Quickies

Monona resident and artist Jens Carstensen was featured today (July 3) in a story by Samara Kalk Derby the Cap Times. He opened a new show at the Jura Silverman Gallery in Spring Green. Jens paints landscapes and nudes. Indeed, several of his landscapes grace the walls of the Monona city council chambers. He relates that he takes down the nudes before visitors come to the home he shares with his wife Cathy Karr (They live across the street from Monona city administrator Pat Marsh). Americans are just too prudish - unlike his Danish upbringing where Jens says his family trotted round the house in the altogether: "we all ran around naked. We do that here, too." 

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Blue green algae is back in the news - and in the lakes. here's the WDNR web page on the nasty stuff. And here's the Wisconsin Department of Health Services web page on blue green algae. The WSJ ran a story on the front page this morning, but the photo wasn't that great. On Lake Kegonsa, warnings and worries about blue-green algae

This Sept. 3, 2009, file photo was posted on the Daily Reporter and was taken by John Kuglin shows green algae on Lake Pokegama near Chetek. (AP File Photo/John Kuglin)


 
 
 

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According to his obituary, a former Sparta resident "died without permission of his Dad", which I thought was a touching way to express how much he is going to miss his son.
 

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Did Madison's Mayor Dave call the Dane County Clerk Bob Ohlsen lazy in today's story about a probable delay in the RTA referendum beyond Mayor Dave's desired November 2010 date? Sure sounded like it - although when spoken words become written words the meaning can get distorted. Cieslewicz harrumphed that the referendum "....should not be held up because the county clerk thinks it's too much work to get it on the ballot." OK, he didn't call Ohlsen lazy, he called him a lazy whiner.
 
Problem is the RTA boundary is complicated. Eleven townships are only partially in the RTA and even some voting wards are part in and part out. That kind of stuff keeps election clerks up late at night. Ohlsen says he needs a 'go' decision within two weeks to be ready for November election. Unless my political radar is completely inoperative there is no way the RTA Board is going to adopt the referendum language in that time frame.
 
Even if the ballots can be handled in time, rushing to a vote on a sales tax increase is a really bad idea. My guess is we get one shot at passing an RTA sales tax - at least for several years. The RTA Board needs to develop a plan so voters know why they are being asked to raise their taxes (like the mix of transit options and how "rapid bus transit" would work, if it would.). Lots of questions need to be answered before the vte is set and the answers ain't ready. And why in the world does Mayor Dave think that this November of all possible Novembers will be a good one to ask for you and me to increase our taxes?
 

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Former Monona alder Randy Littel was kicking butt and taking names at his first meeting in his new position as trustee in the Village of Mt. Horeb. The new village president wanted to can the village administrator on seemingly flimsy grounds and Littel stood his ground. The move was tabled - maybe permanently. Sounded like several of the trustees thought they had policy disagreements with the administrator on development issues, but they really have policy differences with the prior board and the administrator was just carrying out their direction.
 
The blood feuds between the New People and the Old Guard in some of the outlying burbs (Cottage Grove is another example.) makes our fight in Monona over chickens look like chicken....feed.