Mark Bugher and Tom Still resign from Madison Economic Development Commission
Two prominent members of the city's Economic Development Commission have abruptly resigned after Mayor Dave Cieslewicz rejected a selection committee's recommendation and named former Madison school...
View ArticleCieslewicz responds to Bugher following resignation from EDC
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has sent a barbed thank-you note to Mark Bugher, who resigned Monday from the city's Economic Development Commission with an unexpected blast at the mayor. Bugher, once a key...
View ArticleMansions for sale
Fred Mohs calls it a rare event: Fifteen houses in the once tony Mansion Hill neighborhood, which sits north of the Capitol Square, are up for sale. "Properties here are typically in the same hands for...
View ArticleOverture's big mistakes
Overture is an outstanding cultural venue. As someone who's seen 17 concerts and plays there in the nearly two years since it's opened, I'm grateful for Jerry Frautschi's $205 million gift. Yet...
View ArticleLet's end the war on terror
Five years after 9/11, we need to declare the national emergency over. The war on terror, like the war on poverty, the war on cancer, and the war on drugs before it, has been mostly about marketing....
View ArticleThe road from Milwaukee to Madison
To hear Mayor Dave and Mayor Tom tell it I made a king-size mistake in organizing a Pint & Policy discussion last month around the lessons that Madison could learn from Milwaukee's many problems....
View ArticleOnce more, with feeling
Like a second marriage, a second term can represent the triumph of hope over experience. So it is with the voters and Gov. Jim Doyle. For all his admirable resistance to the excesses of a Republican...
View ArticleRainwater halts East High redesign
The uproar over proposed changes in East High School's curriculum has apparently prompted Madison School Superintendent Art Rainwater to announce a halt to any plans to change programming at Madison's...
View ArticleBlockbuster!
'Salt destroys everything in this city,' he says, then points to the fine detail of the bank floor. 'A limestone floor is not traditional for an office lobby, but I think this is going to be the...
View ArticleHow they did it
'Everything we did was in deference to the Capitol,' says David Jennerjahn, the project's managing architect.
View ArticleBlock 89: A 20-year odyssey
1986: Urban Land Interests secures options to purchase the J.C. Penney, Walgreen's and Dartmouth Direct stores at, respectively, 1, 13 and 21 East Main Street on the Capitol Square.
View ArticleLooking back at my (mostly local) year in music
I ended 2006 the same way I started it: Down at the Harmony Bar to hear alt-country troublemaker Robbie Fulks on New Year's Eve. I came late, about 11:15, and missed his smart-ass rundown of the year's...
View ArticleThe work of Art
I could rattle off a half-dozen reasons why it's a good thing that Art Rainwater is resigning as Madison's school superintendent in 18 months. But I won't. I wish instead that he was staying on the job.
View ArticleWisconsin Right to Life sets modest agenda
Every year Isthmus gets a phone call from the press office of Wisconsin Right to Life: Executive Director Barbara Lyons will be in Madison on such and such a day -- can she come in and talk about WRL's...
View ArticleCriticizing and defending Madison schools
If you have a kid in school, you're pretty much your own authority on education. Because everything that happens in the schools is filtered through its impact on your child. More or less, that's the...
View ArticleDOA building sale draws fire
The state plans to sell the DOA building and then lease it back for five to seven years while it decides whether to build or rent new space downtown. Among the short-term goals: reaping a handsome...
View ArticleCity rules have builders TIFfed off
Brad Binkowski, a stalwart downtown developer for 27 years, is frustrated if not angry. He says tax increment financing, the city's primary tool for helping revitalization projects, is being destroyed...
View ArticleWhat is TIF?
TIF is a wonk's delight, from the almost meaningless words (tax increment financing) it stands for, to the presto-chango magic of how TIF operates - a subsidy program that somehow pays for itself.
View ArticleA conversation with Terrence Wall
Madison progressives really dislike Madison developer Terrence Wall. Time and again, Wall has tried to rally the business community to battle Progressive Dane's agenda -- sick leave, minimum wage,...
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