Why is it ok to belittle, berate and be so openly hostile to people trying to participate in their democracy with the decks stacked against them? Last week was a low in public participation as I have never seen before in this city that I love. I just feel sick seeing how citizens giving input or testimony get treated by the City of Madison. Watch as Susan Schmitz from Downtown Madison Inc throws a fit and yells at a citizen who gave input at the City Council meeting, the police chief calls a person “ludicrous” and I get told not to show up to a public hearing and get chastised for being critical of something that they asked for input on and the input session on the Department of Civil Rights Director scheduled on a Friday night not surprisingly gets two members of the public to show up.
CITY COUNCIL MEETING – TUESDAY
Watch Susan have a fit at 16:15 in this video. I would like to think that if the Mayor was there he would have stopped the yelling directly at, by name, a citizen speaker. But I fear is he might have unloaded as well. I’m not always the most tactful person, especially when I’m passionate about something, so I get it. But even I wouldn’t do this. It’s way out of line.
POLICE DEPARTMENT MEMO – THURSDAY
The police say this about a member of the public:
This methodology indicates that just the patrol section of the MPD is currently understaffed by 14 It is ludicrous to suggest that Madison could function with 65 fewer officers today, while providing the same high quality service for all citizens. When I shared Dr. Gelembiuk’s letter with Chief Koval, he exclaimed “What world is this guy living in?! When I ask the city residents if they feel safer in 2016 than they did in 2003 they all vehemently declare absolutely not! One need only look at the 20 shots fired calls within the past 30 days to sufficiently debunk Dr. Gelembiuk’s utopian version of reality in Madison today.”
I don’t know what to say about the police chief and how nasty he is. He’s the most powerful man in the city and can do whatever he wants without reprimand. The opportunity for public input into anything he disagrees with is non-existent and speaking out means he’ll ridicule you.
CDBG COMMITTEE – THURSDAY
There were three items of interest to me on this agenda. The Annual Plan for how the city spends millions of HUD dollars and the “public input” session on the Community Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.
“Public Hearing on 2016 Action Plan” – I looked at the plan on the website and it was a 6 page draft. Clearly, it wasn’t at all what the real draft was going to be. So I contacted staff. I was swiftly reminded that these were decisions that were already made and this is just a HUD required report. Which is good they reminded me because they do this twice a year and once is kinda matters and once it doesn’t matter at all and their usually in the spring it matters, but this is the one they do later in the year and its just done early for some reason. The real plan to comment on, which was 29 pages was sent out at 12:30 the day before the meeting, giving us 29.5 hours to read it and formulate input. Given the discouragement and the large amount of things I have to do, I didn’t bother. When I got to the meeting, I was (ironically) reminded that it would be good to give input on this because no one ever gives them comments. Sigh.
Final report on Community Development Division funding process evaluation by Forward Community Investments
I was just there to listen on this one, I’d seen the presentation twice on the plan and I still don’t get what “it” really is. I asked the presenter for an elevator speech on it, and she couldn’t give me one. There is lots of detail and lots of change in the report. At the meeting they were bemoaning the lack of interest and input into their report and wondering aloud why they hadn’t heard more about it. I volunteered to answer that question for them. I said there were three reasons I discovered while talking to people and they had one of three reactions to the report. 1) Eyeroll and belief that the plan will never happen so its not worth spending their time on. 2) This high level report doesn’t matter, what matters is the implementation and they will pay attention when they start talking about that. 3) They care more about if there will be a summer process for their program that is usually announced by now and due in about 3 weeks and we still don’t know what is going on – if we have to dedicate weeks of our time to a project on a short deadline.
Community Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness – This is what I really was personally interested in. I’m going to blog about this separately on the details, but this was supposed to be a “public input” opportunity. But as you can see from the link, the plan wasn’t there, the committee members hadn’t seen it and they decided that it wasn’t their plan, they aren’t going to adopt it even though the United Way and staff essentially said that this is what they will be making funding decisions based on. I was kinda pissed, as this was billed to us as a public input opportunity on the plan and I do believe funding decisions THIS SUMMER (see above) will be made based on the plan. I was critical of that. And I was quickly chastised for being critical – by staff. So much so that the chair felt the need to thank me twice for coming and being one of the only people to give public input. And I got an apology from staff after the meeting. Meanwhile, our “community plan” wasn’t even looked at by the one committee that actually funds homelessness in the city. Sigh. That deserves criticism.
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL RIGHTS INPUT SESSION – FRIDAY
So, I REALLY want the next director to not just care about employment discrimination (which is very important) but I also want them to care about FAIR HOUSING!!!! I cared so much that I showed up to Lakeview Library at 5:30 on a Friday night to give input. There were 7 staff, a spanish interpreter and a hmong interpreter and one other member of the public besides me showed up, plus the hmong interpreter’s wife who was just there but not for the hearing. Luckily, she spoke up, and the other interpreter also spoke up, so they got input from 4 people, but the other member of the public only gave input once and asked if it matters if she speaks – will it make any difference? Seemed like a fitting end to a shitty week.
BONUS: HOMELESS ISSUES COMMITTEE – MONDAY
I wasn’t going to bother testifying, I’m feeling a little bit like it just doesn’t matter . . . I figured there is no point. But I was reminded that people might have questions for me about the storage and Bubbles program and how they might or might not fit in with the day resource center. The meeting was cancelled because the city didn’t properly notice it.
That’s it, I’m calling it. Local democracy is officially dead.
As activists, community organizers, or whatever you want to call yourself, our job is no longer to participate in democracy, its needs a full-on resuscitation and revival. Personality politics are more important than issues. Naval gazing on the city council is more important than priorities they set about affordable housing, sustainability, equity and transportation. And at the county, getting a meeting done quickly is more important than getting something meaningful done. And to accomplish this both bodies limit public input, get notices out late without full information, and ignore and ridicule you when you show up, schedule meetings during the day, etc etc etc etc etc etc. The disdain for the public is palpable. And all this in a climate where equity is supposed to be important and the key to equity is hearing from those most impacted . . . well, good luck with all that. Who’s going to bother showing up?
