County

With the Middleton City Council preparing to vote on the 2014 budget in the coming weeks, a recently proposed scenario for balancing the budget is front and center.

In recent finance committee meetings, city staff offered a tentative course of action which included reducing the general contingency account, eliminating the 2014 HRA contribution, freezing an anticipated vacancy in the Public Works Department, eliminating Saturday bus service and funding the confluence pond dredging project from Tax Increment District (TID) 3 rather than the General Capital Budget. 

This proposed 2014 budget as it stands right now is based on a line-item analysis approach developed by Finance Committee Chairman and District 8 alderman Mark Sullivan. The method centers on selecting department line items that are the lower than the 2012 actual expenditures or the 2013 budgets.

The Middleton Common Council two weeks ago discussed the impending move of the Municipal Operations Center.

As Meriter Health Services is now prepared to move forward with constructing a sprawling new medical campus east of the Beltline at Century Avenue and Laura Lane, the city’s Public Works Department activities at their current garage must end in March of 2015.

Meriter’s development necessitates that Public Works moves into a new Municipal Operations Center on land currently owned by the State Department of Transportation (DOT) at the north end of Parmenter Street.

At last week’s meeting, city administrator Mike Davis urged the common council to reach a consensus regarding the cost of the proposed Municipal Operations Center (MOC) and related key issues.

From Dane County Health and Human Services:

1. What is a Health Insurance Marketplace or Exchange?

A Health Insurance Marketplace or Exchange is a new way that Americans can compare and shop for health insurance. U.S. citizens and others who are legally in the U.S. can sign up for health insurance through the Marketplace. You cannot be turned down. You may even be able to get help paying for your new insurance.

From now until March 31, 2014, you can sign up for health insurance. To have coverage on January 1, 2014, you will need to sign up and pay your first monthly premium by December 15, 2013.

For more information or to sign up for health insurance go to www.healthcare.gov or call 1-800-318-2596

2. Do I have to sign up for health insurance?

The Middleton Plan Commission views demolition as the most reasonable course of action for the former Middleton Outreach Ministry (MOM) headquarters due to its deteriorating condition.  Despite a request for proposals from developers made by the city earlier this year, there has been no interest in renovating the aging building, commissioners learned last week.  

MOM left the building late last year in an effort to consolidate services and forego   the costly maintenance needed to remain operational.  The site was acquired by the city earlier using tax increment financing (TIF).  The purchase was for the purpose of future parking needs and potential redevelopment downtown.   

The request for proposals involved a long-term lease keeping the property in the city’s possession with no option to buy outright. 

The Middleton Common Council last week unanimously approved the use of up to $400,000 in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to help fund the expansion of Natus Neurology.

Natus Neurology maintains its North American corporate headquarters in the Good Neighbor City.  The company provides healthcare products used for the screening, detection, treatment, monitoring and tracking of common medical ailments in newborn care. 

Products are sold worldwide with distributers in more than 100 countries. 

The company recently decided to expand its headquarters and wants to maintain its Middleton location.  The expansion will ramp up its customer training, supplier/contractor and corporate business meetings. 

This is expected to have a substantial positive impact on the local economy, increasing commerce at hotels, restaurants, and in entertainment and shopping.  Natus also pledges to the city it will maintain 174 full time positions after the project is complete.

The Middleton Common Council held a special meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 11, voting to proceed with an annexation that is key to moving forward with the 164-acre Pleasant View Ridge subdivision development.

While the council voted 6-2 in favor of bringing the land, which had been located in the neighboring Town of Middleton, into the city, critics of the project used the opportunity to reiterate concerns about the project’s environmental impact.

Ald. Hans Hilbert (Dist. 7) said he hadn’t seen any scientific evidence that would mitigate his concerns that the subdivision’s septic systems could harm the Black Earth Creek and the hydric soils around it. He also said the promise of additional tax revenue is not enough to push forward with a project situated on pristine rural land.

“It would be much easier if we made our land use decisions based on finances,” he said, adding that development’s impact on the ecosystem must also be taken into account.

Erdman Holdings’ proposed 104-lot Pleasant View Ridge subdivision would carve 14 residential lots out of the City of Middleton’s golf course, according to city planner Eileen Kelley.

Kelley told the Pleasant View Golf Course Advisory Committee Monday that two cul-de-sacs would extend into the Woods course from the north. One cul-de-sac of 10 homes would be routed between the eighth green and ninth tee and the other cul-de-sac would be located further east on the course.

Fourteen is the maximum number of lots that could be added to the project while still minimizing impact to the course, said Kelley.

Golfers as well as trail users would have to cross the street connecting the eastern cul-de-sac in order to continue their round.

“I’m thinking it fits,” Tom Scott, a committee member and golfer, said of the two proposed cul-de-sacs.

The Middleton Common Council on Tuesday night approved a resolution reaffirming deed restrictions on civic lots in the Middleton Hills neighborhood, but it wasn’t the resolution detailed in last week’s newspaper. The new resolution was authored by council president Susan West and it differed from the one authored by ald. Hans Hilbert and former common council member Andy Lewis, which was included in the meeting’s agenda.

West’s resolution includes updated assessments of acres designated for civic land use, an indication that the Middleton Hills Neighborhood Association is now comprised solely of Middleton Hills residents, and other language about encouraging discussion surrounding appropriate civic uses for lots in question.

The city received a petition including more than 350 signatures in favor of deed restrictions, but a letter from Alan Hembel, Corporate Secretary for Middleton Hills, Inc., called the resolution “unnecessary.”

Those who frequent the Pheasant Branch Conservancy are used to seeing an array of flora and fauna as they travel the preserve’s meandering paths. But earlier this summer they encountered something entirely new: goats.

A herd of 82 animals came and went as part of the City of Middleton Public Lands and Forestry Department’s plan to manage invasive brush in Bock Forest. This approach, called prescribed grazing, harnessed the goats’ appetite for brush to help reduce invasive species populations.

Prior to the mid 1800s, much of the Middleton area was oak savanna, oak woodland, prairie and wetland. Naturally occurring fires and blazes set by Native Americans kept the “understory” open. The open area allowed a diverse community of grasses and wildflowers to flourish.

Today, two species of invasive brush - buckthorn and honeysuckle - are shading out the understory vegetation and reducing plant diversity and the habitat value of the woodland.