Madison Officials Gut Voter-Approved Lakefront Protections for $320M Project
- Alex Saloutos
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 13 hours ago
Key Points
City officials knew about the referendum requirement “from the beginning” but kept it hidden through 8 years of planning
Less than 1% of registered voters participated in the “extensive public engagement” officials cite to justify bypassing democracy
The exemption language is so broad it covers “any construction” associated with the project—giving the Council a blank check to approve decades of development without ever asking voters
Costs have already ballooned from $150M to $320M with no real funding plan beyond “blended streams” and possible privatization of parkland
Four alders sponsoring the legislation won’t answer basic questions about who initiated it or where they draw the line on democratic oversight
The board room at the Parks Division offices commands a sweeping view of Lake Monona, with a wall of windows framing the very waterfront at stake—Olin, Law, and Brittingham Parks stretching along 1.7 miles of shoreline. It was here, in this room overlooking the $320 million question, that Lisa Laschinger, Interim Parks Superintendent, stood before the Board of Park Commissioners on July 9 to make her case.
After eight years of planning Madison’s most transformational lakefront development, city officials had somehow never mentioned one crucial detail in any public document: voters had specifically required their approval for exactly this type of project.
Now, with construction looming and costs ballooning, they needed to fix their “oversight"—by asking the Common Council to strip away the very protection Madison voters had created to prevent such circumvention.
"We are not looking to circumvent any ordinance processes,” Laschinger told the commissioners, apparently without irony. “This is an exemption from this particular ordinance 8.35."
In that conference room, with only two members of the public present to witness it, the machinery of municipal government was grinding away at one of the last remaining checks on its power. The Madison LakeWay Project—described in planning documents as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of Madison’s urban waterfront"—was about to slip through a loophole so vast it would swallow the democratic process whole.
The Ghost in the Machine
To understand the full scope of this betrayal, you need to travel back to 1988, when Madison city officials tried to bulldoze acres of wooded lakefront at Turville Park for a large swimming pool complex and parking lot. No public vote. No referendum. Just officials who knew better than the people they served.
The citizen uprising that followed didn’t just stop that project—it fundamentally rewrote the rules of power in Madison. In 1992, 61% of voters approved Charter Ordinance 65, creating Section 8.35 of the Madison General Ordinances. The message was unambiguous: major lakefront development requires explicit voter approval. Period.
Charter ordinances aren’t suggestions or guidelines. They’re the nuclear option of local democracy—laws that citizens enact through referendum that can only be changed by another vote of the people. They exist precisely because voters don’t trust their elected officials to make certain decisions without direct democratic oversight.
For three decades, Section 8.35 stood as a guardian of Madison’s waterfront. Sometimes it was honored—the convention center, the Goodman Pool, and the Garver Feed Mill all went to referendum as required. Sometimes it was circumvented through narrow exemptions. But never before had officials attempted to gut it so thoroughly for a project of this magnitude.
The Disappeared Ordinance
The roots of the LakeWay Project reach back at least to 2012, when the City of Madison’s Downtown Plan, approved by the Common Council, identified “a downtown park along the Lake Monona shoreline as the top planning priority.” Since then, the city has produced thousands of pages of documents, held dozens of meetings, and spent untold hours and dollars developing the proposal.
Yet nowhere—not in a single planning document, not in the approved master plan, not in any public presentation—did anyone mention that Section 8.35 would require a referendum.
This wasn’t an oversight. It was a strategy.
When I asked Laschinger when the Parks Division first realized they'd need either a referendum or an exemption, her response was revealing in its candor: “The Parks Division has known since the beginning of the project that MGO 8.35 would need to be addressed. Based on experience with other improvement projects, this is an appropriate time to be moving the request for exemption forward."
Translation: We always knew about this requirement. We just didn’t tell anyone until it was too late to stop us.
The resolution exempting the LakeWay Project from referendum wasn’t made public until July 1, 2025, when it was introduced at a Common Council meeting and immediately referred to the Board of Park Commissioners. After eight years of planning, the public got two weeks’ notice that their voting rights were about to be eliminated.
The Money Nobody Wants to Talk About
The financial sleight of hand surrounding this project deserves its own investigation. In 2022, city estimates ranged from $150 to $250 million. By 2025, the draft Parks & Open Space Plan acknowledges costs of $250 to $320 million—"presumably if built today.” No bids have been received. No construction has started. The only trajectory for these numbers is up.
Madison LakeWay Partners, trying to make the project seem more palatable, emphasizes on their website that “the preliminary cost estimate for the first phase of the project is between $12 and $16 million.” But this is exactly the piecemeal budgeting trick that created Madison’s current fiscal crisis—approve projects in phases without revealing the true total cost, then claim you’re too invested to stop when the bills come due.
