Spring Endorsements

I participated in the Progressive Dane, Green Party and Affordable Housing Action Alliance endorsements processes and met with several of the candidates. Given those endorsements, my picks for this spring probably won't be too much of a surprise. But here's the quick rundown.

Progressive Dane
Common Council
2 - Brenda Konkel
4 - Mike Verveer
5 - Robbie Webber
6- Marsha Rummel
8 - Lauren Woods
11 - Tim Gruber
12 - Satya Rhodes -Conway
15 - Vicky Selkowe

School Board
Johnny Winston Jr.
Beth Moss
Marj Passman

AHAA (check here to see candidate answers)

Mayor - Dave Cieslewicz

Common Council
2 - Brenda Konkel
4 - Mike Verveer
5 - Robbie Webber
6 - Marsha Rummel
8 - Lauren Woods
9 - Larry Pasha
10 - Brian Solomon
11 - Tim Gruber
12 - Satya Rhodes- Conway and Mike Basford
15 - Vicky Selkowe

Green Party
Common Council
2 - Brenda Konkel
5 - Robbie Webber
6 - Marsha Rummel
8 - Lauren Woods
12 - Satya Rhodes Conway

So, given the above, while all of these people haven't been officially endorsed, if I were to make my picks today, I'd go with the following:

Common Council
1 - Aaron Backer
4 - Mike Verveer (PD, AHAA)
5 - Robbie Webber (PD, AHAA, Green)
6 - Marsha Rummel (PD, AHAA, Green)
8 - Lauren Woods (PD, AHAA, Green)
9 - Larry Pasha - (AHAA)
10 - Brian Solomon (AHAA)
11 - Tim Gruber (PD, AHAA)
13 - Julia Kerr
15 - Vicky Selkowe (PD, AHAA)
20 - Gary Poulson

School Board
Johnny Winston Jr
Beth Moss
Marj Passman

A few of these gave me pause and there's two glaring endorsements missing. Here's a few brief comments on some of the races.

1 - I like and respect Jed Sanborn for his independence and I agree with some of his libertarian points of view, but in the end, I think Aaron Backer would be a more consistent vote with my values.

6 - I also like and respect Carl DuRocher and appreciate his years of service to the City on the Transit and Parking Commission. I also like Adam Casey. However, Marsha's years of activism, thoughtfulness and careful analysis of complex issues and involvement with the Council in the last few years allow her to hit the ground running, and we're going to need that with all of these newbies.

8 - I continue to be impressed with the students who run for office and former alders Brent Sieling and Todd Jarrell and current Alder Austin King should be confident that they won't be let down by Lauren Woods. District 8 will once again be in good hands if they elect Lauren Woods.

9 - I really enjoyed the AHAA interview with Larry Pasha and he's such a stark contract to Paul Skidmore. His years as a police officer makes him a guy with alot to offer the City of Madison.

12 - Ok, I've officially been in Madison for too long. I've known Mike Basford and Marcus Watson for over 10 years and like them both. They both pass the "I'd go have a beer with them" test. I've worked on numerous campaigns with Mike Basford and people who are volunteering for him. Mike's wife used to work for me. And, of course, I've worked closely on progressive political issues with Satya Rhodes-Conway over the past two years. This one is just too tough for me. I'm sitting out and feel comfortable doing that because both Mike Basford and Satya Rhodes-Conway are well equipped to represent the 12th district.

18 - Leaning towards Jon Becker because I worked with him on Cherokee Marsh and there's lots to like, but I haven't met all the candidates and feel like its unfair to make a slightly uninformed response.

19 - I could work with either Mark Clear or Curt Brink. I don't think we'll vote much the same, but I can and have worked with both of them.

And finally, the Mayor's race. I'm torn. I've known Peter for 10 years and its easy to like and respect him for so many reasons. I think he has what it takes to be a good Mayor and I like his style and inclusiveness, I just wish he had decided months ago to run. And I wish Mayor Cieslewicz was the same as Mayor and candidate. He says so many of the right things to earn my vote, but somehow it gets lost in the execution. If I had to cast my vote today, I don't know what I'd do, seriously.
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Trolley Referenda

My referendum (Cap Times) is better than your referendum (no print press coverage?). Sigh, a classic case of the politics of "me too". And a classic example of us talking about the wrong thing. Instead of talking about a referendum on trolleys, we should be talking about improvements we can make to the bus system today.

As way of background, on Wednesday, the Common Council got this email from the Munoz campaign.

From: Munoz for Madison
Sent: Wed 1/24/2007 2:49 PM
To: Thomas, Cindy; Bruer, Tim; Radomski, Noel; Van Rooy, Paul; Rosas, Santiago; Compton, Judy; Palm, Larry; Knox, Isadore; Benford, Brian; Gruber, Timothy; Golden, Ken; Skidmore, Paul; King, Austin; Brandon, Zach; Olson, Judy; Verveer, Mike; Sanborn, Jed; Konkel, Brenda; Webber, Robbie; Cnare, Lauren
Subject: Munoz calls for Trolley/ Streetcar Referendum

Dear Council Members:

Today I released a statement asking you to place an advisory referendum on the April 3rd ballot. The referendum asks voters whether the City should consider installing streetcars/trolleys as part of its public transportation system.

I hope you will take this opportunity to support the advisory referendum so taxpayers can decide the future of Mass Transit within our community. I would greatly appreciate your support in providing voters the opportunity to express their will on this important issue. Please feel free to call me for further discussion.

Best Regards,


Peter R. Munoz
[phone number deleted]


MUNOZ for MADISON
NEWS RELEASE


For Immediate Release:
January 24, 2007
For More Information Contact:
Napoleon Smith
[phone number deleted]

Peter Munoz, Mayoral Candidate, Calls for Madison Voter Referendum on Streetcars/Trolleys

Madison - City of Madison mayoral candidate Peter Munoz is calling for a voter referendum on whether the City should consider installing streetcars/trolleys as part of its public transportation system. The referendum is to be included on the April 3, 2007 ballot.

Peter Munoz stated: "Mayor Cieslewicz dreams of having streetcars/trolleys in Madison. This is a very expensive dream that Madison simply does not need or can afford. I think Madison taxpayers do not agree with the Mayor nor want to foot the bill to make his dream a reality."

Mayor Cieslewicz wants to pay for trolleys by combining Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) with room tax and other local funding. Peter Munoz stated: "The City is facing a crisis with its inability to provide basic services, such as safe, clean drinking water, and assuring public safety. The City must ensure its resources are invested wisely to address this crisis rather than spend them in pursuit of frivolous dreams. Taxpayers simply cannot afford to pay for the Mayor's vision of a 'cool' transit alternative. They must have the last word on this issue."

By Thursday, Mayor Dave was calling for his own referendum.

