I'm late, but you didn't miss much, MMSD and Dane County have no meetings this week. City only had 2 yesterday . . . and 12 the rest of the week. Spring break, I guess.
As it happens, a lot of closed sessions meetings this week. Forward Lookout's Brenda Konkel joins WORT's Dylan Brogan to preview local government meetings and agendas.
Big budget meetings this week in Dane County and Madison. Forward Lookout's Brenda Konkel and WORT's Dylan Brogan preview this week in local government.
Dane County moved "Forward" and cases spiked, now the UW is going to do a "Smart Restart" with likely similar results. Fancy well branded names can't fool science.
Superintendent contract being voted on without public input and isn't attached for review. No public input on referendum questions vote. Student Senate virtual rally for youth input.
Both School Board President Gloria Reyes and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway announced they will be putting votes before their bodies to end the police contract with the Madison School District!
To "incorporate a strategy of options to remove School Resource Officers (SROs) from our school buildings." Does that mean removing police from the schools?
Important meetings and agenda items this week in Madison, Dane County and the Madison school district. With Forward Lookout's Brenda Konkel and WORT's Dylan Brogan
Forward Lookout's Brenda Konkel and WORT host Dylan Brogan walk us through this week in (virtual) local government. Development, development, development.
Konkel's observations, Alder, homeless services and bike updates, COVID-19 Wall of Shame, surveys, petitions, Conservation Congress voting, new judge appointment and more.
$95M is coming to the County, $24.4M for our bus system, $1.1M in CDBG funds, Small Businesses (including nonprofits) to get forgivable Payroll Protection loans, we've been declared a federal disaster area and more on the way? Who decides where that money will go?
After meetings this week, neither the City Council nor the County Board will meet until April 21st (3 weeks), School Board not meeting until the 27th (4 weeks)? Each body will meet only once in April. The mayor seems to be the only decision maker at the city at this point, with the council rubber stamping decisions. What roles should our alders, supervisors and school board members be playing in this pandemic? How are they representing us in this crisis?
The longer version than what you will you on WORT - Many government meetings are cancelled due to the coronavirus response. WORT's Dylan Brogan gets the latest from Brenda Konkel on what meetings are still conveying and what comes next.
At the press conference on Friday, School Board President Gloria Reyes said they still plan to meet on Monday because they have important things to do, but I don't see it on the legal notice.
The legal notice for this week's meetings is not on the Madison School Board website. So I only can find one meeting - referendum questions and budget priority actions.
This week the City of Madison agendas are a mess, the county only posts some agendas on-line, School Board meets in closed session more often than open and doesn't have minutes for months, and the School Board, City and County have been posting meeting a day or two before the meeting.
One meeting on Friday, and don't forget to vote in Tuesday's Primary election where the three candidates running for Kate Toews seat will be narrowed to two.
This week in local government: The Dane County boards support a union for UW nurses. Madison takes aim at robots on sidewalks. And the Madison school district puts pen to paper on a contract for its new superintendent.
Short answer is maybe here, maybe there, maybe not. For some reason in 2016 or 2017 they stopped posting their minutes where you would expect to find them. Why?
Did Gloria Reyes, School Board President (1/24) and Nicki VanderMuelen, School Board Clerk (1/27) have authority to sign the employment agreement with the new School Board Superintendent Dr. Matthew Gutierrez?
Dane County will get the latest design plans for the new jail. The city of Madison considers hiring new department heads and a lot of new housing units. And the Madison school board meets in closed session again, this time to discuss expected litigation.
Renaming Glendale, Badger Rock Middle School Charter, closed session for legal advice on potential litigation, referendum planning, 2020-2021 budget timeline and more.
Big Week - the candidates who are finalists for the Superintendent are in town and there are public meetings Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, nearly everything else is behind closed doors.
Wasn't in the week ahead because it wasn't posted until Wednesday of this week. And I didn't notice til TJ Mertz pointed it out to me this morning. Thanks TJ!!!
Dane County is getting feedback on how it provides mental health services, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway is talking transit and the search for a new superintendent for the Madison public schools continues.
This work was initially done by myself, Brenda Konkel, for Progressive Dane about 3 years ago. Technical difficulties happened and over the past three years I continued some of the work here at Forward Lookout. I'm in the process of merging the work and expanding the guide. Let me know what you think!
