David Michael Miller
How about that big new initiative leaping from the office of new Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway?
You may ask what I’m talking about since there has barely been a word out of her office since Rhodes-Conway took office a month ago. And that’s it. That’s the big change that has come to the mayor’s office: calm and a lot of quiet.
I am not aware of a single press conference, a major announcement of a stunning policy reversal, or a bold new proposal. From what I can tell our new mayor answers questions from the press when asked and that’s about it.
No Drama Rhodes-Conway doesn’t have the iteration that No Drama Obama had, but it seems to be the tone she’s set and, in my view at least, it’s a wonderful thing.
Take one of the recent controversies that popped up just in the last few weeks. A memo to Rhodes-Conway from city parks Superintendent Eric Knepp reported that the city’s four golf courses lost about $800,000 last year and that dramatic action would need to be taken to stave off the need for a major city subsidy of the courses.
Former Mayor Paul Soglin drew a line in the sand: There would be no general city taxpayer money for golf. Period. Rhodes-Conway hasn’t said what she’ll do, but is pulling together a task force to study the issue. It will develop a new set of options (many have already been hashed over in previous efforts) and, come budget time, the mayor is going to have to make a decision.
This may seem unremarkable, but it is actually very remarkable. Rhodes-Conway’s base is not the retired guys who dominate our municipal golf courses. (In full disclosure, I count myself as one of those guys.) And coming up with several hundred thousand dollars to keep all the courses open would come at the expense of other priorities that are certain to be much more important to her base.
And yet this is an immensely complicated issue. Golf is unlike any other part of city government. It is expected to perform like a business and pay for all its expenses. The city even charges it the equivalent of property taxes and it must account for the depreciation of its assets and pay for its own capital investments. Monona Terrace and Madison Metro are similar but they also get large subsidies from the room tax and federal and state government, respectively. For all intents and purposes, the golf enterprise is like a private business embedded in city government.
So, the city could decide that golf shouldn’t have to pay property taxes or it could pick up its capital costs or it could provide a cash subsidy for now, but expect to be repaid in the future. It could close a course or two and turn the land into parkland (which would produce no revenue at all), or it could sell some land to a developer. Maybe it could turn one or all of the courses over to a private operator. And there are any number of combinations and variations on those options.
My point is that it’s not a simple issue and Rhodes-Conway is treating it with the respect that any complex issue demands. And that seems to be the way she is approaching everything.
At some point there will be a press conference. There will be proposals. For one thing, she is required to introduce a budget in the fall and she cannot avoid decisions and proposals then even if she wanted to. In the meantime, she’s studying issues, asking questions, maybe even allowing herself to change her mind before she speaks.
This is a huge, dramatic change in city government. Sometimes the revolution starts with a whisper.
