank you alder i have no other alters in the queue with questions alder laberman um i'd like to make a motion that we do not adopt landmark nomination um that we deny is that the proper wording i think the Recommended motion would be to place the nomination on file.

OK. I would like to make a motion to place the nomination.

I'm going to let the preservation planner. I want to say you could do either of those things. You could deny, but you could also place it on file, which is a nice way of denying. So you could deny. You could place it on file.

I'll make a motion to place on file.

Moved and seconded to place this item on file. Alder, would you like to speak to it?

uh yes i want to again say as i've said before i recognize that a lot of people in my district and across the city have a personal connection to the wonder bar have memories that they have there i just want to say when it comes to being a landmark in the last 13 years the city of madison has only added two landmarks to its registry here the Catherine Clarenbach family residence, and the Benjamin and Amy Butts house, both of those speak to a history of this city that conveys our roots in activism, in building community for women, for people of color. The Wonder Bar is not... As was stated, it has most of its history based in myth, and even that history is not something that I think rises to the level of being the sort of landmark that we want to preserve here. So while I recognize the memories that people have, and I hope that they can cherish and hold on to those, I don't see a reason for us to make this a landmark and hold on to the physical structure here past its usefulness.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Excuse me, a clarifying question. If it's placed on file, does that mean that it can come before this body again?

No, Alder, the technical rule about placing something on file, and the city attorney will interrupt me if I go wrong, is the item can't come back to this body for, I think, 90, 60 days. And here the preservation planner can correct me if I'm wrong, but if the appeal is denied now, potentially somebody could make another nomination in the future, but in the intervening time, the plan commission is going to make a decision about demolition. So in either case, theoretically it could come back, but practically there's a time period that they would have to wait for to bring it back.

I don't know if I'm clear on my question. Is that once I looked at, so is it proper for me to be in discussion or do I need to hold that?

No, you're, you're, you are in order Alder.

All right. Thank you. I went back and reviewed the history of the Wonder Bar. And one of the things that came to my attention was an article about Al Capone being arrested for tax evasion and all of that. And the thing that really stuck in my mind is that We have the highest incarceration rate in the country, and I don't want to elevate Al Capone. I'm sorry. I went back and I read some of the documentations and as the planner said that some of the documentation was not supported evidence. Some of the documentation was not even guaranteeing that Al Capone even visited the space. But more importantly than that was when I heard we elevate for the future. And I do not want to vote, will I support something that will elevate the wonder bar if it has the historical value that I hear about. And I will not be, and I can't vote for placing it on file. I do want to deny, and so I support the decision of the restoration, but I will not be supporting it, and I do not want to place it on file, and my vote is against it, and it would be an emphatic no.

Thank you, Alder. With the indulgence of the council, I believe that Assistant Attorney Smith wants to weigh in on the question of the motion.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Obviously, the council is within its purview to place an action on file that comes before them. It would be my recommendation to follow the two pathways outlined in the ordinance, which is either to designate it as a landmark based on the standards or to decline to designate it as a landmark based on an explanation of how the standards are not met. Is the will of the body, my recommendation would just be to be quite clear that you're doing one of the two pathways enumerated in the ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you, Attorney Smith. I'm going to turn to the maker of the motion, Alder Lieberman. Are you comfortable with adjusting the motion? Yes.

Thank you. And thank you to Attorney Smith for clarifying there.

The second is okay. Is the body in agreement? I'm not seeing objection. Does that address your concern, Elder Henry McKinney? Thank you. All right. So I'm going to have the attorney repeat the words again, please, for the clerk.

Yes, thank you. So underneath in... Hold on just a second. I'm going to get this citation. So pursuant to the council's authority in MGO 41.07 subsection 6, the action before the council, I believe, was to decline to designate the property as a landmark.

Thank you. So the motion is to decline to designate the property as a landmark. Unless I see objection, that will be the motion before us. That is the motion before us. The motion, and it's been seconded, is to decline to designate the property as a landmark. Is there further discussion? Alder Herring to McKinney.

No, that satisfies me because we don't want to elevate. So yes, that satisfies my concern.

Thank you, Alder. Is there further discussion on this item? I have no other alders in the queue wishing to speak. So the motion before us is to decline to designate the property as a landmark. Is there objection to recording a unanimous vote in favor of denial? Seeing no objection, we'll record that vote. And we will move on. to item 14. Item 14 is Legistar 94183. This is a substitute creating sections of the Madison General Ordinances to change the zoning of property at 8302 McDowell Drive 2 from Tempe Agricultural to TRU 2, which is traditional residential urban 2. and cct commercial quarter transitional and tru one commercial quarter transitional all of this in district one and to walk us through this one we're going to turn back to our planning division director director toddle

Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief on this one because I'm not sure if or what questions Alders may have about this item tonight. This item is one of two items that were on your agenda tonight related to creating the Hawks Nest, I'll call it a neighborhood for lack of a better word since we were just talking about plats and lots. So this item specifically relates to creating or assigning the zoning districts to the future blocks that would be created by the Hawks Nest Platte that you approved earlier tonight. This creates a number of lots for future multifamily residential and lots that would be used for future mixed-use residential. and supports the kind of framework of a new neighborhood that was approved through the plat that establishes streets and other future infrastructure. This item was reviewed by the plan commission and ultimately the item that's before you recommends a couple of changes from what was originally submitted to the city for approval. Specifically that three of the lots along the eastern boundary adjacent to the neighborhood that you heard from tonight in public forum were recommended to be rezoned to a lower intensity zoning district, the TRU1 zoning district. from the original district that the applicants requested, which is TRU2, a higher intensity district. Ultimately, what this approval will do is to create the sort of regulatory framework for future development proposals to come into the city. So this is not approving all of the development that we would anticipate being phased over time, but really sets the rules in place for what a specific development may be able to do when somebody applies for it in the future. I'm happy to answer specific questions if there are any from the council, but I'll stop there. Thank you, Director Tuttle. Questions for staff?

Alder Figueroa, call.

Thank you, Mayor. So one of the concerns is about traffic. And It's my understanding, I mean, like you explained, this creates the lots, defines the zoning for the subdivision, and then it will eventually become a neighborhood with the different entities like housing and businesses. So at this point, we're approving those two things, and I think we're also approving the mapping or the request for the mapping for utilities and the road. Is that... Are those things then going to be reviewed by other commissions? Like, for example, the traffic congestion part, will that be reviewed by the Transportation Commission?

Yes, so this item specifically is about assigning the zoning districts to this future neighborhood. But as part of item 61 that was approved on your consent agenda to approve the preliminary plat, that identifies future locations of roads and other infrastructure that we anticipate coming back and being reviewed by the city for further approval in the future. When this was approved, this preliminary, we call it the preliminary plat that creates the foundation for this future neighborhood, it did include some conditions related to transportation that those future streets will need to meet when they come before the Public Works Commission and ultimately Transportation Commission. for approval. So engineering was able to flag several things related to how the future street, the extension of Mayo Drive that was referenced in public comment will meet some of the existing streets and have put some limitations on things like turning movements and have already indicated that there will be land that will need to be dedicated to the city to make sure that we can create the right width and type of intersections as well as the right type of and completed pathways for alternative transportation. But ultimately those bodies will have another chance to review this when they come in to record their final plat, to finalize the details of how those streets will be designed and ultimately developed. When individual projects, so individual buildings come in to request approval to be developed, we will also at that time look at the specifics of what we anticipate in terms of traffic volume and how that will be accommodated in the neighborhood and on the specific properties that are being developed at that time. And any other conditions from those, either the plan commission, our city's traffic engineering team, will be included in the approval comments for those future phases.

Thank you. So again, for the people that are concerned about those things, they will have an opportunity to have those discussions at a later time. Yes. Right now, we have a blank canvas, and we're just creating the lines for the lots, and then letting the developer know what can they build there by establishing the zoning codes. Right.

Yes. It kind of establishes the sort of envelope of what can be done, but the specifics will need to come back in for approval.

Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Elder. Elder Tischler?

Yeah, I'm assuming the streets are going to have adequate space for sidewalks. But what about cut-throughs through some of the longer blocks? Is that something that's going to be decided at a later point?

Do you mean traffic cut-throughs from other adjacent areas?

I'm thinking more of cut-throughs for pedestrians and cyclists.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I believe in the plat. There are some, the foundation for some of the necessary infrastructure has been provided. But in those future reviews, we will look at the different circulation patterns for the buildings that will be proposed.

Okay.

Thank you, Elder. Are there any other questions for staff?

seeing none thank you director tuttle so uh i would entertain a motion on item 14 alder you gear thank you mayor i'll move that common council adopt the substitute version of zoning i'm not sure if it's necessary to go through all of the details i'm glad to do that if necessary Along with all of the associated conditions.

So the motion is to adopt the substitute with conditions. And Alder Figueroa-Cole will second. All right. Alder, are you geared to Jewish to speak to it?

know i'll just say that as you can tell from the planner plan division lead here that this got extensive discussion at the plan commission including a very close look at what we could tell at this point about the traffic concerns that came up from the uh One registrant that we had here, I think there was general approval of the substitute versions for the differences on the specific parcels for different densities. And Again, we had a very thorough discussion, and I think we covered all of the points of concern and looking at how this would be beneficial for the era, for the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue wishing to speak on this item. So the motion is to adopt the substitute with conditions. Is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of adopting the substitute with conditions? Seeing no objection, we will record that vote. And... That will take us to item 59. Item 59, President Madison.

