Mayor Dave is a nice guy. Or so they say.
My experience with him has been quite different. We have definitely had our struggles over the past nearly 4 years. Sometimes very public, more often, not so public at all. Things have gotten to the point where we rarely speak as a result, and when we do, its because I call him and he often just yells about what he wants and how he wants it done and isn’t willing to listen. This lack of communication is quite ridiculous given that we agree on 95% of the issues and should be allies. Sure, there are differences between us, some notable ones are:
- He cares about trolleys, swamps and the form a city takes, more from an intellectual or academic point of view. I, on the other hand, care about improving the lives of the people who live in a City, and see some of those things as ways to improve the quality of life of the people who live here.
- He is somewhat annoyed by the “Madison process” and wants to see us work more like the state legislature and spends time trying to do things his own way. I, on the other hand, embrace and honor the “Madison process” and want to see it improve and be both more efficient, and more user friendly.
- He’s willing to call something a “compromise” for the media, knowing fully well that it is not and having purposefully excluded various parties from the discussions. I’m willing to sit down and talk with anyone and try to be inclusive see if there is a compromise to be had, until it becomes clear that we’re not going to get there or I feel my core values have been lost and then I choose to just argue my point of view and win or lose and move on.
- He’s constantly campaigning and obsessing over what the media reports and what people blog. I focus on getting things done and I do what I do and let the media do what it does, and blog to get my own side of the story out, in my own words.
- He’s willing to spend millions on trolleys and swamps, but not $200,000 on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. I’d spend the money on busses, Cherokee Marsh and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
- He wants to move the houses in James Madison Park for more park land that we can’t take care of and so visitors in cars driving through have a nice view of the lake. I think the historic houses should stay and that moving them compromises their historic integrity. I also think that selling them for a good price, instead of $1 to be moved, should allow us to use some of that money to improve this and other parks.
- He’s happy with the Department of Planning and Development reorganization to please the business community. I think that all we dealt with was the business community concerns and we did not think enough about community and neighborhood services and that is not acceptable.
These differences can we worked on and shouldn’t stand in the way of good communication and good working relationships. And, when necessary, we should be able to agree to disagree without taking it so personally.
You might wonder why I’m being so blunt about this. I guess I was encouraged to be more public about this after reading this story in the Wisconsin State Journal. More specifically, where Mayor Dave discloses:
For his part, Cieslewicz admits that pride led to bluster last fall.
“I think I did spend a little bit of time in ’05 trying to be (Chicago Mayor) Richard Daley,” Cieslewicz said Wednesday. “And I think that resulted in some snapback and some lack of success. I’m not Richard Daley. I’m not the kind of guy who generally blusters and threatens people, and I don’t think Madison is the kind of city that wants to be run that way.”
To some extent, Cieslewicz said, the experiment was prompted by hubris. “I’d been pretty successful for two and a half years,” he said, “and that’s something that went to my head a little bit. … In ’05, on too many issues I tried to say, This is the way it’s going to be.’ And I didn’t actually get anything accomplished.”
In addition, he said, last fall he felt frustrated by another tumultuous Halloween on State Street and the slowness of city government. “All that evolved into a style toward the end of ’05 that wasn’t serving me very well,” he said.
Cieslewicz said he decided to reach out more to members of the City Council and the community, and it has worked.
Wow. That was quite the public admission by Mayor Dave and hopefully a good sign for the City as a whole. He hasn’t reached out to me so far, tho I’ve repeatedly tried with him. Perhaps there is hope yet?