Ignoring the politics of trolleys and the upcoming Mayor's race, is a referendum or referenda on trolleys what we need as a City? Don't we need the community discussion on the transportation options available to us? Safe, reliable, affordable mass transportation is clearly a need in a City like ours. I'm skeptical that trolleys are the way to get us there and prefer to see us putting all this time and energy and media attention into the bus system. Why aren't we focusing on studying the bus system and improvements that could be made there? Changes to the bus system can happen within the year, we won't see a trolley, or light rail or intercity rail for years.

Part of me is tempted to support an immediate referendum on the trolley issue to put the issue to rest so we can move on to some real discussions about what our city's mass transportation needs are. Part of me thinks the community discussion on ALL of the transportation options is a better way to go. However, based on past experiences, I'm skeptical that this community discussion will happen in a meaningful way. But . . . the Mayor's press release on this said something that has some appeal. It calls for:

. . . a three-step process:

1. Allow the Streetcar Study Committee to complete its proposal for a streetcar system sometime this summer.

2. Evaluate that proposal together with recommendations from other committees reviewing transit issues, such as Transport 2020, which is studying commuter rail, and the Mayor's ad hoc committee on the long-term future of the Madison Metro bus system.

3. If there is agreement to go ahead with the streetcar or a more comprehensive proposal, he would take that to a public referendum before the project moved forward.

It's hard to ignore the mayoral politics going on here and make a decent decision. It is hard to trust that any decision about public transportation is going to have meaningful community input, given past promises of public input. It is hard to see us likely wasting all this time on discussions of trolleys when it seems unlikely to be a viable solution for our community and meanwhile, not focusing on improvements to the bus system - that can happen now.

Referendum now or later doesn't seem to be the solution. We need a firm, detailed commitment for a meaningful community discussion - i.e. not the way we usually do it. It's unfortunate that the Council will be discussing trolley referenda at the next Council meeting when we will likely have more pressing needs on our agenda . . . like Allied Drive and the reorganization of the Department of Planning and Development (proposed to be Department of Economic and Community Development) and meanwhile, we won't be talking about the City bus system.

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Other things in the Downtown Safety Plan

When Captain Mary Schauf reviewed the Downtown Safety Plan with me, I was very pleased. However, you likely didn't hear about the parts of the plan that I particularly liked. I liked the part that Ald. Verveer and Susan Schmitz from Downtown Madison Inc hinted at. The newspapers seemed to focus on the temporary cameras and increased patrols, but there's some other very good things in the plan.

Objective 2: Enhance district-wide community policing efforts and engage the community in crime reduction efforts and reduce levels of fear from crime.

Strategies include some community policing strategies I hope they carry through on:

• Assign each Central Community Police Team (C-CPT) member a neighborhood or district as a liaison for areas not served by neighborhood officers.
• Improve accessibility by providing a cellular phone number for citizens to use to report and discuss non-emergency issues.
• Require C-CPT attendance at central neighborhood association and district meetings.
• Have Central District command staff host a district-wide community meeting at the end of every other month beginning in February 2007 to share and discuss crime statistics and disorder concerns.
• MPD will encourage expansion of the Neighborhood Watch programs by providing staff support and training to residents.
• Welcome and educate new district residents on their role to being a good neighbor for the prevention of neighborhood crime problems by providing a pamphlet for distribution by neighbors.
• Provide and administer a survey in February 2007 and November 2007 aimed at soliciting information on levels of fear of crime.
• Provide information on the Central District section of the MPD web page.
• Participate in downtown safety list service.
  

I think all of the above are very good steps to take to increase community involvement of the Police Department. Obviously, I'd rather see more community police officers, but with these enhancements, I think it is a good first step.

Mostly, the newspapers focused on Objective 1: Work to reduce violent street level crime from 11 p.m. to approximately 3 am for the Central District. The criminal activity peaks before and after bar time, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, into the following morning.

Those strategies included most of what the papers wrote about:

• Directed patrols of two to six mobile or foot patrol officers deployed to specific areas for street-level enforcement.
• Deploy cameras in areas with the highest concentration of street-level crime. The cameras will have the ability to move if a crime pattern is identified in another area.
• Directed patrol on bicycle, motorcycle, and mounted patrol for street-level enforcement.
  

But I think a huge thing that can help people be and feel safer downtown is about the lighting in the street and this strategy should help with that:

• Seasonal assessment of lighting and forestry issues with MPD, Forestry, and Streets staff,

I'd like to see us also explore the use of pedestrian scale lighting in the downtown area. The great trees we have downtown block many of the lights in the summer and instead of massacring the trees, I think we should have lighting that works with the trees.

The plan also included Objective 3: Improve voluntary compliance with alcohol-related ordinances in licensed and unlicensed establishments.

Those strategies include:

• MPD staff will conduct Safer Bar Training for tavern staff.
• MPD will work to expand Safer Bar Training to include community involvement.
• Conduct compliance checks at licensed establishment using both uniform and non-uniformed personnel. Repeat random visits would occur at non-compliant addresses. University of Wisconsin Police would be invited to participate in areas adjacent to student housing.
• Notify potential nuisance property owners of concerns in writing.
• Provide case files for prosecution to the Office of the City Attorney.
  

All the talk about security cameras did remind me to go back and look at the report we did a few years ago. I thought the APM was written, but I'll have to follow up. Page 19 of the report suggests a policy that requires:

Video camera/electronic image recording use policies should include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. A statement regarding the agency’s objective behind video surveillance and the scope of surveillance given the stated objective.
2. The manner in which individuals will be notified that video cameras are in use and they may be recorded. Such notification will not be required in cases where video surveillance is used pursuant to an investigation of law violations.
3. Placement of cameras and whether they will be permanently located.
4. Whether, and under what circumstances, portable cameras will be used.
5. Guidelines regarding retention and storage of videotapes/digital image recordings.
6. Guidelines regarding use and viewing of videotapes/digital image recordings.
7. Staff training regarding the use, retention and storage of video surveillance/digital image recordings.
8. Identification of individuals authorized to operate the video surveillance system.
9. Identification of the custodian of video surveillance tapes/records.

Hopefully these policies are in place and as noted, the cameras are to be used for temporary purposes. If that's the case, and with the new neighborhood community policing activities, this is a good plan. I hope it works!
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What would you ask?

If you could ask the Mayoral candidates anything you wanted, what would it be? Obviously, I have my own list of things I'm looking for. Progressive Dane is holding a Mayoral debate at the Warner Park Recreation Center on Wednesday, February 7th at 6:30 and we're asking for you to help us come up with some of the questions. We are particularly looking for some "speed round" questions that can be either "yes or no" questions or "either/or questions" (ex. boxers or briefs). Oh, and humor is encouraged.

