Wednesday, February 22, 2012 |
Madison, WI: 40.0° F
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| CITIZEN DAVE: Thoughts and ideas about city building from Madison's former mayor |
 Citizen Dave: Ten reasons to defriend meLast week, I wrote about how I had hit the Facebook friend ceiling of 5,000. I was sort of implying, without being too heavy-handed about it, that if you're one of the 5,000, maybe you'd want to defriend me and make room for others. I can't bear to do the defriending from my end. I saw Sophie's Choice. So to make things easier for all of us, if you're one of my Facebook friends, let me offer ten reasons why you should defriend me. >More   Citizen Dave: A new language of politicsOn President's Day, let's take a moment to remember a man who never was president but should have been. Bobby Kennedy's campaign for the 1968 Democratic nomination lasted just 82 days before he was shot in a hotel kitchen while reaching to shake the hand of a dishwasher. He may have been the last American politician who had the courage to tell us what we needed to hear, not what he thought would get him the most votes. >More
 Citizen Dave: The Week in Review... when will the Republican debates return so we can laugh again?Ok, so look people, this was not an especially funny week. Now, last week -- last week was golden. You had the Russians bringing back a guy from the dead to prosecute him for back taxes. You had the 50th anniversary of the Cuban trade embargo -- a huge success on the verge of toppling Castro after only half a century! And you had Republicans running for president of the United States and saying things. >More  Citizen Dave: I am not being stuck up!As of yesterday, I joined a very select group -- or at least it would have been four years ago. Yesterday I reached my 5,000th friend on Facebook. This means that I'm sorry but you can't "friend" me even if you wanted to. You had your chance but now it's over. It's not that I don't want to be your friend, it's just that I can't because Big Brother Facebook won't let me. >More  Citizen Dave: Idea of the Week... a Green Transportation card for MadisonIt's Winter Bike to Work Week and, in fact, I have been biking to work pretty much all season long. Of course, this isn't so much to brag about this winter with so little snow and such mild temperatures. But I still feel the warm glow of political correctness and I'm actually enjoying the rides. So this Idea of the Week is transportation-related: What if one card gave you access to four ways to get around? >More  Citizen Dave: Time for the game without a clock... baseball season is startingPitchers and catchers report to spring training camps this week, so it's time to think about baseball. Every year, I find myself liking baseball more. I think it's because baseball is the only major American team sport without a clock. Football has a clock. So does basketball. >More  Citizen Dave: Ted DeDee a good choice for new Overture presidentWelcome to Madison, Ted. You've got a great place to work and a fantastic city to work in. Ted DeDee has been selected by the Overture Center Foundation board to succeed Tom Carto and become the art center's fourth president since its opening about six years ago. From everything I've read and learned about him, he is a good choice. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review... death, taxes, Castro, and quiet RepublicansThey say there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. Well, now it looks like taxes are even more of a sure thing than death. It took the Russians, a country that knows something about the dark side, to figure that one out. >More  Citizen Dave: Where's Wisconsin? A lost year under WalkerIt was a year ago this week that all hell broke lose. Governor Scott Walker proposed what amounts to the elimination of public employee unions. The backlash was heard around the world, and has resulted in the recall of the governor with the final chapters of all this still to be written. >More  Citizen Dave: Idea of the Week... regional tax base sharingThere's been quite of bit of commentary about Spectrum Brands' decision to move its corporate headquarters out of Madison for the first time in the company's hundred-year history. While that's an interesting debate, there are underlying factors that need to be addressed if we're going to be successful as a city and as a region. The first important thing to recognize is that Spectrum ultimately stayed in the region. >More  Citizen Dave: The greenest choice might be to keep driving the clunker (unless it's not)I'm planning on buying a new car. In the year 2027. My 1997 Honda Accord wagon has 145,000 miles on it, and I'm going for 300,000. At the rate Dianne and I drive -- about 10,000 miles a year -- that would put our next new car purchase at about December 2027. Maybe it'll be a Christmas gift for ourselves. >More  Citizen Dave: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and the truth about what we all inheritIt's now clear to just about everybody that when Mitt Romney goes to get his next pair of shoes, they should measure his mouth instead of his feet. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review, from Mitt dissing the rich to Walker’s secret router to Christo running the river wrappedsThe big news this week is that, feeling his oats after winning big in the Florida primary, Mitt Romney came out swinging against the rich. In a CNN interview on Wednesday morning, Mitt said, "I'm not concerned about the very rich." (To balance his statement he also said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." But this is not news. We already knew that.) >More  Citizen Dave: Handicapping the Democratic candidates for the Wisconsin governor recallIn a new op-ed on the recall, I make the case for a crowded, wide-open Democratic primary to decide who will take on Scott Walker. I even suggest four new names to consider. But assuming none of those folks actually runs, how does the rest of the known field shape up? >More  Citizen Dave: Idea of the Week... temporary fixtures at Union CornersI got a lot of great ideas out of the winter meeting of the Mayor's Innovation Project a couple of weeks ago. Here's another: enliven Union Corners with temporary fixtures until a permanent development can occur. >More  Citizen Dave: Thank you, Tom CartoMario Mendoza held his head in his hands. "Dave, I knew you were going to do that," he said. Mario, my aide who oversaw the Overture Center at the time, had been through the preliminary interviews for the its new president. The search committee had sent me three candidates, and I wasn't supposed to pick Tom Carto. >More  Citizen Dave: The 100 block of State Street, fire escapes, and their place in the cityI like fire escapes. To me, they're unintentional urban art forms. Think about West Side Story and the role fire escapes play in that production. Audrey Hepburn sang "Moon River" out on a Manhattan fire escape in Breakfast at Tiffany's. How many spy thrillers have featured chases across rooftops and swings from fire escapes? Fire escapes are romantic. They're urban art, and they wait for adventure. In fact, West Side Story was based in a neighborhood that is no more, destroyed by the grand, open and mostly desolate plaza that Robert Moses created for Lincoln Center. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review, from Pat and Vanna's margaritas to waste, fraud and abuse in the Walker administration to the excitement that is Mitch DanielsIt was the week for the State Ofs. President Obama gave his annual State of the Union address. I thought he did a good job, but the real excitement was the Republican reply by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. >More  Citizen Dave: It was wrong (and dumb) to try to shout down WalkerThose in the audience for Governor Walker's State of the State address who tried to shout him down were wrong to do it, and they hurt the cause of the recall. >More  Citizen Dave: Idea of the Week... expand Madison city revenue through tax-exempt landAs always, I took home a lot of interesting ideas from the Mayors Innovation Project's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. last weekend. Let's start with an idea that comes from Boston regarding tax-exempt land. Fifty-two percent of the land in Boston is occupied by tax-exempt property, almost exactly the same as Madison. That's not surprising when you think about it, as Boston and Madison are both home to state government, large universities, large hospitals, and a host of nonprofit organizations. >More  Citizen Dave: City policy geeks gather for the Mayor's Innovation Project meetingIf you listen closely to mayors talk about their cities, you'll hear their sentences spiced with the possessive. They talk about "my" streets department and "my" parks as if they personally owned the roads and green spaces. It's an easy habit to fall into, and one I was guilty of as much as any of them. >More  Citizen Dave: President Obama wins the South Carolina GOP primaryThe winner of Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary was President Barack Obama. While Mitt Romney will almost certainly still win his party's nomination, the best reality show on TV -- the Republican primaries -- rolls on now with four stubborn contestants still on the island. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review... from Miss America to Mitt's pin money to Vetgate, but not to the PackersA lot happened this week, but of course the big news was that Miss Wisconsin is now Miss America! She's also from Kenosha, which is home to Tenuta's deli and grocery store. So now there are three good things that have come out of Kenosha. >More  Citizen Dave: Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Warren, and the politics of envy and equalityOne of the neat tricks that the Republican Party has pulled off flawlessly since Reagan is to convince average Americans that their interests are the same as the wealthiest of all Americans. Republican politicians are trained, whenever confronted with the inconvenient truth of growing income inequality, to utter the magic words "class warfare." >More  Citizen Dave: Walker recall petitions filed, now what?I'm not ready for a commitment. It's not you, Democratic candidates for governor, it's me. With more than a million signatures filed to force a recall of Gov. Scott Walker and 845,000 to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, the question turns to who will be the Democratic candidates against them. Let's not decide that just yet. Here's why. >More  Citizen Dave: WIAA's 'March Madness' helps connect Madison with the rest of WisconsinYou might no longer have to endure all those pimply-faced kids in their team jackets trying to look cool on State Street in the early spring. Madison might also not have to endure their parents and the $10 million or so they bring to our economy every year. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) is seriously considering taking its tournaments to Green Bay, outside of the capital city for the first time in almost a century. >More  Citizen Dave: James Crow, a quiet geniusI didn't know him well, but what I knew about him I liked. James Crow was a name on my supporters list. This meant that he was sentenced to get a call from me once every year or two asking him for money. I dreaded making "money calls" more than anything else about being a politician. It was degrading and just plain awful in every way. But Jim Crow was unfailingly polite, upbeat and pleasant and he always said yes. Except for the last time I called him about a year ago. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review, from Ron Paul's fiery talk about monetary policy to former Walker aides ripping off veteransThe big political news of the week was Ron Paul's surprisingly strong second place finish in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Paul responded on election night with a fiery speech about the Federal Reserve. Let me tell you something. There's nothing that gets a crowd more fired up than a 76-year-old guy yelling about monetary policy. >More  Citizen Dave: Winter, finally and not a moment too soonI think less of people who winter in Florida. I think less of people who spend their winters in Arizona or the Bahamas or, for that matter, in any climate in which you can sit beside a pool in January and consider actually using that pool. >More  Citizen Dave: In search of Mitt RomneyIt's now all over but for the praying. Mitt Romney will be the Republican opponent for President Barack Obama after his convincing win yesterday in the New Hampshire primary. Sure, Romney might stumble in the next contest in South Carolina, but even if that happens, it'll just be a speed bump to the nomination. >More  Citizen Dave: The changing face of billboards and outdoor advertising in MadisonFor me, one of the most memorable debates on the Madison Common Council floor was over a proposal to ban the one rolling billboard that makes its way around Camp Randall on football Saturdays. It's basically a two sided billboard attached to the back of a truck. It looked like the proposal might be on its way to passage until one alder asked the city attorney if this would mean that we would also be banning the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. >More  Citizen Dave: Idea of the Week... rethink St. Raphael site and nearby blocksOn a cold late winter day in 2005, I stood across the street from St. Raphael Cathedral watching our Madison firefighters fight to save what was left of the historic church. It was a sad day in Madison, and over the ensuing months it became clear that rebuilding the church around the existing walls was not going to be feasible. >More  Citizen Dave: The Week in Review, from Stale Christmas cookies in Iowa to a fresh Badgers defense and Matt FlynnThe big news this week was that .004% of the nation's population showed up to eat left over Christmas cookies in living rooms in Iowa and choose the next President of the United States. They handed a mandate to the richest man in Bedford Falls or most anyplace else in America, Mitt Romney. The Mitt crushed Rick Santorum by eight votes. >More  Citizen Dave: An upwardly mobile Europe, a rigid U.S.Yesterday I wrote about Europe, and asked why it was that Mitt Romney found it advantageous to run against European policies when they appeared to be so successful. One criticism of my arguments was that I didn't take into account the fact that America was the land of opportunity while Europe had a stifling culture of classism. >More  Citizen Dave: What's wrong with being more like Europe?Tuesday night's Iowa caucuses brought Mitt Romney one more heavy step closer to his inevitable nomination. So, it's time to pay even more attention to what he's saying on the stump. Here's what Mitt Romney said before the Iowa caucuses: "I kind of like America. I'm not looking for it to be fundamentally transformed into something else. I don't want it to become like Europe." >More
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