When I went to lunch yesterday there was a huge chalk message outside of the City County Building. When I came back, it was gone.
I wish I had been quick enough to snap a picture. The chalking was directed at Mayor Dave and the person who did it (Ed K. signed his name and left his phone number) was upset with the Mayor for not supporting the homeless and I think because the person didn’t get a phone call. The message asked why the Mayor was cruel to the homeless. From reading the message, I wasn’t sure which issue related to the homeless the person was upset about. (There’s so many . . . random dna testing of arrested “transients”, the sweep of the homeless after the Brittany Zimmerman murder, the attempt to remove people from various parks, the “banned” lists, the Truman Olson issue, the downtown “crack down” supported by DMI and the Mayor, last year’s budget votes, 3 incidents I that I’m hoping lawsuits get filed over or who knows what else, its hard to keep track of. Which reminds me, with all those arrests of the homeless/”transients”, why have none of them been charged with murder?)
Anyways, back to the chalking. I had gone to meet my board president at 1 W Wilson and we noticed it around noon. We ran into someone from the Mayor’s office on the way to lunch who hadn’t yet seen it. By the time I came back at for a meeting at 2:00, the chalking was gone.
It was an interesting way to get your message across. And it made me really curious which issue made the person so mad that they spent that time leaving the message for Mayor Dave.
Meanwhile, across the street, the CDA subcommittee was busy deciding that the Truman Olson (Park Street) site should not be used for the homeless but instead should be used for economic development. The proposal is short on information. Most of it literally missing from the materials to be voted on, but the theory goes that they will buy the land from the Army (instead of the Army giving it to Porchlight for FREE), also buy another piece of land elsewhere in the City of Madison to give to Porchlight, and then buy more property for Goodwill, and then somehow the City will take the Truman Olson property and make money on the deal or at least break even. It doesn’t make any sense to me. And without any details, it seems crazy. The Council will be voting on it on July 15th and they’d better have more details (a budget?) by then!