We're hoping that the candidates in this race and the general public can start talking about something other than if people think trolleys are a good idea, if the Mayor bungled the water issue and if Peter should have known he would have to take a leave of absence (and if Mayor Dave had anything to do with his leave of absence). We're hoping it can be about the things that matter in our daily lives and that we can talk about the future of this City. Some don't think we can get much out of these candidates, but I don't think we should give up. If you have ideas, please feel free to share.
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An agenda for the City

This spring's elections need to be about more than water, trolleys and taxes. Yes, our water needs to be safe to drink. What candidate isn't going to say that? Yes, we need to keep our taxes in line. What candidate isn't going to say that? And trolleys, well, there's so little support, or need, for them they're hardly worth talking about. We need to get down to some issues that the City of Madison will have to deal with in the next few years, that haven't gotten so much attention. Here's a list of things I worked with Progressive Dane members to come up with, that we hope to hear this spring's candidates talking about and hopefully supporting. Don't let candidates running for office get away with vague statements about supporting economic development and local small businesses, improving Madison Metro, supporting creation of affordable housing, etc. Ask them, what they intend to do to work on these issues. Here's a few of our ideas.

Economic Development

• We need the Economic Development Commission to finally get that Economic Development Plan for the City done. The last time we had a plan was 1983.
  
• We want to see a local small business bus pass purchasing pool so small businesses can provide free bus passes to their employees similar to programs of large employers at local hospitals and the University.
  
• We need a local purchasing preference for City purchases so that when we can, we keep our money in our local economy. (Local doesn't mean limiting our purchases to businesses in the City of Madison, we can look more broadly at the regional economy.)
  
• We need to make sure that when we talk about job creation, we are not only talking about high skilled bio-tech jobs, but instead, jobs that people with few skills can get into after some training and have a career path or chance for advancement.

TIF

• When talking about TIF, we need make sure that the City of Madison is setting the goals and priorities, not simply responding to individual developer proposals.
• We want to make sure that there are clear community benefits to providing TIF assistance. The City should set goals for the number of jobs and amount of workforce housing we need. We should also prioritize areas we feel are in need of redevelopment.
  
• We should work on methods to have TIF assist small businesses, perhaps by helping them buy affordable condo space for their businesses.
  
• High-end condos in the downtown are no longer needed to spur revitalization of the downtown; we need to be looking at workforce housing throughout the City.
  
• Finally, as with economic development, we want to make sure the jobs we create or retain with TIF funds are jobs that low skilled people can obtain with a little training and have opportunities for advancement.

Allied Drive

• We need a plan; an agreed upon strategy for redeveloping the neighborhood. We need this sooner rather than later. We need to agree how much affordable housing we want to have in the area and how affordable it will be. We need to agree on how much of the new housing will be rental vs. ownership.
  
• We need a clear strategy to keep people in the neighborhood, not pushing them around and simply moving low-income neighborhoods throughout the City as we have done in the past. Removing people from the neighborhood and moving in all new people should not be considered a success.
• As landlords are forced to clean up their properties, we need to make sure that families who are not a part of the problem are not displaced from the neighborhood. The City owned properties should be part of the solution to preventing displacement of current residents.
• We need to utilize the City owned properties to help residents with less than stellar rental records or credit records rehabilitate their records to help move them into successful housing - either rental or ownership, as appropriate.
  

Strong neighborhood services

• If we're going to have a "one stop shop" for businesses, we can have something similar for neighborhoods
• We need strong neighborhood plans for more areas of the City that are new to seeing development proposals.
• We need to be more customer-friendly to neighborhoods, not just for developers.

Neighborhood policing and preventative services

• We need more neighborhood officers, not less. We need officers in the neighborhoods in the evenings when social services providers go home for the day. Neighborhood policing is a key to prevention and removing the neighborhood officers is a step backwards.
• We need to be increasing preventative social services to address issues with people prior to turning to our busy police department for law enforcement.

Safe, affordable, reliable mass transportation

• We need mass transit in this City that works for the people who work non-traditional hours. 2nd and 3rd shift workers should be able to use the bus to get to work and home again. During the holidays, bus schedules should match extended retail hours.
• We need more frequent bus service so transit dependent people don't spend hours trying to get to where they need to go and to encourage more riders to feel like the bus is a viable option.
• Express buses between the transfer points and during peak hours.

Childcare

• When it comes to childcare, we need to continue to work to continue to fill the gap for those who have low-income jobs. If you're working and 50% or more of your income is going towards childcare, it quickly becomes unaffordable to live in this City. While we increased the funding for the childcare tuition assistance program this year, we still have not closed the gap.
  
• High quality affordable childcare is key to the future of our schools and our community. We need to work to make high quality childcare available and a viable option for more families in our community.

Affordable housing

• We need to fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. At the moment, it is going to take over 20 years before the fund grows to the point where it generates significant money to invest in affordable housing. Putting $300,000 - $500,000 a year into the fund is not putting our money to its best use. Capitalizing the fund quickly simply is more effective, it, too, is an investment in our future.
• We need an affordable housing strategy for Madison. With State restrictions on what we can do when it comes to affordable housing, we need to invest money into affordable housing and we need a strategy to do that most effectively.

Transparent, accessible government

• We need better information available to the public in a more timely manner.
• We need a clearer budget process with more information.
  
• Our public input process needs to be more meaningful and generally speaking, the public needs to feel like their voices are being heard and the government is serving them.

To sum it all up, our government has to work, not only for the business community, but also for the people that make the business community successful, their employees. An affordable safe place to live, an affordable dependable bus system to get to work, daycare that doesn't eat up half your paycheck and a job with opportunities for advancement are just as much basic services our government should be addressing as plowed streets and safe drinking water. We need to make sure Madison is a high quality place to live for everyone, not just catering to the needs of the business community.

p.s. More to come. I know there are criticisms of some of our issues and I will address them in the coming weeks.

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Council Recap: Jan 16, 2007

For those of you who miss Kristian Knutson's live-blogging of the City Council on thedailypage.com, I hear ya! Here's my best recap of what happened last night . . . but I'm sure it won't be as good as Kristian's.

Council agenda with all the links can be found here.

BEFORE THE MEETING
The meeting started out a little rocky as Mayor Dave, Council President Austin King and Pro Tem Paul VanRooy were all not in attendance. In the absence of our official leadership, Ald. Bruer took the chair and Ald. King had arranged for Ald. Verveer to move the agenda. Prior to the meeting I asked why the Mayor was not in attendance and got the answer of "He's not in the building" followed by an "In fact, he might not be in the City". Hmmmm . . . there were grins and smiles and giggles, but I have no clue where he was and I don't think they wanted me to know. Alders King, VanRooy and Rosas were noticed absences, but Skidmore was absent as well. This promised to make things a little difficult because no matter how many people are in attendance, you still need 11 votes for anything to pass.

