Alder'd States

Kill the Bill or Stop the Train

2011-03-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

I was at the Allied neighborhood association meeting on Saturday thinking about my kids. Then Association President Selena Pettigrew called on me. It was time for my alder report. I looked around the room, at these great and amazing people with whom I’ve grown these last four years. These people who would give the clothes off their back to help a neighbor in need. These people who live in a community socked with poverty, violence, and what often feels like an anchored cloud of hopelessness. Generations of poverty just weighing down upon themselves. I looked around and felt a wave of love for them, as I often do.

And then I got mad. “How many of you have been to the Capitol?” I asked. I knew the answer. I started in on my disgust with everything. With our attacks on the poor and the middle class. With our inability to see the injustice in poverty, in cheap jeans made by kids in China, in cheap food with no known origin, in middle class workers being pitted against each other because some get health care and some don’t. All while our schools get more crowded, our black kids get more incarcerated, and our country swells with more debt. Banks get bailed out and taxpayers get impaled. Property tax relief, which at least pretends to be progressive, gets replaced with the most regressive things possible: higher food costs and gas at four bux a gallon.

The private sector wants to drag down the public sector for their glorious benefits and we all blame the poor, who keep reaching out their grubby little fingers for Pell grant loans, energy assistance, and community action programs. All about to be cut, by the way. While the richest 1% of Americans control more wealth than over 200 million people. While CEO’s ring up 400 times the salary of the average worker. While corporations gain more and more rights.

On the other end of the spectrum, the minimum wage remains stagnant, as it has for half a century. Worker rights and protections are being eaten away. Productivity climbs higher and higher and wages stay flat. Tomato pickers fight for years to get an extra penny per pound.

I fired them up, my friends on Allied. Thirty minutes later we were planning our “Allied Fights Back” campaign. It’s coming soon…

The next day, I spoke to a national teleconference of Ethical Society members about worker rights and what’s happening in Wisconsin. They are ready to fight back too.

Here we are at ground zero. My biggest fear about this whole exercise was that we were fighting for the wrong thing. That we’d let this moment slip away, that we’d trade a victory in the battle for continued devastation in the war. And friends, I’m not trying to hyperbolize here, but we’re getting devastated. Crushed. I mean this ain’t even a fight. Until two weeks ago, in Madison, Wisconsin, I’d argue we haven’t even shown up. But now that we’re here, the question is what are we going to do about it? How far will we go? We have been on a high speed train since 1980: a train of corporate profits and privatization. But all yawl struggling to pay your mortgage? Don’t blame the wealthy. They aren’t asking for anything. They are just hanging out on their yacht, eating caviar and drinking $500 bottles of champagne while trading blood diamonds with each other. C’mon man. We know who’s to blame: those dang welfare queens down on Allied, down on Cicero, down sneaking across the Mexican border, sitting around, having kids, getting their nails done, and wanting nothing more than to take us for all we got. We’ve voted to slow the high speed train down a few times. But to stop it? Or change direction? Not for a second.

But now we have a little momentum of our own. Now we have "a thousand people in the streets, singing songs and a-carrying signs." Stomping their feet. Reminding us what democracy looks like. Are we going to win the battle for public union collective bargaining and nestle back into our materialistic, tunnel visioned slumber? Or are we going to keep it up? Demand a new direction?

Chris Rickert, in a State Journal article last week, asked why the unions aren’t out supporting the poor. That is not the question. The question is why aren’t all of us. We are going to get Allied folks to the Capitol. We are going to get more people from around the nation to join Progressives United or moveon.org. We are going to get more people listening to Democracy Now instead of “fair and balanced” that’s neither.

We’ve been asleep for too long. Its time to wake up, to show up, to stand up, to speak up. No more sneaking around democracy. No more hoodwinking the middle class into blaming each other. No more hatred for the poor. No more tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful, while everyone else crawls around with their tongues out hoping that a drop or two will trickle down.

As my good friend Eric Sundquist pined earlier this evening, “the best antidote to despair is action.”

Its not about killing the bill. Its about killing the train. 100,000 people is a great start. But we need 100 million.

It starts tomorrow, with a rally at 8 am. Wisconsin Capitol Building: Madison Wisconsin. Where it ends, is up to us.

Madison, WI: A Prelude for Economic Justice

2011-02-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

As Bob Dylan once sang, “The battle is outside raging.” Thousands protest daily and Madison and Wisconsin have made national news once again. Wisconsin: the state that produced Fighting Bob LaFollette, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, and suffrage for women. Madison: the city that produced lasting images against the Vietnam War and in favor of civil rights.

We all struggle to conjure the vocabulary to describe tens of thousands of people – young and old, black and white, rich and poor – descending daily upon the Capitol, standing side by side, carrying signs, protesting peacefully for what they believe in, chanting and singing and dancing and refusing to back down. It is inspiring beyond words. It is historic. It is beautiful and meaningful and, hopefully, consequential.

But it is not enough. And the joy and pride I feel for the battle we are fighting remains sadly diminished by thoughts of the war we continue to ignore.

The war has been around since the beginning of humanity, but one could argue that it became full fledged at the beginning of the industrial revolution. 130 years ago, partially in response to the Pullman strike to organize the railway industry (and partially to buy back some domestic capital after calling out troops to suppress the strike), President Grover Cleveland took a New York City workers rights parade and turned it into the first Labor Day.

Fast forward to the 1930s. The National Labor Relations Act was passed to encourage collective bargaining and protect the rights of both employers and employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act was also passed, establishing a minimum wage and a 40 hour work week, prohibiting child labor, and guaranteeing overtime for certain occupations. There are strong arguments that these laws, along with Social Security and other New Deal protections, helped pull America out of the Great Depression, cement the middle class, and initiate the greatest period of sustained economic growth in our nation’s history. This led to the 1940s, where 35% of the American labor force was unionized.

Many have forgotten the details of the 1981 air traffic controllers strike. Thirteen thousand walked off the job to protest long shifts and mandatory overtime. Two days later, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 of them, imprisoned union leaders, abolished their union, and hired permanent replacement workers. And, I would argue, set off a chain reaction that continues to unravel the progress of the last hundred years.

There is a battle raging right now in Madison, Wisconsin. But what is the goal? How do we define victory? Imagine the following: Governor Walker backs down and allows collective bargaining to continue in the public sector. The crowds diminish, victory is declared, and America settles back into the comfortable slumber to which we’ve become accustomed.

But guess what else happens?

