Arboretum Neighborhood Association

Hello Everyone,

First of all thank you all so much for the great turnout to Thursday night’s meeting!  Everyone had wonderful engagement with our speakers and I felt like we received a lot of clarification to many neighborhood concerns.  Now on to the summary!  Prepare for this to be a long email…

Winter/Spring General ANA Meeting 3/16/23 at the UW Arboretum Visitor Center

ANA President Leslie Ladd welcomed everyone and introduced members of the ANA Board.  Karen Oberhauser, Director of the UW Arboretum, warmly welcomed us and reminded us of the value the Arboretum staff places on the good working relationship they have with this neighbor community.  Alder Tag Evers was unable to attend but sent his regards.

Greg Fries from the City Engineering Department was our first City speaker who led a presentation about the nuances of our new Municipal Services Bill that we are now receiving monthly.

    1.  Landfill Charge-this is a “remnant charge” that all City residents pay for the maintenance of the five closed landfills in the area.  These landfills are not being added to and are indeed “closed” but there is still regular maintenance and monitoring required as the materials slowly decompose.  This small fee will dwindle away over time growing smaller every year as related expenses also become less.

    2.  Sewer Charge-this charge is divided into two pieces:

    “City Sewer Flat Rate” is the cost of maintaining the conveyance system of pipes that get the wastewater to the treatment facility.  The flat rate is obtained by taking the average of the water usage by all single family residential units in Madison.

    “MMSD Treatment Flat Rate” is a charge that is passed through municipal services but originates from the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), who completes the treatment procedures to clean the wastewater.  To learn more about their operations they have a very thorough website at:  Your Partner in Clean Water

     *Some folks may wonder if they are being overcharged by receiving a flat rate.  In order to obtain a precise measurement of your household’s water use, a water meter would need to be installed.  The city will provide the water meter but you have to pay a licensed plumber to install it, which would likely cost several  hundred dollars.  Likely this would yield very little savings should your water use be less than the average (as you would be trying to recover that installation expense) or even worse, may indicate your household uses more than the averaged amount.  Should anyone want a water meter, the Engineering department can be contacted to provide one. Their website link is Stormwater | Engineering, City of Madison, Wisconsin
    

    3. Urban Forestry-this is the cost to maintain the trees in the “terrace” which is the area of land between the roadways and property lines.  This flat rate is based on what kind of property you have (residential, multi-family, commercial, stormwater, government).  The majority of us should be seeing the word residential next to this charge.  For 2023 the residential rate is $6.38/month.

    4.  Resource Recovery-this is the cost associated with the City’s recycling collection services.  For 2023 single residential homes or “units” are charged $4.08/month, a duplex would be $8.16/ month and so on.

    5.  Stormwater-This charge is divided into three pieces.  Honestly I can’t summarize this any better than copying it verbatim from the City website.  Rather then using up space with that, here is the link to that page:  Stormwater Bill | Engineering, City of Madison, Wisconsin   

    *The Stormwater fee has caused quite a stir here in the neighborhood so let me summarize a bit of background on it. The Town was charging us fees for the maintenance of our existing stormwater run off conveyance system whether you had a stormwater drain or culvert directly on your property or not,  Their existence served us all as a community, thus the shared cost.  These charges were built into our property taxes.  Now that the City has taken over these fees, they are billed out as an explicit bill instead of being built into the City property taxes.  Within the City’s billing structure exists several credits property owners can apply for based on the claim that their property has “features” that reduce the amount of runoff going into the system.  The credit that has caused the most amount of questions is the Riparian Discharge Credit, discovered by one of our neighbors and shared with all of us to explore.  After much “exploration” we have learned that a property will only qualify for this credit if the property’s stormwater runs off directly into “Waters of State.”  This means if there is a road (or someone else’s land or public land) between your property and the wetlands that surround us, then you don’t qualify.  This is the scenario for literally all but a tiny handful of parcels in this neighborhood meaning almost none of us qualify for this.  There are several other credits, the most attainable likely being the rain garden option.  Refer here for more details on all of them:  https://www.cityofmadison.com/engineering/documents/Stormwater%20Credit%20Policy%202022.pdf

     *One other angle to explore is assessing whether the impervious square footage listed on your bill is indeed accurate as the impervious measurement is subject to a higher rate.  Should you feel it is incorrect you can contact the Engineering department for re-measurement of your impervious structures (your home, garage, etc).  Ultimately the savings from this will likely be very minimal.