ALLIED DRIVE
The first motion of every meeting is to suspend the rules to allow introduction of items at the meeting that have not been previously referred and to suspend several other rules. We routinely do this in the beginning of every meeting, but tonight, there was controversy. The oath and the Allied Drive issue were both introduced under suspension of the rules, the oath was allowed to move forward, but Alder Brandon objected to dealing with the Allied Drive issue. Since this requires a 2/3 vote or 14 votes, the motion failed and we had to refer it to the next council meeting. I had explained the reason it was under suspension of the rules was that time was of the essence because the resolution dealt with landlords and eviction nuisances and I was fearful that in the next few weeks we might see additional landlords evicting people in Allied Drive due to fear of a nuisance action being taken against them by the City Attorney's office. Apparently, Alder Brandon objected to allowing people who are not a part of the problem being allowed to live in our 2/3 vacant City owned property and so he used this hardly ever used procedural objection to delay discussion. There was discussion of referring this to the Allied Drive Task Force and the Plan Commission, that failed. Instead, we referred it to our next meeting. Stay tuned.

MISCELLANEOUS
So, the next few minutes of the meeting we proclaimed January 16, 2007 Half Price Books Half Pint Library Day, referred honoring Chief Charles Cole for 35 years of service to the City until he could attend the meeting, renewed the 5-year contract of the Housing Unit Director (Public Housing and Section 8 program) for Augustine "Augie" Olvera, referred some items and then got to the "oath" issue.

OATH
A substitute was introduced, correcting a reference to the wrong part of the constitution and calling the "addendum" a "supplemental statement". There were only two speakers on the "oath" - Bert Zipperer, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission and Lauren Woods, also serving on the Equal Opportunities Commission. Here's where Kristin's efforts are greatly missed. It's hard for an alder paying attention to what is going on to have captured everything. Speeches were made, grandstanding occurred, some absurd statements were made and time went by. When all was said and done, the vote was 13 - 4. The clerk mis-counted and announced the wrong total, so I'm sure the reporters will be reporting this wrong today. The vote was as follows: In favor: Ken Golden, Tim Gruber, Isadore Knox, Brenda Konkel, Judy Olson, Larry Palm, Mike Verveer, Robbie Webber, Brian Benford, Zach Brandon, Tim Bruer, Lauren Cnare, Santiago Rosas. Voting against: Judy Compton, Noel Radomski, Jed Sanborn, Cindy Thomas. Absent: Austin King, Paul Skidmore, Paul VanRooy. In the end, I think the oath ended up be sponsored by Mayor Dave, King, Konkel, Verveer, Benford, Webber, Olson and maybe Knox . . . but again, I wasn't keeping track so well, will try to do better in the future.
The backstory on who are sponsors is a long one, complicated by bad reporting from the Wisconsin State Journal and a new rule the City Attorney is trying to enforce, which may someday be the subject of another blog.

NEIGHBORHOOD CONSERVATION DISTRICTS
Three lobbyists showed up to speak to the issue. Phil Salkin of the Realtors Association, Carole Schaeffer of Smart Growth Madison and Susan Schmitz of Downtown Madison Inc. The Realtors and Smart Growth were against and wanted to see the neighborhood start the process, have a sunset provision on the districts, I think the Realtors wanted us to have staff do a bunch of reports before we passed anything, Carole wanted conservation districts only if there were historic elements in the ordinance and a requirement that there be a neighborhood plan in place prior to allowing a study for a district. Downtown Madison Inc simply wanted the sunset on the districts.

The lobbyists were successful in convincing council members that what neighborhoods really wanted was to start the process themselves, despite the fact that no "neighbor" showed up to say that. I always find it amusing when the Realtors Association claims to be "looking out for the little guy" when it is so transparent that they sent their paid lobbyist to protecting the property rights of their wealthy board. Anyways, there were multiple amendments suggested and a discussion about if people in the area should vote and have veto power, give input or simply be noticed when a district gets started. In my opinion, the whole discussion was a bit absurd. Apparently there was a fear that rogue alders would go around creating neighborhood conservation districts willy-nilly. And the fact that we required:
a) A resolution to pass the council before there could even be a study about creating a conservation district
b) Notice to all property owners, occupants and businesses in the affected area
c) An "interested party registry" to allow people to sign up to get notice of city meetings
d) Approval of a the common council after the study is done, which included public hearings at the plan commission and common council
Apparently wasn't enough. Funny, no matter how many things you add to an ordinance for the lobbyists, they still claims that there is not compromise. (Ok - Kristian wouldn't have had the editorial comments, but it saves me an additional blog.)

After a while, we finally we tabled the item because it was past 8:30 and several mothers with young children were waiting to testify. When we came back to it at the end of the meeting, Ken Golden made a big long amendment I didn't write down, and it passed, but the ordinance failed. The final vote in favor was: Golden, Gruber, Konkel, Olson, Verveer, Webber, Benford, Cnare. Voting no were: Compton, Knox, Palm, Sanborn, Thomas, Brandon, Bruer, Radomski. Absent were: King, Rosas, Skidmore and VanRooy. Rosas may have voted "present" on this one, but I listed him in the absence column since his vote wouldn't be counted in the vote total. Sorry, my bad, again. Anyways, the vote was 8 - 8 and we need 11 votes for it to pass.

BREASTFEEDING
As noted, we tabled the above discussion to get to the breastfeeding debate. Several women and health professionals (also all women) testified to the benefits of breastfeeding the issues that women encounter when trying to breastfeed in public. There were some questions and it passed unanimously with 18 or so sponsors.

Here's where things really started jumping all around, so these may not be in order . . . but here's what happened.

CHEROKEE (Special Area Plan, Annexation Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding)
Only one speaker in favor, the (nice) lobbyist for the entity that wants to develop the marsh. Three speakers with concerns. Several thank yous the Friends of Cherokee Marsh were made by alders. No amendments were even offered as it was clear it was a done deal. It passed on a voice vote with myself and Alder Palm voting "no". I asked for my vote to be recorded, I don't know if Alder Palm did the same. During the meeting, Alder Palm talked to me about environmental concerns and I believe that is why he voted no.

SUDAN/DARFUR
This resolution called for the State to divest from Sudan. Several speakers in support. Council members in favor were Golden, Gruber, Knox, Konkel, Olson, Verveer, Webber, Benford, Bruer, Cnare. Against were Compton, Thomas and Radomski. King, VanRooy and Skidmore were absent. Palm was out of the room. Brandon, Rosas and Sanborn abstained/voted present. The motion failed because it only had 10 votes.

