It would be duplicative if it wasn’t so dysfunctional! And paranoid!
The great thing about a bowl of corn flakes in the morning is they’re hard to screw up. You got to be trying. We say that about Madison WI with its lakes, natural beauty, university, and state government — not that the progressives who run local government hereabouts aren’t trying. (They’re very trying!) 🤣
Our city is one of the wealthiest in the state but city government faces a $27 million deficit from using one-time federal Covid-relief largesse to pay the light bill. So, of course, Mayor Satya embarks on a $50 million bus rapid transit experiment that no one seems to, you know, actually want.
The ultimate guilt trip
If you want that quintessential bridge to nowhere, look no farther than the Police Civilian Oversight Board. It was created as a sop to the perpetually aggrieved after a white police officer shot to death a belligerent and stoned young black man. Idea being this city’s oppressed black and brown victims could have recourse against the city’s slave catchers in blue. Never mind that the Obama administration twice held up Madison police as national exemplars.
Anyhoo, city taxpayers paid $360,000 to a Berkeley boutique to recycle this idea out of its threadbare playbook. The Oversight Board’s 11-member commission (all paid) and its executive director bill us for $509,420 annually. After 3½ years they STILL have not managed to write up a police complaint form!
Isn’t that the whole idea of this exercise in white guilt?
The best news reporter in town, Chris Rickert, quoted the six-figure-paid executive director to explain, “I am new to this.”
Today, former Mayor Dave joins the chorus. “This whole thing is just a train wreck.” The Werkes doubts that even one of the 20 alders has the fiscal sense or political fortitude to go up against the grievance industry lobby and put this boondoggle out of its misery.
Blaska Policy Werkes has been on this case from the beginning. This white elephant duplicates the state-required duties of the Police & Fire Commission. We wrote six months ago, at the three-year anniversary of the oversight board’s creation by the Common Council:
Madison police oversight board does no business
The ordinance creating the Oversight Board illegally demanded appointment by race (we won our lawsuit to get that rescinded). It first offered the job of director to someone found to have sexually harassed. Its first order of business was to establish its pronouns. Its board chairman thinks white supremacists are out to kill her.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Tell the Common Council to amend the budget to zero out this frivolity at its next meeting! council@cityofmadison.com (Don’t forget to include your pronouns!)
10 responses to “Zero out the Police Civilian Oversight Board”
Wondering why The Isthmus’ Dylan Brogan (right up there [IMO] with Rickert) hasn’t ventured an opinion?
“Today, former Mayor Dave joins the chorus. ‘This whole thing is just a train wreck.’ ”
Anytime Blaska and Former Mayor BikeShorts are on the same page, the lucid should take note.
“When will the Wisconsin State Journal bestir itself to weigh in against this Woke nightmare?”
None too soon, but eons before the comically inept Lefty rag Crap (sic) Times, which might be expected right around the Twelfth of Never!
The Gotch
Not anytime as they both have TDS (not the phone company).
Dylan Brogan has left the building. He’s doing journalism somewhere else now.
“Not anytime as they both have TDS (not the phone company).”
The Gotch should know enough to never speak in absolutes…
The Gotch
[…] This post originally appeared at https://davidblaska.com/2024/03/05/zero-out-the-police-civilian-oversight-board/ […]
I love this city. Where else can the local government run a $27m budget deficit and still fund the police oversight board for $500k/yr that has no complaint form or legal basis to legally do anything but write reports. The City like the School Board are on track for referendums this fall. Maybe the county can join in and buy more land why they build too small of a jail.
We will be lucky if they don’t double their frigging budget.
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Mayor Satya has masterminded another complete train wreck and waived it under the taxpayer noses. Dump this board and save $500000
In their three years of doing nothing, the Oversight Board could at least have started an inquiry into why the MPD failed to discover any suspects, and then closed the 2020 investigation of when Althea Bernstein reported she was set on fire at State and Gorham by four white guys in “boogaloo” floral shirts.
At the time, Mayor Satya issued a statement, saying, “This is a horrifying and absolutely unacceptable crime that I will not tolerate in Madison.”
Doesn’t poor Althea deserve justice? Her case seems perfect for the Police Oversight Board.
I have no doubt Mayor Satya still prowls the city at night, searching for the “real igniters”.