If it’s Woke, look the other way!
Elon Musk may be brandishing a chain saw like Leatherface, Madison may pour out by the thousands to protest (as they did Saturday 04-12-25), but it’s amazing what a little poke under the hood can reveal. Republicans forced an audit on the University of Wisconsin’s $21.8 million diversity, equity, and inclusion empire and its grifting director was demoted.
Now it’s time Madison and Dane County did the same! They may not find trips to Maui or 150-year-old Social Security recipients. But, as Yogi Berra said, you can see a lot just by looking.
Jeff Weigand, who represents the Marshall area on the Dane County Board, wanted to audit Urban Triage, run by social justice warrior Brandi Grayson.
‘Culture transformation’
Urban Triage is a non-government services contractor described as “focused on education, culture transformation, and community building for the black community and other vulnerable populations.” (Itself a questionable racial test.)
Urban Triage had overspent its budget by $100,000 one fiscal year. A third-party audit conducted in 2021 found the organization “had inadequate controls to ensure the proper recording of all its financial transactions.” (Source here) Given the outfit had expended over $20 million in county funds since 2020, Supv. Weigand wanted another look.
Weigand was looking for more — like nepotism, political patronage, and influence peddling. A trip to Puerto Rico? Was Urban Triage shelling out cash to renters who weren’t so low-income? The Dane County Board was not interested in the answers; it rebuffed Weigand by a 28 to 5 vote this January. Only David Boettcher, Jerry Bollig, Patrick Downing, and Maureen McCarville joined him.
Lift the rock!
Now WISC-TV 3’s Channel 3000 alleges that Urban Triage was awarded contracts of $397,246 and $276,857 while not submitting the contracts to the full 37-member Dane County Board of Supervisors, as required.
Channel 3000 contends Human Services director Astra Iheukumere worked on the addendums for well over the $100,000 threshold required for full board approval while signing the original contracts for under the threshold.
“When Channel 3000 contacted Dane County Executive Melissa Agard’s office, multiple representatives offered to give more information on the contracts. However, none provided any,” editor Jason Cuevas reported this week.
The growth of the nonprofit was … lucrative for CEO and founder Grayson. Starting with a salary of $58,478 in 2020, Grayson’s salary was reported at $292,235 in 2023. She received $50,000 from Urban Triage for “full rights to use the Urban Triage name, logo and educational materials developed by the director.” Grayson also receives 10% “on gross annual revenue it receives from third parties that contract for educational services from the organization.” — News 3 Investigates: Dane County Human Services faces scrutiny over loopholes, poor contract vetting”
Channel 3000 reported that resumés of Urban Triage principals, required for county contracts, didn’t jibe with other sources. “After the interview with Channel 3000, Grayson posted multiple videos on Facebook discussing the conversation. She said, ‘Everyone lies on their resumé’,” Cuevas reported.
Reparations by a different name?
Are we afraid to look? The City of Madison spends $2.7 million on the Department of Civil Rights to “vigorously pursue … racial equity, social justice, and environmental justice.” The county spends $1.68 million annually for an Office of Equity & Inclusion “to address racial, gender, and disability disparities.” Another $1.17 million goes to criminal justice reform.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Is it fair to ask by what metric will we know that racial equity is achieved? Can the community stand any more criminal justice reform? What, exactly, is “social justice”?
16 responses to “Waste, fraud & abuse in local gummint?”
What you subsidize you get more of.
Freedom Inc, Urban Triage et al are part of the NGO Industrial Complex hustle.
Racist all the way down.
NO! Not everyone cheats on their resumé. Only liars do. Has anyone checked Grayson’s resume??
If she were smart, she would take a page from the playbook of the “BLM 3”. Start making preparations to take the money and run, after first appointing some low level stooges to take the fall, (just in case) (…… if she were smart)
On a more serious note, white progressives in Madison exhibit a paraphilia firmly within the “domination/submission” spectrum. This usually manifests itself by their paying a specialist (dominatrix) to verbally berate them, and then suggest humiliating tasks for them to complete. They display a definite bias in employing black females for their fetish. “White Guilt”, satisfying this craving, is a lucrative business. “B.G.” is but one, of several, offering their services. I have no idea what the going rate for such a “specialist” (racial dominatrix) is, but it might be somewhat less than $292,235+.
You hit on just the right metaphor to describe the pathology of Madison progressives.
Social justice? Give it time. Maybe DOGE will raid Urban Triage and fly Brandi on an all-expense paid trip to tropical, trendy El Salvador.
Why would anyone think that waste, fraud and abuse doesn’t happen at all levels of government. Can any government agencies including federal, state, local including school boards pass a third party audit? Probably not. The agencies that receive money should also be audited but as we see from the Dane County Board no one wants to know.
I just fired off two emails to Agard and the board. That should fix things. I got one immediate response, but that was from Weigand.
A little addendum to your post on waste, fraud and abuse by UW-Madison. In the latest Cap Times (read strictly for entertainment value) I see that the nabobs there want to spend $262 million (that’s over a quarter billion) for a new Humanities Building. At at time when the number of Humanities majors is plummeting. Their complaint about the old building: 1) it’s ugly 2) it leaks. The first complaint is the result of rampant philistinism among UW administrators. It was designed by a renowned architect who worked in the brutalist style, not everyone’s cup of tea, admittedly. As for the second, if all the buildings that leaked were demolished, not a single Frank Lloyd Wright structure would survive.
As I recall that Humanities building was hated even as it was still being built. On the fences around its construction site, a graffiti cartoon figure was shown announcing “Buddha will crush you” to a crowd lined up waiting to be crushed. Was this an anticipation of the current relationship of Dane County citizens to the revenue-devouring bureaucrat Buddhas of their city and county governments?
Jonathan: I also recall Humanities being built. Favorite graffiti on the fence: “Virginity is a bubble in the sea of life, one prick and it’s gone.” I kid you not. Different times. We had fun.
The graffiti I remember on the fence surrounding the HB while it was under construction: “Block-long erection to rise on this site.” We did have fun–and a flair for the prurient innuendo.
Now city buses are going to Verona because of the massive monies from city taxpayers? Are they kidding. Bus also goes to Sun Prairie. No wonder mayor assessed our homes so much in last 4 years. Insane taxes so the bedroom communities can benefit off of madison’s home owners. Talk about getting screwed.
That is how they get ridership up but at what cost.
Verona and Sun Prairie (and other communities that get service from Metro Transit) pay to have bus service in their communities. Madison doesn’t pay for it. Epic in Verona used to fund the lion’s share of Verona’s service when it first started there years ago. So, Madison homeowners aren’t getting screwed. Good grief.
This isn’t the first time Brandi Grayson has had a weak flashlight pointed at her shady NGO. She knows she’ll get away with it because Dane County’s entire NGO ecosystem is doing the same thing. Just not as blatant enough to attract attention. Which is why they keep dropping her hints. They know if the right kind of people notice, NGOs might actually be scrutinized, or gasp, bound by enforceable legal and accounting standards. You know, real incentives and accountability.
You can’t expect NGOs to police themselves. There’s no incentive.
The Free Press ran a story the other month about over a thousand women in the UK getting raped by Muslim gangs while the authorities looked the other way out of fear of being called racist. The same phenomenon is on display here—wokeness intimidating public officials out of doing their jobs. Disgusting.