The Janesville City Council met on Monday, February 23, 2026, at 6:00 PM in Council Chambers. The meeting included consent agenda approvals, public comments largely focused on the proposed Viridian data center and the Beloit Avenue housing development, discussion and action on street contracts, a supplemental budget appropriation, annexation and zoning items, a labor agreement, and a housing concept review. The council also voted to enter closed session regarding the GM/JATCO site sale.
All right, I'm gonna call the session uh city council meeting for Monday at Janesville City Council meeting for Monday, February 23rd, 2026. Um you could stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance, and to the Republic for which it stands one nation with everyone all right, thank you. In case of an emergency, use the stairs and not the elevator exit. Walk to the north side of the police department and wait for further instructions. Clerk, you do roll call, please. President Verdict here, Vice President Squire, here council member Cass Councilmember Erdman, Councilmember Miller, here council member Nino. Here council member Williams here, all are present. We do have a quorum. All right, thank you. Item three recognition, there are none. Item four, public comments on items on the agenda, not requiring a public hearing, and on matters which can be affected by council action. Tonight we don't have any public hearings. So clerk. I do have a handful. Uh first up is Tyballer. All right, Ty. Just so you remember, uh stick your name and address for the record, and you got four minutes. Uh Type Wall Road 216 PO box, Jamesville, Wisconsin. Here's it's a funny thing. There's a tale of two stories. There's two bridges. Well, two two sets of bridges. And you know what's so funny? In the how they how they actually set up the footings, they built bridges to put the actual foot. All our railroad bridges, who knew? Uh basically, and Mike Payne's got a copy. 840 South Washington Street in Jamesville, Wisconsin. It's deeded to Union Pacific. Guess what? There's there's no acreage that goes with the deed. The deed goes to 1022 Grant Street, which is on the other side of the river. Now, if you go back to lot 31 and lot 32, that's pretty big deal because that is the anchor point. And then there's another one just downstream, which Wisconsin Southern laid that down. And I can't, if you look at the original plat map, it says 227, whatever that means, maybe Wisconsin State Statute 227. There's all sorts of indications that to the state statute that these bridges had major impact. In fact, Janesville workers work with Northwestern, not the state of Wisconsin directly on settling them bridges. So they knew whatever they did. That was Northwestern their deal, and they handled it exactly that way. Um 1990, I'm sure if you ask Mike Payne if 1990 was more than 20 years ago, he could agree. And so 840 South Washington is your horse. That is your horse to bring in that 30 million dollars. Now, if you want a partnership, 5050 is a partnership. That's how you make a partner out of them owners on the other side of the river. And 840 South Washington is your horse. Right here, it was drawn up, and the Department of Transportation signed it, not you guys. And if you go ask Mike Payne, hey, if you count two lots, but we don't have any land on the taxes, it's zero acres, and then there's what 12 or 14 or 16 or 18 or 20 more lots. What's that equal? So that's one point. I want to hand you two sets of photos. I like this sets of photos because if you turn a photo and you look at railroad, it looks very nice when you turn it upside down.