Fitchburg, Wisc Mayor's Remarkable Public Apology Rings Hollow

Wanda Smith is a popular community activist and child-care
activist against whom Fithcburg Ald Dorothy Krause began
a character assassination project, attempting to enlist
the Fitchburg City Manager, the Fitchburg City Attorney's
office, and the Fitchburg Police Department. A subsequently
contrite Fitchburg Mayor issued an apology to Ms. Smith on
behalf of the City of Fitchburg on Nov. 17, throwing
Ald Krause under the bus, and opening the City to a
possible federal civil rights action by Smith. Smith is speaking
at the apology press conference above.

Fitchburg—the city's name is an imprecation, a curse against democratic norms and generations-long commitment of the progressive state, Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—The bullshit piles up so high here, you need wings to stay above it.

The Fitchburg, Wisconsin mayor issued a well-conceived PR apology for cutting off a commenting citizen in mid-sentence and then instructing the Fitchburg City Administrator to phone the police about this disturbance at a budget hearing last week, (Wisconisn State Journal, Fitchburg Star).

This mayoral apology directed at multiple citizens—Kaleem Caire, Amelia Royko Maurer, Nate Royko Maurer, and Wanda Smith for First Amendment-protected speech—fell flat last Friday, (Nov. 17).

No citizen reached was surprised the Fitchburg police were contacted as a complaint against a citizen attending a Common Council meeting, ejecting citizens from a public meeting, that a Fitchburg alder would engage in a character assassination scheme against another citizen, or that Mayor Jason Gonzalez' effort at damage control would be so transparently disingenuous.

"There was some … improper exercise of discretion by myself when I interrupted two speakers. When I ran, I ran on a platform of inclusion and bringing our city together. It appears I’ve gone astray, and I apologize for that," said Gonzalez, (Fitchburg Star, City of Fitchburg). Gone astray?

Voter obstruction will continue in Fitchburg, and as most young and minority voters in alder district one know, the polling place here is hostile to their presence on Election Day.

This is Fitchburg, and the norms prevailing in other municipalities do not apply here where retaliations by elected and appointed Fitchburg officials against whistle-blowers, black people, and assorted progressives (they're a perceived problem), are routine.

Some take-aways from the last few weeks of life in Fitchburg, Wisconsin:

• Nicholas Garton deserves recognition for his investigative reporting at the journal, Madison.365.
• Fitchburg Alder Dorothy Krause has been thrown under the bus after the mayor issued his remarkable public apology on behalf of the entire City of Fitchburg specifically citing Krause's character assassination project against citizen Wanda Smith. Krause is now an alder without a district, and resides in political no-woman's land.
• Kaleem Caire, a commenting citizen at the budget hearing who was subjected to public abuse and an outrageous police call, has been revealed as an opportunistic pol who can be expected to use this outrage for his own political benefit, against the benefit of the community. Caire isn't fooling anyone and standing up for Caire is just, is the consensus among progressives here.
• The Recall-the-bums campaign is still on, and the mayor's public dumping of Krause and his apology change nothing.
• Former mayor Steve Arnold is a keeper of valuable voting lists. 
• City officials still feel entitled to treat the Fitchburg Police Department as a political hit-squad for corrupt purposes such as defaming citizens.
• Wanda Smith is a political force to be reckoned with.
• Wisconsin State Journal columnist, Chris Rickert, who penned a racist, black parents-should-feed-their-kids piece in his coverage of Fitchburg earlier this month, is now working at a new position to improve local coverage at the daily, what used to be the life-blood of newspapers.
• Fitchburg is racist to the bone, and any young and minority person locating here should be prepared to fight for your rights, perhaps more than folks have ever had to before.