Sunday, November 13, 2005
Madison Recall: Now With Extra Farce!
by Tom Bozzo
Smith should hope he doesn't find himself facing Sam Alito, or a Vogon constructor fleet, with that kind of an argument.
Of course, Marginal Utility suggests that Madison readers politely decline to sign the recall petition.
(*) My two cents is that the sick leave proposal is probably a lot better for the businesses offering knee-jerk opposition than the knee-jerk opposition would suggest.
The effort to recall Mayor Dave kicked off last week with a rapid descent into farce, as the recall organizers have shifted from their original (clever, if disingenuous) framing to turn the recall petition into a general outlet for complaints about Everything Screwed Up With Madison — the good, the also pretty good, and the not-yet (not to mention not-likely-to-be) enacted:
He [east-side business owner Tom Smith] ticked off the smoking ban, recycling bins and the proposed mandatory paid sick leave ordinance as reasons for signing the recall petition.Well, if you forgot how representative democracy works, and by extension also forgot about the city council actions to approve the single-stream recycling system, to keep ads off the carts, to invalidate deed restrictions that might affect the carts' use, and the postcard from the city offering the choice of cart size, then I suppose you could say no one was asked. In the case of the PD mandatory sick leave proposal, it's safe to say that interested parties were happy to voice their views without being asked. (*)
"All these things, we should at least be asked what our opinion is."
Cieslewicz has actually not supported the proposal to guarantee workers in the city paid sick leave. And what was Smith's opinion of the recycling carts?
"It's not that the carts were good or bad," Smith said in an interview after the rally. "It's just that no one was asked about them."
Smith should hope he doesn't find himself facing Sam Alito, or a Vogon constructor fleet, with that kind of an argument.
Of course, Marginal Utility suggests that Madison readers politely decline to sign the recall petition.
(*) My two cents is that the sick leave proposal is probably a lot better for the businesses offering knee-jerk opposition than the knee-jerk opposition would suggest.
