Campus Planning Committee: February 28, 2008

After a brief welcome and introduction, the Campus Planning Committee (CPC) commenced its February 28, 2008 meeting. There were five items on the agenda:

Approval of the Dec 20, 2007 Minutes

During that meeting, the Campus Planning Committee ranked proposed projects for the 07-09 fiscal year. Our ranking then vies with other projects from other campuses within the UW System. Whether or not any of the UW-Madison projects are funded will depend on UW System priorities as well as the State’s fiscal health. I abstained from approval of the minutes as I was not present at that meeting (Dan Cornelius represented ASM)

School of Medicine and Public Health: Faculty Office

Presented by Mark Wells. The project is the construction of a faculty office building adjacent to the hospital. The location of the seven story structure (130,000 square feet) is currently a green space between the UW Hospital and the Keystone House. No new parking will be provided.

The Keystone House is "a historical stone-and-wood dwelling situated at the west edge of the campus. The house was purchased by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation in 1967 and given to the University. The dwelling, originally a private residence built in 1853, has been converted into small meeting rooms, a library and offices without diminishing the charm of the historical structure. The Dane County Historical Society of Wisconsin lists the "Keystone House" on its register of historical homes deserving preservation (http://csumc.wisc.edu/mki/About/1.AboutFrames.htm ). The site plan noted that FP&M had designated a buffer zone around the Keystone House.

Funding for this building would be provided by the UW Medical Foundation. Therefore, the foundation and the university are negotiating a long-term ground lease for the building.

The purpose of the building is to move offices from the hospital and into the proposed adjacent building. While needed, the proposed site location adjacent to the Keystone house is too close for such a large structure. Other constraints (pedestrian and delivery access to campus drive) arise from the adjacent VA facilities. Discussions are underway to include bike/ped access to Campus Drive via the VA property.

Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery: Vivarium

Presented by George Austin. In Phase I of the Institute for Discovery, the Vivarium (22,400 square feet) was planned to be within the basement. Now, it will be shifted the adjacent lot that is proposed for Phase II. The foundation of will be such that Phase II can still be constructed above the Vivarium.

Funding for this project, $20.5M will come from WARF. WARF will purchase this land from the University as opposed to enter into a long-term lease.

Update: Charter Street Heating Plant

Presented by John Herrod. As part of the Consent Decree (Sierra Club vs WI Dept of Administration and UW-Madison Case #07-C-0251), the campus must Modernize Charter Street Heating Plant’s four coal fired boilers to achieve Best Available Control Technology or BACT at the facility, and comply with the Clean Air Act. Key points:

• We purchase the boilers (used) in 1959.
• This plant provides 45% of the UW-Madison energy needs and operates at 86% of capacity.
• Their has been a 15% coal reduction and is now burning Biomass (paper pellets, tires).
• To operate on coal is costs $10M per year.
• To operate to gas will cost $30M per year.

I have attached to PDF’s for more information. It appears that this may be the University’s next construction priority.

ATC Transmission Line - Over Ground vs. Underground Route

Presented by Steven Ventura. He mentioned a former discussion that occurred at the 10/18/07 Campus Planning Committee meeting. The following is the minutes from that meeting.

Fish provided some background on this issue. Questions have been raised by CPC members and the campus community as to whether his recent radio commercial was an official endorsement of the ATC transmission line project. Fish explained that the campus’ position is that we need reliable power and we are in support of a reliable power source. The campus is not endorsing any route for the line and in fact has voiced concerns about the proposed route near the Arboretum. The language that he used in the radio spot was vetted through the Chancellor’s office as well as UW Communications.

Fish also explained that the campus’ electricity bill accounts for 10% of all of MGE’s billings. 80% of MGE’s power is generated and imported from outside Wisconsin. As a result, the campus has a huge stake in a reliable source of power and ATC provides that power. Fish added that the decision is now in the hands of the Public Service Commission and they have two options before them – the route along the beltline adjacent to the Arboretum and a more southern route. The campus will have opportunities for input as an intervener into the discussion prior to the PSC’s decision.

