Happy Spring, northsiders! The return of the sandhill cranes has been a welcome beacon of longer days and warmer weather over the past few weeks. Foxes are also out and about, so keep your chickens and small pets secure and supervised.

The water utility project on Lakeview Hill is nearing its final phase. The construction of the water main going down the hill under the stone wall on county property will likely begin in June. The project is going out to bid this month.

Funding for park restoration and maintenance activities of the Friends of Lakeview Hill comes from revenue from cell phone companies who lease space on the water tower for their transmitters. Since the new water tower was under construction last year, there was no revenue and the budget for the Friends group was negatively impacted. The transmitters are slowly being returned to the new tower, but lease payments weren’t going to be released to the County until the end of the year. I’m happy to report that I was able to get the City Finance department to release a one-time, mid-year payment to support the important work of the Friends of Lakeview Hill. Thanks to Sue Gleason and Dane County Supervisor Michele Ritt for working on this with me.

Spring means its burn season for the Parks Division, which has an ambitious season planned: 19 burn units across 9 different parks, totaling 350 acres.

This season, they are working with Dane County Emergency Management to apply their automated phone call system to notify neighbors on mornings when Parks will be burning.  They will also mail postcards to residents in the coming weeks to remind them to anticipate a prescribed burn in their neighborhood anytime between late March and early May.