I took a look at what people had in their campaign accounts coming in to the 2020 Spring Elections for Madison City Council, Madison School Board and Dane County Board of Supervisors - for those who had campaign accounts in 2019. Here's what I found.
So, nothing is worse than when public officials use open meetings laws to thwart public information. I was reminded about how they did that with the Cap Times during the F-35s debate. See what I found in my open records request.
Madison, WI - Meetings for the MMSD that is mostly Madison, but the school district boundaries are different than city boundaries. 8 meetings! Interviewing superintendent candidates, purchasing property, employee discipline matters, personalized pathways report, school naming and more.
41 seats up for elections, 2 are contested and 9 have no one filing anything. 2 people officially on the ballot so far. Papers due January 7th - 29 more days. Media silence, so who even knows they should be thinking about running?
Officially, this is the City of Madison Committee, but it has Alders, Dane County Board Supervisors and School Board members along with Mayor and School Superintendent reps. It could be an impactful group! They voted to change the name to City, County, Schools Collaborative Committee (CCSCC). They were almost convinced to disband, but were re-energized with new members after the elections last spring and are discussing what they should be working on.
Madison, WI - Superintendent search announcement and closed session meeting, purchasing properties (Regent St, Holtzman Rd), TIF guidance, Naming Committee for Glendale Elementary, City committee meeting mission and priorities and more.
The impact of F-35s on affordable housing, Urban Forestry fee going up and Madison elementary name change, all these agenda items and more with Forward Lookout's Brenda Konkel and Dylan Brogan.
Today is the day that candidates for County Board (37 Seats!), School Board (3 seats) and City Council (1 seat) can start circulating nomination papers . . . but shockingly few have filed paperwork to allow them to begin!
Music (Mary Gaines and Chris Wagoner), great speakers (Vicki Berenson, Brian Benford, Angela Jenkins, Jesse Pycha-Holst, Brandi Grayson and Rebecca Kemble) and more music (Lou and Peter Berryman)!
41 seats are available for County Board, Madison School Board and City Council. People can start circulating nomination papers in 9 days! Are you ready?
So far there is either limited feedback or support according to the staff report. It would raise taxes by an average of $69/year for a homeowner for Capital and $66/year for Operating Budget.
Mo' meetings, news and very little extra to add today. With Rosh Hashanah, budget, flooding and Koval's retirement, seems like there is room for little else!
They also don't come out in opposition. They will be voting on this on Monday night? I wish it had been stronger. board@madison.k12.wi.us if you wish to comment!
Thanks to Mary Jo Walters who attended the Airport meeting and took these notes and photos! Airport paid homeowners $2,000 for easements years ago saying they are ok with the noise . . . end of story?
Imagine if there was a committee where school board members, county board supervisors, city alderpersons and the community came together to discuss how to improve the lives of young people in Madison and Dane County. How powerful could that be? And why did former Mayor Paul Soglin and former School Superintendent Jen Cheatam, along with now School Board President Gloria Reyes keep trying to reign in that committee? Now that they are free . . . what could they be?
Based on the weekly legal notice . . . one meeting. Do you really believe that? Given that if any two board members are meeting, they are negative quorum and it should be noticed.
So, the board is meeting tonight but there is no public input. Andy Olsen wrote a great piece that is essentially what I would say if given the opportunity, so I thought I'd share it with you all. I'll blog more tomorrow about all the crap going on in the background . . .
City Council Candidates, County Board Candidates, resident members of City Committees and even "citizen members" of School Board Committee have to fill out Statement of Interest forms . . . but school board members do not? They sure hate transparency in the Madison School District.
Today, three former elected officials filed an ethics complaint against School Board President Gloria Reyes because she had a conflict of interest when she voted for the police in schools.
Tis the week to blog about ethics violations by current/former law enforcement! This one seems blatantly obvious!!!! And from the School Board President no less.
This is disturbing on so many levels . . . primarily from an open government perspective, but also to see the first all female school board act just like any other school board without regard for community is just sad. I can't believe they announced announced the agreement on Friday and called a special meeting to approve it on Monday with little time for the community to react. OR READ THE LANGUAGE (spoiler alert, they skipped an important detail in the description of the contract) I'm not surprised, especially with Gloria's disdain for the public, I'm just disappointed. And not one school board member had a word to say?
I'm catching up from taking a break from email for a long weekend, so I've missed a bit and I'm behind, so I thought I'd share because I'm guessing others are in my boat! This is last week and the holiday weekend local government news updates.
