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The news of council reform at first seemed promising and Progressive Dane applauds efforts to “strengthen the Council’s ability to shape the . . . future investment in our neighborhoods.” “If the council is going to seriously consider reforms that will help the public participate in local government and strengthen input into investment in our neighborhoods that is exciting” said Party Co-Chair Sue Pastor. However, we don’t find the reforms proposed by Alders Mark Clear and David Ahrens are sufficient to reach this goal. Renaming committees, changing the length of term of the council president and switching which individual (mayor or council president) appoints alders to committees don’t seem to go far enough to reach this goal. Progressive Dane would like to see the council also consider passing ordinances requiring the following:

Sigh . . . grrrrr . . . ack!!!!! 4 more in the last 12 hours . . .

Yes, everything! And you get to find out tonight!

Alders Mark Clear and David Ahrens have proposed "reforms" that would allegedly "re-balance the powers of the legislative and executive branches and strengthen the Council’s ability to shape the budget and future investment in our neighborhoods." If find that the proposals don't really do that, and they already have a strong council weak mayor system in place, they just don't use the power they already have. There are much better reforms to be made.

Also only a dozen meetings, only two start before 5:00, but they start before noon!

Only a dozen meetings? Spring Break effect, or . . . will more pop up throughout the week? Half of them start before 5pm.

Email to all alders, FAQs and press release.

3 meetings tonight, 1 Wednesday and a candidate forum on Wednesday.

13 meetings, half before 4:00.

Only 16 meetings and one is cancelled. That is sure to change! Nearly half are before 5:00.

Yesterday morning when I read this, after puking (there is only so much smarminess one person can take), I was intrigued. After all the work we have been doing to get homeless people to have a program to pay off their tickets for the past two years . . . voila! I'm glad the program is here, but it brings up many, many questions, not the least of which, why'd we only get 5 days notice of this?