P.O. Box 1222, Madison, WI 53701 | www.prodane.org | office@prodane.org | (608) 257-4985
Sign up to help Progressive Dane table at the Dane County Farmer's Market this Saturday, April 29 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
PD will be tabling at the Farmer's Market EVERY Saturday until September from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. You can volunteer to stay for 1, 2 or 3 hours. Find a weekend you're available and come table with us!
Tabling is an easy and fun way to help out Progressive Dane - by passing out literature, answering basic questions about us, taking down contact information from folks who want more information, etc.
Click here to sign up to table.
Never tabled before? Have more questions?
Call Laura at 257-4985.
Posted by prodane at 09:13 PM
Interested in progressive politics? Organizing and event planning? Looking for a way to build your resume, while getting involved and active in your community?
Progressive Dane is looking for an Outreach Intern to help design and implement a monthly or quarterly lecture series to begin this fall. The internship will start this June, and will continue through the 2006/2007 academic year, depending on availability. The objective of the lecture series is to provide a forum for community leaders and activists to discuss issues pertinent to the well-being of Madison and Dane County.
Intern may also help organize the Progressive Dane 2006 Bike Tour, summer tabling opportunities, and more, depending on interest and availability.
Please send a resume and a short statement (two paragraphs) explaining your interest in the position by May 15 to:
Progressive Dane
P.O. Box 1222
Madison, WI 53701
Or e-mail materials attached as Word documents to office(at)prodane(dot)org with Outreach Internship in the subject line.
Posted by prodane at 01:04 AM
Over 100 people attended the Health Care Forum at Edgewood College on April 6th. The panelists did an excellent job of explaining the current health care system and offering some excellent ideas for improving it. Much of the discussion focused on economic and political feasibility of the various solutions and on the inherent political roadblocks.
Dean Pribbenow, Director of the Human Issues Program at Edgewood College, said it was the most successful event of this type that they have hosted and he looks forward to working with Progressive Dane and the other sponsors on the future projects.
At times the passions ran very high. Dr. Linda Farley gave a brilliant overview of the problem in addition to outlining the single payer solution proposed by her group, the Coalition for Wisconsin Health. Each of the remaining three plans (presented by David Newby of the AFL-CIO, David Riemer of the Wisconsin Health Project, and Ann Fleischli of Wisconsin Health Care for All) were crafted in various ways to provide nearly comprehensive health care while navigating the political waters and vested interests to achieve political and economic viability.
Darcy Haber of Wisconsin Citizen Action, kept the discussion lively by soliciting many questions from the audience and provoking lively discussion amongst the presenters. She also added the perspective of Wisconsin Citizen Action regarding the seriousness and scope of the problem and offered suggestions to the audience regarding what actions the average citizen could take.
The forum was taped by Wisconsin Politics and will be available as a web cast within a few weeks. Look for a link to Wisconsin Eye from the Wisconsin Politics web site: http://www.wispolitics.com/ if interested.
You also can find information about the four health care plans discussed at this forum on the web sites:
http://www.wisaflcio.org/
http://www.wisconsinhealthcareforall.org/
http://www.wisconsinhealthproject.org/plan/index.htm
http://wisconsinhealth.org/
Thanks to all of the Progressive Dane members who made this event possible with their hard work, especially Mary Anglim, Shawn Eisele, Stephanie Rearick, Satya Rhodes-Conway, Mellissa Calabria, Jim Kellerman, Vicky Selkow, Shelly Fite, and Yogesh Chawla. Also thanks to our presenters, our moderator and the co-sponsors: Edgewood College Human Issues Program, the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party of Dane County, the Four Lakes Green Party of Dane County, the South Central Federation of Labor and the Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Edgewood College and the Democratic Party of Dane County also have contributed money to help cover expenses.
Posted by prodane at 12:53 AM
Progressive Dane turned out scores of volunteers to work on spring elections. Their hard work paid off with victories by Arlene Silveira District 1 School Board, Ashok Kumar District 5 County Board, and a resounding Yes on the referendum to Bring the Troops Home.
PD incumbent County Board members Kyle Richmond, Chuck Erickson, Al Matano, and John Hendrick all ran unopposed and were re-elected to two-year terms. Long-time PD activist Barbara Vedder was elected in District 2 after being appointed to fill out the term of Beth Gross late last year.
Now that the elections are over, let's celebrate. PD is hosting a party for election volunteers on Friday, April 28th, 5:30 p.m. at 410 Russell St. There will be food, drinks and awards for volunteers. If you didn't volunteer but would like to get involved, please feel free to come.
Do you like the work PD does to make Madison a better place? Sign up online to become a PD member. Your support is critical and appreciated.
Posted by prodane at 01:14 AM
At our March GMM, PD voted to endorse Ald. Brenda Konkel's Local Purchasing Resolution. The resolution asks for a report from the Comptroller and the City Attorney on ways the city can increase the amount of goods and services it purchases from local businesses.
Giving preference to local suppliers, even if it means spending a little more, can actually benefit a city's finances. Dollars spent locally generate additional economic activity even beyond the value of the initial contract as the local supplier in turn sources goods and services locally. Each additional dollar that circulates locally boosts local economic activity, employment, and ultimately tax revenue. Several U.S. cities have local procurement policies in place, which generally operate by giving a small preference to local businesses in the procurement process.
Local purchasing is one of the small business initiatives that the PD Economic Issues Task Force has been working on. The report is due back in the end of June, and will hopefully lead to proposed changes in the city's purchasing policy.
Posted by prodane at 12:47 AM
After a somewhat rocky start and the circus-like atmosphere of volunteers and workers trying to understand the process and their roles, the recount for the Madison school board Seat 1 race offers good reason to have confidence in the voting machines and the voting process.
Every ballot was reviewed with very few questioned, much less challenged, and darn near all of them proved to have been read and read correctly by the machines. Equally important, in those very few instances where the ballot was misread or not read by the machine, the careful attention and notes offered by the poll workers on election day allowed the canvassers to identify the exact ballot that was not correctly read, understand why and correct the results.
In the end, maybe two dozen votes out of nearly 37,000 were not correctly counted originally, and the margin never changed by more than six votes. The final tally was just four votes different from election night.
Voters in Madison can rest easy that their votes are being counted and counted correctly. And in the rare instance where they are not, they can take complete comfort in knowing there is a good process with dedicated public servants available to confirm final results.
Thanks to all who gave up time at work or in the beautiful weather to instill some confidence in the electorate.
Now Arlene can be seated to help fulfill MMSD's mission.
Posted by prodane at 03:34 AM
Five weekends
Twelve lit drops
200+ volunteers
35,000 thousand pieces of lit
And now it's time for one more thing:
YOUR VOTE.
Tuesday April 4th - polls are open 7am to 8pm
Find out where to vote:
http://cityofmadison.com/clerk/voter_query.cfm or 266-4601 (City of Madison)
http://co.dane.wi.us/danedept/coclerk/polls/display.asp (Dane County)
Progressive Dane has endorsed the following candidates:
Arlene Silveira - School Board seat 1
http://www.arleneforschoolboard.com
YES on the Troops Home referendum
http://www.wnpj.org/homenow
Ashok Kumar - County Board District 5
http://www.votekumar.org/
Barb Vedder - County Board District 2
Chuck Erickson - County Board District 13
John Hendrick - County Board District 6
Al Matano - County Board District 11
Kyle Richmond - County Board District 27
For more information on these candidates see http://www.prodane.org/elections/endorsed_candidates/
Tell your friends - tell your coworkers - tell your neighbors - GO VOTE!
Posted by prodane at 09:52 PM