This is the final portion, about the last 35 minutes of the council meeting from the other night. I highly recommend reading this, and a 4th post I will have on this subject. You can also just watch the last hour and a half is of the video if you have time. Or check out the clips from the Cap Times with the most outrageous moments. I’m proud of the council for their work the other night – yeah, write that down. Koval on the other hand is not fit to lead our police department. And he doesn’t even get that his behavior was so outrageous, he doesn’t see there is a problem after Tuesday night. He thinks its time to move on. I think its time for him to resign. Here are parts one and two. This issue starts at part two.
CONTINUED DISCUSSION
(still talking to Rebecca Kemble)
Rebecca Kemble just said to the chief that he has Joel Despain on his staff who is amazing. The chief quips that “I should use him more” and laughter and clapping erupt. She says, “So, anyway” but the chief is talking over her.
Chief Koval interrupts Kemble again . . . he says “there is this thing called a metaphor when you say “you’re watching”” Could that possibly be . . . we don’t have drones and we don’t have surveillance and we don’t have an affinity squad. (Rebecca was still trying to talk, DeMarb is seen shaking her head.)
Kemble gets a word in and say, you do have surveillance tho, you do have surveillance.
Chief Mike Koval says this is not Madison in 2016, so . . .
Kemble says “I know, but see we need to have these discussions and really build that trust. You know those PUPS that were here, the kids. She organized that class last spring with the class and she went to talk about local government. So they had three major topics, but they had three issues and they had to pick one. They picked homelessness, the environment and public safety/police accountability. Cuz to the kids that live at Vera Court, that’s “public safety”. Those kids who are just out of curiousity, who aren’t being organized by anyone, that is what they feel. And hopefully this study, that is what it will help us see, where those perceptions are backed up by reality, where that is really not what is happening. And I really hope that you lead your department in a way that will be cooperative. And I hope that the committee and we will listen to you, assuming you talk to us in words that are not so challenging to listen to.
The Chief says “thank you”.
(Counseling session over, Kemble has been nominated at the Council Counselor)
Mike Verveer says “thank you both”
Zach Wood says that when he pushed his button he was going to talk about something else. But he thinks she really hit the nail on the head. He was going to talk about two conflicting emotions that he has. One is embarrassment and the other an amazing sense of pride. This has been, in the year or so I’ve been on the council, by far the most embarrassing thing I’ve been involved with on this council. And I apologize to survivors of the Edgewater evening, I’ve been told that was worse, but this has been really disappointing. And I think Alder Kemble hit the nail on the head, I think we need to communicate better, and learn from and grow from it as a city, both capital c and lower case c. Conversely I have a tremendous sense of pride over how difficult this evening has been, how full our inboxes have been and how incredibly divisive rhetoric we have heard from all sides of the spectrum tonight. At the same time the democratic process is about to work. We were asked by people across our community to do a particular thing, to review police policy. We said we would do it, created a committee, gave them a charge and they did it, and hopefully in the next few minutes we will fund it. That is something we should be proud of, to take a huge step forward equity and transparency in this city, within this much uglier evening, or I guess now morning.
(Jesus, the youngest person on the council is acting like more of an adult than the police chief nearly 3 times his age. He was more thoughtful, introspective and had a better understanding of what was really going on. Let me say again, I’m pretty damn proud of the council and how they have handled it – across the board – all the alders, regardless of if I normally side with them or not. We should all thank them. allalders@cityofmadison.com)
Matt Phair says that like Alder Wood pushed the mic a long time ago, with some questions for the chief that I don’t even know how to ask anymore, but he has a question for Dave Schmiedicke. He wants to know how we are on the snow budget since we had a light winter last winter. Schmiiedicke, the Finance Director says that we are ok at the moment but of course we don’t know what will happen in November or December. He says if it were a bad winter we would be in a worse position right? Schmiedicke agrees.
