However, new construction could raise legal issues since the doctrine requires buildings to be open to the public and have a certain focus on recreation and the lake. It is across the street from the Discovery World Museum.

Even though university officials say the meeting is "information only," the agenda notes that the committee will go into closed session to hear the university's plan and its plan for a new lease at the site. UWM is going up against the powerful Preserve Our Parks lobby which, after discovering the plan, immediately raised concerns that they wanted more green space at such a prime location.

The meeting also was flagged by the Milwaukee County Conservation Council. UWM's current freshwater research facility is tucked away in an industrial area off of Greenfield Avenue and Chancellor Carlos Santiago obviously sees the restaurant site as a much higher profile location.

Santiago will be at a presentation in front of the Board of Harbor Commissioners this week, along with such powerful business types as Julia Taylor, head of the Greater Milwaukee Committee and Bruce Block, chair of the UWM Foundation and the university's lawyer.

County Supervisor Gerry Broderick, chair of the County Board's Parks Committee, offered late in the week that maybe the university should look at the Downtown Transit Center, which is just west of Lincoln Memorial Drive, in eyeshot of the restaurant land. It's been somewhat of a boondoggle since it was built more than a decade ago.

More Marriage in the Air: Maine has become the fifth state to legalize gay marriage. New Hampshire is getting ready to do the same, leaving Rhode Island as the only New England state not to act on the move. The new law basically says marriage is between any two people. Iowa recognizes gay marriages by court order.

Money and Politics Continued: Special interest groups spent an estimated $1.27 million on television advertising in the two statewide races for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and state school superintendent, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The group says it was mostly negative advertising.

Though far smaller than spending in last year's state Supreme Court race, which saw the state's big business lobbying weighing in with millions by itself, that didn't stop the WDC from bemoaning the practice.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union, and the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee, a Milwaukee group that backs Democratic candidates in partisan races, spent an estimated $1.03 million mostly on ads to support the eventual winners of the two supposedly nonpartisan races. WEAC spent $564,993 to help elected state school superintendent candidate Tony Evers and Greater Wisconsin spent an estimated $465,000 to help elect incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Advancing Wisconsin, a group organized in 2008 to campaign on behalf of then-candidate Barack Obama and candidates for state and local offices, spent an estimated $200,000 distributing fliers that supported Abrahamson and Evers.

The conservative Americans for Prosperity put up $25,000 for a 60-second radio ad to support school superintendent candidate Rose Fernandez.

By race, independent expenditures totaled $694,000 in the state school superintendent race and an estimated $577,000 in the Supreme Court race. WDC calls the spending by outside groups in the school superintendent race a "record."

Spending by Abrahamson and Koschnick totaled $1.26 million through March 23, reports the WDC. The five state school superintendent candidates spent a total of $243,411 through March 23, a charge led by Evers at $124,160.

The total cost of the two races will not be known until late July, when the final spending deadline comes due.