February 7, 2001 e-newsletter
click on underlined text for...
Alliance 2001 Meeting Schedule |
Agenda for finance directors Feb. 16 |
In this issue:
Ed Huck Keynoter at Stormwater / Smart Growth Conference
| Newspaper Tells of Breaks for Developers | Transportation Budget Briefing |
Ed Huck, Rick Stadelman Keynote Stormwater/Smart Growth Conference
Ed and Rick Stadelman are the keynoters Feb. 27 at a conference sponsored by Fox-Wolf Basin 2000 in Green Bay. Their assignment is to tell folks how they can integrate planning under the new smart growth law with the stormwater management mandate looming on the horizon.
"Getting it Together with Stormwater ...Tools, Rules & Smart Growth" is Feb. 27-28, 2001 at the Radisson Inn, Green Bay.
Ed's message will be:
There also will be DNR people on hand to explain the latest rules:
The cost of the rules could be between $58 million and $93 million a year, the Natural Resources Board and the state ag board were told last month. For the Journal Sentinel story about cost and potential impact on homeowners is here: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan01/runoff24012301a.asp
Details of the rules are at http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/wm/nps/admrules.html. Hearings on DNR's new draft stormwater rules are tentatively set for the weeks of March 12 and March 19, in Green Bay, Wausau, Eau Claire, Madison, Richland Center and Waukesha/Milwaukee.
Information on the conference is available at http://www.fwb2k.org/stormwater/stormwater.htm and an on-line registration form is available at http://www.fwb2k.org/stormwater/regmain.htm.
Newspaper Outlines Use-Value Benefits to Non-Farmers
A computer-assisted analysis of property tax records by The Capital Times found that nonfarmers -- very often real-estate developers -- are getting huge tax breaks as a result of the state's controversial farmland property tax assessment law.
While homeowners in the city of Madison watched their property tax bills rise nearly 8 percent last year, owners of undeveloped land on the city fringe saw taxes on their parcels drop 90 percent or more in some cases, according to the story by reporter Mike Ivey.
In Dane County, farmland assessments have dropped 46% -- from $428.1 million in 1999 to $231.3 million this year, the newspaper found. Total taxes collected on farmland in Dane County fell from $8.5 million to $4.6 million, based on an average tax rate, leaving other taxpayers to pick up the difference.
The Capital Times wrote that the problem is that no one knows how much of that tax relief is going to working farmers and how much to those who purchased farmland as an investment or for development.
To see the story, click below:
http://www.thecapitaltimes.com/news/local/2001/01/31/farm_tax_main_013101.html
Fair Share Coalition Briefed on DOT Budget
The Department of Transportation submitted a biennial budget to the governor that anticipates a $37 million opening balance in the Transportation Fund and $144 million in revenue growth during the biennium, the Fair Share Coalition was told Jan. 30.
Fred Ammerman, program supervisor at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, said the budget generally would provide inflationary increases of 2.7% the first year and 3% the second for general transportation aids.
"There's not a lot of new stuff going on" in the budget, he said. But the cost of paying off highway program debt will approach the bonding level for new highways by the end of the biennium, Ammerman said. Debt service costs in the budget proposal are $107.8 million in 2001-2002 and $119.2 million in 2002-2003, and highway bonding levels are $123 million the first year and $127 million the second.
According to the Transportation Development Association, mass transit aids would receive inflationary increases of 2.1% in 2001-2002 and 2.3% in 2002-2003, and elderly and disabled transportation programs would receive increases of 2.2% and 2.4%. For a copy of the group's transportation budget analysis, click here.
There is an intercity bus program in the latest budget request similar to one that failed to win approval two years ago.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see it in the budget that goes to the Legislature," Ammerman said.
The Fair Share Coalition, which includes the Alliance and other local government groups, environmental groups and groups representing the elderly and disabled, resolved to push for long-range planning for local transportation needs similar to the State Highway Plan 2020's forecast of state highway needs.
It also endorsed a grant request by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy for money to publicize transportation issues.
The next meeting of the coalition is Thursday, March 1 at 1:30 p.m. in Room 300 of the Madison Municipal Building (the old main post office and federal coutrhouse) at 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, across the street from Madison's City-County Building.
If you would like to be added to the Fair Share Coalition's e-mail list, please e-mail Rich Eggleston.
