Middleton capital projects (I): Downtown plaza
The City's Plan Commission approved nine large capital projects at last night's meeting (Tuesday, August 11), although the votes were not as unanimous as in the past. During budget season, i.e. now, the different City departments submit their operating and capital budget proposals to their respective committees, which then vet and prioritize them for recommendation to the Finance Committee and, for final approval, to the Common Council.
Four capital projects were approved for 2021: the downtown plaza, the North Mendota Trail Connector, the reconstruction of Lisa Lane and a complete rewrite of the City's zoning code. several other projects were tentatively approved for the following years.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we will present the different projects in more detail, starting with the downtown plaza.
The downtown plaza, which suffers not only from an over-thought name ('Stone Horse Green'), but also from an overladen design, and, especially, a fiscally irresponsible price tag, is a tragic example of how a good, simple idea can turn into a quagmire through a combination of unguided public input, an ad hoc committee of overzealous volunteers, and a fundamental financial miscalculation by City officials.
The original idea was to have a simple open space where people could gather, relax alone or in groups, sit, eat lunch, read, play chess, enjoy some peace and quiet. All it needed was a flat surface with some benches and tables. Examples abound the world over.
Public input with a never-ending wish list of amenities, a committee with too many members with too many ideas, City staff that erroneously assumed that the magic wand TIF would pay for everything, and a design firm ready to take full advantage of the fiscal largesse resulted in a garish project that would cost more than $1.5 million to build (at last estimate, $1,558,020).
It quickly emerged that more than one third of the cost would not be TIF-eligible under State law (notably a bandshell and restrooms), and so it was decided that those funds should be raised through donations. A professional fundraising consultant was hired, and the Middleton Area Development Corporation (MADC) took the lead in the fundraising effort. This effort hasn't gone anywhere fast. According to the City's most recent annual report to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue for TIF District 3 (of which downtown is a part), a grand total of $3,000 were raised in 2019. The ultimate goal is to raise $558,020 through grants and donations, but, not least because of covid-19, fundraising has had to be suspended.
Construction of the plaza has been postponed in the past, and is now optimistically scheduled for 2021. While it is doubtful that fundraising will reach its goal, the $1 million in TIF money is available, subject to Council approval. With a reduced budget, not all of the plaza can be built as planned, but that is a good thing.
The City has installed picnic tables and benches on the current simple grass surface, and many people are taking advantage of the space the way it was originally intended: to relax.
There is beauty in this simplicity, not to mention low cost and low maintenance. No need to throw bad money after good.
Two Plan Commission members (John Schaffer and Kathryn Tyson) voted against the plaza at yesterday's meeting, judging the design too complicated and the cost too high - the Common Council should follow their lead.
CDA Brainstorm 101: How to empty trash cans
While the City has done well to make the downtown plaza useful for the community by installing picnic tables, a hand sanitizer station and trash cans (and the Village Green has equipped some tables with parasols), its maintenance efforts are falling short. A cleaning crew is doing a good job sanitizing the tables several times a day, but trash pick-up is still deficient (see photo, taken late afternoon last Saturday, August 8). A box with yard games, placed there last year, has now fallen apart, and should be attended to.
The downtown Community Development Authority (CDA) is scheduled to meet tomorrow (Thursday, August 13) evening at 5:30, and its agenda includes a 'Brainstorming Session for Improving Downtown Middleton'. Figuring out a way to get the trash at the plaza taken care of in a timely manner would be a useful place to start.
But, the CDA is chaired by the mayor, so the word 'brainstorming' should probably be interpreted with some caution.
Letter to the editor
Dear George,
I’ve been reading your newsletter regularly and enjoying it (for the most part). As a member of the Middleton Area Development Corporation (MADC) I would like to take issue with you over your misunderstanding of MADC’s purpose. MADC was set up long before I was elected Mayor (2003) and funded just before I was sworn into office. At that time it was used to finance a loan to construct the airport building leased by Rich Morey. That loan has since been paid off and the airport building has become a profitable asset for MADC.
The stated purpose of MADC was to provide business loans, not grants, to Middleton start-up businesses and expanding businesses, which would have difficult times obtaining conventional loans from banks and other sources of business financing at competitive finance rates. So far MADC has made several very successful loans to very successful Middleton businesses.
MADC is completely separate from the City of Middleton government other than one board appointee allocated to the mayor and one board member appointed by the City Council. The state statutes that authorize municipal development corporations to exist require this separation.
MADC does not award grants. It only loans money. MADC is currently open for business and will accept loan applications from Middleton businesses.
So far MADC has been very successful in making and collecting on loans of a riskier nature.
Because MADC has no paid staff to track and manage our loans, most loans are over $100,000, thereby limiting the number of outstanding loans that the board tracks. Small loans of $5,000 or less would require MADC to hire paid staff to manage the projected volume of loans. This would increase the loan rate and make MADC a less desirable funding source.
The members of the Board of Directors of MADC are very committed to supporting local businesses, but we are not the federal government that can give away money.
Sincerely,
Doug Zwank
(Doug Zwank was mayor of Middleton from 2003 to 2007)
They did not die in vain
To what intellectual lows must one sink to equate a public-health measure taken to fight the spread of a pandemic with an attack on the First Amendment right to free expression?
To what heights of cynicism must one rise to risk the health of the community and the livelihood of local businesses for the sake of political notoriety?
What depths of moral depravity does it take to make a mockery of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans who served in the armed forces, who fought and died to defend our liberty and freedom, just to have it all reduced to one coffee shop owner's obsession with a sanitary face mask?
In what looks like a desperate attempt to revive a failed political career and to drum up business by pandering to the paranoid rabid right, Middleton coffee shop owner Casey Helbach is suing Public Health Madison & Dane County as well as assorted officials who have been trying to enforce the county-wide mask mandate.
The fact that he has the freedom to file his lawsuit shows that generations of GIs did not die in vain, but the fact that he describes his frivolous nonsense as a defense of his First Amendment rights indicates that he has neither all that much respect for their sacrifice, nor the judgement to appreciate the value of the rights for which they died.
YEAH GEORGE I love the way you tell it like it is
Keep up the good work .Your Friend Ron Boyer