Media

There's just not much out there today to round up . . . and so much to try to cover tonight!

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!

Board of Estimates had a special meeting yesterday to get an "update" on Judge Doyle Square. They give us very little information in public . . . then go into closed session. Who knows what they are talking about in all these closed session meetings (every Board of Estimates meeting has gone into closed session on this matter), but I guess we'll find out when they finally ram this thing down the public's throat, with little public input and about 3 days notice of the final "deal" they have worked out.

12 meetings, 1 meeting after 5:30.

Two from yesterday, but check back, there's likely to be more . . . .

From Lisa Subeck . . . read it and weep. Another lesson learned about not trusting the legislative alert system to give you timely information - I thought for some reason the Assembly was voting on this next week, but apparently they did yesterday.

2 meetings.

This is from last Wednesday, a week ago, but the information is important. The County gave back $6,243,062 in budgeted funds for Human Services to the General Fund . . . just think what that could have funded. $6.2 MILLION DOLLARS! And yet we scrap and fight every year over $10,000 or $20,000 or even $80,000 for small programs. $90,000 would have kept TRC funded to serve people outside the City of Madison. Public hearings on the 15th. Note: Read the Q&A and the supplemental (lack of) information. If the public feels left in the dark most of the time, its no wonder, county board supervisors can't even get information about what's going on with shelters and the day center.

Meetings on Rosh Hashanah? The weekly meeting schedule has changed, so prepare to be surprised. On Monday you will be able to see the following Monday's meetings. So it should be slightly better notice if the staff gets the meeting notices in on time.

Scott Walker impacts overwhelming, but he'll try not to make it worse. Watch for a budget process for employees to participate in.

I tuned in to Board of Estimates last night to catch up on this, because I hadn't heard much about this lately. I attended some meetings a year ago or more . . . but you'd think an economic development plan for the city would be getting more attention! Here's what the Board of Estimates discussed. Spoiler alert: I'm not impressed.

Giving Forward Lookout a sneak peek at this piece, which is running in Socialist Worker tomorrow. We socialists are cool and like to share...