La Follette Avenue
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On Friday, online media outlets around Wisconsin reported on the suspension: DOT secretary Frank Busalacchi said in a written statement Thursday that outgoing governor Jim Doyle requested him to ask "contractors and consultants working on the high speed rail project to temporarily interrupt their work for a few days."
Channel3000.com reported Friday morning that "a source told WISC-TV that at least 300 people working on the project were let go Thursday. The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that some 300 designers, engineers and consultants working on the project in Milwaukee were told to pack up their things and go home, that work on the project was done, and the building is now empty."
Parisi met at 1 p.m. with Karen Faster of the La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group, district 6 alder Marsha Rummel and Chris Klein of the city of Madison's mayor's office. DOT executive assistant Cari Anne Renlund and division operations manager Paul Trombino were to attend, but the governor's office called Parisi's office to say that Renlund was tied up in a meeting with the governor to discuss high-speed rail. When the governor's office called again to say no one from DOT would be coming, Parisi demanded that someone from the governor's office attend, and legislative director Carrie Templeton arrived. After Parisi gave his perspective on communication problems between neighborhood residents, Templeton listened and took notes as Faster ran through her suggestions for a communications plan.
Shortly after Templeton left the office, one of Parisi's assistants brought in a printout of the initial Channel3000.com story that said an unnamed source who asked to remain anonymous, said that she and several staffers were told the "project is done" and all were let go on Thursday morning.
Faster urged Rummel and Klein to progress as if the state will continue with the project and specifically requested them to organize a recommendation from the city as an entity to submit as part of the corridor management plan focus group process. Neither seemed to know whether the city planned to make any recommendations outside of what individual neighborhood representatives and alders advised as members of the focus group. Faster also urged them to submit a new request to state and federal rail officials to build a legal pedestrian-bicycle path across the tracks somewhere between Corry and Division streets to ensure access to the Union Corners property that the city now owns and plans to develop.
The state's high-speed rail web page contained no reference to the suspension as of 10 a.m. Friday, November 5. Neither did DOT's news release web page. Nor did the governor's news release web page.
Also remaining unknown is whether the corridor management plan focus group will meet again. Consultants had picked November 22 or 29 after Rummel told them she could not attend November 10. She also was unable to attend the September 8 corridor management plan focus group meeting, the first of four originally scheduled.
Because of the shift in timeline, the public information meeting will be moved to Wednesday, December 15 between 4:30 and 7:30 pm at the Wisconsin Department of Administration building, 101 E. Wilson Street, "public mailings and notices to be forthcoming," consultant Charles Wade emailed focus group members on Tuesday, November 2.
The October 21 corridor management plan focus group meeting was canceled. No information has been provided as to whether the November 22 or 29 meeting would bethe replacement for the second meeting outlined in the timeline given the focus group on September 8 or if the process will continue with only two meetings of the focus group. The timeline says the public information meeting is to be in early December with a fourth and final focus group meeting in February or March.
The public is not allowed to comment or ask questions during the meetings of the advisory group.
above story posted morning of November 5, 2010
La Follette Avenue High-Speed Rail Corridor Group
Web site is published by Karen Faster, 133 Ohio Avenue, Madison WI 53704
rail@ohioavenue.com
Posted September 14, 2010