Occupy Fordem Avenue

Update 2/2/13: News broke this week that the owners of 2132 Fordem couldn't wait for Occupy to get its financing together and sold to another buyer.

Original post:

Thursday's Isthmus broke the news that the "Occupy" group is working to buy the vacant commercial building at 2132 Fordem Avenue. Chief spokesperson/organizer/strategist Brenda Konkel was rather displeased that word got out before the deal was done. Once again this small and vocal group is the topic of conversation on the Northside.

So why would anyone have a problem with this? Can we write off voices of concern or criticism as nothing but NIMBYism? I don't think so. There are two major issues that the new Occupy Madison Inc. must address if they want the neighborhood to be a partner in this project: standards and image.

District 12 race over before it starts?

Six years ago, District 12 had probably the hottest city council race of the year, with a four-way primary spanning the ideological spectrum. Current Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway won a close 52-48 victory, marking a turning point in the declining fortunes of Northside conservatives. With Rhodes-Conway stepping down, will voters get a repeat of that bellwether contest?

Not bloody likely.

The only declared candidate is District 15 alder Larry Palm, whose Carpenter-Ridgeway neighborhood was shifted into District 12 along with the rest of Eken Park. He's done a good job of clearing the decks and lining up endorsements, enough to scare off potential challengers on his end of the ideological spectrum. Palm's overall record is firmly within the Madison council's progressive majority, with most of his focus and attention in the Eastmorland and Atwood areas. His first lit piece transposes some fairly standard boilerplate -- Larry likes clean water and libraries! -- onto the district, but Palm's specific plans or ideas for the Northside remain a mystery.

Meanwhile, Dorothy Borchardt's old supporters seem to have given up on her former seat. I can't say I'm surprised, since Dane County conservatives have proved time and again they'd rather lose extreme than build a competitive coalition. But it's too bad that city politics have become so ideologically monotonous and focused upon which developers want to do what downtown.

There's still a week before nomination papers are due, but with so little chatter about the race before the holidays I'd be shocked to see another candidate emerge. Despite the overall uptick in interest for this spring's elections -- all three school board seats contested! five people who will never live up to Brenda Konkel's expectations for her district! -- it seems like we on Ruskin Street will have to sit the city races out.

4 questions on "Occupy Northside"

The Northside "Occupy" encampment was removed from Lake View Hill Park just before the Thanksgiving holiday, and this being Madison there is a community meeting scheduled tomorrow night to debrief. Like most Madison public meetings, it's scheduled at a lousy time for working parents so I won't be there, but if I could go here are the four questions I would ask:

1. Is there a concise statement of what the "Occupy" group wants?
2. What is it specifically about these 15-odd people that they aren't being served by existing supports -- how are they different from the hundreds of other homeless individuals served every night? Are there systematic problems causing this one small group to fall through the cracks, or is this an idiosyncratic group?
3. If there are systematic issues, how do we address them without falling into a "San Francisco trap" of spiraling costs, assumption of the entire region's homelessness problem, and loss of our public spaces?
4. Does the expectation of responsibility go both ways -- if the community as a whole is responsible for supporting those in the "Occupy" group, do they have a reciprocal responsibility to meet reasonable conditions upon that support (e.g. observance of shelter rules, participation in treatment programs, etc.)? I mean this as a general question, not a debate over whether specific conditions in specific places are reasonable -- without the premise, discussion over a particular policy or provider becomes meaningless.

Occupy Northside?

Like most Northsiders, I was surprised to hear that the long-term homeless group Occupy Madison had decamped to Asylum Hill last night. There was some question as to where they'd go after the City kicked them off the Don Miller site they'd taken over last winter, and the County's initial plan to open up a site on Wright Street ran into stiff resistance after being proposed a couple of months ago.

It's hard to know exactly what's going on with this specific group of folks, with conflicting information filtered through multiple sources. Both Mayor Soglin and County Executive Parisi have stated that housing is available for the members of the original encampment, but former Ald. Brenda Konkel - who has taken on the role of the residents' chief spokesperson - insists otherwise. No one has said for sure if this is the same core group from last year's Occupy Madison encampment, or if the sobriquet is being used to brand this new group.

Did these folks fall through the cracks, or are they the most chronic of the chronic homeless? Have they been kicked out of Porchlight or other shelters, or are they languishing on a waiting list? Is this a savvy, self-organized group looking to better themselves, or a stunt organized by Konkel and others? Given the involvement of several high-profile individuals on Madison's political scene, it's difficult to see through the agendas.

The only clear fact we have is that there isn't a simple solution. But I will say that, as long as they're occupying the hill, the residents of the tent encampment need to be good neighbors...or whatever goodwill they have on the Northside will evaporate quickly.