Minimum wage remains at a 50 year low.
A full century after Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, occupational health and safety standards are weak and growing weaker.
Union membership hasn’t been lower in three generations.
Almost all worker protections of the last half century have been dissolved.
As Salon.com reported last year, the “gap between rich and poor last year grew to the widest amount on record (14.5:1, double that of 1968).
12 million Americans, mostly unskilled single mothers, were pushed into the labor market by welfare reform. Most continue to make minimum wage, like low income workers throughout the nation, working two or three jobs just to meet ends meet.

For the first half of the last 50 years, there was a basic bargain: work harder and become more productive and your wages will increase. Starting in the 1970’s, this bargain went haywire. Had the trend continued as it had through the 50s and 60s, some estimate that the current minimum wage would be $19 an hour. Call it class warfare. Call it wage warfare. But make no mistake: this is the war. And if we don’t fight for better wages for all workers, public and private sector, blue and white collar, skilled and unskilled, then there are a few guarantees we can count on:

The gap between rich and poor will continue to grow. The only way to address this chasm is to raise wages.
The economy may keep improving but not for the poor or the middle class. Don’t believe me? The stock market is back to pre-recession levels with high unemployment, low wages, and decreased benefits. If the stock market can succeed under those conditions, there will be no incentive for those conditions to change.

Economic justice is, arguably, THE modern day battle for civil rights. Martin Luther King, Jr, remember, was assassinated not during a rally for racial justice. He was assassinated while participating in a strike of sanitation workers. And as MLK said, “In a real sense, all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

I was listening to the radio today, on my way home from another day of protesting, and heard an angry caller bemoaning the support middle class public sector employees are receiving while he toils in unemployment. “These are my taxpayer dollars,” he screamed into the phone, “and I can’t afford to pay them more.”

And in the end, that sums it up. We have been hoodwinked. In one of the greatest scams in American history, middle class American’s fight against each other and vilify the poor, while corporations grow stronger and the income gap grows wider. Middle class tea partiers rally with the Koch brothers because they believe government is the problem, instead of the billionaire oil barons with whom they unite. Don’t believe it? Then why would President Obama propose a budget that cuts community service block grants, energy assistance for the poor, food stamps, and Pell Grants? Because we blame the poor for our economic problems. If we didn’t, these proposals would never have even been entertained by a sadly desperate President.

We are in the midst of something incredible and astonishing. An opportunity that is both historic and tragic, if we let it pass. Where are you, low income workers? Minimum wage earners? Unemployed? Private sector employees working harder than ever, without raises, so that corporate profits can go up and the stock market soar?

Because if we don’t let this battle become the defining moment in the war, we will have let an historic opportunity pass us by. And while we might have a chance in this battle, we are losing the war. We are being bamboozled. Its time to wake up and realize that helping the poor is not what’s killing the middle class. Remember, it wasn’t teachers, nurses, 911 dispatchers, fire fighters, police, home health aids, migrant laborers, immigrants, or welfare moms who caused the Great Recession. It is time for a Fair Labor Standards Act, Part II. A time for us to remember: everyone in America making less than $100,000 a year has far more in common with each other than with those who do. Workers do not gain wages, benefits, or rights at our expense. A gain by one is a gain for all.

This is the time for all workers to unite. We number in the millions. We are the backbone of the nation, of the economy, of the electorate. We have an opportunity to stand up strong, build on the momentum that is underway, and renew the path of a half century ago, the one that built an American middle class, rewarded hard work with dignity, and created the strongest economy on earth. May this battle awaken us from our three decade long slumber. May the protests currently underway serve as the momentum for something bigger than their origins: a real victory in this real war.

Entertainment? Politics? Or Both.

2010-11-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I jumped in the car and drove to Chicago to meet my lifelong friends for a weekend of sightseeing and reconnecting. Chicago and the chance to get together were good draws, but the main attraction was Monday night's Roger Waters show. For those that don't know, Roger Waters was the creative force behind Pink Floyd for most of the 1970's, when their popularity was at its peak. But Roger Waters has always symbolized much more - his lyrics had both meaning and message - catapulting him to the upper echelons of great singer songwriters.

The Chicago show was special. It wasn't just a concert; it was a performance. In it, Roger Waters perfomed "The Wall," from beginning to end. No opening act. No encore. Just "The Wall," one of the most significant influences on our young lives when it was released in 1980. But "The Wall" is not just your average, every day album. It was one of the original and great concept albums, a rock opera stringing and layering multiple messages and themes - political, social, intellectual - from the first note to the last.

I was mesmerized. Energized. Reborn in my commitment for social progress, my desire to make a difference, to effect change. Recommitted to nonviolence, peace, justice, and unburying my anger at the horrors of war. In other words, I walked out remembering why I fell in love with Pink Floyd in the first place. Why their music was one of the most significant influences on the person that I would become.

I floated out of the concert, hoping that the power of Waters' message was able to change one mind, to energize one more person to get involved in making a difference, to mobilize a small group of couch potatoes into soup kitchen volunteers or war supporters to rethink the insanity, and inhumanity, of unending violence.

It didn't take long for my beautiful moment to clash with reality. I asked my friend Rob what he thought, and he said it was "good." The understatement of the millenium, IMHO. The retort was instantaneous: "Good? That's all?" His response was firm and confident: "I go to a concert to be entertained. What's with the political message? I really don't like when politics and entertainment get mixed. Its not appropriate."

Crash.

Days later, I was still bothered. So I emailed my boys and gave them something to think about. I started by reiterating Rob's distaste for mixing entertainment and politics. And then my thought on the matter: "Mixing entertainment and politics is the only kind of entertainment I have any respect for." And then a nugget from a Rolling Stone interview with Roger Waters. Waters:

"There are huge, huge profits to be made from war and that, by and large, is why they happen so often. This show is unashamedly about all those big questions - and the success of the work I did with [Floyd] gives me the power to have a platform. Some people think that people shouldn't use the platforms that they have because of their celebrity of success. I don't subscribe to that view at all. I always loved Hanoi Jane. I love it when Sean Penn comes out and says something or takes part and John Lennon or any of the other people who stood up to be counted… I have the same responsibility to put on this production as Picasso did to paint 'Guernica.'"

(Most folks know that Picasso painted Guernica in response to Germans and Italians bombing Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The painting shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts, primarily on innocent civilians.)

Alan wrote back: "How can you go to a production of The Wall and not expect the entertainment to be mixed with a political message? But, Brian, do you really not respect entertainment that's just meant to entertain?"

And my response:

"To answer your question. I do not mind entertainment at all. In fact, I like it. But I am a bit strange on these things, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed over the last 25 years. I hurt inside, daily, at the injustice and suffering, especially needless suffering, that occurs in our world. It fills me up, it motivates me, it drives me, sometimes it comes close to consuming me. I still manage to smile a lot and have a good time though, right? I’m impressed with myself, anyway.

