Media

Madison Police Chief Michael Koval has been found, by the Madison Police and Fire Commission, guilty of violating MPD Code of Conduct for verbally harassing Sharon Irwin.

The PFC fully agrees with both the language and the spirit of the Standards of Conduct. The PFC, in its limited range of authority (hiring, promotions, discipline), continually attempts to ensure that all sworn officers, from patrol officers to the chief, fully understand, appreciate, and adhere to those Standards. We hire the Police Chief. In our role of hiring the City of Madison Police Chief, we expected our Police Chief, as the leader of the Department to serve as an example for the entire Department, and always be beyond reproach no matter how frustrated or how harassed he or she may feel. Respondent failed in this instance.

Of course, he was not disciplined.

4 added meetings - surprise, surprise - 3 are Food Policy Committee related. 1 cancellation.

Now, I'm not an expert on the county budget, nor the traditional fiscal conservative, but there is no way in hell this is going to work! The most the county has borrowed in their last 10 budgets is $49M and they are already paying back $29M a year in debt service. This would multiply that by 10 - even if its spread out over multiple years, it seems unlikely we can afford all this in the age of Trump. And if they have the money for all this, what if they put $100,000,000 into affordable housing?

6 candidate forums in 7 days . . .

16 meetings, only 6 before 5pm. That's good for the county, the city had that many on Thursday alone.

20 meetings, nearly half of them are on Thursday (6 of them start before 5pm). And . . . missing agendas again this week, I knew it was too good to be true.

I got a pretty poor showing, only 4 of the 37 county board supervisors bothered to respond, and I can only reprint 3 of them. I gotta say, no surprises there. The trend seems to be going completely in the opposite direction.

A little before 2am on Wednesday morning, there was a very interesting exchange between the mayor and a couple members of the council. It's amazing how catty they can get when they think no one is paying attention. Mark Clear was particularly unnecessarily snarky and unprofessional and the best actor . . . was just bizarre. I loved Mike Verveer's reaction.

After nearly 4 hours, had to go to a new blog post, my blog get cranky when I write too many words

So, I'm sick, but I can't skip this . . . so it will be whatever it is . . . probably brief.

Olbrich Biergarten . . . and . . .

F for transparency. Beyond the Eskrich debacle, this thing is a mess! Email your alder (allalders@cityofmadison.com) and ask them to scrap this thing! Start. over. This is not how good government works. While you're at it, ask the mayor (mayor@cityofmadison.com) to veto it if it passes. If he can do it for State St. liquor licenses, he can do it for this one!