Ok – through a rather nasty cyber-attack, an alleged friend of mine challenged me to lay out what a progressives state of the city might look like. So, in about 30 – 45 minutes on Monday morning, here’s what I came up with that I would like to see in a State of the City address. For those who are regular readers, most of this stuff won’t come as a surprise. And yes, its about the economy, and how to help those who are struggling in our community.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
– Delay implementation of the revocation of the property tax exemption while the state resolves the issue. We’re risking losing 1700 affordable housing units by moving forward.
– Make it a high priority to find solutions to the property tax conundrum if the state does not resolve the issue.
– Pass changes to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund that would loosen the rules on how the money is spent in order to create affordable housing now.
– Make a commitment to fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund on an annual basis.
– Make it a priority to create an Affordable Housing Plan for the City of Madison. Assign this task to the existing Housing Committee and give them the resources needed to staff the committee.
– Pledge to spend the Affordable Housing Trust Fund within the City of Madison and not give it to communities outside the City of Madison
HOMELESSNESS
– Pledge to find progressive ways to address concerns of the community with the homeless in the downtown area and city parks, instead of simply displacing them.
– Remove laws on the books that criminalize homelessness, putting homeless people in our jail system and costing taxpayers more.
BUSES
– Return the bus fares to $1.50 since we are unexpectedly saving money on fuel costs.
– Allow low-income people to ride the bus for free.
– Work to extend services so people who work weekends and second and third shift can get to and from work.
– Pledge to keep the bus stops on Isthmus and not further punish high ridership areas of the City.
STIMULUS MONEY
– Create and engaging public input process to find out what people in the community feel our highest needs are.
– Set goals for spending the stimulus money and follow them.
CITIZEN COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS AND PUBLIC INPUT
– Pledge to train people on city committees about their role and provide on-going training opportunities to make the time spent serving on city committees productive and fulfilling.
– Pledge to create a change in attitude about public input and value it instead of view it as a necessary evil.
– Pledge to create a budget process that is more transparent and include more public input.
POLICING AND CRIME PREVENTION
– Focus on neighborhood policing. With 50 new police officers coming on board, 25 of them should be assigned to neighborhoods. Pledging to get them out of the cars and onto the streets.
– Increase funding for neighborhood centers, afterschool programs and youth programs to give young people something productive to do in the evenings and on weekends, instead of creating stricter curfew rules.
– Repeal the Chronic Nuisance Ordinance and protect tenants who need to call the police, instead of having them risk their housing by calling the police.
– Pledge to create a media strategy for the police department that provides information, but doesn’t feed the fear factor.
RACE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
– Create a task force to evaluate the police department’s role in the race disparities in the Criminal Justice System in Dane County.
SMALL BUSINESSES
– Make it a priority to support our local small businesses.
– Make a serious commitment to buying local and not exempt many purchases under $5,000 or include buying from large chains that have a local franchise.
JOB CREATION
– Pledge to focus job creation efforts on living wage career ladder jobs where people can get skills and move up in the company/profession, instead of a small number of high paying biotech jobs.
DILAPIDATED DOWNTOWN HOUSING
– Hire the additional building inspectors the downtown alders have been pushing for.
– Make a commitment to preservation of our older housing stock to preserve our history.
– Provide additional support to the new Landmarks staff and the Landmarks Commission to help preserve those buildings that are most worth saving.
WOMEN, PEOPLE OF COLOR & PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
– Pledge to hire more women in top management positions in the city.
– Use diverse hiring panels to ensure more diverse workforce.
– Appoint committees that have gender balance and include a representative number of people of color and people with disabilities.
– Find ways, such as using the same standards of qualifications as the state, to help minority and women owned businesses do business with the City of Madison.
CITY OF MADISON WORKFORCE
– Remove the final barriers for middle management employees to live outside the City of Madison. The swiss cheese policies in place are unfair.
– Create better protections for non-union employees and provide information about the discipline process accessible to all employees and the public.
– Actually offer paid sick leave to city employees.
SCHOOLS
– Get serious about collaborating with the schools on fiscal matters and consider the impact of city decisions on the schools (i.e. raising the bus fares). Seek ways to collaborate and share resources.
– Increase funding for our early childhood development programs.
ENVIRONMENT
– Get serious about our air quality.
– Get serious about cleaning up the lakes.
– Create a plan for losing 27,000 street trees in the next 10 years to the Emerald Ash Borer.
– Create edible landscapes in our parks and terraces.
– Expand the street sweeping areas downtown.
– Limit alternate side parking to snow emergencies city wide and continue to seek ways to inform the public when there is a snow emergency.
MISCELLANEOUS
– Commit to continued funding of WYOU.
– Quit dinking around and figure out how to plow our streets in the winter time.
– Help with government transparency by following the rules we have set up and not making them up as we go along (“10-year rule”, TIF, etc).
I’m sure I forgot many things on the long list that could be here. I might have to amend it in about a week to add additional items. I certainly would include this, and much more in a State of the City address if it were my full time job and I had 10 staff people to help me come up with the agenda. Oh, and I’d give the speech in public.
