Dane County Sup. Tom Powell, District 5, was approved by the Madison City Council June 5 to fill the District 5 seat vacated by the election winner, UW-Madison junior Jessy Tolkan.
When election opponent Andy Nathan filed a lawsuit raising questions of whether Tolkan lived in District 5 leading up to the election, Tolkan stepped down, leaving the seat open.
Powell’s election came after partisan council debate and a Common Council Organizational Committee vote of 4 to 2 recommending UW law student Winn Collins to the seat. Collins dropped out of the race before the Council’s vote.
Powell said he will not pursue the seat when it becomes available for a special election in April 2002.
An Aug. 20 incident resulting in the stabbings of three men at the corner of State, Gilman and Broom streets stirred new controversy over what Madison should do about Lisa Link Peace Park in the 400 block of State Street.
The stabbings occurred around 9 p.m. in front of hundreds of witnesses. They were followed by more violence on West Gilman Street, in the early morning hours of Aug. 22. A 12:38 a.m. police call reported that two men demanded money from a pedestrian and beat him up. Approximately one hour later, another police call in the same location reported that a man was held up by another man with a handgun, who fled when the victim refused to give him money.
As a result of the stabbing incident in Peace Park, Madison Mayor Sue Bauman has given the “city’s blessing” to a committee that plans to study possible plans for improving the park, according to Ald. Todd Jarrell, District 8.
The committee will be funded by Downtown Madison, Inc., and will likely contain 12 members, Jarrell said. Among the committee members would be representatives from the Associated Students of Madison, the State-Langdon and Capitol neighborhood associations, as well as the UW-Madison Chancellor’s Office.
A local developer proposed the construction of a 12-story, 870,000 sq. ft. office, retail and residential building on the land currently occupied by University Square this summer, but regulations endorsed by the Madison Plan Commission may undermine the project.
Under the proposed plan, UW-Madison would lease office space in the building and current University Square tenants would also be invited to rent space in the project. In addition, the development would include two levels of underground parking. When first unveiled, the project was praised by the mayor and university officials.
Greg Rice, president of Executive Manage-ment Inc., the proposal’s developer, said he hopes to begin demolition for the $120 million project in January 2003.
However, the structure would violate guidelines for building design in the campus area supported by the Plan Commission in July. Those guidelines require buildings to be set back specific distances from lot lines. The development would fall within the guideline that limits building heights to 12 stories in the zone in which it would be located.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley testified in front of the NCAA Committee on Infractions in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Aug. 11. Wiley hoped to convince the committee that penalties the university imposed on itself after last year’s Shoe Box scandal were sufficient and there would be no need for the NCAA to take further action.
After 157 athletes in 14 sports were found guilty of NCAA violations by receiving extra benefits at The Shoe Box, a discount shoe store in Black Earth, Wis., the university fined itself $150,000 to be paid to the NCAA and placed itself on three years’ probation, requiring it to report to the NCAA annually.
A rule was instituted in July banning all UW-Madison athletes, coaches and athletic administrators from shopping at The Shoe Box.
Steve Schmitt, owner of The Shoe Box, invited university officials to watch him work and see how he runs his store. Charles Hoslet, representing the chancellor, and Casey Nagy, special assistant to the provost, spent the day there Aug. 23.
A barely balanced 2001-’03 state biennial budget resulted in a July 12 proposal for tuition hikes across the UW System and followed with near-unanimous approval by the Board of Regents.
While newly appointed Student Regent Tommy Jones Jr., a UW-Whitewater student, voted in favor of the tuition increase, Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster opposed the 8.4 percent increase for UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee students.
The Regents’ tuition increases also recommended a 7 percent increase for the UW System’s two- and four-year campuses.
In a press release, Associated Students of Madison representatives said the tuition increase for out-of-state applicants may force students to look to other universities as UW costs rise.
However, several regents defended the increase as a reasonable reaction to past tuition freezes.
Additionally, state Senate and Assembly leaders struck a compromise on the state budget July 25.
Legislative leaders said budget highlights included the continuance of stem-cell research, which faced a ban under the initial budget proposal, and a lack of general tax increases.
The budget proposal passed by the state Legislature also included a provision to create a Department of Forestry which would operate independently from the state Department of Natural Resources. Environmental lobbyists and others have called for Gov. Scott McCallum to veto this section of the budget, while proponents of the new department claim the DNR neglects forestry issues. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, mail to the governor’s office has been 30 to 1 against the creation of a forestry department.
Some funding for the budget contains the sale of a portion of the state’s tobacco settlement, as well as a cigarette tax increase.
McCallum was expected to sign the budget Aug. 30.
Nationally recognized neuroscientist Peter Spear will serve as provost for UW-Madison starting this fall, Chancellor John Wiley announced July 6.
Spear will be returning to UW-Madison after serving as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder since 1996. Before that, he had been a professor of psychology for 20 years here and held several leadership positions, including Department of Psychology chair and associate dean for the social sciences in the College of Letters and Science.
“I look forward to working with the faculty, staff and students at UW-Madison,” Spear said in a press release. “Without question, it is one of the top public research universities in the country.”
The provost’s duties include academic program planning, personnel oversight and faculty and staff development. Spear would also serve as acting chancellor in the chancellor’s absence.
Spear will start his position Oct. 1.