Our water infrastructure

In the wake of Super-Stormicane Sandy, much of the East Coast has far too much water on its hands. Yet water may be the most threatened resource for the millions of Americans affected by the storm:

The Scariest Thing About Sandy: Guarding the Water Supply

With Sandy bearing down upon us...[w]hat we all should be worrying about is plumbing. It’s not the water lashing the beaches that matters; it’s the water in your faucet and toilet.... More than email or mass transit or your favorite diner, all of urban life depends on plumbing—defined in practical terms as the effective provision of clean water for drinking and the regular removal of waste to a place nowhere near the source of clean water....

Yet most of today’s survival tips out there have only to do with keeping your food from spoiling or your ice icy.... But the problem is not one of food shortages but, alas, one of excrement. Raw sewage. Shit. In your water supply.

Flooding is the most common way a water supply can be compromised—for example, the Midwest floods of 1993 cut off my Des Moines relatives' water supply for nearly three weeks. But there is another way that the author hints at with his reference to Milwaukee's cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993: inattentiveness to our water infrastructure.

A better North Sherman Avenue?

(I wanted to put a nice picture at the top of this post, but Google couldn't find one. Apparently there's no such thing as a nice view along North Sherman Avenue. How appropriate!)

Tonight, Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway convened a community meeting at Warner Park to share data and collect resident input on traffic and safety along Sherman. The meeting was well attended (I'd estimate the crowd at 70-80, although the crowd skewed older) and came hot on the heels of a resolution she pushed through the Common Council just last week on this issue.

Is Rhodes-Conway reopening the fight over our neighborhood's Main Street?

Be a Northside Partner in Giving

The annual Partners in Giving campaign started today for state and UW employees throughout the Northside. Last year the campaign raised almost $2.5 million for local, statewide, and national charities. If you're someone like me who prefers to direct your dollars to individual charities, there are a number of participating organizations who work right here in our neighborhood:

• Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (1115): Offers support to domestic violence survivors and their children through a 24-hour crisis line, legal advocacy, shelter, support groups, crisis response, outreach, and community education.
• Friends of Madison School & Community Recreation (1183): Values Madison School & Community Recreation as a vital community resource. Friends support public recreation to enrich the lives of individuals and the community.
• Habitat for Humanity of Dane County (1196): Builds simple, decent homes with families of limited means. Volunteers, training, cash and in-kind contributions, sweat equity, and zero-interest mortgages make the American dream a reality.
• Kennedy Heights Neighborhood Association (1153): Provides a focal point for the low-income community of Kennedy Heights through social, recreational, and educational activities for all ages at no charge to community members.
• North/Eastside Senior Coalition (1156): Provides programs, advocacy, and resources to help senior adults remain independent, active, and influential in the community.
• The River Food Pantry (1232): Provides food, hot nutritious meals, and clothing to those in need. We treat those we serve with respect and build them up through hope and encouragement.
• Vera Court Neighborhood Center (1182): Provides programming for children, families, and the entire Vera Court community. Empowers community residents and responds to community needs as they develop. Programming reflects the strengths and diversity of the Vera Court community.
• VSA Wisconsin (506): Provides arts opportunities in music, dance, visual arts, drama, and creative writing for children and adults across the disability spectrum.

(The numbers in parentheses are codes to enter on your pledge form.)

Of course there are many other charities doing great work with our Northside neighbors, but these eight stood out to me. Have more ideas? Please share them in a comment!

FEED Kitchens Coming to Northgate?

At last month's SNA meeting, Ellen Barnard of the FEED Kitchens project gave us a status update...and it turned out to be a lot more than we expected! Ever since the project was first announced, their intent was to build the facility on Pankratz Street (the frontage road between Packers Avenue and The Bridges, where the new Ale Asylum and Lakeland College buildings have been going up). However, Ms. Barnard shared that they'd been in discussions this summer with Alexander Co., owners of Northgate Center, about building in the parking lot and were close to a deal.

Why is this great news?

Potpourri: Ride the Drive, Pondamonium, Ale Asylum, Smart Meters

It's been a busy few weeks for us and for the neighborhood, too. I wanted to catch up on a few things:

