The big fix is in!

at Dane County’s progressive political machine!

Let the party bosses decide!

Who’s in favor of insider trading? Rigged elections? Point shaving in fixed games? (Vladimir, put your hand down.) 

That’s pretty much what we’ve got on the Dane County Board of Supervisors.

Blaska needs to save his precious bodily fluids for extinction-level events like the looming nomination of P01135809 for the presidency of the United States. But the Head Groundskeeper must expend some bile for the Big Fix right here at home. O.K., it’s not Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos, George Santos, or Hunter Biden. But it ain’t right, just the same.

Why do we keep expecting politics to be fair?

Three county board supervisors resigned from office earlier this month. They made certain to do so after July 30. Why is that date important? Resign before that date, and voters get to choose their mid-term successors. Resign after that date, and the Fix Is In: County Board chairman Patrick Miles gets to appoint their replacements and the members who elected Miles their chairman will most assuredly confirm his appointment. Is why.

Nine months later …

Well, things come up, right? Life is unpredictable. Except that two of the resignees were elected to the state legislature back in November 2022. As Democrats. Might they have known they would be busy? Those two are Mike Bare, from Verona’s District 32, and Alex Joers, representing District 9 on the far west side of Madison. The third resignee is Olivia Xistris-Songpanya, who quit District 13 on the University of Wisconsin campus. She is attending graduate school in Germany. Which must have come as a complete surprise, also!

“If former supervisors Mike Bare, Alex Joers, Olivia Xistris-Songpanya had resigned just a few weeks earlier, their constituents would have been given an opportunity to elect their successors. Given that Mike Bare and Alex Joers were sworn in as state representatives in January 2023, I find it very odd that they chose to resign after July 30.

— Supv. Jeff Weigand (the board’s lone conservative)

So far, three have applied for the vacancies in District 13. No idea who Travis Austin, Jay Bower, or Sara Redford might be. Steven Peters, who served two terms beginning in 2018, has applied in the Ninth. He administers the WI Workers Compensation Division in his day job. We expect Democrats and Progressive Dane to post their candidates right before the application deadline, which is 4:30 p.m. tomorrow 09-01-23 to the Dane County Clerk. (Need 25 nominating signatures circulated by the candidate him/herself and fill out a bunch of papers.) The full county board will act on its chairman’s nominations on 09-21-23 after public hearings in each district. 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: If conservatives had stage managed such a hand-off, the city’s news media and good gummint goo-goos would have devoted a few pixels and a pint of ink for some editorial tut tutting. But that’s life in a one-party town. Not even a throat clearing!

When will YOUR fix be in?