TREES/PURCHASING POLICIES/"LOCAL" PURCHASING
We agreed to purchase trees on a sole source/dual source basis from two Wisconsin nurseries McKay and Johnson. The resolution said that we would allow this "indefinitely". I separated it so that we could limit the ability to do this for 10 years. The reason for the permission to do this is that we need bigger trees and other Cities are buying them all up quickly and this allows us to get these nurseries to guarantee us trees of the size and variety that we want, and get them from Wisconsin. I believe some staff and alders would have preferred that we limited this to 2 or 3 years, but some of the trees we want need to be 7 years old and we needed to give the nurseries comfort that if they planted the trees, we'd be there in 7 years to purchase them.

ATC EXPERT
Ok - this one confused me. I thought we were hiring an expert of the case we were already intervening in. However, we were hiring an expert for a case that has not yet been filed before the PFC. I was hoping that since this expert would likely help other groups that were intervening, we could share costs, but it seemed doubtful. So, we're spending $35,000 to hire an expert. I'd say the resolution isn't as specific as the City Attorney explained at the meeting, but it passed unanimously.

AMENDING THE 2007 BUDGET
This one is just irritating, we go through a whole long budget process with many, many amendments and 2 months later we're making many, many amendments. It passed unanimously.

CENTRAL PARK
Only separated because the recommendation of the plan commission to move the date of the report from June 2007 to Jan 2008 wasn't included in the materials before the council. Passed unanimously.

ADVERTISING ON BUSES
This advertising is for inside and outside of the buses, including full bus wraps. The contract says that Adams Outdoor Advertising will guarantee $250,000 in 2007, $130,000 less than we had budgeted for. This is disappointing after all the hoopla about how much we can make from advertising. In the past, without the full wraps, we were able to obtain the following amounts:

2002 $341,000
2003 $390,000
2004 $301,000
2005 $169,000
2006 $142,000 through October

Prior to 2005 when we entered into a contract with a company that did not perform well, we were bringing in $300,000 in a bad year. My concerns are twofold: One, advertising revenues projected by Adams Outdoor Advertising in the ramps has fallen short. Two, when we added the bus wraps shouldn't we be doing more business than before we added them? The contract doesn't seem to reflect this. This also passed unanimously.

And with that, I introduced two more resolutions at the end of the meeting, one calling for us to adopt an Affordable Housing Plan for the Allied Drive area - this was referred to the Allied Drive Task Force and the Housing Committee. A second was introduced on Alder King's behalf that would call for an advisory referendum to call for "presidential accountability". This was referred to the next council meeting.
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Blogging Bumps

Well, the good news is, the spellchecker works again! You may have noticed over the last few days that things on this blog don't appear as usual. I switched to the "new blogger" software and its taken me a bit to get things "back to normal". However, you should find some things have improved. For instance, the archived links are easier to read and I have started to categorize my posts to make them easier to find. There's much work to be done over the next week or so, but hopefully, you'll find improvement here . . . and yes, that includes now being able to use spellcheck again. I just need to remember to use it!
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The Boys vs. The Girls

Last week, much of the local political gossip was about the Democratic Party endorsements. I didn't attend cuz I'm not a Democrat and haven't been for some time, but it is my understanding that they endorsed Julia Kerr, Brian Solomon, Aaron Backer, Gary Poulson, Mark Clear, Joe Claussius. 5 men and 1 woman.

Last night, when I was sitting in the Green Party endorsement interviews it struck me that based on the interviews, the Greens could be endorsing 5 women. They don't vote until next week Monday, but the stark contrast stuck me.

Currently, there are only 6 women on the Common Council. Judy Compton, Lauren Cnare, Robbie Webber and myself are not among the retiring. Cindy Thomas and Judy Olson are. Theoretically, we could be down to three women if all of the men won. In fact, of the people running we are guaranteed men in 8 races. And the statistical odds in the rest of the races aren't so hot. In addition to the unchallenged incumbents Mike Verveer, Tim Bruer and Zach Bradon, a man is guaranteed to win the the following races:

* = incumbent

District 1
Aaron Backer
Jed Sanborn*

District 9
Paul Skidmore*
Larry Pasha

District 10 Ken Golden*
Nick Dorneanu
Thomas McClure
Chris Ogden
Brian Solomon

District 18 Paul VanRooy*
Andy Lindgren
Michael Schumacher
Jon Becker
Benito Juarez Olivas

District 19 Noel Radomski*
Curt Brink
Mark Clear

Even in the races where women are running, they are outnumbered in several cases. 2 races have 3 men and 1 woman running. All things being equal, the women would only have a 25% chance of winning.

District 6 Judy Olson*
Brooks McGrath
Marsha Rummel
Carl Durocher
Adam Casey, exempt

District 12 Brian Benford*
Michael Basford
Satya Rhodes-Conway
Mark Deadman
Marcus Watson

Three races have 2 men and 1 woman. All things being equal, the women only have a 33.3% chance of winning.

District 11
Tim Gruber*
Sandra Saul
Christopher Schmidt

District 13 Isadore Knox
Julia Kerr
Duane Steinhauer
Mike Clark

District 15
Larry Palm*
Vicky Selkowe
Mark Schmitt

We have three match ups where the chances are 50-50.

District 5
Troy Thiel
Robbie Webber*

District 8 Austin King*
Lauren Woods
Eli Judge

District 20 Cindy Thomas
Gary Poulson
Thuy Pham-Remmele

And only one races where the odds favor the women.

District 17 Santiago Rosas
Joe Clausius
Sarah Florino
Mary Thornton

In order for there to be 100% gender balance on the council, 7 women and 2 men can win in races where there are choices between gender. If that were to happen, how would that change the way the council does business? Could there be a little less chest beating and game playing and a little more listening and governing with a heart? Would it change the way lobbyists approach the Council and how they try to influence us? Would there be a little less deal making with your chums at the men's basketball game and a little more actual discussion on the floor of the Council? Or, would us women fall all over ourselves trying to act like the men and help to repeat the games played at the scene at the Democratic Party meeting this last week? Could women help change the culture of the Council to one where we focus on governing instead of "playing politics"? Or would it just be more of the same?

Sorry, guys. You're nice, but sometimes the way to accomplish your goals is a little less than ideal. I don't think gender is the only thing that can change the way politics is done, but I sure think it might help.
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Dizzy from the Spin . . .Paul Soglin, WSJ and tdp

A few comments about experiences with Paul Soglin, the Wisconsin State Journal and Jason Joyce at thedailypage.com - all in one day. Sometimes, so much is said that is wrong, one hardly knows whether to respond or not. Today, I can't resist. There's just so much material.

It started my morning by responding to a suggestion by Jason Joyce on the thedailypage.com where he basically said that Progressive Dane endorsed elected officials had to vote in lock step against Zach Brandon. I presented several facts to prove not only do we not vote in lockstep, but we don't vote in lockstep against the nice Alder. And I also pointed out how our good ideas one year get voted down, and the next year, are sponsored by the same people who voted against them the previous year.

