On election night, two influential county board committees met to decide what direction to go on the jail. Well, they claim that’s not what they were doing, but lets face it, that is what they are doing. They are having the consultant study some more options. However, they couldn’t change which options were studied. So only the one’s that were “dictated” by the County Executive, the County Board Chair and the Chairs chose could be considered. Resulting in more wasted jail study money. The committee members repeatedly pointed out why at least the greenfield option was a non-starter. Here’s the full video and the some videos of the highlights. Or lowlights.
FULL PUBLIC WORKS AND TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC PROTECTION AND JUDICIARY MEETING
It’s interesting that the meeting starts off with some very specific instructions about how the meeting is going to go. The chairs of the two committees Maureen McCarville (Public Protection and Judiciary) and Paul Nelson (Public Works and Transportation) seemed intent on controlling the discussion.
More background information about the meeting is here.
The committee struggled to ask questions and make changes to the dictate and were repeatedly shut down. Here’s a few examples of them being told they couldn’t discuss anything.
“PUBLIC” TESTIMONY
Only one member of the public spoke. Two others showed up to listen to the discussion. This was the sole public testimony on election night from Sister Fran Hoffman.
I think Dane County Supervisor Heidi Wegleitner had the most comprehensive description of why what they were doing, at this time, makes no sense. She was treated as a member of the public and limited to three minutes, and then cut off. One colleague asked a question allowing her more time.
Dane County Supervisor Yogesh Chawla also testified against. He echoed what Supervisor Wegleitner had to say and also suggested that they shouldn’t be paying Mead and Hunt any more money at this time based on his professional experience of being a consultant.
APPROVING QUESTIONABLE/WASTED JAIL STUDY MONEY
Unfortunately, based on the unanswered questions, seems like the county is planning to spend a whole lot more money on the consultants and are intent on wasting this money.
If everyone knows this is a train wreck, why are they paying to study things that they know they aren’t going to do? The committee asked really good questions and pointed out many of the flaws. However, since they weren’t allowed to change anything so it made sense, voted to do the thing they all thought was questionable? County politics . . . and more wasted jail study money.
The cynic in me has to laugh a little. Many in the community, including me, have worked to derail the jail. Seems like the county is intent on doing that themselves.
