More than 100 representatives from several west side Madison neighborhoods will protest at 6 p.m. at Memorial High School today against the City Planning Department’s perceived tactic to silence opponents of bike paths and other city efforts neighbors say will raise costs, hurt neighborhoods, and damage the city’s environmental assets.
Neighbors say that the city has asked for feedback on the West Area Plan but separates participants into small group discussions that stifle opposition to environmentally damaging bike paths in Sauk Creek Woods and other proposals such as potential rezoning for the Hill Farms Neighborhood.
With alders this week floating a city referendum to raise taxes, neighbors want the city to hear ground-level suggestions on cutting the multimillion-dollar city deficit, but say their suggestions for unneeded costs have been ignored by the mayor’s office and the city planning department.
Over 30 neighbors have attended a dozen meetings to protest three bike paths in Sauk Creek Woods estimated to cost $2 million and require the removal of more than 1,000 trees. The neighbors have collected 300 names on petitions.
Tamarack Trails condo association, a 320-family development, this week called for removal of three bike paths and a paved maintenance path from the West Area Plan in a letter from James Steinbach, the president of the association’s board of directors. The Friends of Sauk Creek, an environmental advocacy group on the West Side, has argued for the past seven months that the city should pull plans for a paved maintenance road and the bike paths to preserve a needed tree canopy provided by 5,600 trees.
City planners soon will ask the City Council for approval of the West Area Plan.
