Election Redux

Here comes the train....and shorter council meetings...and business as usual at the DPI. Other local bloggers who are far-better informed and much more involved than I, like hizzoner, have a great "take" on the election. However, in my tradition as a former news anchor of delivering the least informed and most opinionated rant, I have some thoughts.

Apparently it wasn't about the train; and it wasn't about the 9-1-1 Center. I don't know what it was about, but Kathleen Falk has been elected to a fourth term as Dane County Executive. She won the urban vote and Mistele won the rural vote. Now, Kathy can give that deposition in the Brittany Zimmerman murder case. Wonder how THAT's going to turn out.

I saw a clip with Brenda Konkel on Channel 3 this morning where she said her loss to newcomer Bridget Maniaci for City Council was because of things like personality and stuff people don't care about. She told the State Journal Maniaci twisted her record and it was spring break. (Well, we do need the BITTERNESS for the Seder table tonight......) At least the Council meetings won't be as long when the new Council is seated, as we all know Brenda's penchant for extending the debate about everything. Oh, and a note to the anchorette on the local ABC affiliate....you really need to learn to pronounce the names of the people who hold and run for local political office. I know you're busy being a mom and all, but those Italian names aren't really that hard to pronounce. (A touch of snarkiness here????) Lord knows there was plenty of blame to pass out in the last two months in the local media for failure to do homework on pronunciation.

And how about that old terrorist Jay Allen getting elected Mayor of Fitchburg? Since I can almost literally throw a stone into Fitchburg from where I live in the wide-open Town of Madison, I'll need to redouble my efforts to spot terrorist gardeners setting up shop over there off Rimrock Road. I'll wait till a more decent hour to call my friend the appliance-repair mogul and congratulate him. I'm sure Mark Vivian lost because during the 11th hour of the campaign, Monday night, he had to help direct the anti-terror forces beat back that attack on our Capitol from a wayward Canadian pilot.

It's not a secret that I am a big supporter of The Chief, Cheif Justice Shirley Abrahamson. She marred Toni and me in the Supreme Court Chamber back in the roaring 90's, and I'm glad she's on her way to becomming our state's longest-sitting Supreme Court Justice. I wasn't too happy that her campaign ads implied that she helps people with mortgages in foreclosure, but she's a fair and impartial justice, and has been one of the greatest advocates of openness in government. Anybody who writes or talks for a living should be happy she won another ten-year term. I'm also happy that Julie Genovese (gee, another Italian name for the anchorette to stumble over) was elected to the Dane County bench. She and Steve Ehlke ran a good, positive race. No matter which one won, we'd have a good judge.

A mixed bag, education-wise, as far as I'm concerned. No surprise in this economy that at last check the Middleton-Cross Plains school referendum was losing; no surprise that Libby Burmaster's hand-picked heir for head of the state DPI was elected (thanks to a trillion dollars in ads from the teachers' union, too) but I was a fan of the "mom on a mission". I'd like to see a different approach from the DPI. But Arlene Silviera cruised to victory in the Madison School Board race, which is a good thing. She's smart and gets things done.

And the night wouldn't have been complete without a win for fluoride in Poynette. I've blogged about this before, and I'm pleased the locals, in an advisory referendum, didn't believe all the scary stuff on the internet, and voted to tell the water department to fix the equipment and turn the fluoride back on.