Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Aldermanic races

The filing deadline was Tuesday and the lineups are set for the Madison aldermanic races.  From The Capital Times, Election Matters: Mayor won't back Konkel foe, and the Wisconsin State Journal, Mayor tried to recruit candidates to oppose Konkel on City Council.

Besides the Konkel story, there are very few notes of interest  pertaining to the filings:

• Larry Palm will face Will Sandstrom, the turbulent and often confused candidate who made his mark in the 2003 mayoral primary. Palm gets my sympathy, but the race will bring a smile to more than one face.
• Brenda Konkel with her four challengers will have to rate behind Palm in the most interesting opponents category. She gets perennial candidate Dennis Denure who actually comes up with some decent proposals (The Museum Mile).
• Districts 10  5* and 11 will compete for the most interesting traditional competitive campaigns.

The political landscape will not change much after the April elections unless the campus districts produce alders who are in lock step with Progressive Dane or only mildly supportive.

*Erik - thanks for the comment. My mind is frozen to the time when a portion of the district was the 10th.

Overture: Now Is the Time To Act

The offer from the Madison Culture Arts District (MCAD) board to turn the Overture Center over to the city of Madison is the best start possible to resolving the issues confronting the performing arts center. As the Wisconsin State Journal reported,

Owner wants to give Overture Center to city; not a good idea, mayor says

Overture Center's owner wants to give the $205 million arts facility to the city of Madison or another entity for $1 as part of a complex deal to secure its long-term future, a letter obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal shows.

City officials are balking about taking responsibility for the gleaming but financially strapped facility on the 200 block of State Street.

The alternative may be a bank foreclosure on the building, the letter says.

The next step is to create a city commission to look at the the three fundamental issues: resolving the debt related to construction, a new structure for Overture, and a long term planning regarding finances and programming.

This commission might have to work for six months or longer. Critical points that need attention:

• A city management board, structured after the old Civic Center Board needs regional participation but only if there is a regional commitment to support Overture. If there is no regional support there should still be some appointees from outside of Madison.

• The city cannot take over the facility unless the construction debt issues are definitely resolved.

• Recognizing that Overture is doing as good a job as possible filling seats from September through May, experts and the public should be brought in to discuss utilizing the facility during the summer.

• Consideration needs to be give to a nominal sales tax (fractions of a percent ) to support the arts as is done in Colorado and Minnesota.

• There must be a true public planning program that invites everyone to come to the facility both literally and figuratively. The unintended top down original structure for Overture created a sense of isolation.

The public did not believe they were welcome to do anything but buy tickets and sit in their seats. That is not a true public arts facility.

Kutler on Blagojevich, Burris, and the Constitution

The nice thing about reading Stanley Kutler's* commentary on national affairs that have their roots in thorny Constitutional issues is that he informs, he educates, and he knows the topic. It's like going back to school. I did take four courses from him as both an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Wisconsin.

Writing at Truth-dig, he cogently outlines the political and legal issues facing the United States Senate and the Democratic Party with the appointment by humbled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich of his nominee, Roland Burris (Burris refused seat in US Senate.):

Understanding the Constitution sometimes is like interpreting the Talmud.  Two scholarly readings bring forth three opinions. Article I, Section 5, of the Constitution is rather straightforward: “Each House shall be the judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualification of its own Members..."

Nice. Now what do they do? For the full story, go to Kutler's article: Blagojevich vs. The Senate:

 *Waxing America's favorite Emeritus Professor in the entire galaxy, the esteemed University of Wisconsin Constitutional scholar Stanley Kutler

Betty Smith 1918-2008: One of Madison's Great Elected Officials

I felt sadness upon hearing of the passing of Madison Alderwomen Betty Smith, but I also smiled.

Betty had good politics, or as I used to tease her, great politics for a Republican.

In fact, she would be despised and castigated as a RINO if she was active in politics today.

