It's over!  Later this afternoon the legislative conference committee assigned the task of working out differences between Senate and Assembly versions of the state budget will complete its work.  When they finish, they will have included the two major land use initiatives we have been working toward for almost a year: Smart Growth and a major increase in the Wisconsin Stewardship Fund.

Thank you to all of you who have sent messages and letters to legislators and the governor over these past few months.  We could not have been successful without you.

The Stewardship Fund will be reauthorized for another ten years at $460 million over the decade.  That is double the size of the existing program and it gets the program back to its 1990 buying power.  In addition, the program will be reviewed after five years to see if it needs to be increased to cover inflation in land prices between now and 2004.

Finally, new conservation initiatives for wild lakes, bluff lands, the Kettle Moraine and purchase of conservation easements were included as we had requested.  While the overall dollar amount is less than what we had advocated for, it is well above the $231 million in the existing program or the $350 million proposed by the Governor and the Assembly.  We are very pleased with this new Stewardship Fund.  The Stewardship Fund increase was fought for by Sen. Chuck Chvala of Madison.  Please take a moment to send him a note of thanks.

Smart Growth is an historic improvement in land use planning and decision-making in Wisconsin.  When it is fully implemented over the next ten years, every community in Wisconsin will have a comprehensive land use plan (only 29% of Wisconsin communities currently have any land use plan at all), all plans will be of the same high quality and these plans will have teeth through zoning and other enforcement mechanisms.

Smart Growth reverses the dynamics of land use planning.  Right now, it takes determination to get your community to do a plan, it takes great determination to get them to do a good plan and it takes monumental determination to stick to a plan over time.  Under Smart Growth, communities will have to be determined NOT to plan, not to plan well and not to adhere to their own plans.  Smart Growth, if implemented properly, could be the most significant anti-sprawl measure ever passed in our state.  It moves us from the back of the pack among states with growth management laws to among the leaders.

The primary sponsor of our Smart Growth legislation is Senator Brian Burke of Milwaukee.  If you have a minute, please send Sen. Burke your thanks for his fine work on our proposal.

The final step is for Governor Tommy Thompson to sign the budget bill probably some time next week.  Please contact the Governor and urge him to support these two proposals as agreed upon by the legislature.

Again, thanks to all of you for your support and patience throughout this long process!