February Office Hours, Early Voting, Madison Digital Inclusion Summit, Stormwater Ordinance Changes, Report Snow Removal Issues and Bus Rapid Transit Public Meeting

A long update including info on February Office Hours, early voting, an upcoming Digital Inclusion Summit, important stormwater ordinance changes, a link to report snow removal issues and a save the date for a meeting on Bus Rapid Transit.

Office Hours

In February, I will be holding open office hours twice.

Date	Location
Thursday, February 13th (4:30pm - 6:30pm)	Alicia Ashman Library  - 733 N High Point Rd, Madison, WI 53717
Wednesday, February 19th (7:30am - 9:30am)	Moka- 5227 University Avenue, Madison 53705

If you have a question, concern or topic of interest that you would like to discuss, but the times above don't work for you, you can e-mail me.

Early Voting for Feb 18th Primary

City of Madison voters may vote early (via in-person absentee) at Madison Public Library locations beginning yesterday (Monday, Feb. 3). 

Early voting locations will expand to include Edgewood College, Madison College Truax Campus, Madison College South Goodman Campus, Union South, UW Memorial Union, the UW-Madison Student Activity Center, and the UW-Madison Health Services Learning Center on Monday, Feb. 10.­ 

[Locations and More Details]

 

Madison Digital Inclusion Summit

WHEN: February 10, 2020

Check-in: 9:30 – 10:00 am

Summit: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

WHERE: Madison Public Library, 201 W Mifflin St, 3rd Floor, Madison, WI 53703

 

Join the City of Madison, Madison Community Development Authority, and ConnectHomeUSA to discuss our city's digital inclusion initiative!

OUR GOALS

• Expand services by connecting all HUD-assisted housing with Wi-Fi.
• Increase digital education with the Digital Learning Series.
• Improve equipment availability by providing a device for every HUD-assisted household.

#DigitalInclusionMadison

I'm looking forward to attending and taking part in this upcoming event. Please share information on this event with friends, especially Information Technology professional. It's important we do everything we can to eliminate digital inequality in our community. 

Register Now

 

City Asks for Public Feedback on New Stormwater Guidelines

I'm expecting a lot of developer pushback on these changes being proposed by City of Madison Engineering. I'm looking forward to feedback from the public, but believe it's important the community come out and support necessary changes to our guidelines. We can't mitigate the effects of climate change without the assistance of developers. New and redeveloped projects must do their part to help mitigate flooding rather than contribute to the problem.

The Engineering Division is asking the public to give comments on its updated stormwater ordinance and attend upcoming public information meetings.

Comments should be emailed to engineer@cityofmadison.com by April 10, 2020. Public information meetings are scheduled for the following time, date and locations:

• 3-5 p.m., Feb. 26, 2020, Room 206, Madison Municipal Building,? 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI 53703
• 6-8 p.m., March 5, 2020, Goodman Park Maintenance Facility,? 1402 Wingra Creek Parkway, Madison, WI  53715 (Updated date)
• 6-8 p.m., March 24, 2020, Room 206, Madison Municipal Building, 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Madison, WI 53703

*Note: The Feb. 26, 2020 meeting is geared toward professionals and potential developers, which will be presented from a more technical perspective. The March 5, 2020 (updated date) meeting will be presented from a more public perspective, which will include background, general overviews and proposed changes to the ordinance. The March 24, 2020 meeting will provide a recap of comments and final proposed ordinance language.

Over the past three years, the City of Madison and surrounding areas have experienced a large number of extreme storm events. The abundance of rainwater from the storms caused flash flooding and elevated lake levels, which also flooded low-lying areas in and adjacent to the Isthmus area. The active weather pattern has put pressure on the City's stormwater sewer, which is the underground pipe system that catches water runoff and moves it to the area's local waterways. When the stormwater system is overloaded with too much storm or rainwater, either in heavy rainstorms or multiple heavy rainstorms in a short amount of time, flooding happens. The stormwater sewer should not be confused with the City's sanitary sewer, which is an underground pipe system that moves waste water from resident homes to a wastewater treatment plant.

The current stormwater sewer cannot support the heaviest rains, especially in certain areas. To minimize flooding, the City of Madison responded with watershed studies of the impacted areas, focus groups within specific neighborhoods to collaborate with neighbors in person, and a review of the City's stormwater design standards, which affects both new and redevelopments. 

Madison General Ordinance Chapter 37 includes requirements for water quality, water quantity and erosion control design standards for anyone who wants to build in the City of Madison. City engineers reviewed the current ordinance  and standards. Based on the recent heavier rainfall the area is experiencing, City engineers updated the standards to support expected larger and more intense rain storms.

The proposed changes are posted to the City Engineering website, ready for review and feedback.

 

Report snow problems

It's been a difficult winter for the Streets Division with lots of ice, temperature fluctuation, and snow. As they try their best, I wanted to share an online form that exists for reporting problems with snow or ice removal issues. 

Save the Date: Bus Rapid Transit Public Information Meeting on West Side Routing - March 4th 

I'll post more information in the near future, but I wanted to put out a save the date for a public meeting on BRT at Oakwood Village (6205 Mineral Point Road) on March 4th at 6:30pm.

Last night at a Transportation Policy and Planning Board meeting, City staff presented their recommendation for routing of BRT on the west side:

[View a slide presentation of the west side routing | west side routing memo ]

I'm supportive of this choice. It does the best job allowing BRT to run in a dedicated lane (on Mineral Point), connection to other Metro routes via the west transfer point and accessibility to large areas of residents and businesses (upcoming Westgate project, residents and business on Mineral Point as well as access to to University Research Park).

 

As always, if there is anything I can do to help, feel free to reach out: district19@cityofmadison.com

-Keith F