Airport Commission - Noise Abatement Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

We're gonna we're gonna call the meeting to order. Roll call, Todd.

Yes. Supervisor Engelberger. Here. Supervisor Blazewitz. Here. Supervisor Betcher. Here. Dale is excused, and McCurry was excused. Correct? YGP Tolstien? Yeah. And YGPU?

Yeah. And Patrick chair chair Patrick Miles is here, and I believe he would count as a quorum because I think we may be losing better very soon here. He's got something else he's gotta get to, and Patrick needs to go real soon also. So let's, get going here on, consideration of the minutes. We've got minute minutes of February 24, public works and transportation committee, and also the minutes of the, we got two sets of minutes for the February 24. One is a joint meeting and one is a regular meeting. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Moved by Lacewitz. Anything on the question?

If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those are approved. Transfers, fund transfers. We've got fund transfer request for those replacement. Is there a motion to recommend or motion to approve? Moved by Blasowitz. John?

Uh-oh.

Give us an out Yep. Update. Well, three weeks ago or so, we, lost the bulldozer to a fire after hours. We believe we don't know entirely yet. They're still investigating, but, fire started in the belly pan area of the dozer after hours. It's a total loss, so we are requesting to move, transfer funds so that we're able to purchase a new, dozer. We are working through insurance, but we can't wait in order to get this critical piece of equipment replaced. Questions for John?

If not,

motions are made and seconded or made to approve resolution three thirty six. Anything on the question? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? So ordered. Thank you. Item two is acceptance of Madison Community Foundation grant for the giraffe exhibit. I wanna skip to item three if we can. Can we do that? So I'm gonna be at item one. I'll seal that as the rereferral of that contract. Sorry about that. Can we skip that for just a minute? I wanna get to item three. Is that okay? Okay. Is Vetcher still on?

Yes. I am. Okay. We're gonna go

to item three, which is extend marketing contract to SB strict strategic marketing for the services. Resolution three fifty five, is there a motion to approve? Some move. Moved by Blasowitz. Janine, are you gonna do this or is Joseph gonna do this?

I'm happy to discuss. This is a preplanned 2026 budgeted expense. It's an extension of a contract that's in place today. Not asking for any new funds, but rather executing our strategic plan for marketing that's already vetted for the fiscal year as we ensure to hit our organizational performance metrics. This is supporting our revenue generating programs, and this supports approximately 400,000, of those revenue generating programs. This is an engine that supports, our general, purpose revenue needs. So without sophisticated reach provided by these marketing efforts, we risk broader budget risk. So wanted to share that. This is an extension of a current contract.

Okay. Dave, did you have something you wanted to add on this?

We've just my biggest question was about the metrics that of what they have provided for their contract. You know, the amount amount of change that we got from going to their contract last year to where we were before.

If I'm hearing that correctly, you were looking for the difference in metrics in the difference in the cost of the contract from last year to this year. Is that correct?

No. I'm not looking in the value that was provided by the contract. In other words You're a real muffled, Dave. Numbers like before?

You're a real muffled. Try it again.

Dave? So yeah. Can you hear me a little better now?

Go ahead.

Okay. So the my question was more about the metrics of the value of the contract. You know, what did we gain from before we entered that contract since it's fairly new to where we are today? Just kinda looking at, you know, what value did we get return on that investment.

Sure. And I may defer to Joseph. He's got a few more of the metrics numbers in front of him, but I will say I know that this is a specific, part of our analytics for our website. And I know a big part of the metrics that are involved in this year's contract is meeting our ADA requirements for our website. And we do need to, for legal reasons, make sure that we are meeting those requirements. That's a big part of this project scope for this contract.

Did that answer your question, Dave?

I'm not really sure for a contract that it's for services that are supposed to be the creative element, design, and productions, and ongoing Zoom marketing initiatives. I I guess if if we didn't do the marketing ourselves and we're outsourcing this marketing, what increase did we get from the marketing? Not you know, does the website look nice, but are we seeing more traffic? Are we seeing more visitors? Is it raising more funds? You know? No. No. The cost then.

Sure. I I oh, go ahead, Joseph.

No. And and I wasn't sure, supervisor. I did send you some of those numbers that supported supported the analytics and the decisions that we made. Janine, in the beginning, had referenced, some measurables that I can put behind ticket sales that they help support and generate, via through this contract, which almost equals about 400,000. In terms of, what did we the the the services marketing, they they go they go well beyond just supporting the events.

They're creating the analytics that help us look at for a great example, we're able to track that, over the last over each month, we receive, over a million different hits and visitors to our sites, and we're able to capture that we're hitting over 55,000,000, people a year through these analytics, which help us, determine next steps on how we're advertising our events, what's working, what's not. I know that's a general overview. Some of that specific information, since we have the subject matter expert in the room, we do have Kristen, Alola, who is our marketing coordinator, who's sitting in the room tonight to be able to give you even more specifics on what it means for creative element design. What specifically did we do? But I can honestly tell you that this is helping support significant revenue directly through ticket sales, but also it goes as a support indirectly how many visitors we're bringing into the zoo for different occasions that meet our mission and vision that help support our gift shop sales that are are are, concession sales as well.

Also, our carousel. Our carousel brings in roughly $462,000 a year, and we can't do that without advertising what the zoo is offering and bringing people into our doors.

K. Christian, do you wanna say something?

Yeah. I'm happy to. I think that, if you're looking for analytics, SMB does give us monthly reports that will dive very deeply into every ad campaign that they've done, exactly how many clicks we're getting on each ad by it is a newer contract, so we have that data going back eleven months at this point. And you can see as we learn more what is gaining traction and what isn't, where we're putting our money into future advertising dollars. So we definitely have numbers behind what they're doing, and it's also something we don't have the capacity to do without them. So it really does help us hone our message and where we put our ad money.

