COVID-19 Updates and 2nd Term Responsibilities
/Hello Neighbors,
I hope you are staying safe and healthy and following all of the recommendations of Madison Dane County Public Health. I know it is mentally and physically challenging to practice social distancing but I am real proud of how seriously our community is taking the pandemic and how we are working to protect our most vulnerable neighbors.
I am happy to announce that I was elected chair of Land Conservation Committee (LCC) and Vice-Chair of the Environment, Agriculture and Natural Resources (EANR) committee. In this update, I will focus on COVID-19 Relief efforts at the County level and give a detailed recap on the pressing environmental issues that LCC and EANR will tackle.
Dane County COVID-19 Relief Efforts
Dane County is committed to helping our neighbors, shopkeepers, vulnerable populations and community through this pandemic. This situation is rapidly changing and I will list below the efforts undertaken to provide economic relief to our community.
DANE COUNTY RESIDENTS LINE UP FOR COVID TESTING. PHOTO CREDIT: VALERIE GROVER
Dane County is partnering with the Tenant Resource Center to administer a $10 million eviction prevention fund to stave off the needs of the newly un-or-underemployed as a result of COVID-19. Tenants can apply for assistance via an existing online application process and assessment that targets those potentially facing eviction to the best recourse for their needs. The funding will come wrapped in housing counseling, education for the landlord on federal mortgage protections, case management, outreach, and mediation services. The County Board is anticipated to pass this funding.
Local units of government are given the flexibility to delay the due date for property taxes to October 1, 2020.
Dane County has a $10 million grant program available to small businesses experiencing financial difficulties during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Dane County is providing $3 million to support Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin to help feed our community.
I introduced a resolution to provide $100,00 to artists through the Dane Arts Need Grants (DANG!). I anticipate this resolution will pass the full board.
The County Board will vote on a $3.5 million grant program for licensed child care providers struggling during the pandemic.
Additional funding will be provided to hire and fund additional Public Health staff.
There is a free COVID-19 Community Testing Site at the Alliant Energy Center. Please see this link for detailed information on testing protocol, recommendations and guidelines.
Here is an informative presentation given to entire County Board of current and anticipated future spending.
Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court has thrown an orderly re-opening into chaos, I encourage everyone to listen to Public Health Madison Dane County for the best information on how to stay healthy and safe as we transition into this next phase. The Forward Dane plan will be our guidepost for reopening. This information is changing so rapidly so I encourage you to follow me on Facebook to get real time updates. I will also continue to post to the various neighborhood lists and groups.
EANR and LCC Updates and Review
I am honored to have the support of my fellow supervisor to chair LCC and be the vice-chair of EANR. Both committees have a direct impact on our environment, the quality of life in Dane County and helps protect our most crucial natural resources.
I want to summarize some of the work and priorities we had last term to help better prepare the community for our upcoming term. EANR worked extensively on the Lake Levels Task Force recommendations following the historic flooding in 2018.
I biked out to goodland park to monitor lake levels on lake waubesa
The recommendations along with our task force meeting recordings can be found here (click on the 2018 task force link):
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/Yahara-Lake-Level-Recommendations
A direct link to the final recommendations is here:
We receive a quarterly update as a result of the task force's recommendations and the slides from the last one can be found here (scroll down to Winter Lake Level Management and Strategies):
You can get real time info on Lake Levels here:
https://lwrd.countyofdane.com/Lake-Levels
Or if you want to look at individual monitoring stations, that is here:
The lakes function as a chain and these lake level monitoring tools help us understand lake management strategies while giving us a real time snapshot of our current status. We will be working quite a bit on sediment removal to increase flow in the watershed with a goal of moving 1 inch of rainwater in 4 days rather than 7 days through the watershed.
Part of this work will be contracted out and some will be handled in house. Capital money was put in the budget to purchase equipment in-house and this article details one of the first contracts awarded to a vendor:
Early in our term, we will hear of the results from the RFP to purchase equipment in house. There is a detailed 5 phased plan in place that will be ongoing this term.
Speaking of sentiment removal, another effort we have is to remove legacy phosphorous from our watershed. If no new phosphorous was added to the watershed, there is still enough legacy sediment to last for years. This program is also knows as "suck the muck" and more details are here:
To fight aquatic invasives, boaters have tools to clean their boats to prevent aquatic hitch-hikers.
You can see some of these projects in action by visiting various County Land and Parks like Token Creek park.
We will also hear quite a bit about aquatic plant harvesting. This helps improve flow through the watershed and removes many of the aquatic plants and weeds. The locations of the harvesters can be found here:
https://wred-lwrd.countyofdane.com/aquatic-plant-management_old/aquatic-plant-harvester-locations
During the flooding of 2018, multiple dump truck loads of plants were removed and composted and were a critical tool to control flooding. As part of our work on EANR, we will have an annual tour and last year we visited some of these harvesters. In this update, I covered some of the aquatic plan harvesting as well as annual tour details:
Here is some info on the tour we did in 2018 prior to the flooding:
On the Land Conservation Committee, we provide funding through various fund sources to help with different conservation practices like harvestable buffer strips, cover crops, and nutrient management plans. These all help us parter with farmers to reach shared conservation goals like phosphorous reduction in our watershed.
A big objective we had last term was to pass the Manure Storage Ordinance (Chapter 49). This helps us catalogue manure in the watershed and direct resources where they are needed and brings our local ordinance in to compliance with state standards:
https://lcd-lwrd.countyofdane.com/Chapter-49
When it comes to manure, we have innovative ways to turn it into clean energy through manure digesters. Here are some more details on how these digesters work as we will be reviewing some of the progress of these systems in our term:
https://yogeshchawla.com/d6-updates/2018/4/30/manure-digesters-a-closer-look
This is just the tip of the iceberg of our committee work but I hope it give our district a feel of what my priorities and work tasks on the board are.
Thank You Teachers!
marigold sends out a thank you to all the great teachers at marquette and in mmsd!
I know the pandemic has been really hard on both parents and kids who are in school. Virtual learning can be isolating. It is hard for parents to balance work, parenting, financial pressures and explaining this new reality to our kids as we try to adapt to it ourselves.
It is also particularly hard on our teachers who care for our kids like they are their own. We know they have been working hard every day to make lesson plans, spend individual times with kids and families and help us all adjust to this new reality.
My daughter wanted to send a special THANK YOU to all the teachers and especially to her teachers at Marquette Elementary. We see you, we support you and we value you.