Today is Friday for me, as I get to enjoy another 4 day weekend (Steel Bridge Music Festival in Door County!), then panic when I get back to work on Monday. So, here’s a smattering of items to comment on, as my blog topic list grows and grows and grows and I can’t get to it all!
STATE BUDGET – PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION TAKEN OUT OF BUDGET BY ASSEMBLY DEMOCRATS
So, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, the celebrating may have been premature. It matches what I was hearing, contrary to the Mayor’s crowing about his great accomplishment after 5 years. You know, he claims he personally lobbied on this and takes credit for its resolution. Well, doesn’t look so good according to this article:
In votes behind closed doors late Tuesday night, Assembly Democrats voted to make several changes to the budget, said Rebekah Sweeney, spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Mike Sherdian, D-Janesville.
The changes would delete budget provisions that would have: [snip]
• Resolved a long-running dispute over when housing units for seniors and low-income residents can receive tax breaks. The deleted provision has been vigorously sought by Madison non-profits who say they need it to keep providing housing to the poor.
COMMUNITIES UNITED/PAT SCHNEIDER ON COMMITTEE DIVERSITY
They are asking all the right questions! But . . . um . . . I nearly started banging my head against the wall when I read that they were going to collect all this information themselves. I appreciate them being sensitive to staff, but this is about priorities!!! Seriously, it can be done and probably done quicker with volunteers that know what they are doing, but the data won’t have as much credibility and it sends a really strange message about how important diversity is to the city. I guess what the City and Mayor are saying are that yes, those are important questions to ask, but apparently staff can’t be bothered to gather the information. I guess it speaks volumes to the Mayor’s commitment to diversity. Can you believe after talking about this for a few years, the Mayor’s office doesn’t even know if women, people of color and people with disabilities are even applying for the positions and can’t share that information? I thought that part of the plan by Affirmative Action was outreach last year, how will they know if it is successful if they don’t have a benchmark to measure it by?
OH, MANIACI
Yes, my first direct comments about her performance. I’ve been trying to keep an open mind, encourage her and give her an opportunity to find her way. However, I have some pretty major concerns that I hope she is working on and I just don’t know about! But, um . . . shouldn’t we know . . .
1. After attacking me throughout the campaign about not doing enough for the Johnson St. businesses, (after all 11 businesses left in the 8 years I was in office) it turns out, 2 businesses left in her first 2 months in office. Along with that we’re losing Don Miller and lost the Madison Dairy. I haven’t seen any public meetings or comments on listserves or any information about any of this from her. Not a peep. I’m more concerned about the E. Washington corridor and know that they are reviewing the proposals for marketing for the area, I hope she is working with the neighborhood to make sure we get the best group for the job!
2. For someone who talked so much about safety, she really blew it when she paved the way to stop the speed humps that were supposed to be getting installed by Tenney Park on Marston Avenue. Even tho the neighborhood surveys were in and they were approved by the residents that lived there by over 60%, she had them re-survey and the results ended up slanted by the absentee property owners/landlords. I sure hope no child gets injured in that area as a result.
3. The Edgewater. Psssst, wanna fill us in? What’s going on, where’s the community discussion? There should have been a public meeting before the students left for the summer. To make this decision over the summer without their input is not representing the students in her district very well. At this point, even if she delays this til they get back, the major discussions will have already been done and their ability to have an impact will be greatly diminished.
4. Already complaining? These are her comments from the Critical Badger blog about electronic voting:
Interesting… but (1) If this were my full time, living-expense paying job, I might have the time to work on this outside of all the other demands of the district at the moment (Maybe Steve King’s got some time for this
jk….), so if you’d like to advocate for above-minimum wage, fair pay for your friendly local alder, awesome!
A much better answer would have been, I’ll check with the City Attorney to see if we have the authority to do that. And the likely answer is no, no need to make excuses about time.
Oh, there is more, but those are three major issues in the neighborhood that have me concerned and one observance.
CRITICAL BADGER
Ok – I know I’m a bit behind on a few topics I want to blog about, but what took the Critical Badger so long to respond to a month old story.
POLICE MEDIA STRATEGY AND RESPONSE TO SHOOTINGS
So, on the 5th, the police announce that they are going to have a press conference about the shootings. Since its Friday, a kinda bad press day, they decide to wait until Monday to appeal to the public to help the with this problem, and the next day, someone is dead. Maybe, just maybe, they should worry a little less about controlling their message and good placement in the media and more using the media to get information to and from the public. Talk about misplaced priorities! Meanwhile, they did manage to try to bury the story about their racial disparities in traffic stops – that’s good enough news for a Friday.
DUH/MELANIE CONKLIN?!
First, the shocker! I didn’t even know Melanie Conklin was still in the news business, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw she wrote this article!
Second, I’ll just say duh. Housing. First. works. We just don’t want to pay for it, even tho in the long run, it will likely cost us less.
