‘Heaven has no rage, …’
The Town of Middleton is frustrating efforts by the City of Middleton to create an extensive network of cross-country ski trails and off-road bike trails on lands currently located for the most part in the town of Middleton, to the immediate north of Pleasant View Golf Course. Most of the land would become available for the project through a combination of donations and easements by three private owners, and would be annexed into the city, and the existing system of trails would thus be vastly extended. The City's (place holder) name for the project is 'Erdman Park', after one of the private property donors.
The project, which has been several years in the making, is the brainchild of Central Cross Country Skiing (CXC) and its executive director Yuriy Gusev. CXC is a non-profit sports organization and the governing body for cross-country skiing in the Central Region (the Dakotas, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio) for U.S. Ski and Snowboard and for the United States Olympic Committee. It is also recognized by U.S. Paralympics.
The whole installation - trails with central building and parking lots - would not only be available to recreational users (bikers and skiers), but the ski trails would also become an olympic training facility. Funding would come from private contributions, including by CXC, and the City.
Main access would be from Highway 14 via Schwartz Road, although limited access, mostly non-motorized, would also be possible via Pleasant View Golf Course.
Many financial and planning issues have been largely resolved, and the Middleton Common Council was ready to proceed on the annexations on July 7, when the Town of Middleton threw a spanner in the works: On July 6, its Town Board added a section to its Code of Ordinances regulating 'high-intensity driveways'.
A 'high-intensity driveway' is defined as a "driveway with frequent driveway use during hours of operation, which includes land uses with extreme peaking patterns, such as public schools, worship assemblies, and employee parking lots where more than one exiting vehicle at a time occurs. A driveway is considered high intensity if it serves:
(i) Nonresidential developments that provide an assembly area for more than 250 persons; or
(ii) Combinations of residential and nonresidential uses expected to generate 500 vehicle trips or more per day, or 100 or more peak-hour trips per day (...); or
(iii) A parking lot of more than 40 parking spaces; or
(iv) A facility or development which is served by shuttle buses more than 10 days per year; or
(v) In the case where the use of a property is not known, trip generation calculations shall assume the permitted use that generates the highest number of peak hour trips or a likely mix of uses as identified by the applicant and accepted as appropriate by the Town Engineer."
Based on that definition, connecting a new high-intensity driveway to a town road, or any increase in traffic that would turn an existing driveway into a high-intensity one will now need a permit from the Town. That permit will only be granted if no other traffic-routing option exists (as determined by the Town), and it will have to be modified every time use of a high-intensity driveway increases by 10%. A traffic-impact analysis is also required, paid for by the applicant.
In principle, a property is also allowed only one driveway-access to a town road, and the Town can impose pretty much any other conditions and restrictions it deems appropriate, including allowing only in-bound or out-bound traffic. The Town Engineer has vast discretion in assessing the overall situation, although all permits ultimately have to be approved by the Town Board.
How does this impact the CXC project? Well, Schwartz Road is a town road, and without the Town's approval the Erdman Park facility will not be accessible by car or bus from Highway 14 (or any other existing road).
While the impact of heavy use on small local roads and concerns over traffic-safety might seem legitimate enough to warrant such an ordinance, it seems that in this case it is squarely aimed at the City of Middleton, and that there is a deeper undercurrent of pettier reasons.
Thus it seems that Town officials are miffed at having been excluded from the planning process and the negotiations between the City and the various private actors for Erdman Park.
Deeper still, it seems that it is part of series of chicaneries apparently being worked on by the chairwoman of the Middleton Town Board Cynthia Richson, who is said to still be seething from her rejection by the Middleton Common Council as a member of the City's Airport Commission. She is reportedly also trying to coordinate actions with the Town of Springfield against the City and Midleton's airport. Both Town boards are indeed unhappy because the Middleton Common Council refused to reserve two seats on the Airport Commission for town residents.
