Madison

Wow, I'm surprised . . . usually the holiday week is not so busy.

I don't ever really talk about these things, but I really do know how badly poverty sucks, and I was kind of lucky because it was rural poor, not city poor.

It will be interesting to see how this impacts Madison, looks like we could be losing Section 8 vouchers and maybe some staff. There were also cuts to CDBG (8%) funding as well. Looks like they cut 100% of the funds for Economic Development Initiative, Brownfields Redevelopment, Energy Innovation Fund and Hope VI - which I believe the city was working on an application for Truax for (not sure which fiscal year. Wonder if the council took this into consideration in passing its budget - I didn't hear it mentioned.

Sorry, computer malfunction and I didn't get finished last night, but here's what happened after the Mayor said he would veto the budget and they reconsidered the offending amendment. It's all the drama

Ok, questions of staff and then to the now 19 amendments.

Here we go again . . .

The spin is killing me. Saying there are a "few concerns" but a lot of good news is pure bullshit. After 10 years of constant cuts and flat funding (essentially cuts as costs rise and funding stagnates) for non-profits that are the work horses of the human services system, this is nearly laughable . . . or cryable.

Yesterday I tried to speak to the common council about how a budget is allegedly a reflection of our values, and I had concerns that this budget is all about the Overture and Edgewater and not what struggling people in the community need. I asked if that really reflected our values, a luxury hotel and high end arts facility. I wasn't that articulate, I was tired and burned out and emotional about it after working too many hours listening to people's stories with so few answers. Fortunately, Heidi Wegleitner said it much, much better than I, so . . . um, what she said.

Sorry, see part one, technical issues . . . missed a bunch of amendment 11, but will pick it back up now.

If I don't live blog it, it won't happen, so this is what you are getting, a lazy live blog of sorts, sorry . . . my job sucks and is sucking it all out of me.

For what it is worth . . . here they are.

2011, you can have it all (but good luck! it's getting pretty late). 2012, TIF is reduced. Dear Mr. Dunn I read with...