because its apologists will resist even minor reforms!
Among the costs levied by the dysfunctional independent police monitor is the reputational harm it causes the City of Madison. The City may run its buses on time, rake autumn leaves from neighborhood curbs, delight Saturday mornings with art fairs and farmers markets. All overshadowed by the City’s own version of Dumb and Dumber — each new episode gobsmacking law-abiding taxpayers with novel examples of incompetence, entitlement, and recreational grievance.
The Head Groundskeeper is speaking on the record at tonight’s Madison Common Council meeting (starts at 6:30 p.m.) in support of former Ald. MGR Govindarajan’s attempts to get the public monitor and its Police Civilian Oversight Board to follow the law (discussed here). We encourage you to speak out (it’s agenda Item #55), even though the proper remedy is total dissolution. You can jabber for 3 minutes before you get cut off. You can do so from the comfort of your own home. Or just register your support for the reforms without testifying. Do so now.
Blaska’s testimony (subject to going off TelePrompTer or another attack of Tourette syndrome):
Let’s face it, the independent police monitor has been one painful toothache for all its 5 years.
It was founded on a lie — the lie that Madison police are institutionally racist.
It was created as political ransom to buy off the social justice warriors and their reckless charges of racism following the George Floyd hysteria. Instead of Defunding Police, the Monitor defames police.
If Madison police were racist, where are the civil rights judgments in this lawyered-up city? Where are the Department of Justice consent decrees? Correlation is not causation, people! Madison schools discipline boys 59% of the time even though they constitute 51% of the student body. The Monitor would say our schools are biased against boys!
Its oversight board requires at least one member with a criminal history. Nominees are accepted only from a curated list of social justice agencies. Republicans need not apply.
It first offered the job to a sexual harasser and then hired a man who got a sex change operation on city time but did little else.
Here’s a quote: The Independent Police Monitor “fishes through research papers . . . so that they can create some kind of sanction or punishment for the police department.” UNQUOTE. Who said that? Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes right before he bailed on Madison.
Talk about Entitled! It demands to be immune from City personnel, I.T., procurement, and public records rules. Its data cruncher plays with sensitive crime reports on his personal computer at his home with no supervision. No apologies.
It wants its own lawyer and more money. To do what?
The monitor is the answer to a trivia contest. She reports that 8 cases have been closed; chief among them an incident where a police sergeant on State Street declined to return a fist bump to a “young adult” and followed with a profanity or two. The Department had already disciplined the sergeant.
Independent? Then why was Greg Gelembiuk a regular at the Justice for Tony rallies?
Conflict of interest? It will actually pay people to sue the City! Maia Pearson is only the latest chairman of the Police Civilian Oversight Board to be arrested. Don’t worry, the monitor is making police answer for her case!
The whole apparatus is duplicative. The Police & Fire Commission can impose discipline and even terminate — THAT is real oversight!
It is more trouble than it is worth: $1.4 million in taxpayer money and $273,000 paid out in racial discrimination law suits and nothing to show for it. Racial discrimination law suits! How is THAT for irony! Add staff time babysitting this troublesome child and the loss of public credibility to this sorry ledger.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Madison police don’t need this institutional bullyragging. They need body-worn cameras, our respect, and our thanks.
Leave a Reply