Madison

I still haven't decided if I'm running for alder, mayor or just working the media angle for this spring . . . With the...

Lookin' in to that budget . . . attempting to figure out what the scant information means . . .

A few Edgewater incidents and the Mayor's bike trip in Europe have inspired the City Ethics Board to start making changes to their ethics law. Many of you know I sent an open letter to the Ethics Board about the state of ethics in the City of Madison. And, I got some results!

Staff did a rushed through presentation of this information, that the Economic Development Committee was first getting to see. They wouldn't hand out copies at the meeting. The committee got a copy this morning, and it will appear in legistar star later this morning. Here's a few comments from the meeting last night, and of course . . .

There was so much going on this week . . . Here's lots of extras not from the news sources, but from the community and other research. (i.e. Not about the Mayor's budget, Kathleen resignation and other things that managed to make the news through those items.)

Set your cynicism aside and join a committee! Think about it this way . . . you have two or three years to raise hell. Recently, the council discussed the snow shoveling at bus stops, because the committee pushed it, not any alders. And a a result of the embarrassment it caused, the Mayor has put $70K in the budget. You can make a difference, if you are willing to stand up for the community!

The city's budget is complex, and yet provides little information. Each department budget has lots of moving parts, and in order to have it properly reviewed, the public needs to get involved! If you have a special interest, try looking at just the budget for the department involved! And then let them know what you think! The more eyes, the better the budget!

EDC Public Hearing of September 16th. The EDC had a public hearing on the development process review that they’re undertaking. It's a little late, but I've still got 30 minutes before the next EDC meeting on the subject. Here's the "too long; didn't read" (tl;dr) summary: The process isn't broken, everyone agrees that the neighborhoods should participate, and that the neighborhoods need more training/and or support to be effective partners, and that above all, we need to do better on keeping everyone on message that "Madison is a good place to do development". A second point: no one could point to specific instances or examples of how the process has gotten worse. Instead, it's all "this is what we hear" and other anecdotal "evidence." Hopefully everyone keeps that in mind before any radical changes are implemented. Read on for the full details.

No, not the tenants, the landlords. And this time, they went BIG again!

No mercy here.

I feel bad, that was kind of apparent at the last council meeting the Council wouldn't pass this ordinance - I don't think it even has one vote, but I didn't blog it and somehow it was missed by many in the media. While the council pretty clearly said this was a bad idea and the Mayor should address it or they would in the budget, the media came out slamming the council for an idea they clearly were looking for a different solution for. So, hopefully, CCOC and the budget will put this issue to rest.

Yes, it is.