Phair says its time to wrap this up and we’re getting closer to a kumbaya moment, relatively speaking, and he pauses . . . and he says the question about decorum Chief, this isn’t a question, its a comment, but I’ve heard you tonight and I’ve heard you before and I’m listening on that, and I guess we can do a better job in holding to our rules better as a council and as the chair up there, but he thinks also that he is a teacher, we’re not equating them to police because all he has done is lost some hair, he’s not going to lose his life, but they deal with society as it is, all the blame, we are asked to solve all the problems, so I kind of understand where you are coming from. It’s hard to take that, when its hard because you only have the kids for 8 hours just like your patrol officers are on the street for 8 hours. But, I say this will all respect, you have to develop some thick skin. And, I mean, if you’re a teacher you really have had to develop over the past 5 years, and police, but when people are up here saying some extreme things and over the top things – which, by the way, I was the only one last year who said I don’t agree with what Brandi was saying – but I think we should have this study, for the record. You gotta just develop some thick skin. People have a right to speak and they are speaking from passion and from their experience and it might not fit proper way of talking or the way we want to hear things or, I don’t even know how to articulate that, but I just want to say that I guess I’m struggling with how that is not commending the police department. We are letting people vent, and they are saying some extreme things sometimes but that doesn’t mean that we don’t support the police department. So my question was, is it really about the money? Because when you were pressed you went on about decorum and all these other things. The more I thought about it, it can’t possibly be about the money. We shouldn’t think about it from that that perspective, because it is our job to make the policy on that. If the finance director was telling us don’t do this, you’re in deep financial trouble, then we’d take that direction, but we didn’t get that direction. So why is that direction coming from the police chief, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, I have some thoughts on that but I’ll just keep them to myself. That is my last comment I have on that, but you know. Thick skin.
Amanda Hall says she took some notes on what the chief was saying and they are kind of all over the paper so bear with me as I get my thoughts together but you said you were on the force for 30 years, is that right? (Mike clarifies these are questions for the chief.) Amanda says yes, you’ve been here over 30 years?
Koval says yes.
She wants to direct his attention to something that gave her alot of pause, and she thinks it will give him pause too upon reflection. In the 6th paragraph of his blog he says “to the common council, you are being watched” and she wants to ask a hypothetical. If a woman came to you and said I got this email and it says I’m being watched and the person who sent is a really powerful guy, what would you tell her?
He quickly says “treat it as if it were real”
She shakes her head, pauses and looks at him and says . . . “ok”
Then he quickly says, when you are doing a blog, it is a metaphor. (OK, this blogger takes offense . . . blogs are not metaphors . . . they might be snarky, they might be quick comments in a hurry, they might be unwisely thought out, but as someone who has been blogging for 11 years, with literally thousands of posts . . . I’ve never not stood behind what I said 100%, sometimes with an apology for not thinking, but I’ve never used the excuse, “its a metaphor” – that’s just nuts. Take responsibility dude.)
(something is said I didn’t catch . . . )
He sarcastically says “ok, I won’t use metaphors” (you really gotta watch it.)
Hall says she thinks it is fair to say, and she hopes he will agree with her, that metaphor is all fine and good. She was just using a bunch of car metaphors the other day, metaphor is good, but it is important to think about the paths that we have walked or maybe not worked. She has not walked the path of a person of color in this community and when they tell me this is how I hear xyz, ok, that is their reality and I have to accept that. I wondering, because I don’t want to just make statements, but do you feel like going forward that you can be a little be a little more cognizant of being a woman walking down the street in Madison. A woman with the the training and the weapons and the skills that you have. Can you do that?
Koval says “what’s that imply or infer Alder?” he’s got his hand leaning on his head and is being all smarmy. (Seriously, watch the video . . . Cap Times site is the best way to quickly do it)
Hall says she is saying that your statements here are not what I would expect from a person of your experience and caliber.
(Brace yourself) He says I do have people around me and many of them are women (actually, look, they are not, two out of ten are tolerated – barely, he treats them like secretaries.) and nobody came up with this same conclusion that you just stated, (In a para-military organization where you are trained to follow commands and not rock the boat – i.e. pick your battles) so I can leave that possibility open for interpretation and I will try to work better on that.
She thanks him for that.
“I’ve been around too many hardened women cops that . . . (I couldn’t hear)
Hall is saying something I didn’t hear as well, Verveer quickly cuts them off and tries to move on. He checks that Hall is done, she is.