As you’ve noticed, this can still cause me to be a bit of a downer sometimes. Or a bit intense. Guilty as charged. While most in society might respect a businessman that makes a lot of money and a football player that sets records and a movie star that wins academy awards, sadly, I don’t give a shit about any of that. If you have a voice or make lots of money, and want my respect, you better damn well make a difference. So while I might love lots of music and lots of movies and lots of sports, I don’t have any actual RESPECT for ANY of them unless they stand up and use that fame to make the world a better place. To promote non-violence, alleviate suffering, and speak to justice, equality, and compassion for others.

So I can go to a rock concert and have a blast. But if the artist delivers a message – whether it be through the music, through the video, or through a speech between songs – that might cause ONE PERSON in that crowd to go home and do something meaningful, well then I’m going to walk out proud to have been a part of it."

Think Bruce Springsteen playing for John Kerry, despite the loss of millions of fans. Think Dixie Chicks speaking out against George W Bush, despite a clear understanding of how much it would hurt them.

Or think Ben Harper. I saw him open for Barak Obama a few weeks ago and watched as he sang “With My Own Two Hands” as a rallying cry to support the President in trying to “make the world a better place.” With our own two hands. Amen brother; now that’s what I’m talking about.

Power and Humanity: Common Council Version

2010-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

Something fairly irregular happened a few weeks ago at the Madison City Council meeting and while it brought up many issues and thoughts, the most poignant were those related to our humanity. To who we are, who we think we are, and who we want to be.

For those of you that missed it, Alder Thuy Pham-Remmele had separated a number of items from the "consent agenda" which allow her to speak about those items when the items could have otherwise been approved in a single motion. It is general practice to separate as few items as possible so as to shorten what are already very long meetings. At the same time, every alder has the right to separate whatever they want, for whatever reason. Alder Pham-Remmele has made a bit of a habit of separating items to ask questions of staff that could have been asked prior to the council meeting. Those items would normally not be separated.

This is time consuming not only for the alders, but for everyone at the meetings from citizens to staff. In fact, once an item related to their agency is separated from the consent agenda, staff have to sit around waiting for the agenda item to come up just in case questions are asked. If the very important “gentlepersons agreement” about separating agenda items is abused, efficiencies are sacrificed, the billable hours of City staff that are paid for at taxpayer expense pile on, and alders who have researched their questions in advance of meetings are left with frustration.

At the meeting in question, with five items remaining on the agenda, all separated by Alder Pham-Remmele and all, most would argue, unnecessarily, a few alders got fed-up and decided to walk out of the Council meeting in protest. The meeting was instantly adjourned as quorum was lost the moment they walked out. This whole experience has been disturbing me for weeks.

On one hand, we all celebrate the unique spirit of an alder who beats to her own drum. I agree with Alder Pham-Remmele on almost nothing - politically or in most other ways. But she definitely beats to her own drum, and I have a grudging respect for that.

However, having listened to hours of “wasted” questions for what seems to be self-serving political motivations, I can completely understand the urge to fight back, to protest, to make a statement that what is happening is annoying and we do not like it. In other words, I understand the desire to protest and send her a strong message to adhere to our unwritten agreement to separate agenda items only when necessary and to adhere to protocol by doing homework ahead of time and trying to avoid political grandstanding that holds everyone hostage to her court.

On the other hand, we probably need to look in the mirror before we cast too many judgments. I don't use the same strategies as Alder Pham-Remmele, and I am not much into posturing for political gain, but I have my values and my principles and I articulate them when I feel like it. I would like to believe that I am passionate, concise, and convincing. I'd like to believe that every ear in the room is riveted, hanging on every word, that every person is shaking his or her head in amazement at the vast depth of my reasoning, and sitting in deep contemplation about how my rhetorical skills have forced them to reconsider their own opinions. Reality likely falls somewhere far short of that image. At what point does my soliloquy move from convincing to meaningless, from concise to verbose, or from interesting to annoying? I wish I knew that sweet spot, because I'm sure I'd hit it more often.

There are other alders on the Council who like to talk. Occasionally their speech is like that of an orator; something passionate and meaningful and gripping - resulting in a beautiful discourse that hones in on a target like a raptor on prey. But equally as often, it is a rant. A tirade. A preachy, moralizing, sermonizing lecture that changes no minds and accomplishes nothing more than giving the speaker an opportunity to hear his or her own voice. Ask anyone who follows the Council, and they'll tell you. Ask anyone on the Council. My predecessor was fond of saying, "Everything has been said. It just hasn't been said by everybody."

Which brings us back to the point. Where is the line? Who gets to determine it? If we all annoy each other so regularly, are we just taking our frustrations with everything out on the one alder who happens to be the recipient of our invective? And if so, isn't that just a bit unfair?

As I said earlier, Alder Pham-Remmele’s methods are frequently frustrating. But please believe this: she is far from the only Council member who frustrates her colleagues. She deserves just as much right to speak as the rest of us, even if its about things we all agree are unnecessary or even ridiculous. We have options. Just as she has the right to separate items, others have the right to protest. They can "call the question" and force a vote. They can vote to put items back on the consent agenda. They can speak up about the frustration. They can pull Thuy aside or send her an email. They can move to District 20 and run against her in the next election. Or, clearly, they can stand up and walk out of a meeting. Just as each of us has a right to talk as long as we want or separate items no one else wants separated, we also have the right to just walk away from a meeting.

So, in the end, I don't think its about what we can do. Maybe its more about what we should do. Honoring each other’s humanity, respecting each other even if we feel its not deserved, recognizing our own weaknesses, and thinking about how we treat each other and how we would like to be treated, are great places to start.

When people talk about politicians, they talk about power. But taking power back, especially when its been taken from you, is a human trait, not a political one. And when someone is thrown in a corner, shamed, bound, and gagged, his first instinct is to take his power back whenever and however he can. Thuy lost a lot of power when she stopped working with her colleagues and when the Mayor pulled her from her committees. She’s taking her power back, however she can. But that’s exactly what alders are doing when they protest her behavior. Taking their power back. In the end, this is all basic human nature.

But the council is a family, dysfunctional as we are. And like most families, we have our issues. The question is: do we want to air them for the world, or try to address them internally? Because one thing is certain: the family that gathers together and tries to resolve their differences at the family meeting, all things being equal, has a better shot as resolution than the one that requires the televised intervention of Jerry Springer or Dr Phil. Maybe we owe our constituents, and ourselves, a little more of the former.

A Trip to the Dentist

2010-03-07T15:31:00.000-08:00

Who would have thought that a single hotel project would come to represent much of what is wrong in our city? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know exactly what that statement means: meddling alders, outdated ordinances, historic preservationists, and neighborhood activists raising one barrier to progress and economic development after another. Right?