Meanwhile, after the Middleton Town Board approved the high-intensity driveway ordinance, the Common Council deferred the annexation agreements on July 7, and its members huddled in closed sessions with senior City staff and attorneys to figure out their next move on July 21
The Town Board for its part, also went into closed session a day earlier, on July 20, to discuss possible litigation with the City of Middleton, while looking at more ways to derail the Erdman Park development, including contesting the railroad crossing, access to Highway 14 and stormwater management. (A second closed-session agenda item that same day included possible litigation with the City of Middleton concerning Middleton Municipal Airport - Morey Field.)
It looks like with its new high-intensity driverway ordinance, the Town Board has created itself a bargaining chip to force the City to give in to Cynthia Richson's demands concerning the airport.
"Heaven has no rage (...), nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned."
The dog poop plaza
By City of Middleton ordinance, dogs are not allowed on the downtown plaza. While ignorance of the law is not a legal defense, the City also has done nothing to alert dog owners to the ban. The ordinance is therefore currently more honored in the breach than the observance.
When it was debated in the various City committees and the Common Council a few months ago, the proponents' main argument was that they didn't want to see the plaza turned into a dog toilet. Skeptics pointed out the difficulties in enforcing a dog ban. As it turns out, both sides were right: The plaza has become a toilet, and the ban is not being enforced.
But since the City encourages people to spread out blankets and picnic on the grass, maybe it should put up some signs about the no-dog policy, so people, including law-abiding dog owners, have at least half a chance of being aware of it.
Helbachs’s anti-business crusade
Helbachs Coffee Roasters + Kitchen in downtown Middleton sees itself as a victim of government overreach because of Dane County's indoor mask mandate.
The coffee shop has acquired some new notoriety recently because of a 'mask-free zone' sign that the owners had reportedly posted on the entrance door (it was taken down after a photo was posted online, leading to a predictable outburst of social media hysteria). A pro-mask and anti-Helbachs demonstration on July 18 attracted a dozen or so people and some local media attention.
Earlier this week, the coffee shop was fined $263.50 for violating the County's mask-order (it probably didn't help that the owners had previously called the police on the public-health officials - the officers took the side of the inspectors), and on Wednesday, July 22, Casey Helbach, one of the owners, started a 'Go-Fund-Me' page (pompously called 'Helbachs Coffee Freedom Fund') to fight the Dane County Health Department in court. His goal is to raise $50,000 (as of noon today, July 25, more than 130 people had donated just under $6,000).
Casey Helbach, a failed Republican candidate for State Senate, wants "to challenge the citation Helbachs received and fight for our constitutional rights for freedom".
Apart from the intellectual weakness of the 'freedom' argument (does he also want to challenge the government-imposed mandate to drive on the right side of the road, as an infringement of his "constitutional rights for freedom" to drive in any direction in any lane?), his stance actually reveals a profoundly anti-business, anti-community and pro-big-government attitude.
It seems clear that the only beneficiaries of any lawsuit will be the lawyers. It also seems clear that Dane county taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the County's defense.
And while he cloaks his fundraising effort in his nebulous freedom argument, the apparent real goals look rather more personal: To create publicity for his coffee shop, and to maybe revive a flagging political career by trying to get the attention of paranoid rabid right.
More dangerous however is the damage his self-centered focus could do to all other businesses in the area. The benefits of face masks in helping prevent coronavirus infections have been established beyond any reasonable doubt. Equating a government mandate to wear them under the current circumstances with an attack on our "constitutional rights for freedom" could of course easily be dismissed as the incoherent ramblings of a not-yet-fully-formed mind, if the potential consequences weren't so serious: If Helbachs's campaign succeeds in turning the coffee shop into a coronavirus hotspot leading to a sustained increase of covid-19 cases in the area, the County could see itself forced to roll back some or all of the re-opening measures taken in recent weeks. Helbachs's selfish stand could therefore result in the County government expanding its mandate, and local businesses being forced to close again.
"Helbachs is ruining it for everybody" is becoming a an increasingly widespread opinion among Middleton business owners.