Election day Tuesday...woo-fricking-hoo

Updated 3/31, see below.

Guess what, Tuesday is (yet another) election day and boy am I not at all excited. As much drama as there's been this particular election season, most of the actual races are snoozers and it's been hard for me to get worked up about any of the folks on the ballot (excluding my boss...I'd rather not work for a guy who thinks I'm a rat on a sinking ship, thank-you-very-much!).

From city council to school board, circuit judge to state supreme court, there isn't a whole lot to inspire Northside voters.

Rhythm & Booms grudgingly allowed to continue

After some discussion and a push to cancel the event, Rhythm & Booms is moving ahead for this summer. The city agreed to contribute $55,000 in police and other services, but will require organizers to cover costs above that amount.

To provide some context, that is 3% of the subsidy Madison taxpayers provide to the Overture Center, for an event that draws as many people in one night as Overture's free community events do over the entire year.

A better North Sherman...this summer!

Updated 2/18

Last fall, Ald. Rhodes-Conway held a community meeting to discuss residents' problems with North Sherman Avenue. The city's traffic engineering department has completed its report to recommend Sherman be reconfigured with bike lanes, pedestrian islands, and two auto traffic lanes plus a center "TWLTL" turning lane.

Rhodes-Conway is already charging ahead, having introduced the plan last week on a fast track to committee review and approval. Reading my earlier post, you'd probably think I approve, and you'd be right...mostly. It still needs a bit of work.

Rhythm & Booms...& Bust?

Rhythm & Booms is up in the air again, with financial pressures likely scaling back this year's show to fireworks only, and environmental activists pressuring the city to cancel the event altogether. Thursday before last, Alds. Weier and Rhodes-Conway held a packed meeting at Warner Park that emphasized the lack of unanimity in our neighborhood over the future of this event.

I was unable to attend the meeting, but here's what I'd have said had I been able to be there:

Ending Rhythm & Booms at Warner Park basically means canceling it for good, which would be a serious blow to the community as a whole. There is simply no other event that brings together all of Madison the way Rhythm & Booms does, and the lack of attention this aspect of the discussion has received illustrates the great divide below our Portlandesque public image.

Neighbors meet future alder, Occupiers

Tonight's Sherman Neighborhood Association meeting featured both candidates for District 12 alderperson and a delegation from Occupy Madison presenting their Fordem Avenue project. Overall, it was a successful 90 minutes (props to SNA co-chair Megan Maguire for keeping the discussion moving and on-topic!) that left attendees with a better sense of who's seeking to represent them and what's going on in our community.

Recap and early reaction after the jump...

District 12, Occupy Fordem updates

Following up on a couple of recent items...

• A second candidate emerged late in the filing period for the District 12 city council race. Leslie Peterson, owner of the Amsterdam boutique off State Street and a freelance medical interpreter, declared her candidacy on December 28 and filed her papers right under the wire. She was briefly in the news last year during the Capitol protests, when a DOA maintenance worker went after her balloon with a knife. Ms. Peterson has been invited to Monday's neighborhood association meeting (Ald. Larry Palm has already confirmed he will attend).
• I won't take credit for it, but Brenda Konkel (possibly joined by other Occupy representatives) will also be meeting with the neighborhood on Monday. Here's hoping they'll take the opportunity to engage with us, rather than try to overwhelm the meeting.

Come see all the excitement this Monday the 7th at 6:30 p.m. at Warner Park CRC!

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.