Well, no. The sad reality has absolutely nothing to do with whose right or whose wrong. Why? Because no one is wrong. The sad reality is that you’d never know that with everyone acting like children fighting over space in the sandbox.

There is no question that too many people, including some pretty powerful interests, drew lines in the sand on day one. I guess that’s to be expected, but am I really that naïve in asking why? Why would anyone come out dead-set against an exciting, job- and tax-base creating investment in our city? And equally mystifying, why would anyone come out fully supportive of a very expensive project with questionable public benefit, neighborhood concerns, undeniable impacts on our lakeshore, and real questions about size and massing related to the historic district in which the project resides? Because once sides are chosen, once the lines are drawn, then we just end up waging a war where there once lived democratic process.

And sadly, that’s where we now find ourselves.

I am weary of the constant barrage of blogs, statements, editorials and emails decrying those who would, “stand in the way of progress.” I am equally weary of those who resist change because of change’s inability to achieve perfection. But I’m most weary of those who blame the process, those who insist something is terribly broken, and those who would silence the voices of opposition in the name of political expediency.

Democracy is more frustrating than a visit to the dentist after a six month sugar binge. It is painful and maddening and everyone can easily agree that it’d all be easier if we just didn’t have to go through it.

Maybe next time we have a major project, with solid, defensible reasons to see both sides, maybe we will actually be able to do exactly that: see both sides. And maybe we can have a civil discourse that allows us to move forward and accept change, as we must, with an assurance that every voice is heard and respected.

And maybe we’ll be willing to recognize that opposing voices may feel like a trip to the dentist, but in the end, our teeth are worth it. Democracy is too.

Edgewater: Democracy vs Development

2010-01-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

I have gotten more emails and phone calls on the Edgewater hotel project than any other issue since I’ve been elected. I want to begin by thanking the hundreds of constituents and Madison residents who contacted me about the Edgewater project. It is that kind of engagement, by our non-elected citizens, that make this community such a wonderful place. I also want to thank the Landmarks Commission for their hard work, and apologize for the inappropriate things that have been said about them lately.

Contrary to what the Wisconsin State Journal editorial staff may believe, I didn’t run for alder to be a "typical politician" or to kill economic development in Madison. In fact, quite the opposite. I ran to make a difference. I am certain that most Madisonians can appreciate that big projects are big decisions. And despite the promise of fortune and economic prosperity at the end of the rainbow, the hard realities of major projects are often much more complex (think Overture, Union Corners, or the hotel project at the corner of Monroe and Regent). My vote on the Edgewater wasn’t about “dodging responsibility,” as claimed in the WSJ editorial. It was about being responsible.

Before anyone turns the four other “no” votes and me into the "Edgewater Five" and brands us responsible for the economic downfall of our city, I ask you to consider a few points:

We voted on a referral amendment that would have let the project proceed to the next committee bodies and return, but that was voted down by the Council. If that had been supported, this project could still be moving forward.
This project is about balance between preservation and growth, the interests of the developer and those of the public, and infill development and respect for downtown neighborhoods. In making my decision, I had to ask myself if the Landmarks Commission was correct in their interpretation of the law. I thought they were. But our law only allows us to overturn Landmarks if their decision renders the property unusable (clearly it did not, the Edgewater Hotel continues to operate) or causes serious hardship for the owner, as long as that hardship is not self created. First, this developer could have submitted a proposal that would have made it through Landmarks. Second, the developer could and CAN STILL revise the project so as to better fit into the historic district. Third, another developer could come along with a plan that works. There is honestly zero evidence to support that the action of the Landmarks Commission creates serious hardship for the developer that was not self created. Without that, a vote to overturn violates our own laws. Also, a Landmarks decision has never been overturned by the Council. Ever. Before we jump into the “we need to fix our landmarks law NOW” waters, are we even sure this process is broken?
In many ways, this project has been a concern since the beginning. It has thwarted many typical city processes in the name of expediency. The Mayor, council leadership, and the media signed on early. I do not believe that the ends justify the means. This is a significant project - isn't getting it right worth the time and analysis?
Do we really want to function in a world that says, "take it or leave it?" Where a single question or iota of skepticism is greeted with disdain and vitriolic commentary about the broken process? This is not the way to craft good public policy. We are investing $16 million in taxpayer dollars to support a massive private development on one of our absolute primest pieces of real estate. Don't we want to make sure we get it right?
I worked with a few other alders, during budget debates, to get some jobs guarantees into the TIF set-aside. The goal was to get some quality estimates about the number of jobs to be created, the average wages, and the number of jobs with benefits. We don't really just want jobs in this city. We want good paying, family supporting jobs with quality benefits. However, the inclusion of this language was not to be. We were told that requiring this information would kill the project. Then we were told that not setting aside $16 million in TIF, in advance, would kill the project. Now we’ve been told that not overturning Landmarks will kill the project. How deep into the rabbit hole do we have to climb before we can no longer see the light? I ask you: Do you really want to live in a city where your elected representatives are given a pill and told to swallow it without question or else they'll be held responsible for "killing the project?"

The State Journal and the developer's own press release said that Common Council killed this project. I am blamed by name. I killed this project by not voting to overturn one of our committees? Really? This is not hard. Landmarks voted the project down. The developer should listen to what they said and re-apply, just like every other developer. Get it right and keep moving forward. Just like every other development project.

I have received emails – some thanking me for my vote and some promising never to vote for me again. I take my job as alder very seriously and I have a great deal of respect for our citizen committees, our laws, and our historic districts. But I also care very much about jobs, economic development, and the prospects that the Edgewater project continues to present. This is a very important - and expensive - project for our city and it will have a tremendous impact on our waterfront and a treasured historic district.

Let's do this project. But let's do it right.

Thank You, Brenda

2009-04-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

For the last four months, even following the election, the 2nd District Common Council race was about little more than Brenda Konkel’s politics and personality. It was always, “active leader of the left-leaning Progressive Dane” or “attitude left her unable to work with others or achieve results.” And while those are legitimate beliefs for people to hold, there is another reality which, sadly, was left untold. And that reality is this: Brenda Konkel was inarguably one of the hardest working, most committed, principled alders in the history of the Madison Common Council.

So while it is fair game to argue politics and personality, we are doing our city and ourselves a disservice if we reduce Brenda’s legacy to merely this. Brenda was the hardest working alder on the council – uncovering problems that would have unquestionably otherwise gone unnoticed. She cared as much about open government, equal access for citizens, accountability, and transparency as anyone I have ever met. Brenda is clearly one of the most principled alders on the council. While many of us struggle with poverty and homelessness, Brenda constantly searched for, conceptualized, and implemented creative solutions to both. Her perceived lack of compromise is directly related to a relentless unwillingness to bend on principle.

