I have about 30 blog topics in my queue that I haven’t gotten to, I might not have snarky comments about all of them, but somehow, by Friday, some people just inspire me.
ARTICLE ON THE MAYOR
Yawn. Can you imagine what the article might have said if Kristin could have gotten people to speak “ON THE RECORD”, that would have been much, much more interesting. Here’s a bit of that truth posted to a listserve:
. . . there was nothing about the most recent Property Tax issue. I saw the brief letter he sent out thanking everyone for their work on this issue especially Mario, which is surprising because there was nothing about how his office totally supported what had caused this and what we had been meeting with him for a year trying to get his staff to stop pursuing the tax exemption. Some kind of leadership there and no vision at all of what this policy would create. Late and only supportive when there was political pressure and even then he seemed upset that we were questioning his commitment.
PARKING RATES GOING UP
Rate went up, kinda. Over the next 6 weeks. I usually just keep plugging money in til I get the number of minutes I need, but those who need to know how much they are paying per hour might want to read the meters.
HOUSING DIVERSITY COMMITTEE
Hmmm . . . I find out that when they say they will meet in August for the first time, that what they really mean is the last possible date in August, August 31st. After my blog post, however, there was a scramble to try to get them to meet in June. I wonder if they will be successful. I just love these committees that the council approves and the mayor stalls in appointing and then don’t meet. Why bother setting report deadlines if they don’t even meet until after the report is due. It says volumes about the Mayor’s priorities.
TALK ABOUT PRIORITIES
1. Apparently, the Mayor doesn’t care about historic preservation, even tho he says he’s a strong supporter. Anyone, EVER, seen any evidence of that? Ever? Worse yet, what about the impact that not filling positions has on staff.
2. Too bad the Council can’t weigh in on these priorities – just get the information if they request it. (How about making it truly available and emailing it to them when the statements are written and then putting it on the website?)
3. Most importantly, I’ve talked to a few staff who are suffering from the lack of support in their units. There are some staff who are working very hard, are very stressed and there doesn’t appear to be relief in sight. I didn’t hear the Mayor mention the impact on staff in his blog, or that this was part of the decision making process. It makes me really sad to see how hard some of our staff work without recognition and then get insult on top of injury by the Mayor not at least acknowledging it is tough on them. Next time you see some of the hard working staff, not the ones with the high ranking names and titles, but the people who do the work, be sure to thank them!! Our staff is one of the City’s greatest assets and it is not being appropriately supported or appreciated, IMHO.
CRIME IS DOWN
For the second year in a row. Go figure. It seems only FEAR is up.
LOBBYIST SPECIAL INVITE
There will be a briefing by city staff on the Zoning Code Rewrite on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 201, CCB (before the Council meeting that evening).
Rick Roll from the Planning, Community & Economic Department will be briefing alders.
Carol Schaeffer and Brian Munson will also be present to provide their perspectives/observations on the Zoning Code Rewrite.
An agenda will be sent out later this week.
Hmmm . . . why just Carole and Brian? Hmmm . . . .
DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE WEEK
Mike Verveer. I hate it when it is one of your own! Emily Mills is thoughtful as usual. However, its a free speech, right to assemble, right to use public spaces etc etc etc issue. Street musicians should not be charged! Bad Mike.
WHO KNOWS?
Alder Rhodes-Conway shared and email from someone trying to get some information from the city. This is just embarrassing.
I tried to find out what percentage of City employees live in Madison. The Mayors office didn’t know. The city human resources office didn’t know. The comptrollers office offered to run some kind of search. The State Journal didn’t know but said that they would contact the comptroller and let me know the results. It seems like a valuable indicator of some sort.
For those of you wondering the answer. 61%
THAT’S ALL?
$10,000? My guess is that the city is very, very lucky. I always wondered what was in that envelope that Baumann handed Cieslewicz when she left office – from the looks on the faces of the folks in the room, it was pretty grim. My guess is that, from the rumors I have heard, it should have been more women complaining and more money shelled out!
ITS ABOUT FREAKING TIME!
Jason Joyce from the Isthmus has been a staunch defender of his whiner neighbors and the hiring of 30 cops based on their “whites only” meeting they had. But, he finally caved, and is seeing that maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the issue and perhaps some are over-reacting. Now, if we could just get him to support an inclusive neighborhood discussion of the issues going on (instead of a press opportunity) and a discussion about what the solutions, beyond policing, might be! I call it progress, but there’s a long way to go in resolving issues that we’re sure to keep hearing about as the police look for new “tools”. Perhaps, the tools shouldn’t come from the police department?
That’s it folks, the blogging queue is still quite long . . . but the day is too nice to keep sitting at the computer on a day off!