Larry Palm says that his thoughts from long ago when he wanted to speak during this really good conversation were about censorship and decorum in much the same ways, just like a teacher in the classroom and an officer on the street and they express opinions that we don’t agree with and we don’t interrupt them. They also sometimes express it in language we don’t appreciate. People intentionally choose words to aggravate others, just because they say them and we listen doesn’t mean that we agree with them, that we accept it, but we have to acknowledge that those people who say those things have a point of view and they are human beings allowed to express themselves. As a governing body of the community, we need to provide a forum for our residents, within a broad reason, we need to provide a forum to express how they feel. I’ve been here when people have made threats and we’ve had to have police officers engage them and make sure they don’t do anything beyond verbal statements, but we as a body, as department heads, as the mayor and deputy mayor, we need to be conscious that we are hearing the voices of people and individuals of their ideas and they need to understand is that we need to use that to determine was we as a body should do, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is a viewpoint that we agree with or support or are not opposed to. Its a bit of a challenge because we are in the same position, I can’t yell at Alder Hall for language she uses, we are equals but we also really have that challenge with staff and when employees say things we don’t agree with. We are challenged when citizens, who are our bosses come and say things that are challenging and astounding and horrific or terrible and negative and derogatory and we are between them and our city staff who have to have some awareness of the impact of their language. Most of us on the council when we write our blogs or write emails we are diligent and thoughtful about the impact of the language and certainly alot of us have attended staff trainings on the use of language or context and that has all been beneficial but we do need to understand that we will have individuals who will come forward and say things, and I have a constituent who does and will say the darnedest things (Will Sandstrom), but we have to respect that is their viewpoint. On financials, there was a point where I had voted against as many budgets as I supported, these are things the council are concerned about. There is language coming from the mayor that is different than what the council does. The mayor has presented his budget advice, come in no more than last year, no new programs, push it out further and the council will make the choices we make, because we are not bound by his advice to department heads, that is how we operate. He thinks that we have our own leeway, we make our own decisions. Every year, that he has been here, that Verveer has been her and that the mayor has been here, there is a financial concern, that is a fact of life, so we have to make deliberative decisions. We would all tomorrow, if we had a huge amount of money, pay people more, but its hard because we have so many employees and we can’t make significant change. We always would like to pay our staff more, but we also want to support our communities and this is an avenue where we can support our communities, especially communities that we want to make stronger and more engaged in our city and community. Financially, we should really be considering everything, but it really is a decision of this body and we can get input from people, but this body decides. That is one of the reasons this is a 15 vote item and if a substantial majority of this body don’t agree it won’t be successful. But this is something that we are supportive of. We might run into problems later, we might have more snow than we need and we will then grapple with that and that will be an effect of a conscientious choice we made tonight, so no one should say “we shouldn’t have done that”, that is part of the decision making that we do all the time.
Maurice Cheeks or Mo, says his daughter is home sick and he has been hoping to go home for a few hours, so he will only say the bare minimum of what he feels like, he can’t go home without saying that they host the meetings and invite the public and staff and its our perogative about how we engage the public and the amount of time we give and and whether we have a need or interest to ask staff questions. The suggestion that someone can make demands about how this council meeting will go is startling. I was, speaking of startling, I was startled earlier this evening, and I was thinking that this was going to be the highlight of my ability to be stunned this evening when Tony Robinson’s grandmother was speaking this evening in the meeting that the council leads, that the chief of police chose to exert himself into the meeting by slapping on the table to attempt to cut her off, I presume, I’m not entirely certain. That was really jarring to me to see that type of behavior exhibited, that he deemed that appropriate or productive in any way. But he actually, much more concerning than that, or I don’t know if much more is the right term, but (heavy sigh), when Alder Baldeh articulately expressed his physical and emotional concerns for himself and for his well being. I watched the chief, and I don’t know if this will be on video, I watched the chief, what looked like snicker, almost dismissively like I’m a great cop, I’ve got a great record, I couldn’t, that’s a ridiculous suggestion that you