Oh, for this item, I'm just going to ask for a presentation from finance before.

Let me get it in front of us first, Walter. I'll come right back to you. Okay. Item 59 is Legistar 94250, a substitute amending the 2026 Economic Development Division operating budget by transferring funds from other agency budgets and authorizing interdepartmental transfers. approving program materials and authorizing the Economic Development Division to administer a Williamson Street Business Stabilization Support Program. On item 59, President Madison, did you want to get a motion on the floor or go right to questions for staff?

Go right to presentation of questions for staff.

Okay, so we'll go to questions for staff. President Madison.

I would like for Director Schmiedeke to provide a brief presentation.

Director Schmidicke Thank You mayor, let me share my screen Wait for that, too. All right So this is the presentation that we went through at the Finance Committee last week it'll provide some background on the contingent reserve and an update on projections of general fund expenditures we'll cover the mid-year budget projection which was presented to the finance committee at the the end of July, which also included the mid-year appropriation resolution, an update on expenditures, the status of the contingent reserve, a little bit of background on transfers from the contingent reserve over the last 10 years, and then just a glossary of some of the terms that we refer to. So we did go through a mid-year projection as we do each year. Based on that, there was a resolution adopted by the council to make adjustments to agency budgets. That is a point-in-time analysis. So we're looking at the period of time from January through May. and that was presented to the Finance Committee on July 27th. At that time, the general fund was projected to have a surplus in terms of available budget authority of $4 million. That's primarily from underspending in what we call centrally budgeted funds. Those include the contingent reserve and benefits paid to employees at retirement. The resolution was adopted, transferred funds within and between agencies, and made other adjustments to capital and operating budgets. And it did include a $500,000 transfer from the contingent reserve to the clerk's office and to the engineering division to cover... projected deficits based on that mid-year projection. And that transfer amount is accounted for in the $4 million I referenced above. So these are some of the highlights, just drilling down a little bit further into the general fund expenditures. Agencies are projected to overspend by about $1 million. Much of that, though, is due to what we call compensated absence payouts, and those are centrally budgeted. So agencies being over budget for that reason is not out of the ordinary. And some agencies are not meeting their salary savings targets due to lower than budgeted vacancy rates. There is some offset to that projected overspending on salaries and fringe benefits. In the purchase services area, that's due primarily to the timing of multi-year software contracts as well as prepaid expenses. A majority of the underspending, as I mentioned before, is in centrally budgeted funds for the compensated absence escrow, which is budgeted at $3 million, and the contingent reserve, which is originally budgeted at a little over $2 million. And so at the time that the projections were made, the only draw on the contingent reserve had been the $70,000 adopted by the council to support MADCAP funding through the rest of the year. So when you add those two estimates together, projections together, you overspend within the agency budgets. And then the savings or below budget amounts and direct appropriations, that gets you to the $4 million projected surplus at that time. There was also information presented at that meeting on the Metro transit budget and the deficit expected there of a little over $4 million. The resolution adopted by the council, the mid-year appropriation, did make some adjustments in terms of applying fund balance, basically giving Metro enough budget authority to get through the rest of the year there will be another projection made as with all agency for the year-end projection right now there's no proposed increase in the general fund subsidy in that year-end projection for Metro I look at other possible options to address the projected deficit and the overall size of that deficit Just a little bit of background on the contingent reserve. The city's had a policy for many years to set aside about half a percent within its overall budget, and this amount is budgeted in what we call direct appropriations. We call it the contingent reserve. And that half a percent for the 2026 budget, the math works out to about $2.15 million. Transfers approved to date, I've already mentioned, include the MADCAP program as well as funding for expected election expenses in the clerk's office. and facility maintenance needs in the engineering division. So with those approved transfers, there's a little under $1.6 million remaining in the contingent reserve. At the Finance Committee meeting last week, there were two resolutions before the committee that day, and those included transfers from the contingent reserve. The total proposed amount was about $228,000. The Finance Committee in terms of what it recommended would have no transfers out from the contingent reserve. So that included the Williamson Street Business Stabilization Program, $200,000 coming from the Contingent Reserve. The Finance Committee amended the resolution to only use funding under spending in the Planning, Community, and Economic Development Budgets. And then a resolution on... $28,500 for the Office of the Independent Monitor for staffing and conference attendance costs, and the Finance Committee recommended that those be placed on file. So the updated projections, we have looked at a few additional costs beyond the What was in the mid-year projection, we'll do a much more comprehensive projection as we always do in October, and that'll be presented to the Finance Committee in November. But as of August 31st, we have that $4 million projected surplus, as I mentioned. We do have some additional expenses related to prepaid information technology licensing costs, so software costs. That prepay would help the budget starting in 2027, saving about $200,000 a year compared to current costs to continue and save about $400,000 over the license term. So that prepay does save future costs. I'll go into this in a little more detail, but $1 million in overtime expenses and costs related to the police department response, and then $200,000 from the contingent reserve, which was the resolutions I mentioned before. So if all of that is to happen, that updated estimate would be $2 million instead of a $4 million surplus. So in terms of the response to July 22nd, the estimate right now is that total cost would be about $1 million. Most of that would be police department overtime costs. We are tracking those expenses and will provide updates as data is available. We do have a lag because of payroll processing and other processing. payroll through the payroll that ended august 15th we have costs of about 663 000 you can see it broken out by department in the table on this slide with most of that being police department overtime as well as overtime premium pay and other benefits in other agencies in the community development division or cdd most of those expenses are related to hotel, motel costs, food, and non-personnel expenses. Some of the additional considerations with the remainder of this year and potential costs and how that projected surplus could be impacted at the moment. When we did the projection using data through May, the streets division anticipated there will be a sufficient funding for four general plows for the remainder of the year. So talking in the last probably couple months of 2026, that is built into the midyear budget projection. We have seen in recent years that the cost of snow removal at the end of the calendar year has been lower than budgeted. And at the moment, barring any sort of extreme weather events, the streets division budget should be able to cover normal levels of snowfall. The shelter endowment is a situation where the city committed to providing $2 million for an endowment to be set up to support operations for the Bartelon shelter. The year-end appropriation for 2025 included an appropriation of $1 million to basically fund half of that commitment. The remaining million dollars could be paid this year partially or fully, could be paid next year. Again, the source of funding for that this year could be the contingent reserve or other underspending. That amount is not factored in the projections at the moment, but it could be considered in terms of how much capacity should be kept in the contingent reserve at year end. Other types of emergencies could arise. It's difficult to predict what those might be. We don't have any sort of cost estimates for those. One thing I will mention that's not listed here is we continue to monitor fuel costs. Fuel continues to rise. Diesel fuel particularly has increased pretty dramatically in costs, and that could have some impact on year-end needs. Probably at the most right now, maybe a half a million dollars, but that's a very, very preliminary estimate. The next two slides, I won't go into a lot of detail. We'll share these slides, attach them to Legistar. They're also available on the Finance Committee agenda from last week. But this just gives a history of how the contingent reserve has been used over the last 10 years. And A lot of different reasons for why it would be used. I mentioned the shelter endowment. Some of it was used to support needs in metro as well as higher fleet costs. And we also, in the year-end appropriations or in the mid-year appropriations, have made appropriations from the general fund balance up to the maximum allowable under what's called the state expenditure restraint incentive program. That's really a limit on the city's ability to spend. And in return for staying below that limit, the city receives about $9 million of state aid. In 2024, there was no sort of need to transfer the contingent reserve. There was no ERIP limit that year because of sort of a hiatus in that program under state law. And the remaining what we call ARPA funding or American Rescue Plan Act funding from the federal government was utilized. In other years, there have been shortfalls in agency budgets that have been met. Tax litigation costs, other litigation costs have been provided. 2020 is a rather unique year, obviously, in terms of the first year of the pandemic and the multiple impacts on the city budget as well as federal funding provided and a lot of adjustments made to address that year. The remaining years are really to some extent covering police and fire department costs and other smaller allocations made by the council. I will just emphasize that all of the transfers out of the contingent reserve require a resolution adopted by the council with a 15 vote requirement. The last page here is just some of the terms that we use such as budget transfers. Some transfers are allowed administratively either by the finance director or the mayor. up to fifty thousand dollars but otherwise any other transfers above those amounts as i mentioned do require action by the council through a super majority approval i mentioned the contingent reserve and direct appropriations the expenditure restraining senate program the general fund is what we really are talking about when we talk about the city's operating budget and we'll spend a lot more time on that over the next couple of months The levy limit, you all have heard about that. That is our limit on revenues, so the property tax as set up under state law, and then the operating budget. So with that, I will stop sharing, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Director Schmidicke. Questions for staff? Alder Okovitz?

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Director Schmiedeke. Could you explain how unspent contingent reserve funds affect calculations of next year's levy limit increases?

There's really no connection between the contingent reserve and the levy limit. So the levy limit is established through a formula that looks at what we call net new construction value in the city and applies that factor to the amount that was levied in the prior year, and that sets the maximum amount that we can levy in the subsequent year, excluding amounts levied to pay debt service.

Okay.

So are unspent contingent reserve funds transferred to the general fund?

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Sorry, are unspent contingent reserve funds transferred to the general fund?

