by George Zens
United We Stand Against Racism March
Several hundred people participated in a march against racism on Sunday evening, July 12. They walked from the High School to the site of the downtown plaza via Bristol Street, University Avenue, Park Street and Hubbard Avenue, stopping a few times along the way to listen to various speakers. Speeches were also made before and after the march. Keynote speakers included Everett Mitchell, a pastor and Dane County judge, Percy Brown, director of Equity and Student Achievement at the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District, and Annie Warriner, a student at Middleton High School. Besides being a statement against racism, the event was also a fundraiser for the Middleton Education Foundation.
Many local residents, students, teachers and officials participated in the peaceful event, including the chief of police and several officers from the Middleton Police Department. Middleton police temporarily closed the affected streets, and stayed quietly in the background for the rest.
In view of how similar events in Madison had degenerated into violence, vandalism and looting, the owner of the Middleton Center had hired private security guards (on the far right in the photo) to protect its businesses and residents. While the armed guards and papered-over shop windows were in stark contrast to the cheerful nature of the march (if not the more somber parts of the speeches), the spiteful comments by some of the protesters regarding the display of force also showed that intolerance and lack of understanding of differing viewpoints and concerns is nobody's monopoly.
Local coffee shop seems to defy face mask order
As Dane County's face mask order went into a effect on Monday, July 13, an online brouhaha erupted over a sign declaring Helbachs [sic] Coffee Roasters and Kitchen, a coffee shop in Middleton, to be a mask-free zone, and asking customers to remove their masks before entering.
According to a Facebook post with photo showing the sign (pictured), a six-year old girl was ridiculed and brought to tears by other customers for wearing a mask inside. It is unclear, however, who had accompanied the girl to the coffee shop: one news report stated she was there with her family, while another said she was there with the babysitter. The photo of the sign seems to have been taken by her father after the fact.
It is also unclear who posted the sign: one news report quoted the owner as denying that it was ever there, while another quoted her as saying she knew nothing about it.
Fact is though, as verified by this newsletter, that the sign was gone early Monday afternoon.
Local tv stations also quoted Helbachs [sic] Coffee Roasters and Kitchen staff as saying that the owners don't want them or customers to wear masks.
The owners, Melissa and Casey Helbach, are not shy about their politics and religion. In 2018, Republican Casey Helbach ran against incumbent Democrat Jon Erpenbach for State Senate in District 27, and lost with 34% of the vote against Jon Erpenbach's 66%. Melissa Helbach is one of the organizers of the so-called Jesus Lunches, during which she and other evangelicals gave free food to Middleton High School students at Firemen's Park in exchange for the kids listening to proselytizing religious messages. The lunches were more controversial than converting.
The Helbachs have also been holding religious gatherings in their coffee shop after hours, and based on witness accounts, it doesn't look as if covid-19 has slowed their zealotry down any.
Curing the downtown plaza from commititis
The United We Stand Against Racism March on July 12 was the first large-scale event that officially made good use of the downtown plaza site.
Intended as a community gathering space with myriad possible uses ranging from an individual quiet lunch-break to a massive open-air concert, the plaza has become a victim of commititis, an affliction that ravages good ideas when they fall into the hands of ad-hoc committees - in this case the City's Downtown Plaza Advisory Team. Unleashed from any restraints, the committee members, all enthusiastic volunteers with the best of intentions, came up with an over-the-top concept that was over-designed, over-thought, over-regulated, and over-expensive in both construction and maintenance. They even came up with an over-elaborate name: Stone Horse Green.
The horse fell at the first fence, however: Securing the one and a half million dollars that construction was going to cost, one million of which was to come from private donations. The financial part had obviously not been thought through, which is another symptom of commititis. A fundraising campaign got off to a slow start, and even hiring a professional fundraising consultant could not prevent the project from having to be postponed by a year (from construction taking place in the summer of 2020 to 2021) for lack of potential-donor enthusiasm. With covid-19, fundraising has pretty much ground to a halt, and it now looks inevitable that construction will have to be postponed another year.
