Busted.

April 11, 2008 12:36 pm

All the gossip, inside info and rumors one can take on a Friday.

Before I start, let me explain. The phrase “don’t blog this” is very common in my world. Generally speaking, I assume most things people tell me or email me are “off the record”. If I blog something and attribute it to someone, I have either asked their permission, they said it publicly enough that my blog is likely only giving it more exposure or I protect their identity.

A second thing that happens is people tell me all kinds of things that they want leaked, but don’t want to be responsible for. Much of that doesn’t make it to the internet. With those items, I try to verify as much as what I can. Sometimes I end up on wild goose chases. Other times, I can’t confirm enough to write about it. Sometimes, without a source being revealed it isn’t credible. And sometimes, I get a good tip and it ends up a blog.

Every once in a while the system breaks down, but I try to be careful and protect people. More frequently I end up with people demanding corrections. Those are tough to know how to handle since I don’t like changing something I posted, but if I feel they have a good point, I’ll add a note to the post, but leave the original intact.

This blog, is a whole lot of odds and ends that don’t merit a full post but are too good not to share or odd tidbits, or some of those slightly wobbly items I don’t feel so comfortable about but came from a reliable source . . . so here goes! Watch out, cuz you’re busted!

WISCONSIN MANAGEMENT COMPANY
I’ve heard from an incredibly credible source that they are refusing to let Brittany Zimmerman’s finance out of his lease. Not only is he stuck until August 15th, but for another entire year. Additionally, they were refusing to change the locks on the apartment upstairs. While legally what they are doing might be ok, good corporate citizens they are not.

(FWIW – If you ever are told you can’t break your lease, that’s not entirely true. You should write a letter to the landlord, tell them you are breaking your lease and stop paying your rent. You will be responsible for the costs, excluding time spent showing apartments, of re-renting and rent until someone new moves in IF the landlord does what they normally do to rent the apartment. More info here. When it comes to locks, tenants are allowed to change the locks if they feel the safety is in jeopardy, but they have to give a key to the landlord “as soon as practicable” and the tenant has to pay the costs. Sometimes, despite the protestations, our tenant protections laws simply are not as strong as we would like. More info at the Tenant Resource Center.)

MAYORS OFFICE & MBJ (& FORMERLY THE ISTHMUS)
When the Mayor sent out his 2008 State of the City Address, they left some editing notes in one section. The notes were attributed to MBJ. Kristian Knutson’s blog post originally noted that the edits were in there and the pdf posted to the internet had the edit bubbles on it. Those disappeared and the post was changed. Since I know who MBJ is, ILMAO . . . Giggle. I even know what the B stands for! Giggle. (This one is going to get me in trouble! But it falls in the too-good-not-to-share category. Sorry MBJ.)

NOTE: I guess I missed the pdf notes the second time I looked at it and the Knutson article is now back and has those original comments.

AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE OF PARK COMMISSION TO STUDY PROBLEM OF ALCOHOL AND RELATED BEHAVIORS IN CITY PARKS
This one I feel a little bit bad about. I was asked to make a correction or apologize about the blog post yesterday about the action the Parks Commission took on Brittingham Park. I’ll explain in the next section. While “discussing” this with the chair of the Parks Commission he asked me why I hadn’t been attending the abovementioned longest-title-in-the-city committee.

Heh . . . well. Dang. I haven’t been attending cuz I didn’t know they were meeting. The chair says that the committee has been meeting for a year. If that were true, it likely would have shown up on my “week ahead” schedules. So, I went back and looked at the “Notice of Additional Meetings” to find out when they met. All I could find was one meeting on November 8th, 2007. Either they’ve been meeting illegally, or the statement by the chair was incorrect. I’m not sure which. I’ve haven’t heard back from him after I asked if they had been meeting illegally. And I hope that they just haven’t met lately.

THE MAYORS OFFICE
In sending out the plan for Brittingham Park the Mayor’s Office made the following statement:

For the past several months, a group of stakeholders has been meeting to address the long-standing problems in Brittingham Park. These stakeholders include governmental agencies (Madison Police, Madison Parks, Madison City Attorney, CDBG Office, Office of Community Services, Mayor’s Office, Alderperson Julia Kerr, Dane County Human Services, etc.), neighborhood groups (especially the Monona Bay Neighborhood Association), service providers (Porchlight, Madison Apprenticeship Program, etc.) and advocacy groups like Operation Welcome Home. The purpose of these meetings and discussion is to ensure that Brittingham Park and its surrounding neighborhoods are safe and enjoyable.

