On Friday at noon, we recieved the budget amendments that various alders have submitted. That information is available as follows:

Capital Budget Amendments
Operating Budget Amendments
You can find the full Budget information as well.

A list of things that some folks might be intereted in are:

Removing funding for:
- Train Whistle Quiet Zones
- Improvement to State Street
- Improvements to James Madison Park

Tonight, among other things (like Section 8 and a resolution to put a Bring our Troops Home question on the County ballot at the County Board meeting, plus a meeting on Streetcars ) the Mayor is also hosting his first Build Your Own Budget meeting. (Tho you wouldn't know it by looking at the City's website or the many press releases that the Mayor's office puts out. While I'm making parenthetical comments - note how the budget meetings all conflict with the Streetcar meetings.)

There has been discussion on thedailypage.com about where the Section 8 vouchers are being used . . . and I happen to have a map, electronically - so thanks again to Dane101.com for providing a service and allowing me to upload the file! (ed. note: open large version of the map by clicking "read more" in this entry and saving the file to your desktop)

My morning thoughts on Section 8 are here.

Today's contribution is the Capital Budget requests. Generally speaking, the capital budget includes projects that are long term investments in our community or items that last more than 10 years. Often we borrow money to pay for these projects and then pay it back over the next 10 years. These budgets are projected out over the next 5 years so you can see anticipated capital budgets for the next 5 years. Operating budget requests that met the Mayor's 3% cut target are here and the additional or supplemental requests are here.

Police and Fire were exempt from the request for a 3% cut that all the other departments were subjected to . . . and yet, check out all of their additional requests . . .

Yesterday I posted what the departments requested to be in the budget, today . . . here's the things that didn't make it. It's a long list . . .

If you see things here that you think should be supported, you should go to any of the following meetings:

TONIGHT!! Downtown Public Library - 201 W Mifflin 6:00
Mayor's Public Hearing on the Budget

or the following meetings with the Mayor:

Hello Dane 101 Readers . . . it's been a while . . . I"ve been busy with multiple other blogs, but I'm back . . . partly because I feel guilty since Dane101 is what got me blogging in the first place and I feel like I should be contributing, partly because I have a good reason to blog here cuz its a great topic and partly because I couldn't figure out another technology to get this information out there quickly.

So, here's what I have . . . all of the department requests for the budget. The reason this is so important is because tomorrow the Mayor is having a public hearing on his budget, and if you are interested in testifying, its helpful to actually have some information. So here it is (ed. note: open this story and scroll down, there are 43 attachments at the end)!

When I started blogging, I really didn’t know what I was doing, from a technical standpoint. Thanks to help from the Dane101 folks (Shane and Jesse) and Kristian at thedailypage.com, I’m slowing finding my way.

I may not have known exactly what to do; I clearly knew what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted a place to provide information to the public without having to repeat myself/retype the same thing all the time. (ex. IZ myths I and II and budget) I wanted a place to put my (mostly not) lobbying contacts for the public to see. (ex. November, December, January) I wanted a place to post all those letters to the editor that I’ve written in my head, but never bothered to put on paper since they don’t have a good success rate of getting published. (ex. Spat with the Mayor) I wanted a place to say those things that aren’t worthy a news story or a letter to the editor, but that the public has a right to know about. (ex. Realtors want special treatment) I wanted a place for me to explain things in more than a 10 word sound-byte now that the news it getting dumbed down more and more everyday. (ex. IZ equity model and incentives) A place to inform the public of upcoming meetings. (ex. Bus fares) I think my blogging, here, there and everywhere has largely accomplished these goals. Despite the fact that I’ve been accused of being “wonky” – which has been both a complement and a criticism.

Warning: If you don’t like either bowling or local politics and politicians, you won’t want to read this! Even if you like bowling or politics, be forewarned, the two don’t mix so well because the bad analogies are excruciatingly, painfully, endless.

This morning at the Annual City Bowling Tournament, the Mayor’s Office took on the City Council.

Bowling for the Mayor’s team were Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, “Jeanne Hoffman”, “Janet Piraino”, Enis Ragland and “George Twigg”. Though during the 2nd game there were at least three suspicious looking characters bowling under the names Hoffman, Piraino and Twigg and while the real Hoffman and Twigg returned for the third game, Piraino was out with an injury.

If you want to rent a 2 bedroom apartment in the City of Madison and only pay the HUD recommended 30% of your income towards rent, you would need to make $14.46 per hour, or have a roommate and you would each have to work full-time making at least $7.23. That is the finding based on the recent "Out of Reach" study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

It's a good thing our minimum wage is now $5.70, but that isn't enough. Look at the kind of wages we need to support an affordable place to live:

Efficiency ($510)

Funny thing about politics, there is rarely any consistency in the arguments that some political groups will make. It makes it near impossible to have a rational conversation about political differences. Take the recent call from business lobbyist groups to request "data" before they will even discuss the Paid Sick Leave ordinance. Nevermind that the Healthy Families, Healthy Cities campaign did provide data that shows:

I have a pop quiz for you . . .

1. Which City of Madison alders sponsored the following amendment?

The Madison Comprehensive Plan recommends the development of a specific 3-5 year economic development strategy as the first and highest priority for implementing the Plan's goals and objectives for the City's long-term economic development. The strategy would include an assessment of the City's financial tools, as well as its organizational capacity to achieve its economic development goals and provide specific directives for action. The development of this strategy cannot be done with current staffing within the P&D Department and will require the use of consultants experienced in developing such plans for cities like Madison. The Economic Development Commission will be the City's lead advisory body for this strategy.

Where’s IZ?
Finding Inclusionary Zoning Homes for Sale is Much Harder than Finding Waldo

So, one of the criticisms of Inclusionary Zoning is that “not one person is living in an IZ units yet.” Let’s explore . . .

The City of Madison Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Office has a list of developers who are currently “marketing” their IZ units.

So, I decided to pretend I was a potential homebuyer interested in surfing the net and finding out more about inclusionary zoning and here is what I found: (Warning to the reader: Clicking on the links below in hopes of finding an inclusionary zoning unit will be extremely frustrating.)

This morning, I got a copy of the “keg registration” ordinance and a “fact sheet” from the police department. They will be having a hearing in front of the Alcohol License Review Committee (ALRC) on Nov. 16, 2005, at 4:00 PM. The meeting will be in the City-County Building, 211 S. Carroll St., and Police Department Class Room (GR-27). It will be the first item on the agenda.

The ordinance has the following requirements or prohibitions:

1. The seller of the keg is required to place a tag on the barrel identifying where it was purchased from, including name address and telephone number. Failure to provide such a tag can result in a fine of $500 - $1000 to both the retailer and the employee.

I sent the following memo to President Van Rooy today. Is it just me, or shouldn't it be easier to participate in your local government?

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This year’s budget process is increasingly disturbing to me. As we face what has been heralded as a budget that is “extremely challenging,” and as we are talking about “tough choices” and “budget constraints” on one of the “most daunting budget challenges in recent memory,” our process for both the public and the alders is becoming more difficult as well. Past practice has been that committees did not schedule meetings on nights when the Board of Estimates considered the budget so that all alders could participate. This year, however, the following meetings were scheduled: