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.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Pols and City Officials Veer into Misconduct Against Citizens, Again

Kaleem Caire, president of One City Learning Centers,
in Madison, Wisconsin, attended the Ftichburg
Common Council hearing at which funding for non-
profits was addressed. The Mayor of Fitchburg instructed the
City Administrator to call the police on Mr. Caire,
while testifying at a public hearing on the budget last night.
The mayor, city administrator and several alders
walked out of the meeting and ordered the police
to remove Kaleem Caire from the building or they
would not return. This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin.
Via Facebook

'Never seen anything like this before'

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—There is no apparent bottom to how low the Fitchburg Common Council, City officials and Fitchburg Police can sink.

In Fitchburg, police harass and fine residents objecting to this municipal, seemingly socio-psychological experiment on how far city bureaucrats, racists, white poll workers, and cops will go to silence, (and this is in an American city in Dane County Wisconsin), citizens objecting to municipal public policy such as obstructing voters, harassing black residents, and cutting public funds for non-profits serving minorities.

The latest from Fitchburg.

At a public hearing on the proposed 2018 budget last night, Mayor Jason Gonzalez decided he did not like Kaleem Caire, CEO and founder at One City Early Learning Centers, asking a question of Gonzalez.

So, naturally Gonzalez called the police. [Note: This is Fitchburg, Wisconsin, so again this type of absurdity is SOP.]

Reports, Michael Johnson, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Dane County and all-around scary black man on Facebook last night:

The Mayor of Fitchburg instructed the City Administrator to call the police on Kaleem Caire, President and CEO of One City Learning Centers while testifying at a public hearing on the budget tonight. The mayor, city administrator and several alders walked out of the meeting and ordered the police to remove Kaleem Caire from the building or they would not return. Kaleem was respectful, raised valid points and was the first person of color to speak to only be threatened to be arrested for speaking up for local kids.

Kudos to the Fitchburg Police Department for their professionalism and telling the city leaders they had no grounds to remove Kaleem for raising issues during the testimony session of the meeting. He then told a white community leader who spoke up for the kids to leave and to 'get out of here' or he would be arrested. I have never seen anything like this before from a city leader.

Putting aside Johnson's erroneous description of the Fitchburg Police Dept, no one contacted today is surprised by the Fitchburg Common Council which rejects democratic norms such as citizen input, unmolested attendance of public meetings, and promotes the use of the machinery of public government against citizens.

Writes Cindy Johnson, a Dane county resident in Facebook this morning "[This] is insane but not surprising. Years ago when I lived there the corrupt mayor yelled 'this is MY meeting' when a room full of us were trying to save the Green Prairie."

Another illustration: In August 2016, Mal Contends entered the voting place to cast a vote some four months after alerting state election authorities, the new, (a racist), white chief election inspector refused to place a polling place sign outside the polling place on Election Day, April 5, 2016 in voting district one, and short-staffed a polling station on the 2016 presidential primary election featuring the heaviest turn-out to date. In retaliation against me, after being obstructed at the poll on a false pretense in August 2016, the City Clerk's office phoned police and contrived with the City Attorney office in what became two bogus disorderly conduct citations, rubber-stamped by the Fitchburg Municipal Court.

It is insane, and it's Fitchburg.

Meanwhile, the Council cut funding for non-profits serving black and brown-type humans, and installed a new City funding mechanism to assist the corrupt Ald Julia Arata-Fratta's professional career in a seedy move that is the new Fitchburg Idea.

Still, as seedy as municipal policy is, the idea that Council members and City Hall bureaucrats feel it's standard and acceptable, much less Constitutional, to phone police whenever they encounter objecting citizens raises a host of public integrity, Constitutional and concerns involving ongoing public misconduct under Wisconsin statutes.

In a related story, a Ftichburg alder, Dorothy Krause, continued an outrageous smear campaign and character assassination of a black woman, Wanda Smith, whom Krause said, in ludicrous public statements, should not be allowed around children.