Betty was elected to the city council in 1973. I had made a pledge to begin a Madison child care program. I did not have a clue as to how it would happen. We were going to certify child care centers, provide instructional and training materials on child development to those who wanted the assistance, and even provide a modest scholarship program.

Betty told me not to worry about it. She gave me the name of Mary Berryman Agard and we went to work. At least the two of them did. I just tagged along.

The program was a smashing success. To this day, Madison's program is the model for the rest of the country.

It was a joy to work with Betty. Whether it was the child care program, the State Street Mall, the Civic Center, or even her complaints about the performance of certain city employees, she always had a smile and nothing less than support and encouragement as we strived to make Madison a great place to live, for all people.

Years later, Betty then in her 70's  could be seen bustling around  Madison, often with her 90 year old mother in tow.

William Bradford Smith preceded her in death years too early. They were a wonderful couple, thoughtful and kind. While William Bradford's firmness was a counterpoint to Betty's never-ending smile, you knew they belonged together.

If our mission in life is to contribute and improve the lives of those around us, Betty succeeded in everything she did.

Overture Center: Where It Went Wrong

When Jerry Frautschi announced his gift to create the Overture Center almost ten years ago, he had no firm opinion as to the structure that would operate the facility. In fact he assumed that the new facility, built on the site and concept of Madison's Civic Center, would continue with City of Madison control.

Then mayor Susan Baumann wanted no part of the facility. Her concern was the responsibility of the new performing arts center, both managerial as well as financial.

She informed Frautschi the gift was welcomed, but that he would have to find an alternative to the city when it came to ownership and management of Overture.

She informed the pubic of something different.

She told members of the city council and the press that the eventually adopted Madison Cultural Arts District (MCAD) was a condition of Fratuschi's gift. Actually MCAD served the needs of then Civic Center director Robert D'Angelo, who was looking for a structure that would guarantee him the benefits of public employment without the the inconvenience of an elected executive who might keep an eye on him.

It was a condition, not imposed by the donor, but by Baumann.

That condition set in motion a series of events and decisions which lead to the untenable situation MCAD experiences today.

The worst of all public structures is a legal public body with no constituency. 

MCAD, like Wisconsin school districts or municipalities, is a creature of the state. It is established by state law and its powers are derived from the state. Unlike the school boards and the municipalities, MCAD does not have elected leadership.

That does have some advantages. Its board, appointed by state, city and county leaders, does not have to worry about a meddlesome public.

There is a downside. There is no public electorate that cares what happens to MCAD.There are no stakeholders to turn to in a time of crisis.

Now Overture, despite performances booked and tickets sold, is facing a crisis which needs public support, but cannot obtain it. Laying off public employees may save a modest amount in operating costs, but fails to solve the larger problem of public engagement.

When Baumann made her decision, she deprived the people of Madison of a free and open debate as to how the new Overture might be operated and managed. The outcome might be the same, the MCAD.

However, it was more likely city management would continue. which then would have set in motion an entirely different set of decisions, which may have avoided today's crisis.

author's note: Wisconsin has similar structures such as the area technical colleges. Fortunately for them, there is an active public since they have the ability to tax; there are area-wide constituencies that support, or oppose, what they do.

Overture Employees Take a Holiday Hit For Failed Leadership

In an editorial that misses the mark, Cooperate to reform Overture,  the Wisconsin State Journal commends the leadership of the Overture Center for laying off employees and calls upon public officials to renegotiate the labor agreement with the union that represents the employees.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and the City Council should respond by reopening the city contract... to allow center management to control pay and benefits...Labor costs are by no means the only part of Overture that deserves an overhaul. But they compose the largest expense item in Overture's budget. The city's pay structure is out of line in several places...

...For example, a study found that an Overture ticket cashier earns $18.34 an hour, compared to a statewide benchmark of $10.30.

The pay structure is not out of line.

Out of line were the decisions that led to the design of Overture and the Wisconsin State Journal editorial.

The original design problems will be dealt with in a separate post, for now I will deal with the editorial.

For over twenty years the pay structure for Civic Center and subsequently Overture worked just fine. That pay structure is based on the workload and responsibilities of the staff ranging from ticket sellers to electricians.

An examination of the job descriptions is a good place to start. A ticket seller at Overture has far more responsibilities than a ticket seller in Wausau.

Next, the State Journal repeats the same mistake it committed last summer when it attempted to demonstrate that the way to deal with the financial losses at the city public swimming pool was to lower the wages of life guards. Wisconsin State Journal's Goodman Pool Editorial All Wet.

Madison pools lose money because the revenues, not the wages, are out of line.

If Madison charged individuals and families the same rates as the suburban pool operators, there would be no deficit.*

The same is true with Overture. While salaries do comprise the largest expenditure in Overture's budget, the greatest discrepancy is in the largest budget item, revenues from performances - that would be ticket revenues for the producers.

The ticket revenues are not sufficient to maintain the facility and pay the bills.

This is not about  'tough love.'

This is about a series of mistakes made in the automobile industry, the financial services industry, and in the Baumann administration's decision to turn over the operation of the Civic Center to a body with no obligation to the public. The Overture board has no constituency and never did.

As a result the employees suffer in a organizational structure that was cobbled together to meet the needs of the previous Civic Center director and those who had his ear, namely the then mayor.

The Wisconsin State Journal notes,"The economic downturn and some boneheaded financial decisions have left Overture troubled..."

Yes, I would say troubled. The fund is over $20 million lower than it should be.

Less than one percent of the losses (not the principal), would cover the cost of the slashed workers wages for another ten years.

Which gets us to the real issue. There must be a reason that the State Journal repeatedly attacks reasonable workers' wages whenever there is a financial crisis.

They are preparing for the obvious at the newspaper. The day the layoffs and the cuts come.

As Roger Ebert noted in analyzing the crash of the troubled Chicago Tribune, the problem is not the staff but the enormous debt that paper faces because its current owner, Sam Zell, bought the company on credit.

*Madison charges the lowest daily fee for a child at $2.25 while it is $2.75 in Middleton, $3.00 in Sun Prairie and a nifty $6.00 in in Shorewood for a daily guest pass (3.00 for a grandchild).

And in Madison the amenities and the recreational options are far greater than at any of these other pools.

A family membership in Madison for the season is  $145 (non -residents $285); in Middleton it is basically the same for residents and $355 for non-residents. In Shorewood it is a whopping $437 and $582. Only Sun Prairie undercuts Madison at $90/135.

Wisconsin Bloggers: Individually and Collectively Inept, Inattentive, Incompetent

With one of the greatest blogging stories sitting right under their collective noses, Wisconsin bloggers sat on their collective behinds and allowed the mainstream media, the CBS Evening news with Katie Couric, to scoop them on the biggest stories of the departing year, the Shawano -SIST story of international intrigue:

Alleged Murder-For-Hire Rattles Small Town:Placid Midwest Town Turned Upside Down By Alleged Hit List And Secretive Group

All a reaction to news of an alleged hit list and claims by a so-called hit man, now telling his story for the first time.

"And I said, 'you want me to kill 60 people? You want me to kill the whole town of Shawano?" said Canadian businessman Bob Cameron.

Keteyian asked: "They were hiring you as a hit man?"

"Yes, they were," Cameron said.

"You're talking about the mayor, the city administrator, the city treasurer, the city attorney, the police chief, judges, investigators, fire commissioners," Keteyian asked.

"Uh huh," Cameron assented

Cameron says in late October he received $175,000 in wire transfers from people known to be part of a secretive group long run out of a house near Shawano called SIST.

Its is a story that could never be fabricated. The cast of characters are from the next great movie, a combined effort of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino.