Throughout years of public engagement—somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 participants based on the city’s descriptions—there was virtually no discussion of costs or funding. The plan speaks vaguely of “blended streams of public and private funds” and floats the possibility of “private developments such as hotels or restaurants on parkland” to generate revenue.
When asked about the referendum exemption, Jayme Powers, CEO of Madison LakeWay Partners, responded: “We believe there is enthusiastic support for the Madison LakeWay, and the community is eager to see this project move forward. We respect the Common Council's careful consideration and will abide by their decision.”
This careful neutrality from LakeWay Partners leaves all the political maneuvering to city officials, who have shown no such restraint in their push to bypass voter approval.
The Democratic Deficit
The city’s defense of bypassing referendum rests on a fundamental misconception about democracy. They point to their “lengthy and robust public process” spanning nearly eight years. They cite the people who participated in various planning activities. They reference the multiple boards and commissions that blessed the project.
But here’s the math they don’t want you to see: Madison has 203,371 registered voters. Even using the most generous estimate of 2,000 participants, that represents less than 1% of the electorate. And unlike a referendum where every vote counts equally, these participants were self-selected enthusiasts who already supported the project and wanted to influence its design.
Calling this democratic participation is like claiming a focus group of iPhone users represents public opinion on smartphones. The people who show up for waterfront planning sessions aren’t a random sample—they’re the choir being preached to.
True democracy means every registered voter gets an equal voice on a clear question: Do you approve spending up to $320 million to transform our lakefront? That’s what Section 8.35 guarantees. That’s what city officials appear desperate to avoid.
The Backpedal Heard 'Round Madison
The July 9 Park Commissioners meeting revealed just how flimsy the city’s justifications really are. When I pressed Laschinger via email after the meeting about her claim that the city had exempted “multiple other projects of similar size,” she was forced to backtrack.
“I didn’t mean to cause confusion by this statement,” she admitted in a follow-up email, before listing the actual exemptions: botanical gardens improvements, zoo construction, three historic houses, the Garver Feed Mill, and a 776-square-foot boundary dispute. None remotely approach the LakeWay Project’s $320 million price tag or 1.7-mile scope.
Even more revealing was her attempt to explain how seeking an exemption from the referendum requirement wasn’t actually “circumventing” anything. The mental gymnastics required to make this argument would qualify for the Olympics. She’s literally asking the Council to exempt the project from a referendum requirement while claiming this doesn’t circumvent the referendum requirement.
This isn’t mere bureaucratic double-speak. It’s an admission that even city staff can’t reconcile what they’re doing with basic democratic principles.
The Pattern of Erosion
What’s happening with the LakeWay Project isn’t an isolated incident. It’s the culmination of a decades-long effort to neuter Section 8.35 through death by a thousand cuts.
Look at the pattern:
1996: Olbrich Botanical Gardens exempted
1997: Henry Vilas Zoo exempted
2011: Three East Gorham Street properties exempted
2014: Garver Feed Mill exempted (after voters had already approved it via referendum)
2025: Spring Harbor Beach boundary dispute exempted
The 2014 exemption deserves special scrutiny. In the same resolution that exempted Garver, the Council also deleted paragraph 8.35(7), which explicitly stated this was a charter ordinance (Legistar ID No. 35491). They based this deletion entirely on a 2004 City Attorney opinion claiming Section 8.35 didn’t meet charter ordinance requirements—a fatally flawed legal analysis bolstered by a deceptive Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, as we'll explore in an upcoming post.
Each exemption weakened the ordinance and made the next exemption easier to justify. Now officials want their biggest carve-out yet: blanket permission for the Council to approve anything “associated with” the LakeWay Project across four major parks and 1.7 miles of shoreline—without ever asking voters.
At the July 9 meeting, Laschinger repeatedly emphasized that the Council would still need to approve any future development, as if that somehow satisfied the democratic oversight requirement. The commissioners, apparently unfamiliar with why voters created Section 8.35 in the first place, found this reassurance sufficient. They seemed not to grasp the fundamental point: Section 8.35 exists precisely because voters don’t trust the Council alone to make these decisions. The whole purpose was to require voter approval in addition to Council approval for major lakefront projects.
This bait-and-switch—substituting Council approval for voter approval while pretending nothing has changed—reveals either a profound misunderstanding of democratic oversight or a deliberate attempt to obscure what’s really happening: the complete elimination of the public’s direct voice in transforming their waterfront.
The breadth of this exemption language cannot be overstated. “Any construction in or change in the legal status” that is “associated with the Madison LakeWay Project” could justify virtually anything for decades to come. Future hotels on parkland? Covered. Private restaurant leases? Included. Complete transformation of public space into revenue-generating developments? All perfectly legal without ever asking voters.
The Silence of the Alders
Four members of the Common Council sponsor this legislation: Michael Verveer, Derek Field, Carmella Glenn, and Tag Evers. When I reached out with specific questions about who initiated this proposal, what constituent outreach they conducted, and where they draw the line on democratic oversight, their response was unanimous: silence.