I think I can safely say that every alder who has served during the last eight years has learned something from Brenda. I have learned more than I have room to share. There are certain qualities that we can ALL agree we’d like to see in our leaders, regardless of political affiliation: hard work, intelligence, commitment, dedication, and unparalleled principles. We can remember Brenda for her politics and her personality. But Brenda’s legacy is about characteristics far more memorable, and far more significant.

All of us who run for public office aspire to the same goal: to make Madison a better place. Brenda did more than aspire. On behalf of the city we all love: thank you, Brenda. You have made Madison a better place.

Yes We Can

2008-11-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

During the course of this grueling campaign, I’ve thought many times about what this phrase, “yes we can,” actually means. Somewhere along the way, I began to realize this phrase meant more than I thought.

Obviously, it referred to a Presidential campaign that came out of nowhere and basically had little chance. The campaign started by going up against a candidate who had the establishment, the money, and the power on her side. Assuming it could leap this insurmountable hurdle and win the Democratic primary, the campaign would have to overcome race, religion, and the strongest movitator in history, one which has infused our collective pysche. Fear. Yes we can.

But this slogan referred to much more than that.

It also referred to the planet and America’s place in it. America is bogged down in a war that was based on lies, a war that costs our nation an astonishing amount of money, energy, and human lives. Most of the world believes we went to Iraq for vengeance and oil. We are one of the few nations on earth who refused to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, a realistic proposal that might actually begin to curb the devestating effects of global warming. As the only superpower on earth, we’ve sat idly by and watched genocide occur in Sudan after promising never again. Between global poverty, AIDS, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations, and environmental devestation, it is up to us, as the beacon of hope, to lead the way. We simply have not been doing so. Yes we can.

It also referred to every person, ethnicity, gender, and race in this nation that has been persecuted, marginalized, and discriminated against. Entire classes of people who’ve given up hope and come to believe, as did their parents and their parent’s parents before them, that it’s just not worth it and it’s just not possible. Yes, we’ve come along way from slavery, Jim Crow, disenfranchisement for women and people of color, lynchings, and cross burning. But the very sad reality is that women are still objectified far more than they are revered and black men adorn the cover of the sports section, the entertainment section, and the most-wanted section with far greater frequency than the front of the classroom, the front of the boardroom, or the front page of the newspaper. I try to look at the world through the eyes of a woman who is working three jobs and raising her children alone. Through the eyes of a man who has been rejected from one hundred jobs straight. Through the eyes of my black son who is just starting to shape his view of the world and his place in that world. Yes we can.

But to me, this slogan stands for a single ideal that far surpurasses anything written above. The ideal of humanity. Not as a species, but as a quality, a condition, a goal toward which we should forever aspire. Goodness, compassion, love, and justice are principles of which all humans have shown themselves capable. Black and white, rich and poor, liberal and conservative. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, or athiest. We show it in the love we shower upon our children, the compassion we rain upon our sick, and the resources we pour into our most vulnerable. We illustrate it in our relationships with friends, family and even complete strangers. But we continue to use violence as our primary means for conflict resolution, despite our profound knowledge that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. We continue to sit by and watch as people across the planet and across the street suffer. We are frozen into inaction by the reality that one billion people go to bed hungry every night, that forty five million working Americans remain without healthcare, and that huge swaths of people have lost all hope for something better. We prioritize profits over our planet. And we continue to be motivated by fear instead of love. Can we change? Can we try something new? Can we cherish our planet and affirm the worth and dignity of every human?

Yes we can.

I woke up this morning and looked at my children. My eyes filled with tears and my heart almost exploded with hope. As a nation, we opened our eyes and looked. Looked at the state of the world, the condition of our cities, and the direction our nation and our world are headed. We looked at ourselves in the mirror. We overcame our fear. And we elected a black man President of the United States of America.

Is it possible? Can we really do this?

Yes we can.

The Truly Essential Service

2008-08-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

A July 11 editorial in the WSJ commended the Madison City Council for getting “back to the basics” and focusing on basic services instead of “grand gestures of social reform.” As a first-year alder, I struggle deeply with how to react to this. I recall year-long and often multi year-long battles over the minimum wage, smoking ban, and paid sick leave with both sadness and exhaustion. I still can’t fathom how measures to help the most vulnerable among us are met with such disdain and why they tear our community apart so dramatically. Although some may call our work “getting back to basics,” my reluctance to initiate sweeping policy initiatives thus far stems almost solely from my disinclination to create these huge rifts in our community.

“Essential services” are not so easily defined. I have constituents who don’t own a car. Fixing a pothole couldn’t be further down their list of priorities. Those living in challenged neighborhoods – most often the victims of crime – do not believe that additional police are the solution. Madison has a growing homeless population, and for them, a basic service is a meal and a warm bed in a safe place. Every alder in this city has constituents who are impacted by the sad reality that Dane County has the fourth worst black / white incarceration discrepency in the nation. We live in one of the wealthiest communities on the planet, yet thousands of our neighbors continue to suffer from our unwillingness to prioritize resources to address hunger, education, affordable housing, job training, AODA issues, domestic violence, and a myriad of other barriers that affect our community every day.

It is hard to imagine these services as anything other than basic. However, regardless of how we define basic services, the sad truth is that we are not focusing nearly enough attention on them. Our public transit system fails to connect those most dependent upon it to basic needs like employment and health care. Our education system slams into revenue caps annually, while the population of minority, special needs, and poor children grows at exponential rates. Our job creation and economic development programs are focused appropriately around our university but fail to recognize the importance of family-supporting jobs for people without four-year or advanced degrees. Our social services struggle to help people with food, shelter, and job training while our spending on police and prisons continues to escalate.

That is only part of the story. Equally disturbing is that our primary method of dealing with this appalling conundrum is the through criminal justice system. We somehow convince ourselves that the arrest-conviction-imprisonment cycle works for society, makes us safer, and costs less.

It is not that the council doesn’t care about these “basic” problems or prioritize their importance. The real issue is that attemps to make investments in people, investments that we know pay themselves back many times over in the long run, continue to tear our community apart and that we fail to consider these investments “essential services.”

We live in such an amazing community, a city that most of us love dearly. Yet we are increasingly surrounded by islands of abject poverty, and I am left bewildered by both our ignorance of their existence and our unwillingness to take immediate and drastic action. We all know that up-front investments pay off in the end: preventing prison is less expensive than incarceration; job training is less expensive than a family unable to make ends meet; and rent assistance is less expensive than eviction and homelessness. We are undergoing a seismic shift in demographics and huge investments will be necessary if we are to create the skilled workforce we need to meet the demands of our economy and retiring baby boomers.