The stakeholder group recognizes that there are opportunities to improve the quality of life both in and around the park. This group has worked to identify possible responses to the various issues, and, to that end, Mayor Cieslewicz and Alderperson Kerr are directing the following steps be taken to improve and enjoy Brittingham Park:

And at the Parks Commission meeting it appeared as though these groups were in support. I talked to two of the groups mentioned above. Both of them said they were not involved in these discussions or that it was a mistake to represent them as agreeing with the plan. (Plan in this blog post.)

This is as good of a point as any to point out the “mistake” in yesterday’s blog. The chair of the parks commission was mad at me because of this statement:

Finally, I have to say, I’m disappointed, but not surprised, the Parks Commission passed the plan last night given that it wasn’t available to the public until yesterday and so the public didn’t really get to comment on it. What happened to our values that a public and transparent process led to better, more informed results in our community?

I think he thought that I was disappointed in the Parks Commission, but my disappointment and lack of surprise was in the Mayor’s office handling of the situation, not the Parks Commission. After talking to two other people, beyond the guy whose testimony I blogged, who were at the meeting and the chair, I understand that the Parks Commission was rather upset that they were just seeing the plan yesterday and that their opinion didn’t really matter because the Mayor’s Office felt they didn’t need the Park’s Commission approval, so the Commission “accepted” or “received” the report. They did not, as the WSJ reported, “adopt” or “approve” the report.

So, Mr. Barker. I apologize. I never should have believed what I read in the Wisconsin State Journal without double and triple checking that it was accurate. My bad. And I hope you realize that my disappointment was not in the Parks Commission, except that you could have rejected the report or referred it to another meeting. My disappointment, was once again with how the Mayor’s office handled this – last minute notice to the public and city committee members, limited/controlled input behind the scenes, making it look like the “stakeholders” were in agreement when they weren’t and handling it via the press. And now I’m even more annoyed since I understand the committee members are upset.

THUY PHAM-REMMELE
People often ask me why the really outrageous statements made by this alder are not reported in the press. I think it is because the press are typically forgiving of a few mistatements or awkward moments that every elected official has. Thuy has had more then her fair share of forgiveness. This is until the spell was broken at Tuesday night’s meeting. Her goofy statements were reported by both the Capital Times and Dane 101. They also, showed up on YouTube. Lets hear it for the cyclists that may be fat and/or old!

THE MAYOR & THUY PHAM REMMELE’S $2,000
Speaking of Thuy . . . when Thuy and the Mayor are in the same room, taxpayers, hang on to your wallets! Monday night there was a meeting with some neighborhood folks with Thuy and the Mayor and somehow, she walked away with the promise of more money. This time, $2,000 for a Neighborhood Watch. Ignore the process. Ignore the fact that no other Neighborhood Watches are getting this kind of money. Thuy asks, the Mayor jumps. Makes many wonder why. And the alders are lining up to get their money for their Neighborhood Watches!

WEXFORD’S “EXPEDITED PROCESS”
This one I didn’t track this one down if there was a process that was not followed. However . . . at least some people in the know were questioning why the new building for the Wexford Neighborhood didn’t need to go through the normal city approval process. Apparently, they were told by staff, that the process had been “expedited”. Interesting, who has the authority to “expedite” by skipping committee processes?

THE MAYOR AND/OR CITY BUREAUCRACY
I’m not sure who is busted here, but the Common Council Organizational Committee (Bruer, Konkel, Webber, Clausisu, Rhodes-Conway, Compton and Schumacher) voted to affirm that when we voted for $30,000 for Fair Housing Testing, we meant Fair Housing Testing. We did not intend that money to be spent on a Fair Housing Study.

THE FACT CHALLENGED DAVID BLASKA
thedailypage blogger gets it wrong. What a surprise. (See last section.)
The Isthmus reporter sets the record straight. (See last section.)

HOMELESS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS CAUGHT PRAYING FOR DAVID BLASKA AND FRED MOHS

(Sorry, insider maybe-not-so-funny joke shared with the 50 or so people who came to the press conference yesterday plus the reporters and camera persons.)

Thanks to John Quinlan for the picture and trying to get YouTube video of the press conference.