K. We've got one speaker on this issue.

Eric,

is are you do you have to promote them, or what do you have to do? Alright. Eric, you've been promoted to panelists. You should be able to speak. Eric, you got three minutes. We got a real time crunch tonight, so I'll give you three minutes. Go ahead. Can you hear us, Eric?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Thank you, chair. Eric Anderson, Aspen Local sixty five, thirty year plus zoo employees speaking in opposition to outsourcing our marketing services at Dane County Zoo. While Dane County employees are facing pay cuts and seeing our coworkers' positions cut and frozen, having to to do more with less. The zoo has already lost two and a half positions, one from local eighteen seventy one, a half a position from seven twenty, and most recently, a 65 position in a zookeeper. Next year's budget is no better and will likely be asked again to contribute to our health insurance benefits to the tune of 6 to $10,000,000.

That's Kristen and Joseph's health insurance, not mine. And, again, forgo a cost of living increase commensurate with inflation and, again, lose dozens of county positions. For years, we've advocated for additional marketing staff. This this should not be a new concept to anyone. Yeah.

Marketing is a revenue generating business, which is why we've we've been advocating for additional staff. In fact, in 2024, Local sixty five advocated for a part time zero point six marketing assistant to help Kristen with fundraising and event planning. The zoo instead chose to outsource this service for $90,000 about the cost of a point six marketing assistant to a private company. Speaking of fundraising, we've got a new foundation created. I have to think that there will be a marketing component to this organization, which will be duplicative of this marketing contract in a time when we're hearing about tightening our belts, difficult choices, creative cost savings measures, I think this outsourcing is a cop out.

At the zoo commission, I suggested collaboration between county departments like AEC public health, sand and water, IT. The commission's attitude was that the $31,800,000 structural budget deficit is projected for 2027. So they went ahead and approved the contract for 2026. But let's not consider it for 2027, they said.

Hey. Wrap it up. Wrap it up, Eric.

And if this is a revenue generating contract, I would say that they should have been investing in their marketing team years ago with training and development, additional staff. And if it's such a moneymaker, why discontinue the contract after 2026? Forward this $95,000 to our surplus and vote with labor. Vote against the pay cuts for county employees. Vote against losing valuable county positions that provide critical necessary services to our vulnerable residents. Thank you.

Appreciate you. Janine, is there there's not a time constraint on this?

There's not a time constraint.

Okay. I I would ask I'd like to move to postpone it to our next meeting for this issue. Is there a motion is there a second? Or I'll Yeah. We don't need a second. One. All in favor of postponing till the next meeting, aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? So ordered. Thank you. Patrick, how long are you gonna be able to stay on yet? After leaving three minutes. Okay.

Let's let's yeah. Try Okay. Let's just try to do a couple things here. Item one is board of contract to Weiser Brothers contract. This March, this item was post was referred back to committee. John, I'm just gonna give you a If it's just the committee, I would ask that this be postponed to the April 21 committee. Okay. Postponed today. Motion's been made to postpone. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. So ordered. Thank you. So Item two.

Item two. Is there any other items that anybody here has that have to be worked on right now? If not, we'll just continue here. Acceptance of Madison Community Foundation grant for the giraffe habitat. Is there a motion to approve? This is for $3.53. Motions are made to approve. Janine, do you wanna talk about this one?

It's a resolution to accept the Madison Community Foundation grant for the Giraffe Habitat Enhancement Project by Shirley Coubley family. The team did a ton of research consistent with zoos around the country of similar size and scope as well as projects of similar size and scope, and this grant dollar naming rights is right in the middle range of that.

K. Any questions? Motion is made to approve or recommend approve for March. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. So ordered. Thank you. Item four, award of contract for landfill scale app to pay device and service. Resolution three fifty nine. So a motion to So recommend approval. Moved by Blasowitz. John? So all of our customers pay us. So we have about 500 customers today.

This will allow us to now accept to pay, which speeds up things on the line and sort of waiting times for errors. Questions for John? Motion has been made to approve. Recommend approved for 359. All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? The order. Next item is item five, reconstruction of traffic signals, pedestrian island at the County Highway M Century Avenue and Q Allen Boulevard Intersection, city Of Milton. Resolution three eighty one is a motion recommended. So moved. Moved by. Yes.

This is one of those collaborative projects that we typically do with local municipalities. They opted to reconstruct one of the intersection to upgrade the signal there and to improve pedestrian safety. And we are in full in support, with this kind of project, since it's a joint project, we follow our cost share agreements policy that we have for the county. So that's just what it takes.

Okay. Resolution three eighty one, motion from it made to recommend approval. Any questions for Clement? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? So ordered. Thank you. Item six We're have to leave. Okay. Patrick, also?

Okay.

Yeah. I gotta go. My opening meeting starts now. So Appreciate it, Lee. So we'll after item six, we'll just take a motion to I I mean, right now, we'll just take a motion to adjourn. And then anything from item six on, we'll put on to the next agenda. We should do adjourn. Are we allowed to discuss, items not on the agenda? Or I I just wanted to ask about future meetings after the election. Are we allowed to discuss it without quorum, or should we just talk offline? Yeah. We I don't think we need to do that. Offline. Thank you. Motion

to adjourn. Motion

made to adjourn. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? So order. Thank you. Sorry about that, folks, but we had some technical difficulties, and people never leave. So it's the way it goes sometimes. Yep. Lack of a quorum.