Writes Nicholas Garton in Madison365:

A Fitchburg alder released more than 70 pages of unredacted police reports that Fitchburg police had clearly marked as not to be re-released Monday, posting the documents in a Facebook group and emailing them to a reporter in an ongoing feud with community volunteer Wanda Smith. The documents were removed from the Facebook group by an administrator.

Smith said she has consulted a civil rights attorney but has not decided on whether to pursue any legal action. ...

Smith, who runs the Peace Network, meets three times a week to help at-risk youth with homework, meals and a safe environment. Krause told Madison365 in an interview two weeks ago that she wasn’t sure if Wanda Smith had the right temperament or educational credentials to run such a club.  Krause said she would seek police reports on Wanda Smith and hoped to draw a conclusion about Smith’s abilities from those reports. ...

In addition to several pages listing police contacts, Krause obtained more than 56 pages of officer written synopsis of police contact at Wanda Smith’s address covering 176 calls between 2015 and 2017 to the building Smith’s apartment is in.

None of those incidents involved Wanda Smith as a target of police action or intervention. At no time was she arrested or questioned by police concerning her conduct. Smith was never detained, investigated or reported as having been the target of a police response to that area. 

Ftichburg being Fitchburg, accusation, innuendo and character assassination of citizens are the norm from police, from the Common Council and from City Hall bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the political party, Progressive Dane, has issued a press release supporting Wanda Smith against attacks on her from the city of Fitchburg.

Reads the Progressive Dane release:

In Spring 2017, Progressive Dane endorsed Wanda Smith’s candidacy for Fitchburg City Alder based on her commitment to public service and strong record of leadership within the Fitchburg community. As Founder and President of the Peace Network, a local mental health service provider, Smith serves area youth and adults through one-on-one group workshops and seminars to equip them with the skills necessary to fulfill their potential as individuals in the community. At the Peace Network, Smith runs a homework club, which meets three times per week to provide students with academic supports, meals, and a safe environment. She also works with youth in the Middleton, Cross Plains, and Monona Grove school districts as a substitute teacher, and has mentored hundreds of youth throughout her career. As a locality that harbors some of the worst racial disparities in the country, Dane County needs to support more service providers led by people of color such as the Peace Network, and support progressive leaders like Smith, to begin counteracting the systemic racism that plagues our Greater Madison community.

Progressive Dane appreciates Smith’s work in the Fitchburg community, especially her compassion for youth and ongoing commitment to their success. We also support her advocacy for the restoration of 2018 budget funds to support local non-profit organizations that provide local services to many children of color in the King James Way area and Fitchburg at large.  Progressive Dane has been working with our members in Fitchburg, including Smith, to draft a City of Fitchburg platform.  Similar to our other policy platforms, we are drafting a Fitchburg platform that strongly supports civil rights, including the rights to assemble and protest, making decisions with an equity analysis, funding safety net programs, affordable housing, and neighborhood organizations, and economic development planning that prioritizes neighborhoods most in need of investment.

Progressive Dane is committed to racial justice, equity, and inclusion throughout Madison and Dane County. Any elected official endorsed by Progressive Dane is expected to support and demonstrate these values and implement policies laid out in our platforms. Progressive Dane electeds who fail to do so should expect to be held accountable by the elections committee and membership.

Progressive Dane is an independent, progressive political party in Dane County, Wisconsin. Progressive Dane believes that ordinary citizens should control public policies at the community and national levels. We support tax justice, better social services, equality in public education, affordable housing, and public transportation. Progressive Dane helps community members organize around issues that are important to them and also works on the grassroots level to elect progressive political candidates.
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Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Creating a Slush Fund in the Scott Walker Era

Fitchburg, Wisconsin is a freak show.

Corruption in Plain Sight in the Rats' Nest of Dane County Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—This isn't about the money; it's about making a "better way" to fund community non-profits, said Fitchburg ald. Tony Hartmann in an October email to Mal Contends.

It is about the money.

What Hartmann calls media "misinformation" about a proposed Common Council scheme to fund nonprofit groups draws laughter, anger and the start of a recall-the-Mayor initiative in this politically progressive community with the Republican-dominated City Hall, police department and elected municipal government.

