Many City Council members still think there is hope for a prominent city project, despite the mayor’s recent efforts to cut funds.
Last Tuesday, Mayor Paul Soglin released his proposal for the 2012 capital budget, which included a number of severe cuts. One such cut was to the previously approved $16 million for the renovation of the Edgewater Hotel at the top of Langdon Street.
Soglin’s proposed capital budget cut the funding from the original $16 million to $3.3 million, and it has turned into one of the highly debated items in the budget.
Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said City Council had spent upward of 100 hours debating the Edgewater construction and that Soglin’s proposal threw away the work City Council had put into approving it.
“There was a long process in approving it,” Resnick said. “A series of committee meetings as well as hours of testimony and debate on the public floor. It was a very exhaustive process.”
Deliberation about the funding began in October 2009 and it took more than nine months to come to a majority vote to approve it. Funding was just barely approved with a 12 to 6 vote.
Last week, the Wisconsin State Journal conducted a phone survey to discover just how many Council members are still in support of the previously approved $16 million.
They found that nine members support it, one is leaning toward it, six are undecided and only four are against.
Resnick, who supports the $16 million, said only 11 of the 20 council members are needed to approve the funding for the hotel.
“I believe [City Council] will have the votes to put it through,” Resnick said. “It’s still early in discussion right now, but I think they will have support for the project.”
Resnick said if the Council reapproves the $16 million, it will be taken through a budget amendment.
“Time and time again city staff outside audits have estimated the project as [discussed], and there is a very real gap of more than $16 million,” Ald. Bridget Maniaci, District 2, said. “$3.3 million is nowhere near covering that project.”
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said he backs Soglin’s $3.3 million, believing that spending $16 million on a luxury hotel in today’s economic times is “absolutely outrageous.”
The $3.3 million figure is the maximum that city policy would allow, and to approve the funding originally, the Council waived a number of these policies, Verveer said. He said Soglin is not going to create exceptions for these rules again. Verveer was among the six council members who denied the Edgewater funding in 2010.
“I would hope that most downtown residents would realize there is a much more pressing need and higher priority in the city budget for a new Central Library, which Soglin has included in his capital budget,” Verveer said.
Voting to amend the budget will take place over the course of three nights in November, said Maniaci.
