Ok – there must be some sort of glitch in the universe, where facts can now just be made up. Put down the newspaper or close the web browser and walk away.
I had planned on writing something about the smears against me and lies by Critical Badger and the comments at the end of a Badger Herald Article, but the Cap Times and the Daily Cardinal had even worse errors. So, here are a errors I’d like to see them correct, but I won’t hold my breath.
CAP TIMES – MAYOR PLAYED ROLE IN CREATING AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND?!
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund was created in 2001. Ald Todd Jarrell, Ald Tom Powell, CDBG member and Affordability Subcomittee member Patrick Depula and Housing Committee member Tom Hirsch along with myself played major roles in passing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and put an amendment in the budget for $400,000 that passed. The Mayor at the time was Sue Bauman and most people had no clue who current Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was.
So, when the Cap Times threw this little gem in their article today about Inclusionary Zoning:
The mayor played a role in establishing the city’s affordable housing trust fund and backs other housing programs, but he said the potential to create economically diverse neighborhoods is one that has been unique to inclusionary zoning.
I nearly dropped my laptop. That is some crazy revisionist history being spun out there.
This mayor has not only had nothing to do with the creation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, he has actively reduced funding or failed to fund it every year since elected and has tried to raid it (see Amendment 14) or give it away on more than one occasion.
DAILY CARDINAL – MY HOMELESS ORDINANCES PASSED!!
Cool. That was easy.
Reading this opinion piece in the Daily Cardinal was just painful. I’ve often said that the three years I spent in law school reading nothing but the campus papers must be the most misinformed years of my life. The Daily Cardinal today drives that point home times ten. Here’s my favorite gem from their opinion piece:
Konkel then passed a proposal to allow homeless people to urinate and sleep in public places.
They must have adopted the Wisconsin State Journal policy that fact-don’t-matter-in-opinion-pieces.
Sadly, the proposals aren’t even drafted yet. There aren’t even copies for people to review. The one ordinance that got drafted for introduction at the next council meeting is the one where the police, parks department and others can’t just throw away the belongings of the homeless that are left on public property.
CRITICAL BADGER/DAILY CARDINAL – BRENDA IS ALL POWERFUL HA HA HA HA HA!!!! (Cue thunder and lightening!)
According to the Critical Badger, I apparently wrote this, because no one is capable of talking about homelessness and having an opinion without me writing it for them, apparently.
Let me just say this. Samir called me on Sunday, I didn’t return the call. He wrote this on his own. I don’t think I’ve even ever met the guy or talked to him. Seriously. Wow. Get out the tin foil hats and dust off the conspiracy theory books. In case it isn’t obvious, I don’t exactly hang out on campus with student groups.
I know, you’re not supposed to pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel . . . but that ink is becoming a thing of the past, the ethics and the time reporters are given to work on something are eroding and I know I’m naive, but I believe that the truth matters. (Yes, in blogs too CB.)