With growing minority and young populations here, Fitchburg civil and elected officials have accelerated a Republican program to consolidate political power as this city becomes a flashpoint as Gov. Scott Walker kicks in 2018 reelection mode.

In Fitchburg, Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has been defeated at
the ballot box. Above are the results for Fitchburg in the 2014
general election. First column is the total votes, second column is
Dem. nominee Mary Burke's votes, and third column is Walker's.

Gov. Scott Walker, (R), made numerous public visits to Fitchburg since becoming governor in 2011. At the ballot box, though, Walker was clobbered here in the 2014 general and 2012 recall elections. In ald dist one, (one of four voting districts composed of 19 wards), Mary Burke defeated Scott Walker with 1,528 votes for Burke and 410 votes for Walker out of 1,966 votes cast for a 77 percent to 20 percent defeat of Walker in the 2014 general election. Since 2014, incidents of voter obstruction and harassment of voters by white poll workers and white Fitchburg City Clerk staff, Patti Anderson and Tracy Oldenburg, have increased in wards one-four, district one, as has been documented and stated publicly at municipal civic trials by former Fitchburg poll worker, ((2007-2016), Mal Contends).

On the Fitchburg Common Council, Hartmann, Ald Julia Arata-Fratta and Mayor Jason Gonzalez, (after amassing a wide coalition in his 2016-17 campaign), have thrown in with Republicans on the eight-member Council, and are eyeing money in the city's Community Development Grant Program, (CEDA), to be used as a slush fund [information describing the city's CEDA including how to apply, was posted on the city website Aug. 18, 2017 some five weeks before Mayor Jason Gonzales posted his proposed 2018 budget calling for the "removal" of $110,000 in non-profit funding, (The Capital Times)].

We want that money

"Fitchburg Alds. Julia Arata Fratta, Dan Carpenter and Dorothy Krause are sponsoring an amendment to the proposed 2017 budget that would remove club funding from the city budget and put it under the control of the Community Economic Development Authority, whose eight members would decide how to allocate it," notes The Capital Times in 2016.

Many Fitchburg residents are watching whether Arata Fratta-linked non-profits have become new applicants for the slush fund, if the budget proposal gets passed.
---
Meanwhile recall alders and mayor efforts continue as political observes gaming out scenarios fish around for mayoral candidates in a possible 2018 recall election, including perennial mayoral candidate Jay Allen, a supporter of several Republican Party congressional nominees, including John Sharpless, Dave Magnum and the far-right fringe candidate, Ron Greer. 

GOP-run Fitchburg, Wisconsin Looks to Zero-out Funds for Popular Community Non-Profits

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Republicans Become Objects of Disgust in Budget Spectacle

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Elected in April 2017, first-term Mayor Jason Gonzalez did not run on a Republican platform to eliminate funding for community non-profits.

That's because local politicians here do not publicly oppose successful community initiatives anymore than national politicians want to go on record against Social Security and Medicare-Medicaid.

The only plausible way for local Republicans to cut all funding to popular nonprofit organizations here is: Cut all funding for nonprofit organizations and then deny this black-and-white budgetary commitment in Mayor Gonzalez' proposed 2018 budget, (Facebook).

Among Gonzalez and his diminishing political coalition black is white and $0.00 equals $110,000.

Gonzalez' proposed 2018 budget calls for the "removal" of $110,000 in non-profit funding from the 2018 budget, (The Capital Times).

Gonzalez and his campaign manager, Ald Tony Hartmann, say this proposed budgetary cut comes because they have found a "better way," (Hartmann's term), of funding the non-profits: By not funding the non-profits.

Only Fitchburg politicians holding the citizenry in contempt could axe popular non-profit funding by offering an equally contemptuous lie.

Reads p.22 in a the Mayor's Proposed 2018 Budget, (Facebook): "The $60,000 allocated to the private charitable partners was removed from the 2018 budget. The $50,000 in property tax funding for the CEDA, (Community and Economic Development Authority), community grant program was also removed."

Hartmann and Gonzalez' effort is underhanded and disingenuous, continuing a long hostility of white Fitchburg Republicans against its growing minority citizenry.

