Edgewater: Democracy vs Development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.