Madison Comprehensive Plan Not Saying Much

Friday's MDL (print edition only) and the Madison city webpage announce a community open house meeting to discuss the "Madison Comprehensive Plan." Thank goodness we now have certified planners to convince every town that it can't bumble along blindly any more just taking care of problems on its own. I wonder if these planners are related to the marketers who convinced every town to put up banners to distinguish themselves from every other town... which puts up banners.

I digress... but only because the comprehensive plan doesn't give me much to work with this morning. Friday's MDL offered city engineer Chad Comes saying that the plan will address land development, infrastructure, public facilities, and city services. I went to the Madison Comprehensive Plan website, expecting to see all sorts of alternative overlay maps and site analyses and projections on cost and population. Alas, it appears Ulteig Engineers (Fargo, Bismarck, Minneapolis, Detroit Lakes, and Sioux Falls) hasn't gotten that far yet... or if they have, they haven't published the information to the Web.

The "Project Process" document (and a small annoyance: Ulteig refers to "text documents" but links to PDFs) lists five phases: Inventory, Issue Identification, Alternatives Analysis, Development, and Adoption. It appears we are at Phase 2e, the first open house. According to the process list, if it's chronological, Ulteig should already have collected and reviewed documents, analyzed the city infrastructure, reviewed our parks and rec trails, conducted interest group meetings (Lake County's bloggers are full of interest -- where's our invitation?), and workshopped the city officials. If all that has been done already, I hope we'll see some reports up on the website soon.

The only other notable document on the plan website, the (PDF) "Public Involvement" declaration, seems to promise just that:

Appropriate public involvement will be the most important part of this project. The objectives of public involvement are to ensure sufficient interaction with potentially affected interests to achieve project implementation, and to obtain all relevant, appropriate input.

Yahoo! We're important! Ulteig promises in this document to "Present the planning process, comprehensive plan function, and summary of inventory and infrastructure analysis" at the open house. They promise the same at the interest group meetings, which they say will be held with up to "three key community organizations or interest groups."

Ulteig will also take questions and comments online: you can submit your ideas and concerns via e-mail: PlanMadison@ulteig.biz (and notice, typists, that's e-i, like in Heidelberger, not i-e). Submit your comments to Ulteig, then post them here on the Madville Times! Let's see what kind of plan Madison's residents think our fair city needs.

Then make sure you hit the open house next week: Tuesday, October 30, 6-8 p.m., City Commission Room downtown. Doors open at 6; project leader Joel Quanbeck presents at 7; Q&A begins at 7:15.

Update -- 09:15 -- In under two hours, project manager Joel Quanbeck returns my e-mail (that's faster than the response I usually get from our city officials!):

Dear Mr. Heidelberger,

The five phases are chronological. The substeps within each phase are not always chronological and are sometimes parallel activities. We will be posting a preliminary list of issues within the next week to the project website. Additionally, we will be summarizing our initial findings and seeking additional input on issues relevant to the Comprehensive Plan at the Open House. The results of that meeting will also be posted to the web site.

Joel Quanbeck, AICP, CFM

We look forward to seeing all the details Ulteig can post!