• By all accounts, Ride the Drive Northside was a big success. It got Northsiders out and about in a more human-scaled way and drew attention to our side of town. Kudos to all the volunteers and City of Madison staff who made this event happen!
• The Mallards' inaugural Pondamonium festival was more of a mixed bag. While the poor weather didn't seem to dampen enthusiasm for headliners Garbage and The Flaming Lips, the earlier acts weren't a huge draw. I appreciate how punctual organizers were about their 10:30 p.m. permit ending time, but the show was still too loud, too late for a weeknight in a residential neighborhood. (Doesn't that sound like such an old man thing to say?) Move it to Friday or Saturday next year.
• Word from the Ale Asylum guys at the Great Taste of the Midwest is that the tap room at their new location should be open by mid-September, with brewing operations to follow a week or two later. They have to be out of the Kinsman Boulevard location by October 1, when new brewpub Karben4 takes over their old location (and equipment!). Ale Asylum is part of a flurry of new development on the airport land along International Lane and Anderson Street. Credit goes to Supv. Paul Rusk and Dane County here...too bad the City of Madison isn't nearly as aggressive with Northside development.
• Finally, a fun fact for the anti-smart meter crowd: It's too late, the UN tricked MG&E into giving you cancer years ago! The utility teamed up with Big Meter powerhouse Itron to install a "drive by" system, where our meters are read wirelessly by trucks that drive by our houses every month. That project was finished in 2003(!) with the full blessing and support of the Public Service Commission. More recently, MG&E won a stimulus grant to pilot a full-on cellular smart grid with all the bells and whistles we've heard so much about. Food for thought for those who expect the PSC to ride in on a white horse and save them from the Water Utility...

Well 7 meeting goes...well...well!

Tonight, Sherman neighborhood residents had an opportunity to hear from Al Larson, engineer with the Madison Water Utility, and Ald. Rhodes-Conway about the planned project to replace and upgrade Well 7, located along Sherman Avenue next to Shabazz High/Sherman Middle. I was surprised at how good the turnout was -- about 25 by my estimation! -- and the beautiful weather certainly helped. The consensus seemed to be that folks felt a lot better about the project after the presentation.

Pedestrians and cars, it goes both ways

I read Isthmus' cover story on pedestrian safety a couple of weeks ago, went on a work trip to DC, and came home to a speed trap on Packers Avenue. All this churned together in my head, and helped me realize that our problem in Madison isn't just one of big steel cars with careless, malicious drivers.

Smart meters vs. our precious bodily fluids

Reading some of the anti-smart-meter rhetoric, I've been vaguely reminded of General Ripper's speech from Dr. Strangelove. Turns out that reaction wasn't so far off:

What do we want from the Water Utility?

At Monday's Sherman Neighborhood Association meeting we had a lengthy discussion about Well 7, the city water well next to Shabazz High on Sherman Avenue. The Water Utility is planning to install an iron/managese filter, and the discussion was about whether or how this would be a prelude to boosting the well's output.

Meanwhile, the saga of the smart meters continues...

Why care about these water meters?

Reading my comments about the water meter controversy, you might be left wondering why I bother writing about it. So what if folks come across studies on the Internet that tell them radio waves cause cancer? Why shouldn't they be free to make their own choice?

It's true that I experience no harm from my neighbor not wanting a wireless meter. But the discussion on this issue -- the alarmist rhetoric, studies from a small group of 'concerned scientists,' implications of corporate greed, accusations of trampling on freedom -- has a familiar, disturbing ring to it.

More on smart meters and science abuse

The Northside listserv has been atwitter the last few days with more discussion about the smart water meters issue. Unfortunately, fearmongering seems to be getting the upper hand. One of the lead advocates against smart meters, Maria Powell of MEJO, repeats her claim that "studies have shown" these meters and other RF sources cause cancer and other health problems, comparing them to lead and DDT. The increasingly shrill and alarmist nature of these comments aside, what about these studies?

The fact of the matter is, the science on this issue is uncertain and not nearly as relevant to smart meters as Ms. Powell would have Northsiders believe.

Community responds to Brentwood shooting

Last week's shooting on Brentwood Parkway, near Warner Park, has catalyzed a growing response in our neighborhood. Come show your support this Wednesday the 16th:

In response to the shooting that occurred recently on Brentwood Parkway, we will have a Community Response Walk in support of our neighborhood and all the good people living here. City of Madison Police will join us on foot, bicycle, and horseback!

We will meet at St. Paul Church, the parking lot located off of Fremont at 7:00, Wednesday, May 16. The walk will leave from behind the church.

As a group we will then walk down Fremont to Trailsway, up Calypso, cross to Brentwood Parkway on Wyldewood, down Brentwood Parkway and on Trailsway and up Monterey.

We will then have some refreshments and social time in Monterey Park. Others from the Northside will be joining us. Dr. Wayne Dyer says there are only two important things to remember, either we have fear or we have love. Let's all put some love out there.

We plan to continue this on a weekly basis.

Questions – contact Dolly O'Laughlin, President, Brentwood Village Assn. 249-8796 or the Northside Planning Council are 661-0060 ext 2.

Water meters get ire flowing

Yeah, I haven't written in awhile. Turns out that starting a blog while starting a new job and expecting/having one's first baby isn't the best idea. So what's the explosive issue bringing me back to Ruskin Street?

Water meters.