I am pleased that Madison Police and agents with the Office of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have a person of interest in custody in connection with the recent firebombing of the City County Building. This was an incredibly serious…
Yesterday, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled on a lawsuit related to voting laws in Wisconsin that had been pending for over three years. Its ruling undercuts some important strategies that helped keep voting safe and…
I am glad the school board acted today to end the SRO contract earlier than previously planned. The Common Council will also take action in July to terminate the contract. This is an important piece of the conversation about reimagining public…
The City of Madison announces the rollout of its Streatery Program on State Street, as the City will close State Street to all vehicular traffic for weekends starting July 3 through August 23, 2020.
The City received a report of a violent racially-motivated hate crime that occurred downtown around 1:00 am on June 24, where a group of pedestrians used a racial slur and then lit a woman on fire through her car window as she stopped at an…
Thousands of people have come out in Madison and around Wisconsin to protest the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the many taken before them. I have heard from thousands of Madisonians in the past week, the vast majority of whom are…
I am calling for full transparency around the hit and run incident that occurred Sunday morning. I have asked the Madison Police Department to release any video of the incident, and to share a timeline of events. I fully support hate crime charges…
Today is Juneteenth. On this day in 1865, the people of Galveston Texas were told the war had ended and that enslaved people were now free. This news came to Texas 2 ½ years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Downtown Business District, an important center of community and commerce, is struggling. On State Street, where 70 percent of businesses are locally owned and operated, and where 62 percent of businesses are owned by women and people of color…
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and numerous Alders today advanced the Commercial Ownership Assistance (COA) program to increase opportunities for commercial property ownership among historically disenfranchised communities. The measure was added by…
State Street is always changing; but it has never looked like this before.
In just under two weeks, this well-loved, iconic street transformed from a place of damage and destruction to a place of powerful art and community expression.
Black lives matter. I believe deeply in this and yet I failed to center this in my message to the police department. I realize that this action has done deep harm to the Black community and for this, I apologize.
On June 3, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and members of the Madison Common Council wrote to Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney to ask that he considering placing incarcerated individuals who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 into the healthcare system.…
Today Breonna Taylor, along with her friends and family, should be celebrating her birthday. Should be—but they cannot because she was forcibly taken away from them. Breonna Taylor should be alive today. George Floyd should be alive today. The pain…
This has been a difficult few days for our city and our nation. The divider in-chief is working hard to escalate at the federal level, while leaders in our community are working hard to listen, learn and de-escalate.