Then, I had read Paul Soglin's latest in his recent obsession spreading untruths about progressives and Progressive Dane. In this case, he that repeated the often repeated myth of the Progressive Dane oath. Specifically he claims:

PD basically demands a loyalty oath from all candidates seeking its endorsement. The absolutist position of PD in regards to candidates is one of the reasons that the present mayor, no longer needing them to establish his left credentials, is not renewing his membership.

I don't remember raising my hand and taking any such oath. And I'm wondering what Paul knows that I don't know about why Mayor Dave isn't renewing his membership, cuz this wasn't mentioned when he got the call about renewing his membership. And for what its worth, this is the so-called loyalty oath.

Finally, I got around to reading the Wisconsin State Journal editorial about the oath of office elected officials and committee members take. This one baffles me to some degree. Their article on the oath identified me as the sole sponsor of this initiative. And they repeated my name in their editorial, but as I pointed out on thedailypage, I'm not the only sponsor. This is sponsored by Brian Benford, Austin W. King, Brenda K. Konkel, David J. Cieslewicz, Michael E. Verveer, Zachariah Brandon, Judy K. Olson. And typically the first person listed is considered the lead sponsor. So, since the Wisconsin State Journal reporter hadn't talked to me, you have to wonder how she decided to only list my name as a sponsor. (You also might want to read the City Attorney's response to the legal issues regarding the oath.)

These are just three examples of why you have to be careful when you believe, and repeat, what you hear on the internet and even in the media. There's so much spin sometimes it makes you dizzy. Oh, and before I forget, PD didn't stack the Dem meeting. Several Progressive Dane leaders were busy having our monthly Steering Committee meeting while the Dems were doing their endorsements. It's getting deep out there, and I'm not talking about the snow. And that spinning, isn't tires.
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Allied Drive - What we have here, is a failure to communicate.

Many times government does things *to* people, without asking them what they want, and without listening to those who speak up. Allied Drive is no exception to this practice, but neither are they alone in experiencing this phenomenon. Though, arguably, in many respects, their stakes are higher. Despite our best efforts to create systems that provide opportunities for people on Allied Drive to have input into what happens to and in their neighborhood, we don't seem to have gotten it right yet.

I haven't quite figured out what is wrong, but it seems to be a severe lack of communication both within the Department of Planning and Development (currently being reorganized, partially because of issues like this) and within the City as a whole. Add to that the fact that we seem to have different philosophies within the City staff, within the Department of Planning and Development and throughout the City, about how and when to communicate with the neighborhood. Regardless of why or how it is happening, it is clear, we need to communicate better, more often and start to build some trust between the neighborhood and the City. Unfortunately, when events happen like are reported by Vikki Kratz in this week's Isthmus (please read! its the third story in this compilation. Here's some additional background), it sets everything back another step.

I don't know how to solve the problem, but I do know that I am introducing two resolutions to get a better conversation going in the neighborhood with the City. The first one stems from a meeting I was at on Tuesday morning where a City staff person told us that staff had met and had decided that they couldn't have people who were displaced from the buildings on Allied Drive because the City was talking to the landlord about a nuisance abatement move into the 2/3 vacant City owned property because the Council has passed a resolution to that effect. I didn't quite recall what he was talking about, but sure enough, I looked it up and we did say something to that effect. So I wrote a resolution to "undo" our action. Turns out, that caused an uproar in City Hall and now, less than 24 hours after I submitted the resolution, I'm being told that now the city staff feel that they can, in fact, allow Meyer Management to rent to new families to prevent them from being displaced from Allied Drive. One issue resolved, I hope. And the Council hasn't even voted yet!

The second part of that resolution goes a bit further and says that we should be renewing leases with the current residents in our properties and that we should allowing new people to rent. We currently don't have a time line for when we will start to rehabilitate or demolish and rebuild on this property. When we bought the 129 units on Allied Drive there were 89 occupied units, and now there are less than 50. 42 families (or maybe even less now as my numbers are about a month old) and some service providers. Three buildings have been shut down. And families have had to move out of the Allied Drive area. (Please read Lisa Subeck's account of one family's experience. ) Until we have a timeline for construction, I think we should be keeping these buildings rented and having them produce income.

The second resolution I will be introducing on Tuesday night will provide an opportunity for the Allied Drive Task Force to give the City input on what kind of housing they think should be provided in the Allied Drive area. Currently, residents have been asking for the following:

• No more than 40% of the units would be owner-occupied.

• Of the rental units, at least 50% would be affordable for the folks who live on Allied Drive - meaning someone making $14,900 wouldn't pay more than 30% of their income for rent.

• No more "innocent" families will be displaced due to City initiated actions. If families are displaced that funding be provided for relocation costs (moving expenses and security deposit help) and that similarly priced units are found for the families to live in.

I'm not sure these two resolutions will solve the bigger problems of communication on Allied Drive, but I think they provide the opportunity for people to start the conversation that is so important to the people who live there. All of this uncertainty about the future of where they live is stressful and we need to better.

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TIF priorities

Yesterday the TIF Policy Committee met to discuss priorities for TIF funding. Current priorities are Support the Downtown, Neighborhood Revitalization and Economic Development. (This isn't the current policy, I can't find the current policy with all of the changes on line anywhere, but the priorities haven't changed. This link has some of the information but you have to put it all together yourself.)

The Committee hasn't come to any conclusions yet, but from what I can tell from the conversation yesterday and a what I would like to see, this is where I think we are going.

Support Job Creation and Retention of Employers
- Jobs should be not just high end bio-tech jobs by jobs.
- Jobs with natural promotion opportunities should be encouraged.
- It may mean more emphasis on industrial TIF or it could be integrated into the neighborhoods.

Workforce Housing
- This topic didn't have much discussion, seemed to be a recognized need.
- There seemed to be an understanding that we didn't need to create more high end condos downtown.

Blight Reduction
- We mean blight in the layman's understanding of the work, not the technical legal sense (i.e. a dead bird on the sidewalk is not blight).

Neighborhood Revitalization
- We need to focus on the truly low income neighborhoods that need assistance and areas that have aged.
- We might prioritize certain districts.

Infrastructure
- We didn't discuss this much, but committee members would like more public input into what infrastructure is going to be paid for with TIF.

We also discussed that the City of Madison has to set clear goals and have the developers respond to our goals instead of the City responding to developer projects. We also discussed that we needed to review our goals every 3 - 5 years so they don't become outdated.

I believe the next step for the committee should be to discuss each of these areas individually and come up with more definition for what we are looking for. It appears we may not necessarily rank these in priority order, but may express preferences for certain types of goals being met.
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Do what the Lobbyist says!

