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Dear Friend, This summer you have the opportunity to show that: ▪ we CAN fight city hall,▪ people are not going to just roll over when their lakes
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 Working to preserve the land west of Lake Waubesa from poorly planned development |
Dear Friend,
This summer you have the opportunity to show that:
▪ we CAN fight city hall,
▪ people are not going to just roll over when their lakes are endangered, and
▪ a changing climate and wilder weather means that some places just shouldn't be developed.
On Thursday, August 14, the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) will hold hearings on the Urban Service Area Amendments proposed by the City of Fitchburg for the Northeast Neighborhood (NEN) and the North Stoner Prairie Neighborhood (NSPN). We have 80 days to create a groundswell of grassroots opposition (plus expert testimony) to convince them to vote these proposals down. Will you join us? |
Potluck this Friday!
Make new friends and take on a task on Friday, May 30.
This Friday, May 30, we're inviting you to a potluck supper and a chance to learn more about how you can help our 3-month campaign. Right now the potluck's planned for a private home near Fitchburg's Northeast Neighborhood, but if we get a humungous response we'll find a church hall. We'll eat at 6, start the meeting at 6:45, and we'll be done by 8.
You'll learn what we've done so far and what's needed, and then we'll brainstorm for each area, and people can sign up to do particular tasks. (See below for a partial list of what needs doing.) Please come even if you have only a little time to offer, or if you just have some valuable advice or connections that would help us. Bring a dish to pass, your own place setting, and your calendar!
Please RSVP here to receive the address. |
Please write to the CARPC Commissioners today
CARPC Commissioners don't often hear from many people who would be affected by their decisions. It's rare to find an effective group like ours that will educate and organize people about the problems caused by a proposed development. So if scores or hundreds of you take the 5 or 10 minutes necessary to write an email letting them know why you oppose these developments, it will definitely get their attention.
Fitchburg and the developers will have a large block of time at the hearing to promote their proposals, but ordinary citizens will just have 3 or 5 minutes. But by getting our comments in early, we can encourage the commissioners to investigate the issues more thoroughly than they would ordinarily. |
 Photo of the NEN by Nadia Olker |
Please write a paragraph or two to all the commissioners at:
allcommissioners@CapitalAreaRPC.org. If you need some help, check out our "controversy in two nutshells" below, or look at our brochure by clicking here.
You don't have to have expert knowledge; you can state your values, e.g. "I think that our remaining wetlands are too valuable to put at risk for a development that isn't even needed at this time."
We know how busy you are, but please take a few minutes now to write, or to schedule a time when you will write to the CARPC commissioners, and then email us to let us know that you did it! |
1000+ petitions signed! What's next?
Petitions are a great way to show citizen opposition. And they are a way to meet people who may go on to help in other ways. We collected 623 signatures of Fitchburg residents on our petition to the Fitchburg Common Council, opposing submitting the NEN proposal to the CARPC. Since April we've collected 450 signatures of Dane County residents on our new petition addressed to the CARPC, opposing both the NEN and NSPN developments, so that's a total of 1073!
How high can we go?
Can we collect 1300, 1400, 1500 signatures by August 14? That depends on you. Please download copies of the petition here and get your friends, family and neighbors to sign it (if they are over 18 and live in Dane County). Then send them to us at P.O. Box 259525, Madison, WI 53725.
You can also sign up here to be part of a team petitioning at public events in Fitchburg, Dunn, and McFarland, the three communities that would be most directly impacted by the proposed developments. And let us know of any events where we could find lots of people who care about good city planning and the lakes. |
We need volunteers to:
▪ donate to pay for printing, postage, and interns
▪ do media and publicity work
▪ promote our cause on social media
▪ help create another animated video
▪ monitor the media, and collect articles and recordings that we can use
▪ research topics online
▪ petition at public events or among your friends and neighbors
▪ telephone our supporters to invite them to events
▪ write letters to the editor
▪ call in to radio shows
▪ do data entry
▪ and more!