So at the end of the year, It's really the difference between the amount of actual revenues we collect and the amount of funding we actually – or the amount that we actually spend relative to budget. And the difference between those two is what becomes that increase in fund balance. So obviously we have to stay under budget. One element to that is the – how the contingent reserve may or may not have been used. It's basically there so that we stay in compliance with expenditure restraint and that we can meet certain emergencies that may arise during the year.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Madison.

Thank you. I won't ask my 30 questions that I asked at Finance, but I just have two quick ones. The first one is where are we at right now with ERIP, or how close are we?

We are pretty much at the expenditure restraint limit right now. The budget was constructed that way, the 2026 budget, and we were pretty clear about that when that budget was presented a year ago. There's maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars of room, but we pretty much have appropriated up to that amount. So most of what we're doing now is moving money within the approved budget.

Gotcha.

then my and maybe two more but my next question is for the shelter endowment i'd asked this question before but i know i had a um two conversations with alders about it earlier um a future council does not have to keep the commitment that this council has made to the endowment like they don't it's not a binding thing for future council so if we So if we don't provide whatever's left, for example, in the contingent reserve to the shelter towards its endowment, the next council can decide not to keep that commitment, correct?

Can't bind future councils. So there's, you know, when I say commitment, it's an action by that council that would have paid or said that, 2 million will be paid over some period of time. If that's not fulfilled then obviously there are repercussions for those trying to address the shelter endowment.

And then I think my last one is If I understand correctly from our finance meeting and from this meeting, you can't necessarily make any estimates or projections about what we may need to have available to address emergencies, technically because the emergency hasn't happened. I just want to be sure. The reason we don't see any estimates for what we may need to respond to any emergencies is because that's not something that you can do without the emergency having happened, I guess.

Well, I think as I mentioned, you know, our policy, the city's policy has been to set aside a half percent. And that has been sufficient for most emergencies. Obviously, a global pandemic is an emergency for which a half a percent was not enough. And so, but there were other responses. The federal government responded, the state responded, so funding was provided that way. There have been other emergencies in the past, particularly very dramatic snow emergencies where the city may or the flooding in 2018 where the city may have received FEMA funding from the federal government to support that cost. I think I mentioned at the finance committee meeting the expenditure restraint limit does not apply if the governor declares an emergency. for example. So if we were to have a dire snow emergency in the city and the government were to declare an emergency, then the expenditure restraint limit does not apply, nor does the levy limit in that situation.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Thank you, Elder Ugar.

Thank you, Mayor. Director Schmidicke, the city has made it clear that we do have some contingency plans in the event that we had to defend our elections this year, given that there have been numerous threats. Would I be correct in assuming that that is the kind of emergency in which we might have to draw against the contingency reserve?

Well, the council has already adopted a resolution that transferred $400,000 from the contingent reserve to the clerk's office to help fund anticipated additional needs for the upcoming election.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to ask so that I can make sure this is as clear as possible for mostly the public. But when we say that we're very close to the expenditure restraint limit, that is within what we have approved in our regular budget, but we also have a $4 million projected surplus. So right now we are really at $4 million and then an additional couple hundred thousand before we would hit the expenditure restraint limit. Is that understanding correct?

So the expenditure restraint limit is based on the budget that's approved for the city. And so in that sense, you're right, if we don't need all of that budget, then... we continue to remain under the expenditure restraint limit. It only comes into effect if we need to appropriate more than what was originally budgeted, which that's, I think, what we're trying to emphasize in terms of the expenditure restraint limit. You're correct in terms of at the moment we're projecting that the amount of that budget needed were about $4 million below that, but we did identify some other potential costs, including the million dollars of response costs, the possible prepay for... IT software costs and then the potential of that shelter endowment and then any other issues that that could arise I did I did I did identify fuel as a possibility as in those costs

Thank you, and then just one more thing This I think was in the presentation, but I know my eyes don't work very well so just to confirm the current budget already has enough budgeted for, I think it's four regular snowplow events through the end of 2026. And then for like a big storm where there's a lot of need to pick up, you know, fallen branches and things like that. Does that come out of the regular budget or is that something that is like covered under the forestry special charge?

So I think your question has two parts. The projection that was made back in May working with the streets division is that there was sufficient budget authority in the streets budget to pay for four general plows for the remainder of this year. I think your second question is around if there's a specific event that involves forestry-related activities. Yes, depending on the type of related impacts, those would probably be covered by the Urban Forestry Special Charge rather than the general fund.

Thank you. Thank you, Elder Tischler.

Yeah, Dave, you mentioned fuel prices, and I'm thinking, you said we prepaid for IT, but I'm assuming we prepaid for fuel prices. I'm especially thinking of diesel prices right now. And I guess my question is, do you anticipate, the way things are kind of going in the world, we might be having to dip into the contingency fund to pay for diesel fuel prices? And also the question on that also is, do we pay yearly? Does that start at the beginning of the calendar year?

Thanks for that question, Alder, regarding fuel prices. We have had a practice over the last several years of we have two major fuel budgets. One is in metro transit for the buses, obviously. The other is in fleet for pretty much the remaining vehicles in the city. We have used what are called futures contracts for the metro fuel purchases so that there's stability in that price. And for 2026, we have futures contracts. So that price is locked in for metro for 2026. When I'm talking about the impact of fuel prices this year, that is on the fleet budget. And for fleet, we buy off the spot market. So we're just buying as we need it. We may be buying one to two months in advance. We don't sort of buy a whole year's worth of fuel. We buy it as we need it. So that's where we might see some pressure with the rising fuel costs is in the fleet budget and having sufficient Now for 2027, we don't have futures contracts for Metro anymore just because of the volatility in fuel prices that we've seen over the last several months. There really hasn't been a good opportunity to do a futures contract for Metro fuel prices. We have tried to account for that in the cost to continue estimates for 2027, but as I mentioned, it's a very volatile situation. We're trying to continue to monitor it and see what the sort of levels of confidence and estimates might be.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Okovitz?

Thank you, Mayor. This one's for Director Mikulajewski. For item six in the proposed process for the grant applications, it talks about considering proportionate share of loss, relative size, how the funding would be using, or how the funding would be used by the business. Do city staff have experience administering a similar grant program? I just ask because it seems like relatively complicated to try and estimate all of these variables and then come to a conclusion that is fair.

Thank you, Alder. We do have some experience. In 2020, we had a small business equity and recovery program that provided up to $10,000 for businesses that could show a revenue loss and also for covering PPE-related expenses. And so, yes, for that particular program, we did have businesses submit tax returns and other financial information that we took a look at to determine eligibility for that funding.

And what was the size of that program?

Total grant dollars? Total for an individual business was up to $10,000. The total program was, I think we got over $1.5 million total that we distributed. That was a combination of city dollars and also federal funding.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue with questions for staff. So thank you, directors. President Madison, on number 59, a motion, please.

A motion to adopt.

The substitute?

Yes, sorry.

The motion is to adopt the substitute. Is there a second? Seconded by Alder Mayer. Moved and seconded to adopt. Is there discussion on this item? Alder Mayer.

Thank you, Mayor. Let me get some microphone practice. Is this about right? Okay. This resolution seeks to establish a program to help businesses impacted by the extended protest in the wake of the police killing of Corey Ruiz. The 29 businesses that would benefit are vital parts of the neighborhood. They are places people buy food, share meals with friends and family, gather to commune with neighbors, listen to live music, shop for clothes and sundry items, and more. They are places that have given back to our community in countless ways, holding fundraisers, supporting our festivals, and sponsoring amateur sports teams. During that time in July and August, some businesses were completely closed, others open but with drastically diminished foot traffic. And it's about more than just the businesses and business owners. We estimate that those 29 businesses that would be eligible for this program employ between 300 and 400 workers. These are retail workers, servers, stockers, and cashiers. They're also rent payers, property taxpayers, and again, neighbors. During that time, some were laid off, others had hours cut. A few were fortunate to be paid by these businesses when they couldn't work. Recovery in the neighborhood after the tragic police violence of July 22nd has taken and will continue to take many forms. This program addresses one of those recovery efforts by ensuring that these vital and cherished employers remain in our neighborhood. Partnering with the Division of Planning, Community, and Economic Development, we initially requested $300,000, $100,000 from budgeted but unspent funds in the Economic Development Division and other agencies, and $200,000 from the Contingent Reserve. Finance chose to approve an alternate that would strike the portion from the contingent reserve. While I fully understand the risk aversion to drawing down the reserve and carefully consider any request to do so, I do feel that this situation is just a sort of contingency the reserve ought to be used for. However, counting the votes and needing to get to 15, I decided that the best way forward would be to fully pursue the remaining $100,000 in line with the Finance Committee's recommendation. That amount can still do a lot of good, a lot of good. To address the concern of setting a precedent of aiding businesses, we already support businesses financially in many, many ways. We have a building facade improvement grant. We have graffiti removal programs. We support the BID, a public-private partnership that supports businesses on State Street and around the Capitol. Our hotel room tax goes to promote tourism. Perhaps most significantly, we have a robust tax incremental financing program that helps all manner of construction projects get done. We invest millions in these projects because we know that successful housing starts and growing businesses generate economic activity that will allow the city to recoup that investment many times over. Now, here's a chance to help keep businesses open, struggling due to no failing of their own. It's a chance to keep workers employed and to keep Willie Street the vibrant place that it is. Lastly, you heard from the co-president of the Williamson Marquette Business Alliance that they have raised $50,000. Other fundraisers aimed at worker relief have been successful. Destination Madison is stepping in to help promote these businesses as well. And just last Sunday, I attended a benefit for the workers of Crystal Corner, graciously held by Mickey's Tavern, because this is a tight-knit community, a tight-knit neighborhood that supports each other in tragedy and supports each other in recovery and healing. All these things, along with $100,000 already budgeted but unspent, will go a long way. I urge you to join me in voting yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. When first elected in 2015, questions about policing, transparency, accountability, and community trust were already hard conversations here in Madison. I supported body worn cameras then and now. I believe body worn cameras could provide one more tool for accountability. I never believed cameras were the answer to everything. A camera can record an encounter. It cannot provide independent civilian oversight. That is why Madison created the Office of the Independent Monitor. If we create an office and give it serious responsibilities, we also have an obligation to provide reasonable resources for that work. That is why I support the proposed transfer to address immediate staffing and service needs.