Somewhere within the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow through our local economy every year, there exist the resources to attack these problems with the vigor necessary to ensure that every Madisonian has access to the basic services he or she needs. However, it can’t come from the council alone; the recognition that food and shelter are as essential as potholes and police protection needs to come from all of us. Eighty-four percent of Americans currently feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. One thing is for sure, it is not because we’re focusing too much energy on compassion and equal opportunity.

Priorities 101

2008-02-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

I am growing so weary of the news that keeps reminding us, repeatedly, that our criminal justice system is beyond repair and needs a complete overhaul. But I grow even wearier of our inexplicable unwillingness to learn this lesson and take a different path. The most recent news is astounding. The Pew Center on the States announced yesterday that one in every hundred American adults is in jail or prison, for the first time in history. Yes, history. Like, forever.

Do you feel safer? Do you feel more secure? Does anyone feel as though this straight-line shot toward 2.3 million adults in prison has made us happier? We have more people in prison than any country in the world (yes, that would include China, with five times the population and, supposedly, one thousand times the human rights violations). In 1988, 20 years ago, the 50 United States spent less than $11 billion on corrections. Last year, we spent $49 billion.

Do we really believe that spending 77 cents on corrections for every dollar we spend on education, as we do in Wisconsin, is the best use of our precious resources? And this doesn’t even begin to discuss the racial disparity I’ve written about in the past. The Pew Study once again confirmed the astonishing realities of this: 1 in 30 men age 20-34 are behind bars, but it’s 1 in 9 for black men in that age group.

It is not hard to imagine, in the not too distant future, a scenario in which we’d spend more on corrections that we do on education. It is also hard not to imagine why our schools are crumbling, our class sizes are increasing, and the US is falling behind third world countries in its ability to educate its children.

Anyone else ready to try something new?

The Politics of Fear

2007-12-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, when the addition of 30 new police officers was first proposed, I wrote an article about the culture of fear that seemed to have taken over in Madison. I wrote how that culture, sponsored and encouraged by a federal government that would have us sacrifice civil liberties in order to justify two wars (one on terror, the other on Iraq) had woven its way into the very fabric of our lives. As we approached budget deliberations and a full debate on adding 30 police officers, it became clear that the culture of fear had taken over even here in Madison, one of the safest cities on the planet. We became so anchored, so rooted into the culture of fear that the debate had ended before it even began. Crime was everywhere: it was creeping like a virus from Badger and Allied to the southwest, the northeast, and downtown. It was replicating at such an insidious pace that nothing short of 30 new police, mobilized without delay, could stop or even stem the tide.

And what a tide it was. Like a stop sign standing in the path of an avalanche, I and a few other alders attempted to bring some sanity to the discussion. And by sanity, all I really mean is debate. Because without our amendment to add 18 police instead of 30, an unprecedented number in and of itself, there would have been no debate.

The first significant item on the agenda was a proposal by Alder Zach Brandon to take $1.5 million in one-time revenue created by the closure of two TIF districts and apply it to the workers’ compensation fund. This was a significant deviation from the Mayor's budget and would leave us with about $20,000 in wiggle room for the 50-plus amendments yet to come, short of other reductions that could be reapplied. It would force us to be diligent and make difficult choices.

No one expected it to pass. I thought hard about it and the fact that our amendment to add 18 police instead of 30 would save $594,000, more than enough to reinvest in other priorities. With great trepidation (this was a big vote and my first budget), I voted for the amendment. In a surprise to eveyone, the amendment passed 11-9. It was a time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Except not really.

My arguments were pretty simple:

Fiscal Realities. We were spending one-time-only dollars for this unprecedented increase in police. We also didn't know what the long term fiscal impacts even were (not only salary, but overhead, support costs, computers, police cars, court costs, jail space, etc).
Balance. We invest $5 million a year in community services and $54 million a year in our police department.
Goals. We didn't really have a clear sense of what adding 30 police would accomplish or how much it would really help.
Sustainability. We hadn't considered the impacts on the court system, prison and jail space, or other criminal justice related entities that would be affected by more arrests.

The arguments of common sense, logic, and balance were countered by one theme, and this theme was hammered home with the repetition, monotany, and steadfastness of a clock's second hand clicking itself into place again and again with no allowance for variance, nuance, or shades of gray. Sadly and disturbingly, there was only one way to decribe the argument in favor of the full slate of 30 police officers.

Madison’s culture of fear had evolved into politics of fear.

The debate was focused on the same comments, repeated again and again. The only difference was in the voice who spoke the words.

"If you had been there this summer…"
"If you had heard the 700 people who came…"
"If you had heard the stories, heard about the chainsaws, the breakins, the vandalism…"
"You couldn't hear them and not be affected…"

The culture of fear had rooted itself so deeply into our collective consciousness that we were unable to even fathom a compromise. It was as if my amendment had been to add zero police or to eliminate our police department entirely, as opposed to adding an unprecedented number (18) and using the savings to invest in prevention and strategies that would actually attack the root causes of crime rather than merely reacting to crimes once they've been committed.

I and others talked about sexual assault, domestic violence, and homelessness prevention and after school programs for youth as investments that had a direct impact not only in preventing crime but on reducing the strain on police resources. I asked our police chief the following: "We know about 30% of our police calls are related to domestic abuse. If we could invest in domestic violence awareness and prevention and reduce these calls, wouldn't that free up significant amounts of police resources that could be reallocated to address other emerging issues?" Despite an affirmative response, we never debated this issue or others related to eviction prevention, transit assistance for homeless individuals to access employment opportunities, or a dozen others.

Consider the following example: Something happens (medical emergency, car repair, etc) that leaves a low-income tenant short on rent for a month. Once evicted, the former tenant will undoubtedly draw upon our social service system and our already overwhelmed homeless shelter. It will become far more difficult for this citizen to maintain his job or find employment if he is searching for a job. Even if he is able to straighten out his financial situation, it will be harder for him to get housing now that he has an eviction on his record. Perhaps he'll camp out in his car or join the “homeless throng” at Brittingham Park. Resulting police calls will draw on precious police resources that could have been used elsewhere. Perhaps he'll commit a crime because he feels his options have run out. Eventually he'll get out of jail and will have an even more difficult time obtaining employment and housing. A few hundred dollar investment may be enough to prevent eviction and its potential effects. Eviction requires time and resources of the landlord and our court system. Also, consider the police resources that have been called upon during this entire process. Now let's imagine that this individual has children. Education is one of the single most important predictors of future success. His children have spent all of this time in an environment that makes learning literally impossible. Perhaps as little as $300 could have prevented all of this and helped this family maintain stability.

