A Cowards Call to Arms

Steve King didn’t hold back when he talked about the opponents of Shiva Bidar-Sielaffs resolution on immigration that passed the council unanimously. And they are fighting back.

Dorothy Borchardt leading the charge:

From: Dorothy Borchardt [dborchardt1@charter.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 11:39 AM
To: King, Steve
Cc: Solomon, Brian; Rhodes-Conway,Satya; Schmidt, Chris; Skidmore, Paul; Eagon, Bryon; King, Steve; Rummel, Marsha; Bidar-Sielaff, Shiva; Verveer, Mike; Maniaci, Bridget; Sanborn, Jed; Kerr, Julia; Bruer, Tim; Palm, Larry; Compton, Judy; Clausius, Joe; Schumacher, Michael; Clear, Mark; Cnare, Lauren
Subject: Reconsideration Agenda # 95 at next council meeting?

Alder King-

You missed us at the meeting last night? Ask for reconsideration and we will be at the next meeting. Didn’t know you needed to see us. Many of us don’t believe that it is the duty of constituents to attend council meeting. You were elected to do that. If you are active in your district and have shared the resolution with them you know what your constituents support. They want safe neighborhoods and harboring illegals, that are criminals, is not the way to accomplish that.

We expect our elected officials to base their votes on what is best for their district and the City of Madison. Not to pass a sound good resolution based on pressure from special interest groups within two weeks of being introduced by title only and less then one week after being available for the public to read.

I am a strong supporter of the Madison Police Department but believe they should be looking over their policy of ignoring the issue and allowing illegals to continue to break the law without any consequences.
Maybe that is one of the reasons the problem continues to grow. To keep doing the same thing in the same way and expect a different outcome is insane.

Let me know if you are willing to ask for reconsideration and I’ll make sure you meet the “cowards.”

db

My initial response was “you snooze, you lose”. Democracy isn’t posting on madison.com anonymously and shooting emails to (at?) alders. Tho, I’m not too sad to see the right being slactivists. And I love it when “special interest groups” attack “special interest groups” for being so. I won’t comment on some of the other comments made about illegals.

I’m even more annoyed by this email.

Thank you Alderman King for calling me a coward for not showing up to the City Council Meetings. Unfortunatley I WORK a full time job, and a part time job to pay MY Property taxes.
SO this coward taxpayer says Thankyou- This is directed to all city council members, shame on you. Instead of being for the people you are working against the taxpaying citizens. Makes me think to moving my family out of Madsion I would not be called a taxpaying coward. Please stay on task of what you all have been elected too.

Most of the alders won’t say this, so I’ll say it for them. Almost all of them work full-time or near full-time and then work their “part-time” job of being a council member, the only exceptions I’m aware of are Bryon Eagon (student), Julia Kerr (mom) and Thuy Pham-Remmele (retired). They do work, and they work hard, and they take a lot of shit for ignorant people – its part of the job to suck it up, try to educate people and let the rest roll off your back. And their “part-time” jobs often call for them to give up time with family, skip important life events and do several other seemingly impossible feats.

And the many immigrants that they were trying to protect also work and pay taxes. How did people like the one who wrote that email become so self centered and blind to the facts? Maybe Madison isn’t the place for people to live if they have no sense of community and common good and only care about themselves, that isn’t what Madison used to stand for, and we got a glimpse of the “old Madison” the other night that many of us would like to see a return to. I was glad to see a return to concern for the common good, not the next election sweep through the council on Tuesday night. And I hope to see more of it.

I don’t much agree with the new Alder King, but I hope he doesn’t give in to the bullying and I admire him for telling it like it is. And I admire him for stepping up to co-sponsor the resolution when he initially passed on it. If you ask me, we need more of that from our politicians.