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City Meetings and Updates Week of March 24

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  • City Meetings: Common Council 3/25
  • Traffic Lights Approved for Milwaukee St & Sprecher Rd
  • Veridian Proposing New Neighborhood Development in D3, Information Meeting Scheduled for 4/3
  • Local Museums and Libraries Rally Support for the Institute of Museum and Library Services after Recent Federal Executive Order
  • Reminder: Spring Election Early Voting Eastside Locations and Times
  • Events & Announcements

City Meetings

Note: This is not a complete list of meetings for this upcoming week. All meetings and their details can be found at the Meeting Schedule page.

Common Council

The Common Council meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 25, at 6:30 p.m. in hybrid format. Agenda items include:

  • Item 5: a presentation by the City’s Government Affairs Team: Briefing on State Legislative Affairs.
  • Item 11: a resolution opposing Social Security Administration office closures and other cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
  • Item 34: a resolution approving a Request for Proposals for the redevelopment of downtown Block 113, also known as the Brayton Lot on East Wash, which the City owns. This property was used as collateral to secure East-West Bus Rapid Transit grants from the Federal Transit Authority. As such, the future uses of the site are required to return $9 million to the Madison Metro Transit agency AND are required to benefit the transit network, for example by generating bus ridership. It’s an interesting project because it’s the last large, developable property within blocks of the Capitol Square. Here’s the RFP document which lays out the City’s requirements of an eventual development for this block.
  • Item 37: a resolution authorizing an agreement with Precision Installations to customize four new 2025 Ford Transit vans for use by the City’s CARES Program for behavioral health/alternative response emergency calls (I’m a cosponsor).
  • Item 48: a resolution authorizing contracts with inter-city bus companies to recoup City maintenance costs associated with the Dutch-Mill Parking Lot on the Southeast side and the future Lake Street Bus Terminal downtown (I’m a cosponsor). The Dutch-Mill contract is expected to generate between $50k and $100k of revenue per year.

Meeting info:

If you would like more information about becoming a member of a City board, commission, or committee, please visit the page linked here.

Traffic Lights Approved for Milwaukee Street & Sprecher Road

At Wednesday’s Transportation Commission meeting the commissioners voted to approve the intersection of Milwaukee Street and Sprecher Road for traffic lights (stoplights), along with a handful of other traffic signal improvements elsewhere in the City. At my request and that of North Star Neighborhood Association leaders, the commissioners did ask questions about and consider the possibility for a roundabout at this intersection. City staff shared that the cost of a roundabout would be about ten times higher than the cost of traffic lights, in part because this intersection was apparently designed with future traffic lights in mind (it already has plumbing for underground electrical wiring). Staff also explained that roundabouts are normally considered to replace traffic lights as part of a larger street reconstruction project, which is timed based on pavement conditions. Essentially, if the pavement is already going to be torn up for other work, that is the best and most cost-effective time to significantly re-think the shape of an intersection and its traffic lanes. A roundabout may be considered here in the future as part of a larger reconstruction project, but that isn’t currently included in the City Engineering's Transportation Improvement Plan which runs through 2030.

Traffic Engineering will include funding authorization for this traffic light in their 2026 agency Capital Budget request, which the Mayor and Common Council will consider in late summer and fall of this year as part of the normal City Budget process. 

We can expect to see traffic lights installed here in 2026.

Veridian Proposing New Neighborhood Development in D3, Information Meeting Scheduled for April 3rd

Veridian Homes is working on plans for a new neighborhood located between Felland Road and Reiner Road, north of Commercial Avenue (here’s a Google Maps link). This multi-year project is built from the framework of the City’s 2009 Northeast Neighborhoods Development Plan and will include a range of housing formats and price points, set within a framework of walkable streets and a centrally located park. Based on the last concept plan that Veridian showed me, the mix of housing includes single-family homes, two-family twin homes, and townhomes with a total number of units a bit over 500.

Location of Veridian's new neighborhood proposal
Image credit: Google Maps

I’m hosting a virtual informational meeting with City Planning staff and Veridian representatives to discuss the plans for the new neighborhood and answer questions about the project. The meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 3, 2025, at 6:30pm. You can join the virtual meeting using your computer, smartphone, or tablet or listen in via telephone. You will receive login information after registering at www.cityofmadison.com/MeetingApril3FellandReiner. A bonus of virtual meetings is that they are recorded; the recording will be posted on the Madison City Channel media site after April 3rd for folks who aren’t able to attend the meeting.

Veridian is targeting the June 23rd Plan Commission and July 1st Common Council meeting dates for their proposal. Stay tuned for future updates in future posts.

Local Museums and Libraries Rally Support for the Institute of Museum and Library Services after Recent Federal Executive Order

From the Madison Public Library’s news release:

“President Trump issued an executive order [last] Friday night that would gut the only federal agency dedicated to supporting American museums and libraries. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is a government agency that provides critical funding to museums and libraries in all 50 states.

Madison Public Library and Madison Children’s Museum are issuing this joint press release to encourage public advocacy to save this essential federal agency that improves lives—locally, across Wisconsin, and nationally.

Wisconsin residents are encouraged to contact Senators Tammy Baldwin at (608) 264-5338 and Ron Johnson at (608) 240-9629 to request continued federal support for museums and libraries through the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

[…]

Over the past 15 years, IMLS has awarded an average of 18 grants per year to Wisconsin museums, libraries, and other institutions, for a total of nearly $70 million dollars over that span. This amount does not include millions of dollars of IMLS support for libraries provided at the state level.”

More information is available in the Library’s news release or in this NPR news article on the issue. While trying to read more background information on this agency’s work and its impact in Madison, I kept encountering dead links to the agency's webpages and reports which appear to have been taken down. Very troubling.

Reminder: Spring Election Early Voting Eastside Locations and Times

In-Person Absentee Voting in the Spring Election is ongoing. Make a plan to vote!

Eastside locations with dates/times:

  • Hawthorne Library, 2707 E Washington Ave
11 a.m. – 7 p.m. weekdays, March 18-28
10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturdays, March 22 & 29
  • Pinney Library,
516 Cottage Grove Rd
11 a.m. - 7 p.m. weekdays, March 18-28
10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturdays, March 22 & 29
  • Christ the Solid Rock/Lake Edge Lutheran Church, 4032 Monona Dr
10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Sundays, March 23 & 30
  • East Madison Community Center, 8 Straubel Court
11 a.m. – 4 p.m. weekdays, March 24-28
  • Hmong Institute, 4402 Femrite Dr
11 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays, March 18 & 25
11 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Thursdays, March 20 & 27
10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Fridays, March 21 & 28
  • Olbrich Gardens, 3330 Atwood Ave
10:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. weekdays, March 24-28
  • SS Morris AME Church, 3511 Milwaukee St
11 a.m. - 1 p.m. Sundays, March 23 & 30

Events & Announcements

Please visit the City news webpage to find additional news and announcements and to subscribe to receive notification of news releases as they are posted.

Additional upcoming events can also be found on the City events calendar.

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District 3 - Alder Field

Alder Derek Field

Alder Derek Field

District 3
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