Alder, the item before us is the business support fund, not the Office of the Independent Monitor?

Well, I'm getting into that, if you allow me. As long as you get there, Alder. I've got a few minutes and I'll get there. And the reason I need to get there is that I'm driving out of my lane and I just want to make sure people know why I drove out of my lane. That is why I support the proposed transfer to address immediate staffing and service needs. My support for this funding is not an endorsement of every decision, nor the individual involved in the oversight process. Funding is not a blank check and oversight is not immunity from accountability. I have heard concerns and criticisms regarding both the independent monitor and the data analysts. Those concerns should not be brushed aside. But responsible governance means not governing based on personalities. It means asking whether the structure is sound whether expectations are clear, whether professional standards are being met, and whether the office has the resources necessary to do the job we assigned. We have asked hard questions of our police department. We should also ask hard questions of the independent monitor and the oversight system. This is not about choosing sides. It's about doing the job. After years of public service, I learned that building a structure is much easier than sustaining the office. that provides that structure. The test is whether we sustain it, especially when it is tested. My commitment is straightforward transparency, accountability, appropriate resources, and measurable performance. I support the institution, but insist on accountability from it. And now I'll get to what's before us. As the Common Council considers items 59 and 60, I believe we should look carefully at the principles and consistency precedent and responsible governance. In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, and the destruction that occurred on State Street, the city of Madison recognized that extraordinary circumstances required an extraordinary response. At that time, the city considered a $250,000 downtown recovery program. Although that specific appropriation was not ultimately adopted, Madison expanded existing economic development tools and later provided significant recovery assistance to small businesses through that program. The larger principle was clear. When businesses are harmed by extraordinary circumstances beyond their control, the city has a role in helping stabilization. Businesses in the Williamson Street and Baldwin Street area experienced significant disruption, financial loss during an extended period of protest and public safety response. The original proposal for item 15 provided $300,000 in stabilization assistance, $200,000 from the city's contingent reserve, $100,000 from available department savings. The finance committee reduced that proposal to $100,000 and removed the contingent reserve funding. i believe the constant should reconsider that decision the question i continue to ask is if this is not the type of unexpected circumstances for which we maintain a contingent reserve then what is A contingency fund exists because no city can predict every emergency, disruption, or unexpected expense when an annual budget is adopted. We should always be thoughtful and responsible about how those dollars are used. But protecting the fund should not become more important than using it for the purpose for which it was created. Item 60 raises an important question of consistency. Under item 60, the city is being asked to use contingent reserve funding for unexpected costs related to the Office of the Independent Monitor and the city's response to this broader critical question. I support providing the independent monitor the resources necessary to perform the work the city created that office to do. But responsible government requires consistency. If we recognize that this incident created unexpected costs for city government then we should also recognize that it created unexpected economic harm for small neighborhood businesses and their employees businesses did not create the circumstances their employees did not create them yet they experience yet they experience lost customers, interrupted operations, payroll pressures, rent obligations, utilities, insurance costs, inventory losses, and uncertainty. Approximately $100,000 spread among nearly 29 businesses does not go very far. That is why I believe the Council should consider restoring meaningful funding from the contingent reserve. This should not be framed as business versus protesters. It should not be framed as economic recovery versus racial justice, and it should not be framed as supporting businesses instead of supporting police accountability and independent oversight. We can hold more than one responsibility at the same time. We can project the right for peaceful protests. We can demand accountability and transparency. We can properly support the Office of the Independent Monitor. And we can make sure that small businesses are not left carrying the financial burden of a public crisis alone. That is inconsistency. That is responsible governance. As a member of this council and as the alder representing District 20, I believe our decision should be fair, consistent, and responsive to the people who depend on city government to act when extraordinary circumstances arise. The contingent reserve should be protected from unnecessary spending, but it should also be used when a genuine unanticipated need arises. This was one of those moments. And I read that because I do not want to have it considered is that I'm crossing the line. What I'm saying is that the city has some responsibility as well. The question to be answered, what was expected, what happened, and what needs to change. A contingency fund is a dedicated tool. of money, dedicated pool of money, set aside to pay for unexpected expenses or financial emergencies. Accountability does not end at the IM's office. It includes the mayor's office, Common Council leadership, and it includes the Common Council. So ends my reading.

Thank you, Alder. Item 59 has been moved and seconded. Is there further discussion? Alderfield.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm sympathetic with the intent behind this motion out of love for this part of the city, which is near where my husband and I lived before we moved further east. This was one of several reasons why I oppose the street closure and its occupation. However, I can't get past my discomfort with the city using its extremely limited resources to backfill business revenues when there's so much more that we are asked to fund, but that the city cannot afford. If the council adopts this amendment, I don't know what we're supposed to tell businesses around the city who face revenue disruptions from the city's own streets reconstruction projects, which we just ask them to eat. The city is not in a financial position to do it all, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. I'm gonna vote no.

Thank you, Alder.

Alder Zhang? In the past month and a half, I have spent time along Williamson Street. I have been to the community circle at Demetriel Park and have helped with item recovery at the church parking lot. And I have also contributed context in conversations led by community members to support the workers who have lost their working hours and faced risks of meeting their own needs or of not being able to meet their own needs while supporting other people in service of what society should look like. And yet at the same time governing is about responsibility and it's about our limits and so there are asks, there have been asks made of us as Madison's decision makers that we would really greatly struggle to fulfill at any time. But in light of this concern, I had looked into where this funding is coming from and in light of the fact that this is within the EDD and then within planning and from underspending within EDD and also planning and community and economic development. It seems like this is a time where we have some leverage to be able to try to start and do something. And I guess to bring it back to an anecdote, while talking to an organizer, they said that if it was not for the positive memories at their favorite bar, Crystal Corner, they would not have been able to come back to this site of trauma. And so it... really, to me highlighted how these businesses, these businesses are not only circulating money within and for neighbors and Madison, but also to provide positive grounding experiences for everyone and can serve as reminders of what is possible, what is positive and how to ground people.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue wishing to speak. So item 59 has been moved and seconded, anticipating disagreement. All those in favor of the substitute will have a roll call. Don't worry, Alder. All those in favor of the substitute will say aye. Those opposed, no, as your name is called. And the clerk will please call the roll.

Thank you. Alder Mayer. Aye. Alder Mayer, aye. Alder Inzigu. Aye. Alder Inzigu, aye. Alder O'Brien. Alder Brian, no. Alder Ojovich? No. Alder Pritchett? No. Alder Pritchett, no. Alder Tischler?

No.

Alder Tischler, no. Alder Verveer? Aye. Alder Verveer, aye. Alder Vitiver? Aye. Alder Vitiver, aye. Alder Zhang? Aye. Alder Zhang, aye. Alder Evers? Aye. Alder Evers, aye. Alder Field? No. Alder Field, no. Alder Figueroa-Cole? No. Figueroa-Cole, no. Alder Glen? Aye. Alder Glen, aye. Alder Uyghur? Aye. Alder Uyghur, aye. Alder Harrington-McKinney? Aye. Alder Harrington-McKinney, aye. I'm terribly sorry.

Alder Uyghur, could you repeat your vote for me, please?

Aye. I'm terribly sorry about that. Alder Linkella? Aye. Alder Linkella, aye. Alder Lieberman? Aye. Lieberman, aye. Alder Madison? No. Alder Madison, no. Alder Martinez-Rutherford? No. Alder Martinez-Rutherford, aye. Alder Matthews? Aye. Alder Matthews, aye. We have 13 ayes and 7 nos.

With 13 ayes and 7 nos, the motion fails. It is a budget amendment, so it requires 15 votes. All right, that will take us then to... Item 60, which is Legislature 94261, amending the 2026 adopted operating budget by transferring funds from the contingent reserve to the Office of the Independent Monitor for additional staffing and services costs and directing staff to provide a full accounting of costs associated with the city's critical incident response between July 22nd, 2026 and September 8th, 2026. On item 60, motion please. Alder Matthews? Or did you have questions for staff?

I was buzzing in to do questions for staff, but I didn't make the motion. We can go to questions for staff first.

Go ahead, Alder.

Okay, so this question comes from the previous presentation that was just given for item 59. And so I just wanted to ask to be sure, because I also noticed that This item is not listed under needing a supermajority. Is that because it's underneath the $50,000 limit that can be administratively transferred out of the contingent reserve? Did I see that correctly on the slide or is this just like a mistake?