Greg Fries is generally very responsive, though admittedly was a bit overwhelmed by the surge of emails following our annexation as it is only him and one other fielding them all.  He apologizes profusely to anyone he has not yet responded to.  His email is gfries@cityofmadison.com.

Mike Hansen from UW Arboretum Land Care Management spoke next, sharing some updates about ongoing spring clean up programs and lands maintenance. The goal is to continue eastward with brush clearing and tree thinning until they reach the end of the Oak Woodlands, and then to push out towards the lake expanding the already cleared areas. The crew hopes to conduct some prescribed burns in the cleared areas along Arboretum Dr. this spring as the wind patterns allow it.  The prescribed burns serve to clear brush and remove invasive species while ultimately creating more opportunities for light to reach the forest floor and restore native plant growth.  There was an unfortunate incident last month during a burn when Arboretum staff misjudged the wind direction and the smoke blew heavily in toward the residential areas as opposed to out over the lake.  The staff is extremely apologetic for this and assure us that careful planning generally avoids situations such as this but weather is of course unpredictable at times.  The team generally makes the decision to go forward with a burn only the day of but will send a notice to Leslie and me so we can forward information to the neighborhood email list as soon as the decision has been made.  If you would like to be personally emailed by the team in these scenarios rather than wait for the message to be forwarded through the ANA, Mike is happy to accommodate this.  Please email him directly at michael.hansen@wisc.edu to be added to this alert list.  The burning will continue more frequently during the spring, typically starting in Mid March, and then taper off in Mid May.  There are no burns planned for Arboretum areas along Carver and Martin Streets though smoke from other burns inside the Arboretum could reach that neighborhood.

    There was some discussion about the wildlife management efforts.  Mike confirmed that the deer control program is handled with targeted rifle hunting that occurs almost exclusively in the winter from (4) deer stands that ensure aiming can occur pointing downward for safety.  The staff estimates a local deer herd of at least 50 animals roaming our area.  The goal is to reduce that down by 20-40 every season.  At present there is no turkey management program.

    Some concern was raised about the aging trees along Arboretum Dr. and the falling hazard they present.  Mike assured us this is heavily monitored, though again Nature can be unpredictable.  They contract with private arborists to complete removal of trees that appear hazardous.  Should you encounter a tree fallen across the road you can reach out to Mike directly during the daytime or to either MPD or the UW police after hours for prompt removal.

    Lastly Mike confirmed that there are some preliminary conversations with the Parks department about coordinated efforts in continuing to care for and develop the two ends of Harvey Schmidt Park that are technically UW Arboretum lands.  The public mulch pile at the bottom of Balden St. will hopefully remain as is for ongoing neighborhood use, though Arboretum staff will clean up the area and condense it.

Sarah Grimalkin from City Parks Department was our next speaker addressing the ongoing planning for Harvey Schmidt and Fraust Parks.  I will refer you all to go either to the ANA website (

Arboretum Neighborhood Association) or to the Parks websites to review the very rough draft plan drawings for each of our parks.  Please email Sarah Grimalkin directly with feedback at 

sgrimalkin@cityofmadison.com.  A reminder that these are very rough general idea plans that serve the function of requesting funds from the City’s annual budget.  They do not include detailed schematics or specifics of possible installations, equipment, or contractors etc.  That stage will develop once funding has been approved and will involve the community voting on specific details via several meetings.  The initial approval process is two steps.  The first proposal meeting occurs with the Board of Parks Commissioners on 4/19 to present the plans for informational review.  The Board of Parks Commissioners will then meet again on 5/17 to actually vote on approving the plans.  These meetings are still tentative but will be open to the public.  If the plans are approved then funding will be finalized in the fall.