Fish then introduced Kevin McSweeney, Director of the Arboretum. McSweeney said that he hoped the UW would petition to be an intervener in the PSC’s decision. He said that the Arboretum is an icon to many - it is sacred to the Ho Chunk Nation and has special significance because of its history with the Civilian Conservation Corp. The Arboretum has also petitioned to become a World Heritage Site, and for all of these reasons, McSweeney hoped that the UW and the Board of Regents would take a firm stance against the beltline route. He added that if the beltline route should be chosen, he hoped that ATC would seriously consider an underground rather than overhead line. He concluded by saying he believes there is a lot at stake with this decision and that both the campus and greater Madison community need to address the longer term implications of this project.

Ventura asked Fish how the need for power on campus is linked to the need for the ATC line. Fish replied that a majority of MGE’s power is imported and because of its proximity to two of the great lakes, Wisconsin has no access to power routes from either the north or east. Additionally, the electric grid has evolved in such a way that local decision making on generating electricity has given way to regional decision making about which plants to take on or off line. As such, it is the regional distribution system that has to provide reliable power for our science and research programs and for that we must rely on ATC.

Ventura pressed for the CPC to issue a statement. Chairman Fish noted that this discussion was best at the Chancellor level, as the negations, are at the chancellor level. Venture then introduced Ronald Kalil and Bradley Hunter. In their presentations, they noted that APC’s application has not been rendered complete and that it will be about a year before a decision by the Utilities Commission was to be made. Key points:

• Undergrounding the power lines are now technically feasible—whereas APC said it was not.
• Above Ground will increase vehicular fatalities.
• Higher costs associated with undergrounding are offset by lower maintenance costs.
• APC’s application more than likely will be deemed complete.
• APC has complete eminent domain power, therefore if approved, they are not answerable to local government.

Ventura then read a statement that he wanted the CPC to endorse:

Whereas the construction of a 345 kV electricity transmission line entails significant environmental, economic and cultural impacts; and,

Whereas the option of constructing an underground line may substantially mitigate these impacts;

Therefore, the Campus Planning Committee recommends that the Office of the Chancellor convey to the Public Service Commission a recommendation to conduct independent and unbiased investigation of the feasibility, costs, and benefits of underground construction along the preferred route of the proposed Dane County line.

Provost Farrell interjected that again, this is best handled at the Chancellor’s office. Howell, from the Arboretum, countered that the proposal text says ‘may.’ At this point, I asked Chairman Fish about the campus energy policy. I said that we have heard how the campus handles power supply, but what about demand. What are we doing to reduce demand? Especially in terms of free-riders and marginal costs. Fish said that our next meeting will have ‘demand’ on the agenda.

Someone made a first and second, Ventura’s statement passed. I did not vote either way since I did not have a copy of the text neither prior to the meeting or at the meeting.

One week later, Dawn Crim of the Chancellor’s office sent the following email:

Thank you for sending the Campus Planning Committee's resolution on the proposed route for the ATC line. I was prepared to communicate to the Campus Planning Committee what the campus has done thus far regarding this issue but I had to leave for another meeting prior to the discussion of this item.

UW-Madison is on record with the American Transmission Company (ATC) and the Public Service Commission (PSC) requesting a full evaluation of undergrounding along the beltline route for the same reasons that are outlined in the resolution. The City of Madison, Dane Co. and other key stakeholders have made similar requests. As a result, the PSC has deemed ATC's application incomplete until that information is included in the application. The PSC is requiring specific detailed review of 9 different Beltline routes including underground segments. Additionally, ATC is being required to provide plans for the Arboretum.

Once the PSC deems the application complete, the regulatory review process begins. Our University through the Chancellor's Office and the Arboretum has been engaged for the past two years and will continue to remain vigilant on this issue.