The mayor (Kathy Bates) tops the list of sixty potential local victims. The Canadian hitman (Martin Short) was trying to do no more than collect some unpaid bills from the local cult when asked to wipe out half the town. The cult leader (Samuel L. Jackson in a reprise of his role of Jules in Pulp Fiction) is responsible for the investment of over $15 million in local real estate.

The real estate holdings fail and the county treasurer (Johnny Depp) is now foreclosing. The sheriff (Ben Stiller) and his deputy (Owen Wilson) manage to keep the town on edge as they tail two SIST members (Mike -Wayne-Meyers and Dana -Garth- Carvey), who prowl the city streets with a camcorder filming anyone they suspect is in cahoots with the town leaders.

SIST spokesman and attorney (Johnny Depp or should that be Robert Downey Jr.?) manages to bring some semblance of reality to the entire story claiming this was all a misunderstanding.

Sanity is maintained. The FBI agent (Brad Pitt) brings calm and peace to Shawano.(Pronounced Shawn-o as in Shauno of the Dead).

All this going on in plain view. Badger bloggers are writing about Republican committee assignments in the legislature, the performing arts, and Lake Michigan.

Phooey.

                

Merging Government Services - Usually Ugly

In the 1980's, as part of the increasing sentiment to merge government services in the name of efficiency and saving money, a number of Dane County governments came together to link their police, fire, and emergency medical dispatching services.

The result is the present system, which had two glaring failures in 2008, the murders of  Brittany Zimmerman and Mark Johnson, as well as some not so high profile cases, since they are not linked to homicides.

From the beginning there were difficulties with the system. Madison Police Chief David Couper and his staff noted continued problems on a variety of issues. When I returned to the mayor's office in 1989, I was deeply concerned that the new system was a license for dispatchers to send city of Madison police to a disproportionate number of calls in the Town of Madison, thus allowing that community to maintain lower staffing needs than was required. We continued discussions with Dane County but could only work around the edges since we had neither management nor control over the system.

Chief Couper went so far as to suggest we pull out of the system and go back to having our own dispatchers. The cost to rebuild a city system was prohibitive.

For our efforts we were labeled malcontents and identified as poor players in the sandbox of governmental cooperation.

All of which leads to the simple uncontroverted fact that merging governmental services does not inevitably lead to saving money and it certainly does not necessarily lead to efficiency.

The problem occurs in the the planning of the merger and the expectations of the parties. There must be an understanding of the needs of the operators. In the case of the dispatch system, that is the police officers and firefighters. It is not sufficient to approve the merger and then shrug shoulders saying, "Those are details that can be worked out later."

Some government agencies serve their own unit of government - human resources and IT are two examples. Some serve the public - parks, police, fire, and health are examples. Some serve both the government and the public - examples are legal services, the clerk's office, and public safety dispatchers.

Too often, when merger is considered, thought is only given to serving the public (Zimmerman and Johnson) without consideration of the needs of serving the internal customers (police officers).

What happens is the service provider (dispatch) only thinks of the direct service to the citizen and the needs of the internal customer (police) to serve the customer is overlooked.

It does not have to be that way. Merger can work.

Madison's State Street - Wasting over $3 Million a Year

This week's Isthmus features an article, Chronic pains detailing the problems of a few dozen offenders who accounted for almost 400 police contacts in the State Street area during a five month period.

The two men were no ordinary criminals...Each person on the list of 24 had 10 or more contacts with police in the first five months of 2008. Lindsey, 41, was one of the worst: From January to June, he had 42 recorded police contacts, including being sent to Dane County's detox center 16 times...

The study group found that 98 people were responsible for nearly 800 police contacts downtown during this brief period.

An examination of the repeaters shows that almost all of them were either homeless, suffered from mental illness, or had a drug-alcohol dependency problems.

What is so shocking is that a similar study was done over ten years ago.

In the intervening years I  repeatedly told anyone who would listen that a computerized list of the individuals who showed up most frequently with Police or Fire department contacts is the key to reducing problems downtown.

