The Madison City Commission made one more oh-so-tentative nudge toward doing something about downtown development. At their Monday meeting (recorded here on the city's YouTube channel), the commissioners decided to write a new line into the budget, the "Downtown Improvement Reserve Fund." They will slide some dollars from other lines down to that slot.
And then... well, commissioners haven't answered that question yet. Their Monday line-writing didn't authorize any spending. They don't have any specific projects in mind. After years of hearing people say downtown needs help and hearing numerous specific suggestions for fixing up storefronts, renovating historic landmarks, investing in a downtown hotel and meeting center, or even just hosting authentic public conversations to find out what people want, the Madison City Commission can hardly muster the courage to pencil a note in the margin of the budget indicating they might spend some money on something downtown.
I might suggest the city already has its mechanism for spending money on downtown improvement. With its hand-off of the downtown development task force to the Lake Area Improvement Corporation, the city could simply earmark some big chunk its standard quarter-million-dollar LAIC funding for the downtown projects generated by the task force.
The vote for a downtown improvement reserve fund is better than complete ignorance and inaction, but it still demonstrates that Madison's city leaders lack any vision or concrete plans for downtown... despite the fact that such vision and plans (good and bad) are bubbling all around them. Maybe instead of $47,000 of ledger-demain, the commissioners should allocate a couple bucks for Q-tips.