Bus Pass Advisory Committee, 26-Feb-08 meeting

The Bus Pass Advisory Committee met on 26 February 2008 to discuss the proposed FY2009 budget with representatives from Transportation Services (TS). Here is a brief summary of the hour-long discussion with TS:

Student members of BPAC were uncomfortable with some of the overhead and salary expenses included the proposed budget for FY2009. The five-year Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in May 2007 does not contain any language regarding overhead expenses, nor does it say anything about the SafeTaxi program. There are differing perspectives as to whether the agreement was for students to pay for 50% of Campus Bus overhead in addition to the 50% they agreed to pay for direct (“local”) costs of bus service. To avoid losing the SafeTaxi program, students last year agreed with TS to pay for all of the program’s direct and overhead costs. They did not, however, agree on a method for calculating the overhead, which requires a somewhat arbitrary division from SafeWalk overhead costs. In practice, segregated fees were used in FY2008 to pay for a variety of overhead expenses, including 50% of those associated with Campus Bus and 40% of SafeTaxi/Walk Programs. Committee members expressed their hope that the MoU could be made more specific to reduce ambiguity in future years.

Committee members agreed to make the following recommendations to the Student Council, which was scheduled to meet on 27 February 2008:

1. Remove charges for the new Marketing Specialist from the portions of the budget charged to segregated fees on the basis that students were never consulted on the formation or budgeting of this position.
2. Reduce to 3.7% the basis for increases to Supplies and Services charges.
3. Reduce overhead expenses in a number of other areas, as per the proposal presented by K. Flores and M. Bergamini on 27 February 2008.

Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Noah Theriault whose contact information is available through the university's online directory.

Athletics-Student Focus Group for Football

Hey all,

Another thing that I wanted to post were the key ideas for the upcoming football season. These are ideas that the Athletic Department is considering on implementing for the 2008 season. We talked about this briefly at the last Shared Gov. meeting and I just wanted to post the main ideas on the blog. If anyone has any comments or any questions, please email me at hulick@wisc.edu. Also if you guys have any other ideas or any thoughts about things that the athletic department could do to improve things, let me know and I will get your ideas to the department. It is very important to them that they have student input and your voice will be heard if you go through Andrew or I. With that said here are some proposed ideas for the 2008 season (like I said email me if you want clarification because I will be vague on the blog):

1. Eliminating Section P as an upperclassmen section (therefore this section will fill up quicker and the upperclassmen cant abuse the privilege of showing up late and still having such good seats)

2. Section Seating w/ wristbands (instead of having individual seat with a ticket, everyone will get a wristband and will be assigned to sit in the lower or upper half of a section; lines will be shorter, seating will be more efficient, and there will be less chaos with the per-mar and police as far as getting through the stairs up to your section).

3. Pick up tickets at Camp Randall instead of mailing them out (people were selling mailed out tickets and claiming they never got them in the mail).

4. Later On-Sale Date (sell all tickets in June now- instead of selling them to us in May and incoming freshmen in June just sell them all in June; people were registering for tickets when they would graduate in May and full well know that weren't going to be a student here in the fall)

5. Going to a lottery system in football (The trend is that tickets are selling out too fast. It went for 3 weeks four years ago to 2 1/2 days last year. This could cause multiple problems for the department if they sell out in under a day next year, so they are trying to figure out a way to sell to the demand without running into the time constraint problems.) 

These are the main ideas for football. Like I said email me if you have any questions or concerns. Just make sure you mention your name and that your from shared gov. if you have any questions. Thank you.

Athletic Board Meeting February 22nd

As I updated in the last Shared Gov. Meeting, our last Athletic Board meeting was about a week and a half ago. It was a brief meeting that was really only organized to approve the 2008-2009 Budget. We met for about an hour and a half and covered two main topics.  The specifics of these topics are as followed:

1. Compliance Report

The Compliance division of athletics gave a brief presentation on some presentation guidelines for recruiting athletes. They discussed how the NCAA Manual is structured and how there are a countless number of rules within the manual. They also discussed how there are multiple interpretations of these rules and how it is the compliance division's work to decipher these rules and serve as a resource for these guidelines. Also they must know the NCAA rules to protect the institution and uphold its integrity. With this in mind, they recently looked into the rule on Computer Recruiting Presentations because they wanted to make sure that the university was recruiting within these guidelines. The part of the rule that they needed to contact the NCAA office for interpretation for was that they could only use "presentation software" to recruit student athletes. After discussing it with the NCAA, they came to the conclusion that "presentation software" is strictly Power Point presentations. No other type of software, including any video/audio component and/or any personalized software (with a prospective student-athlete's name, picture or likeness). Overall this is a little overview on what compliance does and how it effects the Athletic Department here at UW.