It is real simple.

Read the entire Isthmus article. The last half details solutions critical to a solution.

These individuals need help. They need help, that by law, the state of Wisconsin and Dane County are required to provide. They need treatment or in some cases institutionalization, especially if they refuse to stay on a treatment program.

The study just completed only covered police contacts. They should include fire and paramedic contacts as well. The top twenty offenders are probably good for close to 3000 contacts in a year. At an average cost of $1000 a contact that comes to $3 million annually.*

All of this points to the fact that the city is chasing its tail and the wrong culprits when it comes to liquor-fueled downtown problems including violence.

State Street's problems emanate from two sources associated with frequent liquor and drug abuse. The first group is already identified - older men with severe health problems.

The second are violent thugs who were not found in the area ten or twenty years ago. They too can treated. Remove the older men, free up law enforcement to deal with the young thugs, thus setting a higher standard for State Street behavior, and the problem is solved without draconian measures affecting the sale of alcohol to reasonable people.

Then all that is left is to close the over the top private alcohol fueled parties, and get the youngsters back in the taverns where they belong.

An effective Madison Neighborhood Resource Team (NRT) fro State Street is a start. If we look at it on a cost effective basis, the county's Joining Forces For Families (JFF) should make an appearance.

After those problems are solved, imagine what could be done with the money to work with low income households.

It might also result in fewer murders and violent assaults.

*This number ($3 million) is probably low. While some contacts may be nothing more than instruction to cease offensive behavior, if the contact includes a conveyance, a booking, and subsequent prosecution which will include multiple police officers, the cost is at least $1000. A fire conveyance and detox is probably a minimum of $2000.

Carroll Metzner Passes Away at Age 89

Madison Attorney Carroll E. Metzner, a stalwart in Republican circles going back to the 1940's, passed away Saturday. Metzner was a conservative. Very conservative. 1950's conservative.

His greatest notoriety came from leading the battle, for the better part of three decades, to stop the construction of Frank Lloyd Wright's Monona Terrace.

I have nothing but fond memories of Carroll.

We clashed, though not directly ,in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies when I was on the City Council.

Then came the his Law Day speech on May 1, 1973.

For months Metzner was scheduled to present the address for the Dane County Bar Association at this annual event. Well before election day April 3, 1973, Metzner drafted his remarks.

He acknowledged the gathered dignitaries, including me.  Carroll explained that he had finished his draft in March, and upon reflection of learning the election results and my presence as the newly elected mayor of Madison, explained that he made no changes in his speech.

He then launched into a defense of the Constitution of the United States of America and, attacking Madison's Left in general, and me in specific.

Metzner and I were the only ones in the room who were not uncomfortable.

In 1989 when I was running, once again, for mayor, Metzner asked to see me. I was both confused and curious. I paid a visit to his law office and he explained that he had determined that I was the best candidate and wanted to know what he could do to further my election. I thanked him and walked out with one of the most unlikeliest endorsements.

In 1991 when we were to announce the newest effort to resurrect the plans for the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace, the secret was kept despite the fact that over two dozen Madisonians had knowledge of the plans, including the publishers of both Madison daily newspapers.

The day before the press conference I called Metzner. For some reason I feared he might view this as a betrayal. I had never promised that Monona Terrace would not come back. After all, everyone thought it was dead.

I was not prepared for Metzner's response: "Thank you for the courtesy of the call, Paul. I will not try to stop it; I will not be involved. If you can build it more power to you. I am done with that battle."

Metzner must have smiled on Sunday when the notice of his death was published in the Wisconsin State Journal , Longtime Madison attorney Carroll E. Metzner, 89, dies.

More prominent with a bigger headline was this story:

Taliesin restoration fraught with epic difficulties

The three-story wing that contains the Wrights' bedrooms is collapsing. Crumbling utility tunnels — choked with rubble and infested with bats and woodchucks — run below the graceful residence.