Hiring process for the interim superintendent, meet with the school board before their meeting, 2019-2020 budget, long-range facilities plans and more.
This is a bit late, I got into a gardening project or two last week and abandoned all thoughts of blogging, but it was half done, so I finished it! Here's the round up of last week's news in case you had your own gardening project or other distraction and didn't pay attention!
My "round ups" have seen various formats and content over the years. Here's what I hope to become a weekly round up of local government news from the past week. Things I don't have time to blog about, but that should be on your radar screen.
Almost 20 different things in my email inbox I think readers of this blog might be interested in! Cuz I can't make 20 more blogs than the ones I already do . . .
Agendas for Madison Public Schools, One City and Isthmus Montesorri Academy.
Once again, just kidding!!! This is only for Madison Schools who actually post their...
What follows is an op-ed by Brandi Grayson, responding to Jen Cheatham's open letter to the community more than a week after the incident at Whitehorse Middle School where an 11 year old black girl was physically attacked by a school administrator.
4 meetings. School board meeting tonight, full of "security" issues (you might want to look at the full agenda), contract for police at school events and BEP. Note that Badger Rock Middle School Governance Meetings are publicly noticed, where are the One City or IMA governance meetings published?
So, many of my blog readers know that I am the co-chair of Progressive Dane and the chair of their elections committee. Normally, when there isn't a county board meeting about the jail, I'd be posting election results as they come in. Today, I'm way far behind, but for the record, it went well!
Tomorrow February 19 (Primary), and following that April 2, 2019(general), are important local/non-partisan elections for the State and the city of Madison. In April...
Well - they are finally on-line from the clerks office. Got an email from the clerks office at 2:00 today saying "Yup, some were sent in electronically. Please check the sites for some updates." Some? I have no idea if the missing reports are due to lack of filing or still waiting for more updates?
Student Behavioral Plan, 2019/20 Budget projections, Safety Policy Revisions, "considering negotiation strategies for entering into an intergovernmental agreement where bargaining reasons require a closed session" (Police in schools contract?) and more.
So irritating that before 9am there are already new city meetings posted that weren't there Friday afternoon . . . and a smattering of other things going on around town . . .
I've spent quite a bit of the last month arranging interviews, reading questionnaires, interviewing over 20 candidates and arranging the General Membership meeting which I also chaired last night. It's was a lot of effort to get to this point . . . but it was worth it! Here's Progressive Dane's choices for the upcoming spring elections!
After doing School Board Candidate interviews yesterday, I'm just frustrated all over again about how the MMSD is just not transparent in any way, shape or form.
Dave Blaska, Right wing Republican blogger, is running for the Madison School Board Seat 4. David is running against Laila Borokhim, Albert Bryan and...
2 meetings, one today (summer school and Behavior Education Plan Revisions), one Wednesday (dissolving the City of Madison Education Committee). Can I just ask...
The full notice may be found here, with Spanish, Hmoob, and Arabic versions linked.
Here is the English text:
Help Improve the Use of Education Resource...
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Wisconsin State Journal published an editorial on March 9th, 1914 proclaiming "Send Pickles...
The Economic Development Commission recommended a bunch of changes last spring, the council created an ad hoc committee which has been meeting since July to review the recommendations and it seems they are contemplating some changes, but maybe not all those recommended by the Economic Development Commission . . . lets catch up with that conversation. Is the candy store wide open with no one there to guard it? Or are the EDC recommendations falling a little flat.
Wisconsin State Senators Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, and Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, are among the handful of presenters who will participate in “How Many Kids...
The Monona Grove Board of Education, building principals and district office administrators, and teachers (Monona Grove Education Association) join together to urge legislators to...
So far, the only unopposed Alders are . . . Verveer, Bidar-Sielaff, King, Schmidt, Weier and Clear and two walk-ons Maurice Cheeks and Denise DeMarb. But the deadline is today so we'll see if that changes. And there aren't as many retirements as once expected - only Maniaci, Solomon, Rhodes-Conway and Jill Johnson stepping down.
Due to redistricting, which was done unethically and in complete secrecy, and is now costing Wisconsin taxpayers close to $2,000,000 that could have been...
If your in education!
Cross Posted @bloggingblue:
I wrote earlier about Scott Walker's latest attack on teachers. This morning Katy Lounsbury was on SLY...
The Wausau Daily Herald recently penned an Op-Ed stating that under the last legislative session school reform "took a step forward"
The reforms establish...