Or it could be that covid-19 will turn out to be a blessing in an excellent disguise, that covid-19 will cure the plaza project from the commititis caused by the Advisory Team? People, residents as well as businesses, and even some people inside City Hall, are beginning to realize that the plaza can be very useful just the way it is. Last year, the City set up a trunk with lawn games, which are unfortunately becoming moldy and otherwise disintegrating from neglect. This year, it set up picnic tables that are being used a lot, weather permitting, and an enterprising Dave Boyer from the Village Green has even equipped some of them with parasols.
While the Common Council and the mayor have so far done strictly nothing to help Middleton businesses through the pandemic (read more about that in the Middleton e-View newsletter 1), City staff and the City's Community Development Authority (CDA) have taken some timid steps to encourage people to patronize downtown restaurants. These include a 'Pick your Picnic' campaign (pictured), done in collaboration with the Downtown Middleton Business Association, which aims to encourage people to order take-out from local restaurants, and eat it at one of the public places downtown. Yard signs with quick-response codes linking to restaurants have been installed downtown, including at the plaza. A cleaning company takes care of sanitizing the tables daily.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of people are beginning to feel that the plaza site doesn't need to be expensively rebuilt and micromanaged at all, but that it should just grow organically, so to speak, as needs and uses emerge.
Best to cure it from commititis once and for all, and hope it is immunized against future infections by ad hoc viruses.
Parking fines set to double in Middleton
At its July 14 meeting, the City of Middleton's License & Ordinance Committee (L&O) referred a proposed ordinance prohibiting 'the use of motorized toy vehicles in conservancy lands and waters' to the Conservancy Lands Committee (CLC). 'Motorized toy vehicles' include remote-control cars, trucks, boats, airplanes, helicopters and drones. Exceptions would be made for flying things that are regulated by federal law and whose operators are government officials or outside the Conservancy.
L&O also referred a proposed ordinance 'relating to bicycles, electric scooters and similar vehicles in conservancies' to the CLC. People are concerned, and complaining to the City, about the speeds at which some electric (and traditional) bikes and scooters operate. L&O members briefly discussed speed general speed limits on conservancy trails, although enforcement would be an issue.
And talking about enforcement: L&O decided unanimously to double the fines for exceeding parking time-limits from $10 to $20. These time limits were introduced downtown to favor parking for the customers of retail shops, bars and restaurants. It seems, however, that much of that parking is taken up by employees and residents of the Middleton Center apartments and offices. It also seems, according to persistent complaints, that the level of the fines is not the issue, but lack of enforcement on the part of the City.
L&O is still struggling with an ordinance that would prohibit parking within a certain distance of on-street mailboxes, although the members agreed yesterday that any signage that would be required to mark the no-parking stretches would have to be paid for by the homeowners. The discussion goes on.
The Committee deferred several other ordinance proposals, including a request by the Public Library to reserve four on-street parking spaces on Hubbard Avenue in front of the Library as a loading zone for customers who don't want to get out of their cars, but would like their items delivered to them instead. The committee members, especially district 1 alderwoman Kathy Olson, thought four spaces to be excessive, but would also like to know if other businesses in the area might benefit from similar arrangements. Middleton could become car-friendly to the point where downtown doesn't need sidewalks anymore.
The committee decided not to start discussion on an ordinance limiting the number of chickens (and other non-cat-and-dog pets) people can have. The question arose from an insecure City staff member because City ordinances are silent on the matter. But the members of L&O sensibly concluded that since it hadn't been an issue so far, there was no need to create new regulations to solve a non-existent problem.
I saw a Middleton police in uniform riding on electric scooter on mid July down pheasant branch creek trail. I thought it was cool. Not sure I want everyone doing it, but doubt many would. Electric bicycles are very popular with older crowd. Let them use trails. I see little difference between bicycles and “electric” - assist bicycles.