Where's Our Mayor?

Madison Police officer Lt. Joe Balles was quoted in the Chicago Tribune recently as saying, "The big city has come to Madison." He was referring to panhandlers and unsolved murder. But panhandlers are nothing new here and, when Madison starts collectively bracing for multiple gunshots and murders on the weekends like Chicago has been as of late, then I'll think big city. Belles is correct, though; the big city is here as evidenced by the inter-agency squabbling over Brittany Zimmerman's futile 911 call. When the MPD and the county 911 center have dueling press conferences, that's big city to me. As Jason Shepherd wrote today, Kathleen Falk and Joe Norwick contend "that Madison police asked them to conceal the 911 call from the public. My sources believed that the Police Department asked that some specific information, including the time and what was heard on the tape, not be released, but did not ask them to hide the existence of the call. Madison Police Chief Noble Wray subsequently confirmed that police never asked the 911 center to deny the call’s existence." And as Bill Lueders wrote about a Norwick press conference, "The speaker was 911 Center director Joe Norwick, a former high-ranking Sheriff’s Office official. But the show was the reporters in the room, and their clear collective sense that Norwick was trying to give us a snow job."

Where is the mayor during all of this? He's the chief executive of this city and it appears that the county is blowing smoke up our collective ass. He needs to call a press conference and show some anger; he needs to pledge that he will personally make sure that the truth comes out and that he'll do whatever is in his power to make sure that any processes that failed are corrected. When accounting and HR are bickering at your office, a manager higher up says "Enough!" and puts his or her foot down. Cieslewicz needs to do the same. I can't say whether the young women who attend the UW are particularly fearful right now but, if they were, I wouldn't blame them. However, from talking to friends and reading various blogs, I think that many in Madison are angry at seeing the city and county at loggerheads and feels like the public is getting jerked around by two government entities that appear to be battling to save face instead of conspiring to improve public safety.

The MPD has another problem on its hands. Kelly Nolan and Joel Marino's murders were unsolved at the time of Zimmerman's death and they remain so. If Isthmus sources are to be believed, Zimmerman was beaten and stabbed to death. While I don't doubt that the MPD is diligently working to solve these crimes, although Marino's parents may believe otherwise, the police have a PR problem in the making. True or not, I think that there's an increasing perception of the police as more concerned with milking a cash cow on Mifflin Street by writing $290 open container tickets at a block party than engaging in a manhunt for the Doty Street Ripper. This plus Bill Lueders reminding us of nearly a dozen detectives who showed support for a scumbag rapist does not exactly endear the public to the MPD.

The mayor is very proactive when it comes to trolleys and promoting what I presume he to be seen as his legacy – a greener Madison. But when it comes to crime and policing, Cieslewicz seems reactive. It's as if a problem comes to light and he creates a commission to study it. Again, true or not, that's my perception and that of more than a few Madisonians. If the county is still contending that the MPD asked it to conceal the 911 call, then our mayor needs to stand up and put and end to this he said-she said stalemate. Should the MPD have done that despite Police Chief Noble Wray's statement to the contrary, then heads should roll. If the MPD is in the clear, then the mayor needs to vocally and publically defend them. Wray should not be taking on the county by himself.

The mayor should step up to the plate and lead instead of sitting back and letting underlings and representatives of the county do all the work.