second of two parts
When society is blamed no one is responsible. Which is why Madison’s Progressive Dane-dominated city government has condemned once-vibrant State Street to struggle. A Midwest version of war-torn Beirut. All in the cause (incredibly) of racial equity and social justice!
Former Isthmus editor Marc Eisen lays out a case we and others have been making for nine months now. He puts it all together in a two-part series for InBusiness magazine.
- https://www.ibmadison.com/state-street-special-report-part-1/
- https://www.ibmadison.com/state-street-special-report-part-2/
Much of State Street remains shut down. “Frankly, I have no idea where the new tenants will come from,” one commercial property agent tells Eisen.
This store on State Street is prepared for the next riot. The 2 x 4 studs remain ready this March 2021 for the installation of protective plywood.
As this blogge recounted in Part One, the coronavirus pandemic and on-line commerce wounded the seven-blocks between Madison’s capitol and the University of Wisconsin campus.
Reparations paid with busted glass
Ald. Mad Max
Last summer’s “mostly peaceful” protests resulted in a local kristallnacht of destruction and looting. Eisen recounts city alders’ refusal to enact a local Marshall Plan to help those businesses recover. Why, because State Street must be made to pay reparations, not the other way around.
So said, in effect, Alder Rebecca Kemble (Progressive Dane), as the council on July 21 decisively rejected an aid program for the 75 State Street businesses damaged and looted by rioters following the death of George Flloyd.
“This is quite literally institutional racism. That the whitest and the wealthiest neighborhoods receive the most resources.”
Ald. Kemble
Kemble — white as Wonder Bread herself — is on path for re-election, having received over half the votes in February’s three-way primary. Her common sense opponent is Charles Myadze, son of a Nigerian immigrant.
Eisen quotes the ironically named social justice warrior Justice Castenada: “The history of Madison’s downtown is one of exclusion, corruption, and of boosterism and land-grabbing.” This Justice fellow was instrumental in getting cops expelled from the city’s four public high schools.
And of course Ald. Max Prestigiacomo (Progressive Dane), who infamously encouraged attendance at the next scheduled riot with the exhortation: “F-bomb that S * * *”
Not the right kind
Eisen points out that State Street is among Madison’s most ethnically diverse commercial zones (along with Park Street). Eisen counts Chinese, Pakistani, Portuguese, Nepalese, Mexican, Greek, Korean, Laotian, Turkish, Syrian, and Colombian. But no American Black. Whose fault is that?
No pedestrian mall, as proposed by the WI State Journal, will cure the chronic social dysfunction. Madison’s progressives will shame customers who would rather go elsewhere than endure the shakedowns, public drunkenness, and crime. Amanda Chen, owner of Fugu Asian and a single mother of three, tells Eisen:
“Safety is the big issue.” She details several safety incidents I suspect would worry women. The plunge in foot traffic has been ruinous for walk-in business.
We will pay for Progressive Dane’s virtue
With business traffic slowed or shut down altogether, expect property values to crater and with it, tax revenue. Commercial properties downtown include Capitol Square, which is similarly boarded up. They account for 10.5% of the city’s entire tax base. Eisen quotes former mayor Paul Soglin Soglin predicting downtown properties will decline 15% to 25% in value. The city’s hotel room tax may decline to $7.3 million from $19.6 million.
Soglin … suggests its newer members will learn a harsh lesson in municipal finance when they put together the 2022 budget: Alders will likely find themselves between a rock and a hard place — either cutting neighborhood programs or saddling homeowners with a big tax increase.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Vote for these guys on April 6.
Will voters learn THEIR lesson by then?
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Madison Progressives are nothing but a gang of narcissist.
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They really are.
They have no cognition or concern for what the rest of us think. They’re enamored by, and obsessed with, their own brand of extremist thinking.
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Maybe they will bring back the the peepshows, massage parlors and the eventual coming of Pot Shops. If a minority proposes such a business can they be denied, because denial would be racist. How could the city live with being such proponents of systemic racism.