    A few things that can be confirmed for this immediate year:  There will be mowing, brush clearing, and basic tree maintenance.  Picnic tables will be returned to Fraust Park.  Some benches and picnic table replacements will begin in Schmidt Park.  The community garden is encouraged to continue in Fraust Park.  The restroom building in Fraust Park is slated to be removed (though the timeline for this is undetermined) but a water source will remain for the community garden.  Existing park signage will not be destroyed and will eventually be reincorporated as requested back into the parks (though timeline is undetermined to that end).  The bat houses in Schmidt park will also be removed given their state of disrepair.  Dogs on leash will be allowed in both parks.

The city websites for the parks are Harvey Schmidt Park Master Plan | Parks, City of Madison, Wisconsinand Fraust Park Master Plan | Parks, City of Madison, Wisconsin

    *And since our meeting last Thursday brush clearing has begun in Harvey Schmidt Park!  Please take a drive by as it looks amazing and thank the staff hard at work out there!

Charlie Romines from the City Streets Department was our final speaker addressing feedback about snow removal operations.  In short the Streets department wants very much to hear feedback about what’s working and what’s not, and where icy problematic areas always seem to persist along our roads.  This area is not familiar to the crews and frankly they can’t learn about it if we don’t teach them, politely.  This is particularly relevant when it comes to judging the edges of the street because there are no curbs in our area.  Putting out snow stakes may be a big help, Charlie said.  I am thinking what also might be helpful is if we gather a summary of sorts of where stubborn icy patches seem to always be or other chronic concerns that need addressing, and I can compile this and send to Streets now in the off season so they have it on file to refer to easily next winter.

    Charlie empathized with us that this was a difficult (slippery!) transition as the Town used salt on our roads and the City of Madison’s policy is to only use sand with a very small amount of salt mixed in as this is significantly better for the environment.  This sand method is simply not going to be comparable to the ability of salt to melt snow and ice pack back down to bare pavement.  With feedback, the Streets team can come out to address any reported slippery patches with extra sand applications whenever requested.

    As a reminder, plowing operations attend to “salt routes” anytime it snows.  Salt routes are defined as those roads the city bus travels along as well as immediate areas around hospitals and schools.  The majority of our neighborhood does not fit in this category.  Non salt routes are plowed whenever there is at least 3 inches of accumulation.  In this scenario called a “city wide plow” the city is divided into roughly 80 sections with no one section given priority over another.

    There is legitimate concern given that there are only 3 roads leading out of our neighborhood and what to do if all three are hazardous.  As already summarized, the more concrete feedback we provide to the Streets team the more easily they can make some modifications to how they handle our area with that “insider” knowledge.  Immediate concerns should be directed to the West Side office at 608-266-4681 which is staffed from 7am-4pm M-F, and during the winter months is also staffed additionally  overnight from 11pm-7am M-F. Anytime it is actively snowing and/or there is a Citywide plowing operation, the phones are staffed around the clock

. There is also a “report a problem” option on their website where you can report an impassable or hazardous area that will also lead to a quicker dispatch of equipment than the standard plowing procedures.  The link to that site is Report a problem.

    So what happens to all the leftover sand in the roads now that winter is ending? (it is, right?!)  Streets begins their Spring street sweeping program around this time of year.  Over the course of 4-6 weeks ALL City streets will be cleaned twice.  This involves around the clock street cleaners so do not be surprised if you see a street sweeper come by in the overnight hours in the coming weeks.  Once the Spring clean up has concluded the street sweeping program returns to it’s normal operating schedule.

    Should you want to reach out to Charlie directly his email is cromines@cityofmadison.com.  The Streets supervisor of the West side office that oversees our area specifically is Ryan Ulrich at rulrich@cityofmadison.com

Alrighty!  You made it all the way to the bottom!  Thank you all for the feedback and sleuthing.  I couldn’t share all this information without your help!  Please visit our newly created ANA website (arboretumneighborhood.com) and let us know what changes we could make to have it better meet your needs.  Be well.