Glenn’s behavior at the July 9 meeting was particularly telling. As both a Park Commissioner and a sponsor of the exemption, she had the perfect opportunity to explain her reasoning. Instead, she said nothing. Not a word about why she believes voters should be cut out of this decision. Not a syllable defending the circumvention of a charter ordinance.
This silence speaks volumes about how this legislation came to be. It bears all the hallmarks of an administration-driven proposal with alders serving as mere rubber stamps. The mayor’s office wants it. Staff supports it. The alders’ job is to provide the votes, not ask questions—or apparently, not even to represent their constituents who overwhelmingly voted to make this a charter ordinance.
The Information Black Hole
Perhaps even more troubling than the alders’ silence is what they’re being told—or rather, what they’re not being told—by city staff.
The entire analysis provided to guide this momentous decision consists of three sentences. That’s it. Three sentences to justify overturning a voter-enacted protection that has stood for 33 years.
The “Drafter’s Analysis” never mentions that Section 8.35 was created by 61% of voters through referendum. It fails to explain what a charter ordinance is or why it matters. It provides no discussion of alternatives, no analysis of precedent, no acknowledgment of the democratic principles at stake. There is no staff report. No pros and cons. No fiscal analysis beyond “No City appropriation required”—itself a deception given the project’s $320 million price tag.
Instead, this is the entirety of what elected officials are given to guide their vote:
This ordinance would create an exception to the preservation of shoreline parks ordinance to allow the City to proceed with the Madison LakeWay Project in Olin Park (northwest of Wingra Creek), along the John Nolen causeway, and in Brittingham and Law Parks. Under the ordinance, any change in the legal status of, or major construction in, a shoreline park must be approved by City-wide referendum. The Madison LakeWay Project is a major project that, by the time of its construction, will have been the subject of years of planning and public discussions. Exempting this project from the ordinance will allow implementation of the Master Plan to proceed without the need of a referendum.
That’s not analysis—it’s a tautology. We should exempt it from referendum because that will allow us to proceed without a referendum.
When Laschinger presented to the Board of Park Commissioners on July 9, she added no substantive information beyond defending this circular logic. She never explained the history of Section 8.35, never mentioned it was a charter ordinance, never acknowledged that voters specifically created this requirement to constrain exactly this type of project.
This isn’t neutral staff work—it’s advocacy by omission. The commissioners and alders voting on this exemption are doing so essentially blind, without being informed of the most basic facts about what they’re being asked to overturn.
When staff deliberately provides the absolute minimum information possible, when they transform what should be thorough policy analysis into three sentences of bureaucratic justification, when they hide the very existence of a voter-enacted charter ordinance from the officials asked to gut it—they’re not just failing in their professional duty. They’re actively sabotaging the democratic process they’re supposed to serve.
This is how democracy dies in Madison: not through vigorous debate over competing values, but through three sentences that pretend thirty-three years of voter protection never happened.
The Reckoning
Madison stands at a crossroads that will define its democratic future. On Tuesday, July 15, the Common Council will vote on whether to exempt the LakeWay Project from the referendum requirement voters put in place specifically to prevent this kind of end-run.
The stakes extend far beyond one project, however transformational. If officials can gut voter protections whenever convenient, if they can hide referendum requirements through eight years of planning only to claim it’s too late for democracy, if they can redefine “public engagement” to mean whatever serves their purposes—then charter ordinances mean nothing. Voter-approved protections become mere suggestions. And government by the people devolves into government despite the people.
The city’s planning documents weren’t wrong when they called this a once-in-a-generation opportunity. But the real opportunity isn’t about landscaping or lake access. It’s about whether Madison remains a city where transformational decisions require actual democratic consent, or whether we've already surrendered to a system where “public engagement” means being allowed to comment on decisions already made.
On Tuesday, every alder will face a simple choice: Honor the democratic protections voters created, or join the 33-year effort to dismantle them. Their vote will reveal whether they serve the people who elected them or the administration that wants this project approved by any means necessary.
The last time Madison officials tried to transform our lakefront without asking voters, citizens rose up and created Section 8.35. That protection has been weakened, undermined, and ignored—but it still stands. The question now is whether anyone in power remembers why it exists.
Or whether, after 33 years of erosion, there’s anything left to defend.
Call to Action
The exemption ordinance comes before the Common Council as Item 11 on Tuesday, July 15. Time is running short, but your voice still matters:
Register your opposition on the city’s website here for agenda item 11.
Sign up to speak at the Council meeting, either in person or via Zoom here for agenda item 11.
Contact your alder immediately—every message counts
Forward this story to friends
Share this article on social media—most Madisonians have no idea this is happening
Show up Tuesday if possible—nothing beats a packed council chamber
77SquareMiles.com covers what mainstream media won’t—because democracy dies in darkness, especially at City Hall. © Alex Saloutos 2025.