should feel afraid and then he went on to make a defense for himself, to say something like “to take issue with the suggestion that you would feel afraid”. Of course Alder Baldeh didn’t anticipate that bodily harm would be done to him in this situation, but to dismiss the very real fear that a person of color feels when a police officer chooses to be intentionally adversarial, I don’t even have words, I’m literally speechless that this would occur in this city. And to this person who on this time on the council I have had a great deal of respect for and I have seen exhibit a great deal of empathy in several situations and so I just want to acknowledge that for my colleagues. It might be easier to for you to hear the chief suggest I’m a good cop, I have a great record, but you cannot dismiss the feeling of fear and oppression a person feels when an authoritarian figure chooses to be adversarial and has the greatest amount of power in the room. That is a real thing that so many people in our community feel, whether or not its warranted, and whether or not the person on the other end of equation feels it is appropriate, that is a real fear and I hope that my colleagues and I know through conversations with many officers through small circles of conversation and one-on-one, that I know that they have a great acknowledgement of the presence they bring into a room. I’m really troubled by the snicker and I hope that my colleagues can acknowledge how important Samba’s feelings are, because those are the same feelings that so many of our residents feel on a daily basis, whether or not we in this community feel it is warranted, of course we have a police department that is by and large upstanding, and from their shoes feels like they have a position to stand and say “I’m a good cop, you shouldn’t feel that way” That feeling is real and our greatest path to success as a community, to build bridges is to acknowledge that with enormous amounts of empathy.
Shiva Bidar says that she wanted to express agreement with what Alder Cheeks said, she was spending the last three days trying to figure out why she was feeling this sense of unease and trembling I, just Tuesday, realized that the language (she starts to cry) was PTSD for me. Pre-emptive strikes are not ok. Some of us have families that live where there are pre-emptive strikes. And its been really disturbing. I hope, chief, that you really take this feedback to heart and seriously. I feel like this is the movie crash, where no one is absolutely good and no one is absolutely bad, that is not what human beings are about, but there are things that you can do that can be really damaging. I think about the damage that was done here and I think about when I saw you on Saturday for restorative justice and I would partake in some restorative justice conversation with you on how I’ve been feeling about this, because I do feel that this has been extremely, extremely difficult and challenging on a personal level to see this. To say that language is metaphors is to me, a description of the lack of depth of understanding what a position of leadership in a community means and what certain language can mean when you have a position of power and privilege in our community. I certainly do not expect from people who come to the council or the emails that I receive that people take those positions, because at the end of the day they are talking to us, not sitting in a position of power and privilege. It is upon us to take the higher road, to speak in a way that expresses a level of respect and non-adversarial relationship. She says she has not problem at any time with anyone disagreeing with her on the substance of an issue or if you do want me to oppose, “but apparently you do but you don’t and I still don’t understand that”, and that’s ok, the study itself, absolutely not. What is difficult is the way you expressed that and used your bully pulpit. I told you on day one with your first blog that you and blogs do not belong together. I think you should really heed my advice on that. It has done more damage to your department, to the relationship with people who spend endless hours supporting your department, five years of her life were spent on the Police and Fire Commission. The reason we don’t go to other places is because some of us have two jobs and a life to live. We just don’t get to be everywhere at the same time, we just don’t have that capacity yet, if someone invents that, being more times in one location, because we are the kind of people we are, we’d sign up for that too. Please take this seriously, I’m totally with Alder Kemble’s line of conversation, I really want to move forward, but I really need to see a sense of ownership of what has happened here. (And he did quite the opposite the next morning! He didn’t hear a thing that they said.)
That’s the end of the discussion. Passes on a voice vote 19 – 1. The one vote is Skidmore.
Ending the meeting.
To items are introduced from the floor. Rummel introduces a resolution on the day resource center to match the county. Palm introduces a resolution for fundraising and finance services for the public market.
Verveer says this was an emotional meeting and he appreciates everyone’s patience, it was not pleasant for much of the meeting, but we got through it.
Barbara McKinney thanks Verveer for the way that the meeting was conducted and he moved them through the process, she says some healing did occur tonight and she wants to go on record personally thanking him for that.
Others agree.
Steve King moves to adjourn.
More to come, I’m sure . . .
