Madison council to reconsider sending police to Milwaukee DNC

March 18, 2020 2:40 pm

Reconsideration of sending police to Milwaukee DNC has been requested by Alder Paul Skidmore and Attorney May has directed staff not to sign the agreement.

I wrote about this just 5 days ago, but it seem like forever. How does Madison function with 20% of our police at Milwaukee DNC? This is the item that was on the agenda. It now has the actual agreement attached, which was not available when the Finance Committee and Public Safety Review Committee made their recommendation.

REQUEST FROM ALDER SKIDMORE

From: Skidmore, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 1:58 PM
To: May, Michael <MMay@cityofmadison.com>
Cc: Kemble, Rebecca <district18@cityofmadison.com>
Subject: Fw: tonight’s meeting

Greetings Mike,

I hope that you are doing well today. I understand that you are working from home today – so am I.

After further consideration, and rereading alder Kemble’s email, I would like to reconsider item #47 from yesterday’s Common Council meeting, if that is possible. This item was approved on a voice vote. I share alder Kemble’s concern and I would like to have Council discussion, ask questions of MPD (AC Wahl and possibly AC Patterson and/or AC Valenta, and to possibly offer a substitute. Given the lack of staff and singleness of purpose of the Council meeting I did not speak up.

Please let me know if my request is in order, and if I need to do anything further. Thank you for your consideration.

Paul Skidmore, 9th District Alder

ATTORNEY MAY RESPONSE

From: May, Michael
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 2:01 PM
To: Skidmore, Paul
Cc: Kemble, Rebecca; Bidar, Shiva; Veldran, Lisa
Subject: RE: tonight’s meeting

You will need to request of Alder Bidar that this be on the next agenda for the Council for reconsideration. I have directed staff not to sign the agreement in the interim.

MPMay – City Attorney

EMAIL FROM ALDER REBECCA KEMBLE

From: Kemble, Rebecca
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2020 4:33 PM
To: All Alders
Subject: tonight’s meeting

Dear Colleagues –

I regret that I will not be present at this evening’s CCEC and Common Council meetings. I was in Albuquerque, NM for the past 4 days. While there are very few cases and no reported community spread in that city and I took precautions, I did fly in and out of the Dallas/Ft Worth airport where many college students were passing through from their study abroad programs in Europe. Therefore I will be self-quarantined for the next 2 weeks.

There are two items on this evening’s agenda that I had hoped to discuss and debate with you all.

Item #11, “Creating subdivision (c) of 33.01(10) of the Madison General Ordinances to prohibit meetings during an officially declared emergency or at the direction of the Director of Public Health Madison and Dane County unless authorized by the Mayor and Common Council President.”

I helped write some alternative language to this proposal that I had hoped to explain in person. Here are the changes I support if the ordinance is to go through:

1) Adding “Infections Disease Outbreak” to the heading “Emergency Situation”. The scope of the ordinance as written is extremely broad. It would apply in any “officially declared emergency” that may have nothing to do with public health or our ability to hold meetings. Many times emergencies are called for storms or floods in order to receive federal relief funding. Meetings should not be automatically cancelled under those circumstances when there is no risk to public health.

2) Adding “in-person” to the kinds of meetings that can’t be held. Some sub-units may already be set up to hold virtual meetings. In the future many more will have that capacity. An ordinance that prohibits that possibility is short-sighted and hinders our ability to leverage the creativity and talent of the people in our community who are so generous with their time precisely at the moment when we need all hands on deck.

3) Striking the officially declared emergency language. The Director of Public Health already has the authority to issue orders limiting public gatherings. That’s all we need in order to make these kinds of decisions, whether or not other units of government declare an emergency.

4) Adding the Common Council and Sub-unit Chairs to the Mayor and the Council President to those who decide which meetings can be held under such circumstances. The Sub-units are creatures of the Common Council and provide a vital support for our ability to make policy and enact the Council’s authority in a well-informed way.

I think we should take more time to consider this ordinance and refer it to 3/31 instead of under suspension of the rules tonight. These are sweeping powers over the democratic foundation of our policy making structure and should not be enacted without full deliberation or in a rushed way. We already have the ability to cancel meetings in the short-term, as we have done over the past week and as we have done many times in the past. I don’t fully understand why we need to strip this power from Sub-unit chairs and give it instead to the Mayor and Council President when we are accomplishing – and have always accomplished – the intent of the ordinance through cooperation and collaboration with Sub-unit chairs and staff.

I also think we should devise a process for the Council as a whole to have input on what meetings should be cancelled and what meetings need to be held since the Mayor and Council President are not following all the committees as closely as Alders who serve on them do. Perhaps this is something CCEC can work on at its next meeting.

Item #47, “Authorizing the Mayor, Police Chief and the City Clerk to sign an intergovernmental agreement with the City of Milwaukee to provide law enforcement services during the 2020 Democratic National Convention for a 10 day term, beginning July 10, 2020 through July 20, 2020.“

For the past 5 years MPD has reported problems with staffing, overtime and low morale of officers due to inability to take vacations. These issues seem to be exacerbated in the summer when calls for service are at their peak. At Finance Committee last week I voted against this proposal to send up to 100 of our officers to serve on special duty for the DNC. Should the DNC not be cancelled, Madison will also be handling many convention visitors and there will be added pressure in our community. I don’t see how we can responsibly manage the absence of 100 officers given the public safety pressures in our own community.

Thanks for considering the points I raise and I’ll see you all in 2 weeks!

Rebecca Kemble – District 18 Alder