Common Council

Meeting and Event Highlights for the Week of July 18, 2022

Meetings

The Common Council will meet in hybrid format at 6:30pm on Tuesday, July 19th. Note: the proposed ordinance that would prohibit the Madison Police Department and law enforcement responding under mutual aid from using tear gas, mace, impact projectile devices or other chemical agent for the purposes of crowd control is recommended to be referred to a future meeting of the Public Safety Review Board and the Common Council, so the Council will not be discussing it at this meeting, and won't be back to the Common Council until September at the earliest.

• Meeting details
• Meeting agenda 
• Watch online

 For information about additional City meetings scheduled for this week, please consult the City meeting schedule.

Events

Parks Alive is a collaborative effort across multiple City departments and involves many community-based stakeholders and mobile resources. This is a great opportunity to come out to local parks, build community, strengthen relationships, and have fun! Click on the following parks to see dates, times and activities for:

• Elver Park (July 18)
• Aldo Leopold Park (July 19)
• Meadowood Park (July 20)

 July 16th from 12 Noon - 5pm: The Urban League of Greater Madison - the 8th Annual Unity Picnic will be a free and family-friendly community event with food, music, activities for kids and adults, and more! The picnic will be at a NEW LOCATION – the Southwest Madison Employment Center located at 1233 McKenna Blvd. Madison, WI 53719 (across the street from Elver Park). Read more here.

 Award-Winning Master Recycler Course Returns July 20, 2022: Sustain Dane, in partnership with the City of Madison, is once again offering an opportunity to become a Master Recycler  The first session is the evening of July 20, 2022. Enrollment is now open. The course will teach you about how to recycle the right way in your home, and also provide you with the tools so you can share your knowledge with everyone from your neighbors to your TikTok followers to everyone within your social orbit so they will know how to recycle right, too.

Opera in the Park is coming to Garner Park, 333 S. Rosa Road, on July 23 at 8pm. Read more here.

Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a free community celebration on Saturday, July 23, from 6:30pm-9:45pm at its William T. Evjue Rooftop Gardens. The event will feature local and regional bands, dance performances, and conclude with a spectacular drone show over Lake Monona. More details here.

July is Disability Pride Month. On July 30, 2022, join Wisconsin's Disability Community at Warner Park from 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. as we celebrate the 32nd Anniversary of the ADA and make plans to make things more inclusive.  A fun day of entertainers, exhibits, adaptive sports, artists, and crafts people. You can check out this link to learn more about Disability Pride Month, and at its July 19th meeting, the Madison Common Council will be considering a resolution recognizing July 2022 as Disability Pride Month.

Announcements

 #TeamCity Awards ceremony. This week we celebrated five City of Madison employees and five collaborative teams who live and breathe the City's mission, vision and values at the 2022 July #TeamCity Awards Ceremony.  These recipients that go above and beyond to help their department, other departments and residents were selected from a large pool of candidates that were nominated by their peers, supervisors, residents and everyone in between. You can read about the awardees and their great work by clicking here. Congratulations to all of this month's recipients for recognition of all of the work they do! Madison is a great place to live and work thanks to people like them

Brush collection is slowly winding down for the year. Make sure you don't miss your brush pickup opportunities by getting your schedule at www.cityofmadison.com/BrushCollection

In-person absentee voting starts on July 26th for the August partisan primary. You can find the list of in-person absentee voting locations by clicking here. This week, the Clerk's office posted a helpful reminder of what types of photo IDs you can use for voting in Wisconsin.

Public Health Expanding Reproductive Health Services in Dane County. With initial investment from Dane County, Public Health Madison & Dane County will increase staff, and expand hours and services offered at its Sexual and Reproductive Health clinic beginning later this year. Public Health already provides reproductive health care, through the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) clinic at 2705 E. Washington Avenue, in Madison. The program services clients with a wide range of sexual health services including birth control, emergency contraception, STI testing, and more. This year (likely fall), the clinic will expand staffing, hours, and more comprehensive services, including adding long acting reversible contraception, for example, Intrauterine Devices, or IUDs, that provide long-term pregnancy prevention. This additional staff capacity will also allow Public Health to increase outreach and education efforts and work with community stakeholders so that everyone's reproductive rights are protected and honored. Read the full release here

Survey results released: Madison residents satisfied with MPD performance overall, more work needs to be done. The Madison Police Department has released the results of a citywide survey designed to improve policing in our community. Overall, the majority of Madison residents approve of the job police are doing and feel safe in their neighborhoods. "We want to keep our community safe. We want to make sure people aren't afraid to go for a walk around their block. To know their kids are growing up in a safe place." Police Chief Shon Barnes said. "To know we are meeting this goal, that's good, but we recognize more work always needs to be done." Most residents also believe police are effective in protecting them from violent crime and are familiar with one or more of the department's community outreach programs. While residents feel safe in their own neighborhoods, the survey found many do not feel safe in the city as a whole and want more accountability for officers. Many also want to see the department react quicker once a community concern is raised. To read the full release and find a link to the full survey results, click here.

The third issue of Madison's Vision Zero Quarterly Newsletter is also now available. This issue discusses the work of Madison's Vision Zero initiative and how it is shaped by the public to increase safety and awareness of the issues the city faces. You can find more information about Vision Zero at its website.