We had a chance at our budget meeting to spend a very modest $50,000 on eviction prevention, a sum that clearly would have paid for itself a dozen times--not only in dollars but in police resources. With little debate, the amendment failed. We had other opportunities to invest in crime prevention. Some passed but most didn’t. However, none of these alternatives were part of the crime debate where they belonged. The debate was over before it had begun.

Allied Drive, an area replete with victims of crime, falls within my district. When I ask my constituents what will help in their community, not a one mentions an increase in the number of police. This makes me wonder whether our response to crime is focused too heavily on middle class areas experiencing crime for the first time versus lower income areas that continue to be victimized by crime in vastly disproportionate amounts.

I think most of us would acknowledge the severe flaws in our criminal justice system. During the debate, I raised concerns related to the endless cycle of incarceration. I spoke of the shocking cost to taxpayers and society as a whole and the racial disparity in incarceration rates. It wasn’t until two weeks after the budget passed that the Justice Policy Institute reported that 97% of counties demonstrated racial disparities in their incarceration rates, with Dane County ranking third in the nation. While drug sales and use were approximately the same between whites and blacks, the report showed that an astonishing 97 black offenders were locked up in Dane County for every white.

I am very proud that we forced a debate where one would have otherwise not existed. I’m not sure whether we turned a single vote but that wasn’t necessarily the point. Maybe the addition of the thirty new police will help this community move past our culture of fear. Maybe this budget vote will help us elected officials move past the politics of fear. Because there is only one certainty in this world: until we address poverty and the other root causes of crime, we can pass as many feel good proposals as we want, but we’re not going to solve the problem.

A Peaceful Place

2007-10-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

In a crazy, high paced world, filled with terrorism and war, poverty and hunger, ringing cell phones and fighting gangs, I close my eyes and think of home. A peaceful place. A place of support, of calmness, and of love.

Unfortunately, for so many, it is a place of cruelty, of violence, of brutality.

As we sit back this October and consider Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I hope that we will remember that domestic violence affects us all. It does not discriminate across class lines, income lines, or geographic lines. It affects every community in this state. And when one person if affected, every person is affected – every person in that house, in that community, and in our world.

One third of the women murdered in the United States are victims of domestic violence. This gets right at the heart of what it means to have a place to call home, a place where everyone can go and feel safe.

Almost six years ago, out of nowhere, I crossed paths with a family who had endured the most horrible thing anyone could imagine: daughter, mother, sister, friend, woman, and fellow human being Beth Kutz, had been killed by her husband. I spent three weeks as a juror, listening as attorneys, friends, and family members recounted stories of this person who was no more. By the time it was over, I knew her like a sister. I knew her likes, her dislikes, her passions, her promise. And then, when it was all over, I had to commit yet another unthinkable act: I had to sentence a man to life in prison.

I wrote a book about this experience, called Sequestered. I have been in touch with Beth’s family ever since, have stood by as an almost invisible observer, watching as Beth’s mom raised her two grandchildren, Jacob and Jennifer. Two children who, thanks to their grandmother, are flourishing. But two children who, because of this horrible scourge known as domestic violence, now have to grow up with neither parent.

I was proud, last week, to participate as a walker and speaker in DAIS' Purple Ribbon Walk. I was honored to look out among the crowd and see Beth's daughter, mother, uncle, and best friend, honoring her memory.

I have learned a lot in the last five years. As I sat in jury deliberations, I’d almost wished that Beth’s husband had hit her. It would have made my job easier. Because at the time, sitting in a tiny room deciding whether to send a man to prison for life, it was hard to make the leap. But I have learned that domestic violence is not always about escalation. Sometimes verbal and emotional abuse can lead directly to extreme violence or even murder.

I also got a tiny glimpse into what victims must feel, the choice they must make to endure the violence or to tear apart their family. This is not a choice that anyone should have to make. Ever. Finally, I learned that the choice to leave is often not enough. In my case, it was likely Beth’s decision to leave that led to her death. In fact, victims are seven times more likely to be killed when they leave abusive relationships.

This is not something that we as a community can tolerate for another year, another day, another minute. It is not sufficient to stand by, shake your head, and tell yourself it’s not that bad. It’s not sufficient to say: this is not my problem, I can’t get involved. And it’s not sufficient to believe that we aren’t affected.

We are all affected. And as we gathered around the Capitol last week, an amazing, living, breathing tapestry that stood, unified, in memory of those we have lost – our friends, our family, or even a stranger we met through the loving eyes of her family – I asked everyone who could hear my words to pledge to continue this fight, continue this work, and continue to educate survivors to come forward, family members to get involved, and perpetrators to understand that this is not okay and it will not be tolerated. If you are reading this, I ask you the same.

Let’s end domestic violence, and make sure every home is a place of shelter and support and, most importantly, a place where everyone can feel safe.

Moving Past a Culture of Fear

2007-09-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

We are the most safe, secure people in the history of the planet. Yet, as our safety and security continues to increase, rising almost in direct contradictory proportion is our level of fear. I attribute much of this to our comfort: the level to which we take our quality of life for granted. I attribute more to our hubris: despite the giving nature that resides somewhere in all of us, we default to a place where we believe that our own person and our own family are entitled to something to which the rest of the world is not. However, if I look back over the last five years, I attribute most of this to our reaction to 9/11. Instead of using this opportunity to bring people together, our leaders have taken advantage of this tragedy and turned it into something that not only divides us, but plays upon our comforts and our hubris, forcing us to sink deeper into those realities.

I hoped Madison would be different, that we would build on our progressive tradition of openness and compassion and somehow sidestep this reality. I hoped that we’d show the world how people could react and watch in sadness as the rest of the world tried to catch up. But here we are, in one of the safest places in the world, in one of the most secure times in history, pushing crime, fear, punishment, and public safety to the top of our local agenda. As if this weren’t bad enough, we have taken it a step further by focusing only on reactive solutions, including additional police resources, additional tools for law enforcement, and strategies focused on further dividing an already fractured community.

Madison has held three neighborhood meetings on public safety in the past month, and over 2,000 residents have shown up to decry increasing crime in their neighborhoods. They demanded more police and more support, asking elected officials to focus their sole attention to protecting their neighborhoods. Few, if any, talked about preventive strategies, about poverty or the root causes of crime, about homelessness, about AODA, about childhood abuse or neglect, or about any of the other realities that could cause a person to lose hope and stop caring about the impact his behavior has on others.