It's because the motion from Finance Committee is to place on file, which doesn't require 15 votes. Okay. So to affirmatively to pass it, if the motion was changed to adopt, it would require 15 votes.

Could I... have the motion be to have staff administratively transfer the amount out of it?

No, if the council, staff, if staff want to administratively transfer something, the council doesn't speak to that.

Okay, that's fair. I just had seen that and that wasn't something that had gone or been brought up in any of my previous conversations. So thank you. Thank you, Alder.

Alder Lieberman, questions for staff?

Yes, I was hoping if Monitor Glass was available for questions. If not, I know Greg is here, but I had some questions regarding how the Office of the Independent Monitor would use the funds.

I think Alder Matthews might be able to speak to that.

I just specifically wanted to know for the amount that is dedicated for training and conferences, if we could just get some more specifics on what those training and conferences were and specifically how they would help with the taking on the additional workload that had been mentioned before due to the Corey Ruiz shooting.

Alder Matthews, are you able to speak to that?

Yeah, I can speak to that, I think. So it is specifically for, and I think it's in the body of the resolution, but for, I think, seven board members and staff to be able to go to NACOL this year. And while that does not immediately move forward actions, that relate to the needs from this event. It is a very clear way that money could be invested into the office this year and spent this year. There are a lot of restrictions. It was very hard to find even money that we could give them because they have such a small capacity to be able to even spend additional money. And I know that many folks have a lot of concerns when it comes to some of the oversight or the accountability of the office. And I had noticed in some of my research that we really cut their training and conference budget basically right before the majority of the new board came on. So this seemed like an investment that we could make now to help have a better board and office functioning in 2027, if that kind of helps.

Thank you. Are there additional questions for staff? Seeing none, then President Madison, a motion, please.

Can you hear me? Yes. So just to make sure, I am sure what's before us is to pass the Finance Committee's motion to place on file. So motion to place on file.

The motion out of Finance is to place on file. Is there a second? Moved and seconded to place on file. Is there discussion on item 60? Alder Glen.

Yeah, I'm not going to... I've said enough at finance the other week. I'm not going to talk about the $28,500 indirectly. because I'm not, I mean, if we couldn't pass $100,000, I'm not gonna even give anyone the pleasure. What I'd like to say is that when I decided to run as an alder, I did it because most of the community knew me as a system disruptor. like in human form. I wanted to get in and stop the gatekeeping and the upholding and the continuous of watching people like me be killed in the streets and sent to prison and disorderly conducts at a rate that puts our city on a map that we shouldn't be on if we're who we say we are. And then what I found out was that nobody wants to challenge it. And today, Joanne Campbell passed away, the mother of Rebecca Campbell. And it made me think of Rebecca and how she was willing to, in those alders, to challenge the status quo at a time when, you know, even then Haas said, it's going to get challenged. And they still did it. Because that's what you're supposed to do is learn a system and then challenge it and push it all the way to its limit if that limit is causing harm to to people that are underrepresented and underserved. There were double the amount of people showed up on August 4th than did for the night of the PCOB that we got that ordinance through. And we had double the amount. And then I hear things about templates and people not understanding it. And I just don't know what we want from our community anymore. I don't know if you want them to show up. Do you want them to write? Do you want them to beg? I know for the next year and a half, I'm going to work on educating the community and doing what I do best, which is disrupt the system and stay true to myself. I'm not interested in the power of it. I'm not interested in having power. I was never interested in becoming an alder for the next thing that I could do. I did it because the community needs people like me that'll say the things, and not in the back room, but to each other's face. and not discuss things in back rooms, but to each other's face. I'll take the next year and a half to educate the community, because I'm pretty sure, at most ways, things that I believe in will be challenged, as most of the black women who have been in Alder left with scars that are unhealable that I've spoke to. I'll fight for their budget when budget time comes, but I'm gonna fight to educate the community to make sure they're sitting at these tables next year. Thank you. Thank you, Alder.

Alder Laberman.

Thank you. Um, I, I, there's not much I can say better than that. What I will say is this. I'm, I'm not naive. I know that there aren't, uh, 15 votes to, uh, pass this motion if it were made to adopt. And I don't think that there are the 10 required to stop it from being placed on file. But what this vote is about is about a recognition for me of the things that are fundamentally wrong with policing, not just in this city, but in this country at large. And I know that $28,000 is not going to fix the racial disparities. Body cameras are not going to fix racial disparities. An independent monitor's office that's fully funded and operational on its own will not be enough to fix all of the problems that are fundamentally wrong with policing here. But what I want the folks who spoke at this meeting, at our last meeting, and all of the meetings in between to know is that these are concerns that I take seriously. and that my colleagues on this board take seriously and if you are somebody who is on the fence about how to vote on this motion just consider the symbolic weight that this vote can have especially with budget season coming up in letting folks know that We want, there are things that need to be fixed about the OIMs, about the office. There are things that need to be fixed about the PCOB. There are certainly things that need to be fixed about policing in our city. and that this is not something we are shirking off, that this is a challenge that we are going to tackle head on, and that we are going to make sure that the concerns of the people, that the fears and the hopes of the people who have been reaching out in mass since this horrible thing happened, that we are hearing that, that we are acting on it, and we are doing our duty as Alders to address those concerns.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Pritchett? Yes.

You know, I'm sitting here and I'm listening and I'm thinking, and I do support the structure, structure of the office, PCOB and OIM. I support it. But I cannot defend the occupants of this structure. The amount of toxicity, the amount of vitriol that has gone on between this office is awful. It's awful. I said before that the office of the OIM and PCOB is in its infancy. I am yet to see any growth, growth that will allow me to say that things can change. The amount of subjectivity, no objectivity, it's me against you. It's like putting two people in a paper bag and I don't know who's gonna come out first. It's that bad. I'm also saying, too, that when we start looking at, and I do agree that $28,500 is spit. It's nothing. But I don't care how much it is, I will demand how you're gonna spend it. I wanna know how you're gonna spend it. I haven't seen a plan. I have no idea what you're going to do with it in terms of training, because training needs to take place. When I think about the current composition of the PCOB, the things that have been said to me, I'll mute you. That's a problem. That's a real problem. I don't know what the intake procedure is. No idea. If you have a case, what's the first thing you do? How do you go about assessing what the needs are with respect to the people who will be investigating? These are things that need to be known. These are things that need to be written down. This is the plan that you're going to use and you're going to pursue in terms of a case. Until I can see that, until I have some comfort in knowing that this is what you want to do, and I see that it makes a difference, and that we can grow from there, then I'm all with it. But for now, the answer is no. Thank you.

Thank you, Elder. Elder Mayer?

Mayor, I have long supported the mission of the PCOB and OIM. I've gotten to know members of the PCOB and the data analysis and OIM over the past year. As to Alder Pritchett's point, sometimes the OIM and PCOB have done fantastic work, and other times they do things that frustrate the hell out of me. I should say they do things not the way I would have done them. But that office will outlast the occupants, just as this Common Council will outlast all of us. And because of that support, I mean, I think I know the way the vote is going, but I support funding the OIM and PCOB. I support increasing that funding. But I also support working on that structure a lot. And I know it's annoying that we keep coming back to try to fine-tune it, but I do think that a lot of the problems we have are because it was never given the funding it needed at the beginning to really be effective. And so we're... We're criticizing something that's in its infancy that's also been malnourished and hasn't been able to fully grow into what it ought to be. So I will not support the motion which supports the PSOB. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Matthews.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to say that the $28,500 is spit. It's basically nothing. This budget resolution asks... is a result of trying to be as reasonable as possible and take all of our budget limitations into account. I am not and was never asking us for a million dollars tonight. I don't think this ask is anywhere near sufficient to address the additional need for capacity. I also don't think additional funds alone will be enough to resolve every conflict between the city, office, board, and community. The additional training allowed by this resolution is a step in the right direction, but this money is a token, an olive branch to move us even a step forward while we commit to doing the work needed, while we commit. to doing the work needed to ensure the structural questions are addressed such that this council is comfortable, or I guess a future council, but I'm hopeful that it could be this council, is comfortable to, for the first time, fund the office at a level that allow them to perform the duties that the community, that us as a council, and that the ordinance demands. Also just want to say that we did get several, well we got a lot of emails in our all Alder inbox as we have since July 22nd. And especially I think there are like five that we got just today and maybe the tail end of yesterday that have extremely good points and that I hope that all of you and all of us read. One specifically, I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but I do wanna read an excerpt and then just a tiny snippet from the end of the email that we got from Michelle Robinson, who among other things served as the first Inspector General for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Politics and policy are often intertwined, particularly in government, but they are not the same thing. As someone whose work has largely centered on policy, systems change, and institutional design, I find myself much more interested in getting underneath the political noise of this moment to the policy and governance questions that will remain long after the current controversy and the people involved in it have changed. And right now, I worry that we are losing that conversation. The politics surrounding OIM and PCOB have become intensely personalized. And I don't mean only the current monitor or OIM staff. At this point, the motives and conduct of nearly every actor involved are being contested. There are concerns and allegations involving OIM leadership and staff. The mayor and city administration are being accused of undermining the office. Alders are being characterized as either defending or dismantling civilian oversight. The chief and MPD are also part of this increasingly politicized environment. Some of those concerns may be legitimate and require resolution. I am not suggesting that the politics or the conduct of individuals do not matter, but I worry that questions about people, personalities, motives, and individual conflicts are becoming conflated with a fundamentally different set of questions about institutions. Does Madison remain committed to meaningful civilian oversight of policing? What does genuine independence require? What accountability should exist for the oversight institutions themselves? And what structure will allow OIM and PCOB to function effectively when their work inevitably creates discomfort for the city and the institutions they oversee? Then there's a lot more about her personal experience with this kind of work and some other things and then this last little snippet. The test of our commitment to independent civilian oversight was therefore never going to come when oversight was comfortable. It was always going to come when the work of oversight created discomfort for the institutions and people being overseen. And so I would just like, again, to encourage everyone to read this email and really think about this as we move forward to budget season because we do need to have the tough conversations and I am intending to do everything that I can to have them. And I welcome anyone else that wants to join me. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Zhang?