Apparently, some people think the plan commission can't approve anything unless the developer and/or their (very nice) lobbyist agree. What? Yup, that's what I said. Some plan commissioners think they can't approve something unless the developer/their (very nice) lobbyist agrees.

During the discussion of the Cherokee Marsh Special Area Plan, the Friends of Cherokee Marsh came up with an alternative proposal to move some housing units to another area and preserve more open space. Their proposal came in late because they made an agreement to wait until some other things were resolved. So the proposal didn't get alot of early discussion but several plan commissioners thought that there was some merit in the concept.

Sarah Davis and I worked with the Friends of Cherokee Marsh to come up with some language to add the general concept they were talking about to the plan for the area. They originally proposed some more specific language, but we made it more general.

I tried talking to the (very nice) lobbyist for the developer about the language, but he said his client couldn't agree with it. So, Sarah and I proposed the language anyways, because it was so harmless. We read the language for the Plan Commission and then Ald. Golden asked the (very nice) lobbyist to come forward. He asked the (very nice) lobbyist what they thought of the language and the (very nice) lobbyist said that couldn't agree to it. So, the entire plan commission except Sarah and I voted against the language.

What was this offensive language?

It is encouraged to maximize open space to be managed by the City Parks Department as part of the Cherokee Marsh Conservation Area. The developer is encouraged, but not required to consider selling land with a deed restriction requiring the land to be held for conservation purposes. In exchange density increases may be considered.

The reason given by some plan commissioners for voting against this language. "Negotiations are a delicate balance" and we shouldn't mess with them. Well, why bother having a Plan Commission then? If everything gets negotiated before it gets to us, are we not allowed to change anything? Especially something that has harmless weasel language as proposed above? And what happens to groups that were left out of portions of the negotiations? Or neighbors who weren't part of a neighborhood group? Are their voices irrelevant at the Plan Commission? Do Plan Commissioners have to be the part of negotiations and work behind the scenes (out of the public eye) if they want their own voices heard or opinions considered?

I've never seen a lobbyist do the equivalent of stomping their feet, and then object to being encouraged to do something that they are not required to do . . . and have the Plan Commission roll over like that. I hope Mayor Dave's next two appointments to fill the two current vacancies have more of a backbone.

Note: This lobbyist is "nice". I even like him. Could that have been part of the reason the Plan Commission didn't want to vote against him?

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Mis-steps at City Hall

Last week it was a really long week at City Hall . . . and there were only 4 work days. I hope the new year starts to improve quickly! There are about 25 staff people in City Hall who managed to make some mistake, and ended up apologizing or knowing that I am very unhappy with them at the moment. I only say that, cuz I think they will all think that I am writing this blog specifically about them. The reality is, it is about them, but more importantly, its about "the system" and how it is broken. And how things can add up quickly. And as an explanation about why I sometimes lose my cool with City staff. There is just so much the public does not see.

Having a full-time job and trying to be a good and responsive alderperson and good employee is a difficult balancing act. Sometimes I do really well, sometimes it is harder. Last week was one of the "harder" weeks because I spent so much time chasing mistakes and trying to fix them. What the public sees of an alder's work and what gets printed in the paper, is just a tiny fraction of what actually goes on. Sometimes the biggest battles are the ones no one ever hears about. It's getting the paper shuffled from one end of City Hall to the other. Alders rely on staff to do their jobs and do them correctly. And when things go wrong, small mistakes add up and ultimately affect public policy.

In this last week I had the following problems:

• Staff giving out wrong information/withholding information to/from the public and the press. I had to request an Assistant City Attorney talk with the folks that were possibly violating open records laws.
  

• Despite email to the contrary, an item didn't get introduced because it wasn't entered into the Legistar system and ended up in a 2 week delay. This of course, caused concern with neighborhood representatives.
  

• A meeting wasn't properly noticed and had to be cancelled. Rescheduling the meeting is proving difficult and I probably won't be able to make the new meeting.

• An item almost didn't appear on the agenda because there was no fiscal note, but the item was introduced last November.
  

• An item wasn't put into our Legistar system and so the alders received the information late for the meeting and wrong information was handed out in its place, causing concerns that didn't exist.

• Even tho I submitted information weeks ago, I had to wait until 24 hours before something had to be done to get a draft from the City attorney's office. Then review it and get 4 different sponsors to sign off on the draft or they were refusing to release it. (Not the standard procedure.) The draft still had at least one mistake, but in order to get it out to the public prior to the meeting, it had to go out with the mistake.

• An item that is not "tentative" appears as "tentative" on a public agenda and is causing confusion and inadequate notice for the public.

• I was given excuses for mis-steps that were obviously bad cover-ups. In short, I'd say I was misled and told a few little white lies.
  

• When I tried to hold someone accountable for their actions, I was told I was being "unprofessional" and that I should find time to come and talk to the person about the problem. (This is a standard tactic that is problematic because it is difficult when I work when staff are available and when I'm available, they're not working. And of course, I appear to be the unreasonable one.)
  

I'm sure there are more things, I omitted one of the worst from before the holidays. This is just the tip of the iceberg and the things I'm still disappointed enough about to come quickly to my mind. It sure makes the job of an alderperson difficult. There has to be a better way for a bureaucracy to work and be held accountable. And an alder's job has to be easier than this. We shouldn't have to be running around double checking staff work and our work shouldn't be adversely affected by bureaucratic mis-steps. Sometimes I wonder, if the 46 people running for office knew what it was really like, if they would have thrown their hat in the ring? And I really hope that much of this was a result of the recent holidays.

Ok - glad I got that off my chest. I sure hope things start going smoother, cuz last week was a rough one! Almost made me wish I was one of the 9 people retiring. More importantly, I like and respect alot of the hard-working staff we have in City Hall. It makes it kind of hard to explain their behavior. However, I think what we are seeing is the result of continuous budget cuts and increased workloads that don't always have clear priorities and staff that are trying to do too much, too fast.

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Mayor and Staff blow off City Employees and the Common Council

Yesterday the Mayor and his staff managed to blow off hundreds of City Employees. And the Common Council. And now people are asking, where is the Mayor at on important issues? You just can't seem to pin him down. He flip flops and says he's going to do things, and then he doesn't. He just isn't bowling us over here. What am I talking about?

The Annual City Employee bowling tournament, of course. Every year the City has a bowling tournament and there are so many teams that we need to have two shifts at Bowl-a-vard that has 40 lanes. Each year, the Common Council bowls against the Mayor's office. This year, we crushed them. Mostly because they were a complete no show. With no explanation.

No one seemed to know why they weren't there. There was some speculation that perhaps the mayor couldn't get there because there wasn't a trolley for him to take. Or maybe they were afraid we'd beat them worse than last year. We were a little surprised they didn't at least appoint someone to bowl in their place, but perhaps they were afraid those appointments might not pass. Regardless, many are demanding to know why he flip-flopped. He said he was coming before he said he wasn't.

