County

MIDDLETON–The City of Middleton Plan Commission reviewed the latest revisions to the city’s comprehensive plan which is expected to be adopted by the Common Council by the end of the year.

Director of Planning and Community Development Abby Attoun told the commission the final document is mostly fleshed out and staff are now focused on design, layout and visuals. She said staff has had more time than usual to work on the plan in recent months. 

To recapitulate, Attoun explained that the plan is meant to serve as a community guide to physical, social and economic development. She noted the plan is not intended to be land use regulations but rather provide rational basis for local land use decisions with a 20 year vision.

Wisconsin’s Comprehensive Planning law requires that a comprehensive plan adopted by a government body, involve public input and be consistent with local ordinances.

MADISON–The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) approved spending $7.2 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding, including a $4.1 million block grant program to help local election officials and voters prepare for fall, 2020, elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

WEC will send an informational mailing to approximately 2.7 million registered voters later this summer about voting options for November, including an absentee ballot request form and a return envelope. The voter mailing is designed to inform voters who have not already requested an absentee ballot for November about their three voting options, including absentee voting by mail or in-person at the clerk’s office and voting at the polls on Election Day.

TOWN OF MIDDLETON–The Town of Middleton will ask the city of Middleton to expand the Airport Commission by two members to be appointed by the town and the Town of Springfield.

Town Chair Cynthia Richson was appointed last year to the seven-member commission to fill the remainder of a three-year term of a member who resigned. Her term expired and the Middleton Common Council rejected her reappointment by a 5-3 vote at their May 19 meeting.

“I had the support of commission members, including the Chair John Hallick, but special interests came into the picture behind the scenes,” dooming her reappointment, she said at Monday’s town board meeting.

Her position remains vacant.

Richson had repeatedly urged airport officials to better address residents’ complaints about loud, low-flying aircraft from Middleton Municipal Airport–Morey Field.

MIDDLETON–The Middleton Common Council will vote on a budget amendment to add $575,000 to the 2020 budget under capital borrowing to replace the pumping station at Tiedeman Pond to handle greater capacity, at its June 16 meeting. The new pumping station would have the capacity to move enough water at a fast enough rate to mitigate the flooding that occurred in August 2018.

Late 2019 the council approved an agreement with MSA Professional Services for the final design of improvements at Graber and Tiedeman ponds. The funding source for this design work was a State Trust Fund Loan (STFL) that was approved at the end of 2019. The projects are not eligible for FEMA reimbursement as they are considered improvements rather than the repairs.

MIDDLETON–The Middleton Aquatic Center will open!

The Middleton Common Council voted to open the facility at their May 19 meeting, following guidelines set forth by Public Health of Madison and Dane County (PHMDC).

Before the vote council members asked questions of Rebecca Price, assistant director of recreation, including those about capacity, sanitation and social distancing. Price told them that in Phase I the pool can open at 25 percent capacity, but she sees the pool reaching that number gradually. All furniture will be removed, and cleaning procedures will be ramped up to ensure public safety. In addition, she said it would be unlikely that the pool could accommodate the Middleton Gators swim team with the restrictions, and reminded the council that swim meets are currently not being held.

At the beginning of the meeting Gators coach Matt Flannagan made a plea to open the pool.

DANE COUNTY–On May 18, Dane County Executive Joe Parisi announced a multi-million dollar effort to reduce evictions and improve access to housing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The public health crisis has brought more than 36,000 new filers to unemployment in Dane County, rendering thousands of those households unable to pay their rent due to job and income loss. The immediate needs to prevent eviction for those affected by the virus must be addressed. Dane County’s plan includes a $10 million eviction prevention fund, along with efforts to increase housing stability.

DANE COUNTY–In a conference call with News Publishing Company editors, Dane County executive Joe Parisi gave an update of the county’s COVID-19 response.

He began by reminding that the Safer at Home order may have been overturned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but Dane County is still implementing its own order. He said Public Health of Madison and Dane County (PHMDC) had put guidelines in place before the state order. The county had the first COVID-19 case in the state and the 12th in the country, with the first confirmed case on Feb. 5.

“That really kicked us into gear,” Parisi said.

When the state adopted its own order, the county followed those guidelines, and will continue to follow a similar order.

“Once the Supreme Court invalidated that order, we immediately reissued local orders,” he stated.

He said the county is working on increased testing and increasing staff numbers to do additional contact tracing.

TOWN OF MIDDLETON–Residents will see much larger property evaluations this summer, perhaps by $100,000 or more, due to a state-required re-evaluation of properties in the town,

Town Administration Greg DiMiceli said his assessment increased by $100,000, according to the Access Dane website, and Town chair Cynthia Richson said hers went up $111,000.

A call to Town Assessor Paul Musser regarding the hike in assessments wasn’t returned by deadline.

At Monday’s town board meeting, DiMiceli explained that the town assessor determines property values and that most of the property in the town is expected to increase as the town needed to conduct a property re-evaluation.

The Department of Administration requires each municipality to be within 10 percent of market value of taxable property once every five years. Assessed values are used to distribute the municipality’s tax burden among the individual property owners.

MIDDLETON–Community members showed up in person, by phone and via the Internet for an April 14 public hearing during the Middleton Plan Commission meeting.

The hearing was to discuss a resolution concerning improvements at the Middleton Airport/Morey Field over the next five years. The plan is required by the Board of Aeronautics (BOA), and must be submitted every six years. Middleton last updated the plan in 2014. 

One point of contention with residents had been the language in the original resolution, which included use of eminent domain for land acquisition. City planner and zoning administrator Mark Opitz stated that the wording was simply boilerplate language provided by the BOA, and because none of the plans call for land acquisition, the airport commission removed it from the final resolution, which it passed unanimously at the commission’s Feb 8. meeting.

Opitz gave the following list of improvements:

In an April 2 ruling to allow a week-long delay in accepting absentee ballots, Federal judge William M. Conley of the Western District of Wisconsin criticized the State Legislature, Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The ruling extended the deadline for absentee ballots to 4 p.m., April 13 and extended the deadline for requesting absentee ballots to 4 p.m. on April 3. But an executive order issued by Evers on April 6 could change dates again.

Conley wrote that the Legislature and Governor “apparently are hoping … that the efforts of the WEC [Wisconsin Election Commission] Administrator, her staff, the municipalities and poll workers, as well as voters willing to ignore the obvious risk to themselves and others of proceeding with in-person voting, will thread the needle to produce a reasonable voter turnout and no increase in the dissemination of COVID-19.”