2. Approval of the Budget

The main reason for the meeting was to approve the budget, and obviously, it was approved. It was an 89.1 million dollar budget that passed for the 2008-2009 business year. $83.6 million of it was directly tied to athletics, $3 million was budgeted for the University Ridge Golf Course, and $2.5 million was budgeted for camps & clinics to add up to the total for the Athletics Budget. The very favorable and key points to note about this budget is that there will be no raise in ticket prices for Football, Men's Basketball, Men's Hockey, or any other sport at this university. That continues to put us in the lower third of the Big Ten in ticket prices and is a very honorable thing for the Athletic Department to do, considering the success of our program. 

Overall that is what took place at the last Athletic Board Meeting and I will continue to update you with more information as it comes. If you have any questions or concerns, my email is hulick@wisc.edu. 

Photo Ordinance-show up or send an email!

The photo ordinance is going to be discussed and voted on today at 5pm. The meeting will be in Room LL-110 in the Madison Municipal Building (215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.). It's the first thing on the agenda so if you decide to go, you'd get out of there pretty quick.

The ordinance requires landlords to take photos of any damage that they are deducting from a tenant's security deposit to fix. Basically, it's proof that the damage actually exists.

Students can come to the Housing Committee meeting and register in favor or not in favor of the ordinance, speak at the meeting, or send an email to Meg Zopelis (mzopelis@cityofmadison.com), Neighborhood Preservation & Inspection Division, about why you may support or not support it.

Visit Ald. Eli Judge's website for more info: www.elijudge.org

**Update: The Photo Ordinance passed with an 8-2 vote.

Library Committee Meeting

At today's meeting for the University Library Committee, we approved the minutes from the 2-5 meeting and heard the director's report as delivered by Ed Van Gemert.
We were also updated on College Library's services and initiatives by Carrie Kruse. You might have noticed new furniture in College that has built-in electrical outlets; as Carrie noted, this was a direct response to student needs and librarians at College are always looking at more ways to help serve students and comments and new input is always welcome.
Lastly, we heard a report on Special Purpose Libraries from Jean Phillips. UW-Madison has 45 libraries (45!) and many of these are smaller and more focused in scope and service area. Jean, who works at the Space Science and Engineering Center, reported on a survey done of several Special Purpose Libraries. While only 12 of the 30 or so libraries that fit this definition responded, a pretty good picture of budgeting, acquisitions, reference statistics and questions answered still emerged.

Memorial Library Committee

We had our first meeting for this year on Feb 29. After approving the meeting minutes of Dec. 10, 2007, the Chair and Director made few announces namely:
1. Libraries/DoIT to host May 2 symposium.
2. Resolution expressing faculty senate recognition and appreciation of UW-Madison Campus Libraries and Staff.

Our next agenda was faculty concerns.
1. Overlapping collections between libraries such as CIMC and Memorial Library on educational materials. And the Director reassured that it would not be a case since each library would collaborate before making new purchases.
2. Space issue as the increase in collections without building expansion. No definite answer to this, but the problem was mainly about budget constraint.

Student concerns.
1. Making services offered by library known to students especially the ones that we never expect such as poster printing, camera recorder, and so on. One suggestion was to create a list of 20 services that students may never know offered by library.
2. The sudden closure of library dues to severe weather. The question was how can students be better informed for such occasion. One proposal was to communicate through e-mail and the director would bring up the issue to Library Communication Department.

Before adjourned, the committee discussed the possibility to reschedule meeting time.