This year's council bowling scores were lower than last year, but we think it was the lack of competition that led us to perform worse than we thought we should have. Here's the scores:

Austin King with a 116 average
131, 139, 161 or
431 pins with an average of 144

Brenda Konkel with a 108 average
84, 121, 107 or
312 pins with an average of 104

Larry Palm with a 133 average
88, 79, 80 or
247 pins with an average of 82

Jed Sanborn with a 128 average
148, 150, 117 or
415 pins with an average of 138

Paul VanRooy with no average cuz it was his first year in the tournament
127, 99, 112 or
338 pins with an average of 112



Overall, not much to report. A good time was had by all with only one unpleasant incident beyond the complete no show of the mayor's office. That incident was when Larry Palm actually fouled and got a big old "F" on the scorecard. I think he's kind of worried about how this might effect his campaign for re-election in his heavily blue collar district.

On a more serious note, some City Staff were amazed that the Mayoral candidates were complete no-shows this year. There was a time where this was a great place for some political glad-handing and generally a chance to show your support for City Staff. Seasoned employees were wondering why the Mayor and other candidates wouldn't at least put in an appearance and are wondering what that means for the future of staff and mayoral relations.
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Nuisance Abatements and Evictions

I was at a meeting of the Allied Drive Task force and was amazed when one of the Assistant City Attorneys explained how excited she was that after the New Year she was going to be focusing on a bunch of nuisance abatements. Excited?

I was horrified. I'm thinking this is going to be 1999 on Broadway-Simpson all over again. (That would be Lakepointe for those of you who are new to town.) The City has a history of bungling these actions and generally making the lives of innocent people pretty miserable and then blaming it on them. Of course, these families fit all the stereotypes and are typically poor, black, dealing with issues of disabilities in the family or other struggles in addition the the struggles of being poor in Madison. And despite promises to reform the process, we are doing the same things we did in 1999. We haven't solved the underlying problems - check out where this person was supposed to move to in 1999 - none other than Allied Drive. There are still no or inadequate relocation costs provided to the tenants and the notices are still unreasonable. What would you do if you were suddenly given 28 days notice to move? We got a little taste of that with the recent Allied Drive evictions/non-renewals and I'm afraid that there are more to come.

Reading these old stories linked above made me wonder, how long before we change the name of Allied Drive? My guess is it will be called Willowpointe or Willow Way. And that's the problem, we are repeating the mistakes we made with Broadway-Simpson and Vera Court and to some extent Darbo-Worthington. Closing down run-down properties and pushing people into different housing, renaming and "revitalizing" neighborhoods yet creating new pockets of poverty and calling renovated areas improved because no one who used to live there lives there now is not success. We need to do better.
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Final: List of Spring Candidates for City of Madison Races

Newspaper Links updated 1/7/07 - Changes since 12/23 are in bold

As of 5:00 on Tuesday here's who has filed at the (very crabby) clerk's office . . . For a taste of what its like in the clerk's office on filing day, check out Kristian Knutson's blog story at thedailypage.com.

* = incumbent
exempt = don't intend to raise over $1,000

(Will continue update websites and articles for the next week or so. Please feel free to send links to candidate's websites and articles I missed.)

MAYOR
Dave Cieslewicz* (Cap Times I, Cap Times II, Cap Times III, WSJ I, WSJ II, Dane101, Isthmus, Isthmus II)
Ray Allen (Cap Times, WSJ I, WSJ II, Isthmus)
Will Sandstrom, exempt (Cap Times)
Peter Munoz (Cap Times I, WSJ I, WSJ II)
Dennis DeNure out of the race (Cap Times, Dane 101)

CITY COUNCIL (WSJ, WSJ II, WSJ III, WSJ IV, Isthmus, Cap Times, Cap Times II, Cap Times III, Cap Times Correction)
District 1
Aaron Backer (Cap Times)
Jed Sanborn*

District 2
Brenda Konkel*

District 3
Lauren Cnare*

District 4
Mike Verveer*

District 5
Troy Thiel (Cap Times)
Robbie Webber*

District 6 (Judy Olson* not running) (Cap Times, WSJ, Isthmus)
Brooks McGrath (Cap Times)
Marsha Rummel (Cap Times, Dane101)
Carl Durocher
Adam Casey, exempt

District 7
Zach Brandon*

District 8 (Austin King* not running) (Cap Times, Isthmus, Isthmus II, Dane101)
Lauren Woods (Isthmus, Cap Times, WSJ)
Eli Judge (Dane101)

District 9
Paul Skidmore*
Larry Pasha

District 10 Ken Golden* Cap Times, WSJ, Dane101, Isthmus)
Nick Dorneanu (Cap Times) exempt
Thomas McClure, exempt
Chris Ogden, exempt
Brian Solomon (Cap Times, Dane101)

District 11 (Cap Times)
Tim Gruber*, exempt
Sandra Saul, exempt
Christopher Schmidt

District 12 (Brian Benford* not running)
Michael Basford (Isthmus, Dane101)
Satya Rhodes-Conway (Cap Times, Isthmus, Dane101)
Mark Deadman (Cap Times, Isthmus)
Marcus Watson (Isthmus) exempt

District 13 (Isadore Knox* not running) (Cap Times, Isthmus, Isthmus II)
Julia Kerr (Cap Times, Dane101)
Duane Steinhauer, exempt
Mike Clark, exempt

District 14
Tim Bruer* exempt

District 15
Larry Palm* (Cap Times)
Vicky Selkowe (WSJ, Dane101)
Mark Schmitt, exempt

District 16
Judy Compton*

District 17 (Santiago Rosas* not running) (Cap Times)
Joe Clausius (Cap Times, Isthmus)
Sarah Florino
Mary Thornton, exempt

District 18 (Paul VanRooy* not running)
Andy Lindgren
Michael Schumacher (WSJ)
Jon Becker
Benito Juarez Olivas, exempt

District 19 (Noel Radomski* not running)
Curt Brink (Isthmus)
Mark Clear (Cap Times, Isthmus)

District 20 (Cindy Thomas* not running) (Isthmus)
Gary Poulson (Cap Times, Isthmus)
Thuy Pham-Remmele (Cap Times, Isthmus)

SCHOOL BOARD (Isthmus, WSJ)
Seat 3 (Shwaw Vang* not running)
Pam Cross-Leone
Beth Moss
Rick Thomas

Seat 4
Johnny Winston Jr*
Tom Brew, exempt (Cap Times)

Seat 5 (Ruth Robarts* not running)
Maya Cole
Marjorie Passman (Cap Times)

Check the WSJ and Cap Times for a list of candidates for school board and city races throughout Dane County. Check the Isthmus for some of the craziness involving filing day.

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