If you are not able to come to the meeting this Friday, please click here to let us know that you can help with one of these tasks (or something else)! |
Your donation will buy us visibility
How do you get government to listen to you?
By making your issue visible and urgent. We need to:
* communicate with thousands of people
* offer them multiple ways to understand our message (e.g. postcards, online videos, letters to the editor, radio and t.v. coverage)
* mobilize them to speak out at the same time.
All of these things take money, for printing, postage, paying web professionals, and paying for interns who will put in many hours.
Please invest as much as you can in the WWPC at this time. Now is our best chance to stop these developments from going forward - if you've ever thought of donating, this is the time to do it!
Just click on the image to go to our donations page. For large donations we appreciate a mailed check, to avoid the Paypal fees. Sorry, your contribution is not tax-deductible, but it is very much appreciated! |
 The southern end of Lake Waubesa, looking northwesterly towards the Northeast Neighborhood.
Photo by Nadia Olker |
Thank you for helping in whatever way you can. Together we can protect the lands and waters that make our home region so great!
Yours,
Phyllis Hasbrouck
Chair of the West Waubesa Preservation Coalition
P.S. Please send this on to your friends and neighbors, using whatever social media you prefer. To ensure they get the graphics, please forward using the "Forward" link at the very bottom of this e-newsletter.
www.westwaubesa.org
westwaubesa@gmail.org |
The story in two nutshells
We are trying to stop two proposed developments from happening at this time. The reasons are both financial and environmental. Since Fitchburg already has 7 areas (1125 acres) within its current Urban Service Area that are empty and ready for development, it makes no sense to open another two areas for development, burdening the taxpayers with two more sets of infrastructure to maintain.
(If this is your first e-newsletter from us and you need some background on the issue, click here to access our brochure. And click here to see our 3-minute animated video!)
Our previous e-newsletter, sent just after the Fitchburg Common Council voted to submit their applications to the CARPC, can be viewed by clicking here. |
 The green line is Fitchburg's current Urban Service Area. The blue-lined areas are rural areas already approved for development, and the yellow areas are ready for infill. |
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On the environmental side, the Northeast Neighborhood (NEN) of Fitchburg drains into Swan Creek, the Waubesa Wetlands, and Lake Waubesa, and a failure of storm water engineering could result in serious damage to these bodies of water and the fish in them. Since our weather is rapidly becoming wetter and wilder, a fact that the storm water engineering standards do not account for, failure is very likely. |
 The NEN, looking SE towards the southern end of Lake Waubesa. Photo by Nadia Olker |
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There is also a serious risk of flooding in part of the NEN development land, just west of Larsen Rd.
In the map below, you see the SE corner of the proposed NEN development.
The red line on the right side is Larsen Road. Goodland Park Road is a grey line across the bottom. The "water" is a degraded wetland, currently farmed, which the developer promises to restore to a wetland. The dark red line around it shows the extent of flooding in June 2008.
Since the floodline almost matches the 876 ft. contour line, we drew in the 884 ft. contour line (8 ft. higher) because a basement is at least 8 ft. deep. Therefore if the 2008 flood levels are reached again, everything within the shaded area will have flooded basements or worse. If even higher flood levels are reached (and scientists predict increasing intensity and frequency of rain events for our region) then even more land will be flooded.
If the city gets approval from the CARPC, the yellow areas will have 5 dwelling units per acre, and the orange areas will have 10. How would you feel if YOU were one of the unlucky people to buy one of these homes? |
The North Stoner Prairie Neighborhood (NSPN) contains some of the best farmland in the world, reason enough for saving it, but sadly not a reason that the CARPC can base a rejection on. But CARPC can reject for flooding concerns. A large part of the NSPN drains into an enclosed basin, which means that excess storm water will have to be pumped out. If there are pump failures, flooding could follow.
If the CARPC approves this development, future flooded homeowners will ask why they approved such a risky proposal. This should be one of the last places to be developed! |
 The blue area all drains into a closed depression, requiring emergency pumping when rainfall is excessive. |
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