The holidays made for weird news, so I didn't want to resume yesterday with the rounds, so I'm starting today and will try to do it several times a week if not daily. I'm only going to do local politics, so until the student papers resume printing, it might be a little sparse.
Board of Estimates started out last night with a TIF presentation . . . and it wasn't by the you-just-love-to-hate-him TIF Coordinator Joe Gromacki,...
To: Chris Chocola, Club for Growth
The Honorable Jim DeMint, junior Senator from the Great State of South Carolina
It is with great disappointment that we...
Recently The Herald-Independent columnist and writer for the right-wing "think tank" WPRI, recently "reported" on the state of the Monona Grove School District....
Cross Posted @bloggingblue, because, in lieu of the right wing attack on Justice Bradley and inexcusable defense of Justice Prosser, this story needs...
Still catching up on my long list of blogging topics . . . so here some more things you should know that I didn't get to yesterday! More for the "good news" portion of the blog!
So much political activism necessary . . . I hope some folks can step up and attend some of these events in the next two weeks and get involved in these important initiatives!
Ok, its not often I think about motorcycle parking, but this is kinda annoying. Greyhound moved around so much, bumped parking and now doesn't even need the space since they moved. I don't even know where they are any more. Anyways, more than you need to know about motorcycle parking and Greyhound. This is also on the Transit and Parking Commission Agenda.
Governor Scott Walker appears to have been correct when he said:
"We're Broke and Can't Negotiate."
Unfortunately the members of the legislature did...
I attended my first ever candidate announcement the other day when Vicky Selkowe declared her candidacy for the 48th assembly district, replacing Joe Parisi....
Hope to see everyone
Sunday, March 27, 3-4:30
Monona Grove High School Commons
4400 Monona Drive, Monona
How did we get here?
What do we anticipate with
the...
H/T to Jay Bullock for catching this.
Last week UW-Madison's own professor of history, geography and environmental studies penned this op-ed in the NY...
The members of the Dane County School Board Consortium and WAES (Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools) have gotten together to sponsor a public meeting...
Tonight the the Cottage Grove Plan Commission, will be discussing the impending CVS pharmacy with representatives from CVS showing up to present their...
Try as I might, I haven't gotten back into the daily grind of doing the daily round up, but I'm going to try again this week, there is so much going on, that I haven't been able to keep up with!
By $11M. So even with the Board of Estimate changes, that's an increase of 4.93%, not 4.99% so the council has more room to raise taxes if they are going to stay within the 5% limit the Mayor unilaterally set for them. It should help the county and school board a bit too. Here's the details:
This isn't a surprise, but the agenda for Monday's Board of Education meeting includes a recommendation from the administration to instruct their rep on...
I sat through the Landmarks Committee meeting yesterday, and it was hard to stay in my seat and keep my mouth shut. I was stunned by the misinformation my own alder gave the committee about capital budget requests and the Edgewater TIF plan the council is voting on tonight.
If you've seen me lately, you may have noticed I"ve been unusually quiet (except for the terrible hacking cough) . . . cuz I pretty much lost my voice and have been sick for the last two weeks.
There just "wasn't enough time to do it right" so it barely passes with a 3 - 3 tie with the Mayor breaking the tie. The proposal is more messed up than usual. And I think that puts it more in jeopardy than I had imagined. Contains BK comments.
Why do I have a cold this time of the year? This is stupid. Anyways, slept in since I worked til 11:00 last night, so my blogging will be slow this morning.
Oh boy - I got here a little late . . . and the room is packed, they are taking more public testimony - I'm on the floor in the hallway . . . again. Can't see the committee, but can hear . . . .
Last night was one of those nights that sucked to try to cover things in city hall. I managed to catch part of Landmarks, part of Plan, part of Landmarks again, park of Plan again and none of Board of Estimates. And, the kicker, my TiVo died so I couldn't compensate. Boo. Anyways, here's what Plan did on the Edgewater TID with bk comments.
Oh, I'm so busted. Good call on that one Erik. You should go read his post, and then mine will make more sense. And, because its a really good argument for how you can get involved with citizen journalism.
Veterans Call for Cancellation of Planned Middleton High School
Paratrooper Parachute Drop into Student Pep Assembly
Veterans for Peace (VFP) is calling...
Community members will have the opportunity in three upcoming sessions to learn more about and give feedback on the proposed preliminary Madison School District...