I'd just like to clarify, is the motion right now to place the amendment on file? And so voting aye would effectively do nothing with, because the budget would not be changed. Voting no would mean that something else would have to happen.

That's correct. So the motion is to place on file and aye vote would place the item on file. There would be no budget amendment. A no vote would mean that you want to continue the discussion and potentially another motion could be made. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alder. Alder Madison?

Thank you, Mayor. I had not planned to speak because I feel like I said everything I had to say at Finance. But I want to alter Matthew's last comments. One of the reasons why I decided to go ahead and speak is because I actually spoke to Michelle Robinson. She's one of my constituents. We had a very long conversation. And there were some things she was like, you know, maybe if you can share this, because her opinion was that what she was hearing specifically about me was not who she knew me to be. And so I explained, I'm not, you know, people are going to, you know, create all kinds of fantasies about me, such a life. I'm not going to allow that to sort of change who I am. So I'm not going to focus on who I am as an alder because I don't feel the need to defend my own record. But I really want to focus on what this council has done in the last, at least since I've been alder, regarding this office. It is, we have overwhelmingly supported this office. So I'm not going to pretend like I'm not voting no because I'm going to vote yes to put it on the file for a lot of reasons that I won't get into because I've already gotten into it. But The council, from my history of being on council since fall 2022, has overwhelmingly supported this office. Actually, despite how, what is it, the distortions have been out there, The majority of auditors who hit me up about potential next steps, their questions, asking for more information, which led me to get the summary document, for example, no one's come to me to say, Sabrina, answer this question for me so we can figure out how to dismantle it. Or Sabrina, answer this question for me and give me information so I can learn how to defund it. That has never come up. Everybody has been overwhelmingly supportive. So I just want to go back to a couple of things. And my apologies for being offloaded because I was like, would I do or not do? But I've never been a fan of symbolic nor performative gestures because they do a whole lot of harm to the community when we do things that are symbolic or performative, for example. So I've always been a fan of like just actually doing the work and accomplishing the work. Some of that work where I was included is, for example, last year where the council voted 17 to 3 to not defund the office. because the floor amendment for operating budget would have purchased zero cameras. Sure, it would have given NPD some operating dollars towards their eventual cost, but we would have defunded the office and we would have purchased zero cameras where the public sort of assumed that we would have been able to buy cameras. This council voted 17 to 3. I'm not going to go over who were the three because the majority said we don't want to defund the office. Got it. doesn't we balder pritchett regardless still also supports the work of the office i'm confident of it she just wants some things addressed like a lot of us so um the other thing i want to say because i'm confident chair pearson will listen to this eventually and if there are members of the pclb here they may listen to that or they'll come backwards and listen to this i want to say i appreciate my or chair pearson because We did sit down and talk about the challenges, both operational conflicts and maybe a differing of opinions. This council, and I won't share the alders who hit me up, but there were alders who were expecting that amendments would come back after our April meeting from Alders Glenn or Vice President Glenn and Alder Matthews. We didn't get those things back. There were also alders who hit me up who expected some sort of, I think, maybe community, something else they expected. That thing did not happen. So the reason I bring that up is because Whereas a community is being told that this city or this body wants to dismantle it, actually the questions that I get are always in the affirmative, are always in the positive. Hey, can you give me an update order on this? It is not... Because this thing didn't happen, tell me how I killed it. It's never been that, despite the distortions that are overwhelmingly killing people's ideas about us, for example. So also, I want to go back to Alder Rummel and I. I believe it was—I'm 47 now, so it was either two budgets ago or three budgets ago. I think it was two budgets ago. Alder Rummel and I worked really hard because, again— Brumwell is very old school. I had some of the hardest conversations I've had to have about taking money from an agency or staff in order to give it to something else. That was my first time experience doing that because for the library, I didn't have to do that. I didn't have to beg to take money from an agency or kill someone's job to give it to somewhere else. So we were very emotional maybe two budgets ago when there was a budget cut to the office, I don't know, $120,000 or $199,000. Alder Rumble and I worked really hard strategically. We focused on what repair can we do in the office versus what, we didn't focus on harm. I see so much harm being created with a bunch of disinformation, misinformation, and literally sometimes outright BS. So Alder Rumble and I did not focus in that direction. We focused on what can we do to repair So this council will support our freaking amendment. So we, I can't remember the exact money, the exact number, but it was $127,000. It went back, I believe, to staffing costs potentially. And this council overwhelmingly supported. I can't remember what the numbers were, but we got that, the council supported. So there's another opportunity of this council supporting that office. I have lost count of the number of times in our council meetings when we're talking about reports from the office. For example, Alder Evers, probably like myself, we can be nerdy about some things. And Alder Evers has never come to me to say, how can we kill this office based on a report we might not have gotten or an update? It's always been... we would like this thing so we can move forward. So again, I want to say when we talk about reports, it's just like, hey, we just want this thing to happen. And I feel like that improvement has happened from the office, for example. One reason why I brought NACO to the Common Council, unfortunately, we had this freaking tragic, insane tragedy to happen the next day after NACO presented to the council was not some finessing that was fed to the community about why we had NACO. It was like because this freaking council had not heard from NACO. I am a nerd, 100%. I like to learn. Other council members love to learn. So I, in the council budget, use our money to pay for NACO to come to present to the council. They gave a fabulous presentation. But some of the things that they brought up is like, I don't know, we don't need to play games and pretend what's happening is not happening. Some of what they brought up is like the threats to legitimacy. We can see now that there are tons of threats to the legitimacy of the office based on what we see and oftentimes, unfortunately, created by other orders. This toxicity is threatening the legitimacy of the office, as NACO told us months ago. That is what is happening. NACO also told us, the reason I appreciate Chair Pearson for agreeing to sit down with me is because when we dropped the amendments, we dropped the amendments because we are human beings and there is no way we're going to be talking about some dang on amendments when somebody just got shot three times in the head in the middle of a freaking city street. That made no sense to do that. But it was not to say we don't agree because people were pumping this thing out there like, oh, we won. I'm like, are y'all, you know. What is happening here? It was not about we won or we lost. It was we're going to figure out this at another time when it makes more sense because what still exists, the challenges that we were trying to address. And after the NACO presentation, I'm confident that the sponsors, including myself, were going to sit back down again to edit because what do we believe in? Repair versus harm. And NACO was there to help us figure out what we might need to edit in those amendments as well. The other thing Nicole shared with this body that I noticed doesn't get shared out publicly very much so is that it is natural and normal for ordinances for these kinds of offices to be updated over time because you don't know what you don't know until you experience what you need to know. So it was not a dismantle or kill or defund. It was updating. And then again, We never got back amendments from the two alders who said they would bring something back to us. Those things never happen. Maybe they'll go back and work on them. Such is life. So I just want to say again, there are so many examples since I've been on this body since October 2022, where this council has overwhelmingly supported. I want to say again, despite what some of this mess you all have been fed, Not one single member of this body has hit me up. Let me make sure I'm clear about this. Our records are public. You can read our emails. You can read our texts. It's all out there. You can read it. Not one single of the other 19 auditors has ever, ever come to me or not even the mayor. Let me put the mayor because I know how y'all love to be like an emeritus. The mayor and I don't be having conversations about this office. This is like it was created by a common council ordinance, not the mayor. So I just want to say, this body, you don't need to believe me. You can review the record. You can review the meetings. When we come to PCLB meetings sometimes, despite us coming to learn and to listen, we get caught all kind of stuff or whatever. And we just sit through it. It's just like, you know what? I get they upset, ain't got nothing to do with me or whatever, I'm not going to take a person, I'm going to still come and sit and learn in these meetings. Because I got sort of like, this is not helping, I just watch them now and reply. I go back and watch them after the fact. But what I've learned, the last thing I want to make sure I say is that think about what you want to exist. I appreciate Dr. Robinson for reaching out to us. The office is not just a responsibility of the council. Yes, by ordinance, yes it is. But it's also the responsibility of the community. Do you want something to exist? How do you want to get there and what you want this to exist? Do you want it to exist where it's created in sort of the foundation of toxicity? Do you want it to be, do we want to get towards some level of repair? That's why I've been successful in just about everything I've accomplished, because my focus has been on repair, on fixing, on being solution focused. I don't need to hate on nobody in order to get there. None of us do, and none of this body has reached out to me hating on this office to get us there. It has been overwhelmingly how, what, can I get more information? I just want to make sure I repeat that. It is not just me who has supported this office. It is alders who have voted yes to support what I have supported. When I went back and tried to get more money, it was this body who said yes. Last year when alders put up a thing to defund it, 17 of us said no to defunding it. When Alder Evers goes on about reports, we've all supported what he has asked for, for the most part. I don't know what the numbers are. So again, I just want to say, I really wish we can walk out of here tonight and sort of have a reset on how we think about what this body wants and how we get to sort of this thing that is beautiful and that is brilliant. Not that it isn't now, but we cannot be pretending that we don't have issues to address. So let me just make sure, Mayor. I'm sorry, I know you're looking at me. Let me just make sure I get it, you know. Yep. Okay. I think I hit it off. Okay. Thank you. My bad. Thanks for your patience.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Evers?

