The Kathleen, in one of her last acts as The County Executive, is moving to disband the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission, aka CARPC. It is the 2007 successor to the unlamented Regional Planning Commission, which the towns croaked because it was reflexively anti-growth. The Kathleen wanted CARPC to continue to be her central planning hammer to tell local communities how, where and whether to grow.
Problem was, its appointed members often did not toe the line. Pro-growth forces often got 8-5 majority votes.
The Kathleen was particularly irritated by its chairman, Phil Van Kampen, a Town of Oregon supervisor and businessman, who basically told her at a recent meeting to take its charter and shove it.
Falk wants its functions turned over to Lakes and Watershed Committee, statutorily a Dane County-only setup that has some authority in villages and cities. It is chaired by a professional environmentalist and Falk ally, Melissa Malott, and is much more reliably Prog-Lib.
Questions: what can The Kathleen do before she yields Tuesday to Joe Parisi and what is Parisi's inclination?
Falk sent a sharply worded letter to CARPC and to the appointive authorities (the towns, villages and cities, and Madison) in which she bemoaned "the tiresome obfuscation and hypocrisy endemic to the organization." The letter is dated April 14.
The Kathleen charged that "CARPC has been unwilling and unable to meet the conservation goals under its very own charter." She citied the approval of an urban service area expansion for the Village of Deforest that she said was excessively large.
Falk excoriated the current CARPC chair when, at a meeting last fall of the Budget & Personnel Committee, he allegedly "waved the charter in my face and declared: 'This charter isn't worth the paper it's written on.'"
In any event, Falk alleges, the DNR under Secretary Cathy Stepp "has completely undercut whatever authority and credibility CARPC had."
It did so via two recent decisions. One rejected CARPC's authority to set specific water quality standards. The other overturned CARPC's rejection -- apparently an anomaly -- of the Mazomanie urban service area.
I am indebted to Madame Brenda for the lead. Her site has the letter in full.
CARPC's members are former Madison Ald. Zach Brandon, property developer Curt Brink, and Ald. Larry Palm, and liberal John Imes, who ran against Hulsey in the Democratic primary. All are Cieslewicz appointees and the first three are pro-growth. The other cities and villages appointed conservative John Murray, the new mayor of Sun Prairie; Kurt Sonnentag of Middleton, and Jeff Miller. Falk appointees were Sierra Club doobie Caryl Terrell, Peter McKeever of Monona; and Martha Gibson, another liberal. The Towns appointed liberal Town of Dunn chairman Ed Minihan; Van Kampen, and Susan Studz, said to be a swing vote, from the town of Berry.
The divisive Left politicizes BratFest!
Whenever the Left is getting routed in the courts of public opinion, my old boss Dave Zweifel, one of the nicest guys in the world, can be counted on to write a column along the lines of "can't we all get along? Can't we put aside the divisive partisanship."
A good occasion would be the Left's boycott of one of the great feel-good events of the summer, the annual BratFest hosted by the Metcalf's Sentry stores. The brats are donated by Johnsonville of Sheboygan County. The Lefties are angry that some of the executives of that company and the Metcalfes donated to Governor Walker's campaign. I also note Metcalfes on Brett Hulsey's donor's list, if that makes a difference.
Until Dave Zweifel can muster the courage to back a good Monona-reared family and its charitable endeavors, it falls to a brother Wizard. Via Charlie Sykes:
And how tellingly ironic: The left is boycotting Metcalfe's event which has raised millions over the years for charity so they can host an alternative event and use it to make money for them to use to fight Scott Walker. One side is engaging in charity to help others. One side is engaging in politics to divide others.
Talk about "bare knuckle politics!" The WI State Journal is correct to plead, "Can we not even enjoy a brat for charity in Wisconsin without partisan politics rudely intruding?"
The libs need to hear from "Dane County's Progressive Voice." That be you, Dave. Tell them to behave.
Thuy for mayor
How fared our write-in campaign for mayor of Madison?
City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl tells me there is no total count because there was no official write-in candidate. But she was able to tell the Blogge that Ald. Thuy Pham-Remmele was the top write-in vote-getter for mayor. I note that 1,133 write-ins were recorded for mayor (1.26% of the total). For all of Dane County, only 177 write-ins for county exec (0.10%) and 104 (0.05%) for supreme court.
So, Thuy, congrats. You got rid of Mayor Dave, who treated you shamefully, and you came in third in the balloting! The downside, of course, is that Paul Soglin is mayor.
Until I next see you in person, my Thuy, thank you for four wonderful years of leadership on the Madison Common Council. You represented District 20 ably and historically!
And congratulations to Justice David Prosser on his apparent re-election and beating back the Left's bare-knuckle smear attacks! And to Governor Walker for winning the Left's declared referendum on his policies.
What does it say about Sup. Kyle Richmond, a Progressive Dane, that his former boss, Kevin Kennedy of the Government Accountability Board, preferred deputy clerk Karen Peters as the appointed county clerk to fill in for the retired Bob Ohlsen? Or that the County Board, on a voice vote, went against one of their own, organized labor, five Dem legislators, Tammy and The Kathleen? Congrats, Karen Peters!
