Tom Farley, brother of the late comedian Chris Farley, hit a snag in his bid for Madison School Board.
As he explains in a discussion on the AMPS (Advocating on Madison Public School) blog, there was a clerical error with some of the 100 signatures needed for his ballot petition. Some people not yet accustomed to the new year, dated their signatures to January 2009 instead of January 2010.
Farley is trying to correct this by getting signed affidavits from petitioners who made the error: he has until Friday.
In one comment, Farley explains "My style is to be very open, honest and direct, so you won't get any white-washed, dodgeball answers from me that I promise."
But Farley could probably use a little bit more of a filter with some of his comments. AMPS quotes one of Farley's comments to the Wisconsin State Journal editorial on the Edgewater Hotel project:
Open meetings pander to people's fears and mistrust of civic leaders; they hinder enlightened and creative solutions; and they actually enable citizens to continue to harbor unsubstantiated, biased judgements (sic) about everything under the sun. Show me any functioning socialist government (if possible), and I'll show you a group of leaders still able to email their colleagues, hold a conference call or have a job-related discussion with peers while sitting around the 'popular table' in the "People's Cafeteria". Here in Madison we can't do any of that without posting a meeting notice one week prior.
Open meetings certainly sound 'fair,' but fair doesn't create great cities. My teenagers always complain about decisions that aren't 'fair,' but there will always be issues my wife and I discuss without our kids participating in the debate. It's what makes us a great family. Like I always remind them, 'we're not shooting for fair we're shooting for great!' And take those headphones out when I'm talking to you.
A novel take on democracy.