David Rusk Speaks to Local Govt. Leaders in Greenfield
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On behalf of Ed Huck & Greenfield Mayor Tim Seider, chair of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County, you're cordially invited to a luncheon Feb. 26 at Klemmer's Banquet Center, 10401 W. Oklahoma Ave., Greenfield, to hear David Rusk speak. A former state legislator and mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., Rusk believes that for five decades two factors have shaped urban America's development patterns -- sprawl and race -- and that "elastic" cities, those able to expand through annexation or consolidation, are far healthier than the inelastic, boundary-choked cities of the Northeast and Midwest.
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He advocates new state laws to require regional land use planning, regional revenue sharing, and regional "fair share" affordable houses to counter the decline of inelastic central cities and many older, inner suburbs. Rusk is the author of Cities Without Suburbs, Baltimore Unbound and Inside Game/Outside Game.
The luncheon will follow an 11 a.m. meeting of the ICC, which will discuss the upcoming legislative session.
The cost of the luncheon will be $10.50 per person. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Joanne Waite of Mayor Seider's office by clicking on her name or calling 414-329-5208.
On a bipartisan 23-10 vote, the State Senate Jan. 30 passed Senate Bill 2, a key piece of the Voters First campaign reform initiative that the Alliance of Cities endorsed in Janesville. SB 2 deals with the phony issue ads run by special interest groups. (To see the bill history, click above. To see the text, click on the highlighted bill number on the page that appears in a new window on your screen.)
Senate Bill 2 would require groups to report their activities and disclose the source of the funds they use in their electioneering efforts if they use the name or image of a candidate in their ads, and the ads run within 60 days of an election. Wisconsin's campaign finance laws currently allow special interests making "independent expenditures" to keep the sources of their funds secret.
Kenosha
Restaurants Cited For
Violating Smoking Ordinance
Four restaurants were cited for violating Kenosha's new ordinance regulating smoking in restaurants, but three of the four apparently complied with the ordinance within hours, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
A fourth restaurant owner still had ashtrays in his no-smoking section after a return visit by the Kenosha County Health Department.
The Journal Sentinel story is at http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan01/keno27012601a.asp and an AP story is at http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jan01/smoke22012101a.asp
Solid Waste in DNR ‘EMS’ Pilot Program
The state Department of Natural Resources has made waste management one of the pilot programs in development of a departmentwide outcome-based approach to regulation known as an Environmental Management System.
Under a DNR EMS, state regulation of a business or local government would require that it reduce its own pollution however it deems best rather than jump through a series of bureaucratic hoops to meet statutory limits that may be reasonable, may be unreasonable or may be irrelevant.
To find out more about the EMS philosophy, please click here.
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Help Ed and Gail Lobby Alliance Issues
Ed and Gail continue to discuss the Alliance's 2001 proactive agenda with legislators.
When you see some of your legislators on the list that follows, please click on their highlighted name and send them an e-mail urging support for our agenda. (To review the agenda, go here. Feel free to cut and paste!)
Ed and Gail met with Sens. Michael G. Ellis (R-Neenah) and Mark Meyer (D-La Crosse) and Rep. Mary Ann Lippert (R-Pittsville); Ed met with Reps. Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue); Polly Williams (D-Milwaukee); and Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), and the staffs of Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Marathon) and Sen. Alan Lasee (R-De Pere).
Gail also met with Rep. Bonnie Ladwig (R-Racine); and Rep. Terri McCormick (R-Appleton).
An e-mail from one of their city leaders helps show them that you're watching, and appreciate results on the issues that we share.
Upcoming
Events
(Click on underlined text
for more)
Feb.
13
Utility Tax Wk Grp., 9:30 a.m., DOR Building.
Feb. 13
Assembly calendar: AB
5, AB 6, AB 35
Feb.
14-16 Gov's Economic Development Conf.,
Madison.
Feb. 15
Assly calendar, AB 37, mass
transit assistance
Feb.
16 Alliance Finance Directors, Fond du Lac.
Feb. 22
Hearing, low-speed vehicles, AB
58
Feb.
22-23
Alliance Gen’l Mbrship Mtg,
Neenah.
Feb. 26
David Rusk speaks to ICC
Feb. 27-28
Stormwater / Smart Growth conf., Green Bay
Mar. 1
Fair Share Coalition
(clicking on a bill number sends you to the Legislature's bill history page for that bill; clicking on the number there sends you to the full text.)
Note the new navigation features in the left frame of this page. Most of them even work. More will be added in coming weeks.
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THE WISCONSIN ALLIANCE OF CITIES
14 West Mifflin Street Suite 206
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
(608) 257-5881
Edward J.
Huck |
Gail E. Sumi |
Richard A.
Eggleston |
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