You know, over the years, the Mayor has made some unusual decisions about re-appointing people to various committees. It’s his prerogative, just ask him. Sometimes people rally and he changes his mind, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes it a complete blind-side, other times he talks to people and they know that it’s coming. One of the more public ones was when he “broke up” with me and didn’t re-appoint me to the Plan Commission and didn’t tell me in advance. At the same time, he didn’t re-appoint Alder Skidmore to the Park’s Commission because he “voted the wrong way” on the sale of land in James Madison Park. He failed to re-appoint Mike Barrett to the Urban Design Commission. Michael Howe didn’t get re-appointed to the Equal Opportunities Commission – and there are about to be 5 vacancies on that commission. Kelly Thompson-Frater didn’t know she wasn’t getting re-appointed to the Plan Commission – I had the unpleasant realization of telling her and realizing she didn’t know. Recently Tim Wong didn’t get reappointed to the Transit and Parking Commission. Rumor also had it that he wasn’t going to re-appoint Stuart Levitan to the Community Development Authority (previously kicked off the plan commission as well), but that didn’t happen.
These days, I’m getting emails from constituents asking to make sure the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission people get re-appointed. Here’s an email from a colleague explaining:
In addition to Tim Wong on TPC, there are some other potential non-reappointments coming up. Please take a moment to call or email Mayor Dave and ask him to reappoint his appointees to the Capitol Area Regional Plan Commission (CARPC). It is important that we do this quickly, because the decisions may be made Friday.
CARPC was recently formed to replace the Regional Plan Commission that disbanded in 2004. This body is approves urban service area extensions and is supposed to be responsible for water quality in Dane County (both ground water and surface water.) Effectively, this is the planning commission for the county.
Two Mayoral appointees’ terms are running out, and there is a possibility that they won’t be reappointed by Dave because they didn’t “vote the right way.” What is especially interesting is that many environmental organizations in the county – theoretically Dave’s allies from way back – are backing the reappointment of these two people, because Dave is disagreeing with all his former friends on CARPC policies and procedures. That’s right, Dave is going against the leadership of Sierra Club, 1000 Friends, Trout Unlimited, Audubon Society, League of Women Voters of Dane County, Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, and many more!
The two people that may not get reappointed actually come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, yet they both voted to support policies endorsed by the environmental groups: Anne Sayers from League of Conservation Voters, and George Kamperschroer from the Chamber of Commerce.
I am very disturbed by the pattern of Dave not reappointing people that “vote the wrong way” or question his policies. He seems to give in to groups that have never supported him, appointing their representatives even if they are likely to hurt his programs, but when his allies all back someone, he stubbornly refuses to reappoint someone who stepped out of line. What’s up with that?
Thanks for your help.
And when the Tim Wong controversy came up, I got an email reminding me that the Mayor didn’t appoint Ken Golden to some committees he wanted to serve on. I’m sure there are others that I am forgetting this morning and I apologize for that. What is remarkable to me is that in all of these cases the non-appointments are because the person had strong opinions, was a strong advocate and . . . crossed Dave.
What concerns me is the impact that all of this has had. Madison has a strong history of citizen involvement that is something others envy. Sometimes it slows down the process, but more often, it makes the process stronger. Local citizen experts in various areas help us come up with better solutions and make discussions rich. In many ways, we have not only an Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branch of government – but we have Citizen/Resident branch of government as well. Somehow, we elected a Mayor that doesn’t believe in that process. In fact, he openly shows his disdain for this input process. When you combine these non-appointments and disregard for the public sentiment with his threats to the Transit and Parking Commission when they didn’t want to raise fares, his threats to the Parks Commission over the sale of the land in James Madison Park and him by-passing the Parks Commission regarding solutions are Brittingham Park, plus skipping committees when items of interest should come before them like the Housing Committee and Allied Drive Plan, the Elections Committee and the Zatch Act and the Equal Opportunities Commisson and the Chronic Nuisance ORdinance . . . well, it sends a strong message that serving on City Committees are a waste of time if you expect to have your own opinions and act on them. You are simply there to be a rubber stamp and if you stray from the Mayor’s wishes you won’t be there any longer or the committee will be by-passed.
It makes recruitment to committees more and more difficult. In trying to recruit people, I’ve made this suggestion: Try to get appointed, and if you do, realize you will only be there for two or three years in most cases, so make the most of it. Work hard, speak up for what you believe in, get things passed and do your best. Then, when you don’t get re-appointed, hold your head high and know that you did your best to make the City of Madison stronger and you are in good company. Because if you don’t, we have to live with the results of the alternative and I don’t think that anyone thinks that is good for the City of Madison.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to watch what I call the further “Baumanization of Cieslewicz” as he further alienates his supporters with these CARPC appointments . . . and finds himself more and more alone with no solid base of supporters for re-election . . . or will he make the right decision?