The budgetary cuts that Gonzales and Hartmann implausibly say are not cuts have caused community outrage as the political world in progressive Dane County viewing the scandal steps up to contribute to the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, one of the targeted-by-Fitchburg non-profits.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, (Madison), after hearing the news solicited over $3,000 in new funding for the Boys and Girls Club in the second congressional district. Taco Bell, the restaurant chain, has contributed $10,000. Other contributions are coming in to make up for the underhanded Fitchburg Mayor's budgetary scheme, (Facebook). (See Michael Johnson in Facebook for updates).

No municipal scandal in Dane County has ever caused the local congressional member, restaurant chains and community members to roll their eyes with such collective political disgust.

Ald. Tony Hartmann, Mayor Jason Gonzalez and Fitchburg Republicans have politically tied their future to this scheme and their credibility is in the offing.

A public hearing in Fitchburg, Wisconsin on the zeroing of funding for non-profits is tonight.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—An Exercise in Social Domination, Emboldened White Supremacy

Villainous Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, Wisconsin

Blacks will not replace us

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Municipal politics have been long racist in this suburb of 25,000, just south of Madison since the city's incorporation in 1983.

White entitlement, entrenched racism, Evangelical Christians, an ascendant Republican Party and white supremacists coalesce with the dim bulbs of white municipal bureaucracy generating a toxic concoction that is bubbling over now.

Lived in and worked in Fitchburg since the late 1980s, serving then as a correspondent for the The Capital Times, (Madison, Wisconsin).

Recently, Fitchburg has crossed a threshold as the Republican-dominated and white Fitchburg Police Dept efforts have been unsuccessful in driving out minority residents, a longstanding enterprise known and confirmed, but not acknowledged by any City official. [Ex-cops who know won't object and confirm publicly out of fear for their careers. Ratting-out follows cops and it's a rare breed who blows the whistle on the blue gang.]

Non-whites and non-Republicans comprise strong numerical majorities here so Republicans are desperate to crack-down on citizens outside of their political coalition through the use of public office. In a manner of speaking: Scott Walker and Donald Trump are in charge, Fitchburg is for whites, this is our community; and there ain't no John Doe statute anymore for a DA public integrity investigation.

The signs of the back-lash against people, mud people, are obvious and to a non-racist mind the system is blinking red.

It's business as usual as police target minorities with traffic citations, white poll workers discourage the wrong types of voters in aldermanic dist. one. [Emboldened whites actually blacklisted me, Mal Contends as a voter, obstructing me from for some 30 minutes on Aug. 9, 2016, followed by two non-traffic civil citations totaling $626, two 1:00 a.m. harassing visits to our home by Fitchburg police with voiced and deceitful claims crimes had been "traced" those early mornings, and repeated conspicuous tail-gating of our car by police.]

But the latest in Fitchburg is perhaps the worst.

That enemy of proper, white society, the villainous Boys and Girls Club of Dane County Wisconsin, is too friendly with non-Republicans and non-whites, way-too-heavy on civil liberties and they have been making atonal political noise for too long.

The Fitchburg Common Council has announced it's dropping all City funding for this community organization.

The new Fitchburg mayor, Jason Gonzales has decided to go with the Republicans on the eight-member Common Council, as he and his former campaign manager, alder Tony Hartmann, have lowered the boom on the uppity black Community group, per an evolving series of justifications.

Hartmann claims no funding elimination, no removal of expenditure but rather the instituting of a new and "better process," as written in an email to Dane County resident, Tonya Ellis.

Actually, Hartman is lying.

Reads p.22 in a the Mayor's Proposed 2018 Budget, (Facebook): "The $60,000 allocated to the private charitable partners was removed from the 2018 budget. The $50,000 in property tax funding for the CEDA, (Community and Economic Development Authority), community grant program was also removed."

Tony Hartmann and Jason Gonzalez' attitude is captured in Rob Schultz's reporting in the Wisconsin State Journal this morning.

Both don't like Michael Johnson of the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County getting uppity and voicing views publicly.

Both Hartmann and Gonzalez display the plantation attitude of greater-white Fitchburg deigning to "gift," (Schultz's paraphrase), funding to the Dane County Boys and Girls Club, aka them, the others, the dark folks living on King James, Allied Drive, Fish Hatch, Post and Leopold.

Gonzalez and Hartmann conceive investing in our community as a different proposition when it's investing in initiatives serving folks in hoods where dark folks live. King James, Allied Drive, Fish Hatch, Post and Leopold are not places of 'us'-inclusive.

To white Fitchburg, they are different, separate from the white homeland envisioned by the Fitchburg City geniuses who named my neighborhood, Jamestown, after a 17th century Virginia slave colony.

Doubt I'll see a change in my lifetime from these chucks relating to and identifying with black people. To serve on the Fitchburg Common Council means: Nobody breathe, careful, and go along.

No matter, now it's getting really uppity in Fitchburg, Wisconsin:

Many children above are black, hence a problem in
Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Politics Remain Local—Fitchburg Wisconsin Mayor Is Swept from Office

Political party know-it-alls were swept from office
in this progressive city of 25,000 in south-central
Wisconsin, (election results, Dane County).
Citizens elected the city's first Latino mayor,
Jason Gonzalez on a campaign message stressing
neighborhood activism and social justice.

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — In the country-side regions of Fitchburg can be found majestic homes.

People live here, with real concerns and sentiment about maintaining a way of life in their homes and communities.

They voted heavily for Bernie Sanders on April 5, 2016 in the presidential party primary, and they joined a broad rejection of a first-term Wisconsin mayor, sweeping one Steve Arnold from office, and electing the city's first Latino as mayor, Jason Gonzalez.

Gonzalez assembled a coalition from across the political spectrum in calling for social justice, neighborhood empowerment and listening to the people.

Politics is local. The message from Fitchburg is: People matter more than politicians, more than political parties, and more than grand schemes to change the character of a rustic city without consent.

Jason Gonzalez chats with supporters
after being elected Fitchburg's first
Latino mayor.
Image from Gonzalez campaign volunteer.

Gonzalez congratulated his opponent last night at a celebration at Laredo's Mexican Restaurant, and vowed to seek the consent of the citizenry.

The incumbent mayor, breaking from well-observed tradition here, did not phone Gonzalez to congratulate his campaign on his electoral victory.

No matter. The victory was sweeping as all four aldermanic districts decisively voted for Gonzalez, delivering a warning shot to state Democratic Party hacks that people really should be listened to.

Those who seek the consent of the people ultimately prevail. This is a both an article of faith and a political truism.

Will Wisconsin Democratic Party commissars get the message? I know the Republican Party of Wisconsin will not.

Tax Working Families at Higher Rate, Says Wisconsin Mayor

Volunteers get ready to lit drop for Fitchburg,
Wisconsin mayoral candidates, Jason Gonzalez,
and Alder candidates Anne Scott and Rich Tate in
Fitchburg, Wisconsin the weekend of March 24.
Gonzalez would be the first Latino mayor of
Fitchburg, as residents increasingly express anxiety
about minorities living in the age of Trump, and
local working families living in the mayoral term
of Steve Arnold, (Tax working families as a stimulus).
Image by unidentified campaign volunteer.

Has any macroeconomic school, economist or policymaker other than one obscure Wisconsin mayor ever proposed taxing working families at a higher rate is stimulative to the economy

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Alder Jason C. Gonzalez stopped by the neighborhood and pitched his mayoral campaign on a typically cold January day.

Gonzalez stressed affordable housing, saying the incumbent mayor's commitment to raise local property taxes is "regressive," and is a bizarre insult to working families.

This Wisconsin incumbent mayor is out-of-control, out-of-touch and constantly emitting public lectures pleading working-class homes should pay a nine-percent increase in local property taxes.

Fitchburg Mayor Steve Arnold pushes his grand plan to raise local taxes in this community of 25,000 residents, saying he opposes "austerity," and instead believes in a stimulus budget achieved by raising taxes on the working class in this "high-service city," (Gaines, Madison365).