Meanwhile, neighborhoods that have faced serious crime for years, perhaps decades, continue to pull together and try to figure out ways to address the root causes of this issue. They fight for affordable housing, they plan mobile food pantries and community dinners to feed their hungry, they beg for additional resources to help their children, and they try to reach through their muddled streets and find hope.

Somewhere in this great city, there resides a solution. A solution that recognizes that society only makes one rock solid commitment to the poor: all one has to do is commit a crime and we will provide him or her with guaranteed food and housing. But where is our commitment to those who don't commit crimes? What of our commitment to one of my constituents, a single mother of four, finally getting her life together, who broke her arm, lost her job, and is now about to be evicted? Think about this, put yourself in these shoes. We are not talking about a hardened criminal, a violent scourge on our society, or a resident of Chicago. We are talking about one of us, one of ours, a Madisonian, living right here in one of the most progressive, wealthy communities on earth. What do we want to do for her?

What of the man who was recently shot in Allied? A horrible, violent act that left him hospitalized and seriously injured. What have we done, in our culture of fear and violence, which has led him to remain unwilling to offer any information about the person who shot him? Is it distrust for our police? Is it the result of a community that has forced the dialogue into us versus them? Is it fear of retribution from his attacker? Or is it his residence in a world outside of that which we can imagine, yet one only a few miles away, where things like this just happen, where life goes on, where it could have just as easily turned out the other way? What do we want to do for him?

People must feel safe. There is an inherent instinct here that drives our behavior and leads us to make decisions we’d otherwise not make. It led millions of white, middle class people to flee to the suburbs for a generation, leaving behind nothing but huge pockets of poverty, scant resources, and decaying inner cities. We can’t allow that to happen in Madison. So we must respond to that which we are hearing. We must stem the very real fear that exists. But we also must work together to help our citizens get past this fear, to help us all understand that the fear itself almost certainly does more damage than the violent act that preceded it. And if we really care about saving our community, we need to move past law and order and find a way past all this violence. If we want peace in Madison, we must have justice. So let’s add police and resources and address this fear. But let’s also recognize that we must be in this together and focus on the root causes of poverty that often lead to crime in the first place.

There are so many solutions that we know work. Just around the corner from Allied Drive resides the Madison Apprenticeship Program (MAP), the brainchild of one woman whose drive for change makes more difference than a dozen new police. One graduate entered the class homeless and jobless. He secured housing and now manages an apartment complex and paints as an independent contractor. Another graduate spent the last dozen years dealing drugs. He now works at an area service station, signing up for every extra hour of overtime he can find. There is a second generation drug dealer who graduated and now works as a sales clerk and attends MATC, working to become a lab technician. Another graduate fought with others regularly, used drugs, and was always involved with police. Now she is employed as a technician with a communications company and is taking computer classes at MATC. She hopes to have her own computer business one day. Just four examples of how, for both the individuals and for our community, engaged participation can trump incarceration.

If we want to move forward as a community and solve this problem, we will have to work together. We may have to put aside our hubris and step, however briefly, outside of our comfort zone. It’s pretty simple: if we are divided and acting out of fear, we’ve already lost.

Impeachment: Why It Mattered

2007-09-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Madison City Council voted, 8-3, at their September 4th, 2007 meeting to recommend that we initiate impeachment hearings against President Bush. Sadly, the resolution still failed because 11 votes are needed and impeachment only received 8. Eight alders abstained and one left early.

I have been called a communist, an idiot, and a Bush-hater. I have been told that this debate was needless, counter-productive, and a waste of time. I have been castigated for taking up an issue that is not appropriate for the City Council.

First, I do not hate President Bush. Second, it is never needless to advance a cause that matters to our country, our community, and our constituents. Thirdly, I can't fathom how this issue is inappropriate for the City Council. Another alder, on her own time, took the effort to prepare this resolution and bring it before us. It was wholly legal, ethical, and appropriate for her to do so. Once it was in front of us, it was our obligation to act on it just like we would any other resolution.

We didn't waste any time on this except our own. It was the last item on the agenda; we didn't get to it until 3:00 in the morning. If this hadn't been on the agenda, we would have gone home and gotten a (much needed) extra hour of sleep.

70 of our constituents showed up for a rally before our meeting. 60 of them came to testify. 15 of them stayed nine hours, until 4:00 in the morning, to participate in the debate. We received dozens of phone calls, hundreds of emails, and a petition signed by over 8,000 Madisonians. There is simply no way to deny it. It mattered.

Why I voted yes: I believe it's possible that President Bush didn't tell the truth about why we went into the war with Iraq. I also believe it's possible that executive privilege was misappropriated regarding how long we remained in the war, the use of our US DOJ, the Patriot Act, wiretapping, and other issues. Impeachment doesn't mean someone is guilty. It means there is evidence to suggest the possibility of guilt. I believe that possibility exists and am therefore supportive of an investigation to learn the truth. Some issues are important enough that we (as American citizens) need to know the truth. I am fully appreciative of the fact that the investigation may have turned up nothing. I would be thrilled if that were the case and would feel somewhat better about the course that this administration has taken.

Either way, for me, this is not about Bush hating or wasting time. It's about us, as elected officials who are closer to our constituents than any other level of government, responding to what we are hearing. And thousands of our constituents said this mattered.

A 9.11 Tribute: Six Years Later

2007-09-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

As an alder, a member of the city’s Transit and Parking Commission, and a dedicated supporter (and user) of Madison Metro, I was honored to attend a press conference today at the UW Arboretum, announcing the addition of five hybrid buses to the Metro fleet. There were a lot of speeches and praise offered by numerous dignitaries and partners, but sadly the most important statement went unsaid.

The United States consumes 21 million barrels of oil. Daily. Only 5 million of these barrels are produced domestically; another 5 million are produced in and imported from the Middle East.

And while one can’t blame the entirety of forty years of failed mid-east policy on our insatiable appetite for mid-east oil, it is certainly the leading factor. And regardless of what one believes about September 11, 2001, I think we can all agree that were it not for four decades of intervention in the Middle East, September 11, 2001 may not have happened.

So while everyone was admiring our attractive new buses today, I was saddened by the fact that no one made the connection; that no one mentioned the horrific tragedy that we all experienced six years ago today nor the fact that today’s rollout of five hybrid buses does more than help the environment.

It honors the victims, the heroes, the still sick and forever wounded, of 9/11. It honors them because today, on the sixth anniversary of this horrific event, we took a bold step to reduce our dependence on mid-east oil. A small step that, if replicated a hundred times a day throughout this country, would demonstrate a far greater commitment to their sacrifice than our counterfeit and counterproductive war on terror. On this day, it was the most important thing we did and it was left unspoken.