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, fellow council members and members of the public who have spoken up. Lots of things have been said. Powerful things have been said. In reference to the issue about politics and what Dr. Robinson wrote, and I along with Alder Matthews, encourage everybody to read that email. It's important, I think, for us to think clearly about what is before us right now and why my vote in favor of placing this on file is centered on not wanting to support the status quo of what we have right now at the risk of not drawing attention to the things that I think are crushing the effectiveness of the OIM. I'm at a place similar to where I was shortly after Corey was killed, where at that time, I said that two things could be true at the same time, that what happened to him was unnecessary, was awful, was terrible. But I also thought that a protest that morphed into a homeless encampment making demands that could not be met was distracting us from working on the various issues and the policies that could prevent something like this from happening again. I'm in a similar place today where two things, in my opinion, can be true at once, that independent police oversight is absolutely necessary, but what we have right now is not working. President Madison made reference to that NACO meeting, and as you recall, I had a question that was asked, and it was referencing the impasse that I think has been exemplified and expressed clearly in tonight's meeting. You know, I said that the We seem to be at an impasse. The activist community claims Alders and the mayor are beholden to the police union, though most of us have never received or sought their endorsement. Meetings on the topic carry on a conspiratorial tone, arguing that Alders and the mayor are trying to destroy the OIM and the PCOB. And the OIM is supporting this narrative. The divide is wide and the acrimony is over the top. We've heard that tonight. There's been talk of a reset. I had a conversation with Chair Pearson in a restaurant after the April meeting about what that reset could look like, but it's not happened. How do we overcome this divide? What would NACO advise? And NACO's director of training paused, as you recall, before responding and basically said, it sounds like you need professional mediation. warning that if the impasse were allowed to continue, it would threaten the legitimacy of the office. Weeks later, there's been no reset and the divide has widened. The interim independent monitor and the OIM's data analysts routinely take to social media, vellifying fellow city employees and puning the character of members of this body, attacking the mayor, making claims and accusations that reveal a complete lack of interest in improving these relationships. Greg Gollenbeck corrected me regarding his Facebook post. One thing is undeniable, though. He showed a picture of a white police officer holding a gun to the head of a black man and included the tagline, gang in blue. What is equally undeniable, or what is undeniable, that's inflammatory. That's incendiary and is grossly irresponsible. I get it that there's anger, there's profound grief and sadness, the unanswered calls for justice, and I get it from my conversation just now with Greg, or during the intermission that we had earlier, that it's out of frustration that motivates a lot of these posts on social media. Frustration that they're not getting the evidence and the response from MPD that they expect and deserve. But that's not an excuse for unprofessional behavior on the part of a city employee. The OIM job description states that the monitor, quote, will set the office's operational philosophy and develop and maintain standard operating procedures to ensure all matters are handled in a thorough, objective, fair, and impartial manner. That's not happening right now. It's clear. We had some journalists here earlier. If a journalist was covering a protest, a march down the street, but also participating in that protest and that march on the street, the legitimacy and credibility of that journalist would be at stake. No longer a neutral arbiter of facts, I.M. Glass and her office have traded impartiality and objectivity for the passion of an activist. In so doing, she has torched OIM's credibility and greatly diminished its ability to provide effective police oversight. I have one last point, and that's this. IM Glass is the interim monitor. Accordingly, a significant portion of her job description was to be as the hiring manager for a permanent replacement. It's my understanding that little or no progress has been made in this regard. She has not put much time at all in the hiring of a permanent independent monitor. And it's for these reasons that I cannot in good conscious support even this spit of money of additional funding for the Office of the Independent Monitor. Most Madisonians firmly believe we need independent community oversight of the police but they also believe that the office as it currently stands is deeply flawed and dysfunctional and that adding funding alone will not remedy the situation. So we do need to look to the Dr. Robinsons out there for ways that we can try to heal this divide and bring people together because right now we're not there and I don't know how we're gonna come back from this. But if we want effective police oversight in this community, the toxicity has to go away. People need to start talking to one another. People need to get off of social media, Facebook Live and whatever, cut that crap and start working to see what we can do to move forward. Thanks.

Thank you, Alder Glenn.

I just want to say, first of all, I have never said that any elders wanted to defund the OIM. So if there's any insinuation with that. But I just need to just name some things. And I don't even care if none of us are sitting here by the time I'm done. I am so tired of everybody saying and have an expectation of the community to follow the rules that you don't follow. I'm talking quorum. I'm talking about chatting with people. I am so tired. I knew who Greg was and how bad we all hated him before I ever met him. I knew how much Mika was an angry black woman who wasn't going to be able to make it and how she was making everybody's life hard before I ever met her. Everybody hated her. because she challenged the system, not everybody, sorry. Those that know, know, who call, who challenge, not you either, but there, I knew about who Amelia was, never met her. I knew who all these players were. I had to hear about when people come to council and this and that and templates and nobody listens. I don't have to turn your community against you. Nobody has to turn the community against us. They're watching us. I have tried to protect us in rooms many of times. They're watching us. They're changing my mind on who I believed I was working with, not the other way around. If you want an office and a person to be this colonized version of what you have an expectation of parliament to look like, I'm never going to be that. There's a lot of us that are never gonna be like that. I'm not your culture. Come meet me at mine. I'm angry, yeah, I'm angry. I got every right to be angry living here my whole life. Before I ever met Aramique, I had to hear about this woman who was not following the rules, and I needed to talk to her, and she was so angry, and this and that. And then I met this docile, educated, pushback person who knew her stuff and questioned the system. That's what we're supposed to be doing, not her telling us to. question. There was all this big hoopla for a little while around her question in the subpoena and filing through. We've got to legislate it. We have to be able to legislate, push, I mean not legislate, take to court the ordinance. We're going to have to push against it. That's how you're going to find out where it lives and where it's supposed to be. But to say that people like, the insinuation that some of us are dividing, the community is watching and telling me I'm losing my mind for believing y'all. And the reason I'm so frustrated with you all, it doesn't have anything to do with if you funded the OIM or all of the versions of what you did. It's because you won't give the PCOB and the OIM what it needs because you hate. And this is what I've been told by a couple of elders about other elders. They hate Aramique. They hate Gregg. And because of that, nobody's going to get anything until they're gone. For the first time, we shut a case because of her. We have an annual report. We have disorderly conduct. We have recommendations for our police. You don't like the way she talks. You don't like the way she acts. You don't like the way she does this. She's not from here. Go look at how great Baltimore turned out after she was done. Go look out how better San Diego was. When we talk about wanting to be nerds and go search stuff, go search her history of what she completed by disrupting the system of where she was. Because I did that for a month before I ever went and talked to her, which is why I was one of the last elders to talk to her. If you want the community to follow rules, y'all better start following them, because I'm going to make sure that they know everything you do.

I'm done. Thank you, Elder. Alder Madison for the second time.

Yes, I know. I just want to clarify something because I know both Alder Evers and I mentioned Chair Pearson. Common Council Chief of Staff is working to get us scheduled with I think a NACO referred or provided a referral for a mediator. So I just want to make sure I clarify because I don't think I said where the process is at right now. So just want to provide that clarification.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Matthews for the second time.

Thanks, Mayor. And thank you for that clarification. That's good to know. I'm distracted now. I'm not going to get too wild if you want to see me ugly cry about all the reasons that this needs to happen. The Monday Finance Committee meeting is in the public record for the rest of digital time. So it's all there. I said it, and I'm pretty sure I stand by it, but I'm not going to go back and watch it all, to be frank, with everyone. But I just want to, I guess, point out that, yeah, I haven't had a single conversation about this that hasn't gotten very heated, not necessarily coming from me. And I also know, as a newer alder, that While there is a lot of culture of collaboration at the city, there is also, you know, if the folks you're trying to work with don't want the same thing that you want, they don't make it easy to learn and figure out how to do it. So I'll leave it there. But again, I wanna keep having conversations. We need to make this happen.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Laberman?

Thank you.

I'll be... Also for the second time.

Yes. It's been the last few. I'll be brief about this because I don't think it's particularly relevant to what's being said here. I just wanted to respond briefly to something that my colleague Alder Evers had said about the... The independent monitor forfeiting legitimacy by partaking in protests and those actions. God knows I do not agree with everything that our monitor has said and done over the last few months. But I just wanted on the record the. purpose of the office as defined in the ordinance is to ensure that the MPD is accountable and responsive to the needs and concerns of all segments of the community I do not think that being in community with people in those protests and who are calling for accountability for MPD is a disqualifying action I think we can debate some of the other things that and the merits of the actions that the monitor is taken but I do not want us to fully write off the possibility that it is legitimate for an independent monitor to partake in those sorts of things in the future. I believe that independent in this case means independent from the police and from city politics, not independent from all lived experience and feedback from the community.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue wishing to speak. I have no other Alders in the queue. So anticipating disagreement, we will have a roll call. The motion is to place on file, just to clarify again, the non-parliamentarians and the the motion to place on file requires 11 votes to pass and if 11 votes are not achieved. The item is back before us. Another motion can be made. So all those in favor of placing the item on file will say aye. Those opposed, no. As your name is called, and the clerk will please call the roll.