The urban progressives glamorize homelessness and baseball bat carrying idiots as a Madison tradition while stealing the tax payers blind to pay for more and more and more no return on the investment services.
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Most ‘radical Progressives’ I’ve had the displeasure of interacting with are miserable, damaged and angry people. Any examples of success and happiness must be quashed… Promptly and harshly. They achieve their ‘equity’ and ‘equality’ all right… Before long, everyone is equally poor and miserable.
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Tut tut, sir, tut tut. Every Progressive knows that there is a magic money fairy who strews largesse across some places but not others. It has nothing to do with actual work, careful risk taking, providing a service that others will pay for, either. Nope, it’s all about fairy magic flitting across the landscape. That money fairy must be called on!
All Madison needs to do is pass enough laws to mandate that “State Street shall be nice again” and the money fairy shall fly by. The details of the niceness are left up to the mere peasants, who are obviously racists hiding behind their plywood walls. Tear down those walls! Put more plate glass back up, and don’t you dare complain when it is broken again!
Plus…don’t bother Progressives with that boring old “cause and effect” stuff, that kind of thinking is pure White Privilege!
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Dave relays, “With business traffic slowed or shut down altogether, expect property values to crater and with it, tax revenue. Commercial properties downtown include Capitol Square, which is similarly boarded up. They account for 10.5% of the city’s entire tax base. Eisen quotes former mayor Paul Soglin predicting downtown properties will decline 15% to 25% in value. The city’s hotel room tax may decline to $7.3 million from $19.6 million.”
That’s not chump change, and any & all SJW connected with the area should consider the consequences. Because soon there won’t be ANY dough left for all their warm and fuzzy thoughts and deeds. Who’d think they could be so dumb, so short sighted and dream-filled to NOT realize the reality.
And as pointed out, the bigger question is : how’n Hell have they not noticed the diversity on State Street that has existed there for decades??
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I worry there will be more protests & riots with the trial in Minneapolis for that officer in the George Floyd case. Hoping the cities that saw destruction last year are prepared, but not holding my breath. Nothing like trying to create Utopia by destroying your city.
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You can count on it. Sadly.
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Floyd 2.0 The earthquake will be bigger than the 1st.
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“Will voters learn THEIR lesson by then?
Doubt it.
“Soglin … suggests its newer members will learn a harsh lesson in municipal finance when they put together the 2022 budget: Alders will likely find themselves between a rock and a hard place — either cutting neighborhood programs or saddling homeowners with a big tax increase.”
Doubt it. If they haven’t learned a lesson by now, especially after last summer, it’s highly doubtful they’ll have an epiphany any time soon.
They WILL saddle homeowners with the bill like they always have. They have no respect for how hard many of us work to pay bills and be responsible.
How are we thanked for paying those increasing taxes? By getting lectured by hippies, Socialists, and unclear thinkers about how awful we are for daring to been born white.
I suspect this bizarre and deeply racist attitude is so deeply ingrained in them, that they are incapable of understanding any other point of view except for their own.
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I am terrified by some Alder candidates views, whose platforms are working against the City rather than with the City. Brandi and Benji, and several current Alders up for reelection. We are never going to move forward as a City with division by color, age, gender identification, when the issues that lay before the city are so much larger than what they are presenting. What if an issue comes before them has nothing to do with race, such as water, zoning, etc. Are these candidates able to comprehend an issue that had nothing to do with race? I am strongly supporting an Alder candidate in my district because she is well informed on housing and crime, my two hot buttons. They have to be willing to listen to all sides of an issue. A pipedream, I know, but I am puzzled and concerned about several Alder candidate statements, such as “affordable senior housing is a racist dog whistle.”
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“A pipedream, I know, but I am puzzled and concerned about several Alder candidate statements, such as “affordable senior housing is a racist dog whistle.”
Crazy, isn’t it? EVERYTHING in their minds, is viewed through the lens of race & identity. I don’t think they’re capable of seeing issues any other way.
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