In Arnold's world, families living in ranch homes, for example, would pay $100s more in property taxes every year and they would like it. Seriously, this is not hyperbole.

"Fitchburg is a high service community. Generally residents demand high services and are willing to pay for them," said Arnold at a mayoral forum hosted by the Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce, (Gaines, Madison365)

Working-class households do not want higher property taxes, and are not "willing to pay," in light of the undeniable fact Arnold's proposal that would mean some $1,000-plus in increased municipal taxes over five years for the average household, (Mal Contends).

Has any macroeconomic school or any economist or any policymaker other than Steve Arnold ever proposed taxing working families at a higher rate is stimulative to the economy? "No," said Gonzalez, when asked.

Increasing purchasing power, not degrading purchasing power is a municipal policy objective and is the aim of almost anyone in the political culture, save Steve Arnold.

Whether a politician is anti-healthcare or anti-affordable housing, the politician is anti-American.

A Small Wisconsin City Sees Democratic Party Opposition to the Grassroots, Again

Fire Fighters Local 311 endorses Jason Gonzalez
for mayor in Fitchburg, Wisconsin,
(Gonzalez for Fitchburg)

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Jason Gonzalez is running for mayor of this progressive city, rising from the ferment of grassroots citizen action working to preserve a way of life.

Affordable housing can still be found here.

The City is guiding a sizzling real estate market as Dane County, Madison, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison keep producing high-tech start-ups, responsible for a large chunk of economic growth in the Badger state's private sector.

"Buyers are ... struggling in cities such as ... Madison, Wisconsin," notes Prashant Gopal in Bloomberg News. Struggling as in having trouble finding listings, prompting a construction boom.

An alderman, Gonzalez would be the first Latino mayor in this city in which blotches of white supremacy stain City Hall and the polling place.

Facing these challenges of social justice and a growing economy in this liberal region, Gonzalez has amassed a broad coalition—including progressives, the AFL-CIO, and social justice activists—in a campaign to oust an incumbent mayor who literally brags he wants to raise property taxes 9 percent on local working class families.

So from the people who delivered Wisconsin to Donald Trump and inflicted Gov. Scott Walker on the country, the gang that can't shoot straight (aka the Democratic Party of Wisconsin), is supporting the incumbent mayor, Steve Arnold, and rejecting working class families and grassroots activists supporting Gonzalez.

The Party apparatus needs to listen to citizens more and worry less about kowtowing to the donor class and doling out political patronage. When there is an organic grassroots movement with sound objectives, join it; do not oppose it.

Wisconsin Democrats, specifically the Party hacks, could mess up a sunny, 70-degree Wisconsin day in April.

Early voting has begun for the election held on April 4.

Fitchburg Wisconsin Mayor's Race Heats Up

Fitchburg Wisconsin mayor goes negative on progressives
and neighborhood activists in mailer delivered March 13, 2017

Sitting mayor attacks residents and activists: Is this the new normal?

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — A corporatist, anti-grassroots mayor is running for reelection in a small liberal city in southern Dane County.

The mayor is Steve Arnold and he is running scared.

Three weeks out from the April 4 Election Day, Arnold is going nuclear-negative, a clear sign of increasing rejection from progressives and neighborhood activists who are opposing him and his bizarre sock-the-working class campaign.

Arnold has a text-heavy mailer out that accuses his many opponents and Fitchburg residents of "lies," and features a nine-point list of negative, false and incoherent attacks.

After the Feb. 21 primary in which Arnold was rejected by 61 percent of voters, Arnold said he would change "tactics a bit" in his campaign, (Girard, Fitchburg Star).

Changing tactics. It would appear that Arnold's opponent, Jason Gonzalez, who is running to become the City's first Latino mayor has so upset the autocratic and heavy-handed Arnold regime that going negative, to Arnold's way of thinking, is the only way to hang onto his seat. Twenty days out from Election Day and the incumbent goes negative. Not a good tactic for this city.

It would also appear that the lessons of 2016 fall on deaf ears: Listen to the grassroots and the people, not the hacks and Party establishment.

Fitchburg Wisconsin Mayor Steve Arnold targets progressives and activists