Thank you. Alder Mayor.

It is a simple majority to place on file.

Alder Mayor, no. Alder and Zegba. Come back to you?

Okay.

We'll get back to you. Alder O'Brien. Aye. Alder O'Brien, aye. Alder O'Hovitch. Aye. Alder O'Hovitch, aye. Alder Pritchett. Very well. Alder Tischler. Aye. Alder Tischler, aye. Alder Verveer. Aye. Alder Verveer, aye. Alder Vittiver.

Aye.

Alder Vidaver, aye. Alder Zhang? No. Alder Zhang, no. Alder Evers? Aye. Alder Evers, aye. Alder Field? Aye. Alder Field, aye. Alder Figueroa-Cole? Aye. Alder Figueroa-Cole, aye. Alder Glen? No. Alder Glen, no. Alder Ugehr? No. Alder Ugehr, no. Alder Harrington-McKinney? No. Alder Harrington-McKinney, no. Alder Lankella?

Aye.

Alder Lankella, aye. Alder Lieberman?

No.

Alder Lieberman, no. Alder Madison? Alder Madison, aye. Alder Martinez-Rutherford? No. Alder Martinez-Rutherford, no. Alder Matthews? No. Alder Matthews, no. Alder Enzagua? No. Alder Enzagua, no. Alder Pritchett? No. Alder Pritchett, no. Ten ayes, ten noes.

With ten ayes and ten noes, the item fails. So the item is still before us. Is there a doubt? Okay. So the item is still before us. Alder Zhang?

Motion to adopt the budget amendment to transfer $28,500 to... Are you moving the original? Moving the original to adopt.

The motion is to adopt. There's a second. Do you wish to speak to it, Alder?

Um, I think that with the contentious nature of this movement and also with the comments made, um, I guess two hours ago, um, about the responsibility and the ability that we have to support the community. I think that this is a reasonable ask and I support it.

Thank you. Alder, Alder Matthews. Thank you, mayor. Um, I, Really appreciate that. And I think that the community at a minimum deserves that we take a vote on this. And I think that when all of the headlines come out tomorrow and they don't say council voted whatever 11 to 10 to do nothing, that's gonna be good for us that that's not the headline tomorrow. So I think everyone knows how I would like to vote. And again, I tried really hard to be as reasonable as I possibly could as an example to all the folks that everyone keeps telling me are not being reasonable. Thanks.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Okubitz.

Thank you, Mayor. I was not originally planning on speaking. I would have spoken on the last motion if I was, but it seems we are at a bit of an impasse because I don't think there are the votes to pass the item. Every vote that we have been having on the OIM and the OIM's budget has been implicitly or directly a referendum on the behavior and conduct of the independent monitor. And not just IAM Glass, but the previous IAM as well. When it came to the The budget amendment last year, it was a reflection of the lack of work that the previous IM did, and nobody would call the office successful under the previous IM. And then IM class came. And I voted yes or I voted no on the budget amendments last year because I had hoped that a new I am would be really helpful for the office they could Actually bring about effective police oversight back in March when I am glass was pretty new, she offered to meet with all Alders and I met with her in March and we talked about the things she wanted for the office, the issues that she saw, where she wanted to go and I asked her explicitly about hiring the new independent monitor and she told me that she didn't want to leave the office in a state that would be bad for somebody new but she also told me that she would be starting that process this summer it was not long after that that i started hearing rumors that she was talking with pcob chair maya pearson about um about being appointed as the permanent monitor um i find that a bit unsettling. But it was just a rumor. But now, if you go back, and if you look at the June meetings, and if you look at the July meetings, and if you look at open records between the chair and IM Glass and HR, it is clear that they have been planning for a while to appoint IM Glass as the permanent monitor. I bring this all up because there has been a lot of talk of trust, a lot of talk of what we can do to rebuild, all of these things. And I feel like I... Again, all of this is a referendum on I am glass right now. And it is tough for me to vote yes to give an apartment more money when I feel like the leader of that department lied to my face and came here on an interim job and is now playing politics and pushing for a permanent job. And so I want independent police oversight, but every single step of this has been adversarial between I Am Glass and the city from just taking an hour training to get access to a website to how can we work around our dedicated HR processes which are there to protect taxpayer money to make sure that What we are doing is not just benefiting people, you know, it's not backdoor processes I this has just been crazy to me we I signed on to the amendments on that April meeting and The reason was I just I wanted to have a discussion about it. I did not like the case we were having we kicked the amendments on the line and The disaster happened at the end of July, and we still have not had an actual discussion on the structure of the office outside of some PCOB meetings. But this chamber has not had a discussion on this office and the structure. We can't have those discussions out in the open. People have been having them behind closed doors, and it's not me. There's been accusations of this, but I don't know what that's about. I just... I'll stop there, but this is why I am voting to place this on file, is because I don't think that this office can effectively move forward under IM Glass's leadership. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders. Alder Lieberman?

Yeah, I just wanted to be clear on two things. One, did somebody second the motion? Okay, I just missed that. And then this requires a 15 vote to pass? Okay, thank you. That's correct.

Thank you, Alder. Alder Pritchett?

You know, I echo what Alder Oklemitz is saying. I, too, have some concerns about that. Not only that, but when I think about... I think it was August 4th. And when someone, when the monitor becomes the story, the monitor became the story when she inserted herself at the encampment site. That's a no-no. I went back and I have looked at my dictionary meaning of monitor. And it does not mean inserting yourself. It means standing back, making observations, making contemporaneous notes so that you know what happened. But to insert yourself, that's a no-no. I have standards. I have high expectations. And I will not sit here and allow someone to just be mediocre. Because mediocrity is not what we need. We need someone who's going to do the work. I hear the OIM and the PCOB saying, we got to do the work. We got to do the work. We need money to do the work. I look at the reports that have been written, and if they had been handed to me, I would have done this. That's the quality. As I said, I have standards. Thank you.

Thank you, Alder. I have no other Alders in the queue. So we will go to the question. The motion before us is to adopt the original resolution. It is a 15-vote item. So all those in favor of adoption, We'll say aye. Those opposed, no. As your name is called, and the clerk will please call the roll.

Thank you. Alder Mayer. Aye. Alder Mayer, aye. Alder Enzegwu. Enzegwu, aye. Alder O'Brien. No. Alder O'Brien, no. Alder Ohovich. No. Alder Ohovich, no. Alder Pritchett. No. Alder Pritchett, no. Alder Tischler. No. Alder Tischler, no. Alder Verveer. No. Alder Revere, no. Alder Vitiver?

No.

Alder Vitiver, no. Alder Zhang? Yes. Alder Zhang, aye. Alder Evers? No. Alder Evers, no. Alder Field? No. Alder Field, no. Alder Figueroa-Cole? No. Alder Figueroa-Cole, no. Alder Glenn? Aye. Alder Glenn, aye. Alder Ugar? No. Alder Ugar, no. Alder Harrington-McKinney? Aye. Alder Harrington-McKinney abstains. Alder Lankella? Aye. Lincol and no auto Lieberman Lieberman. I order Madison Madison. No, I don't Martinez Rutherford Or Martinez Rutherford. I father Matthews Matthews.

I have seven eyes twelve nose one abstain Here with seven eyes and twelve nose one abstention the item fails So We'll move on to item number 68. Item 68 is Legislature 94196, authorizing the mayor and the city clerk to execute a contract between the City of Madison and SEH for planning, engineering, and public engagement services for East Washington Avenue, Highway 30 to Anamark, and Schroeder Road, Whitney Way to Gammon Road. in districts 3, 12, 17, 19, and 20. On item 68, President Madison, a motion please. Motion to adopt. Is there a second? Moved and seconded to adopt item 68. On item 68, are there questions for staff? Alder Harrington-McKinney.

Yes, my question is about the public engagement. What is the plan for that? Could you speak to that? And more specifically, how is the plan to get those voices to the table that are normally not heard?

Alder, I am looking for staff that might be able to answer your question. And I am not seeing any transportation staff left in the meeting. I'm sorry, Alder, I don't think there's anyone here that can answer your question. So perhaps you could reach out to transportation staff. I think it's probably traffic engineering.

I did, but I'll follow up offline.

OK. Thank you, Alder. Item 68 has been moved and seconded. I will not ask if there's additional questions for staff, since there are no staff here to answer them. But is there any discussion? Seeing none, is there any objection to recording unanimous vote in favor of item 68? Seeing no objection, item 68 will pass. That brings us to the end of our agenda. Are there any announcements or additional introductions of items from the floor? Seeing none, Alder? Mayor has left the building.

Who's next in the list?

We'll go to Alder Madison. A motion, please. Is there a second? Moved and seconded to adjourn. Is there any objection to recording? Unanimous. Vote in favor of adjournment. Seeing no objection, we stand adjourned. Have a good morning, everyone.