THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1969 TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2011
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VOLUME XLII,, ISSUE 127 VOLU
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After emergence as role player, Johnson eager to make larger impact page 8
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Soglin funding plan could delay library Mayor-elect says money should be secured before new building construction Pam Selman City Editor
Courtesy of Madison Central Library
The plans for Madison’s new downtown library branch may halt due to Soglin’s budget concerns.
As the big hand turns to noon today, Madison will be greeted with a fresh management team as Mayor-elect Paul Soglin officially takes office and a new City Council is cycled in. While Soglin said he has been hard at work throughout the past two weeks to ensure a successful transition period, city officials said some of the concerns the mayor-elect has expressed about recent city developments could set the clock back and delay some projects by several years. Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said Soglin wants to see a guarantee of the $8 million in private
funding planned for the city’s Central Library renovation project before developers break ground — a move that could push back the project’s completion by three years. Soglin has said he does not want to proceed with the previously agreedupon terms for the city to front the money for the project and later be repaid by private fundraising dollars, Verveer said. Still, Verveer said this is a model that has worked well with other recent library projects. The Sequoya branch and the South-side branch of the Madison Public Library System both recently raised significant amounts of money through the Madison Library Foundation to cover renovation costs. Madison Library Foundation Executive Director Jenny Collins said if Soglin delays the
plans for construction, the city would face greater issues because of immediate need for certain renovations. “If Soglin says he has to have the pledges or cash for $8 million prior to doing construction, it will still take me twoand-a-half to three years to raise that $8 million,” Collins said. “What’s being overlooked here is the cost of delaying this project — there are things in the Central Library that absolutely have to be repaired or replaced to keep that branch open.” Verveer said one rainy day or warm summer day could cause serious emergency damage to the library, calling for urgency in renovations. He said the roof and Sequoya HVAC system are both “on their last legs,” and the elevator
LIBRARY, page 3
Vos: UW split from System not likely this legislative cycle Joint Finance Committee rep says legislation may not have sufficient votes in committee Andrew Averill State Editor A lead member of the state’s powerful Joint Finance Committee said Sunday he thought the governor ’s plan to allow the University of
Wisconsin to spin off from other state schools is a complicated issue that may require more than one budget cycle to decide. JFC co-chair Rep. Robin Vos, R-Burlington, told Milwaukee television host Mike Gousha he agrees with giving additional flexibility to the state’s flagship university, but thought splitting the
campus from the rest of the UW System is a tall order for the Legislature to tackle. “I’m positive we’re going to give some additional flexibility, but not go all the way to allow UW-Madison to spin off and set its own tuition and all the things without more oversight,” Vos said on Upfront with Mike
Gousha. Vos and the rest of the JFC members finished holding the last of four public hearings on the governor’s budget this past week. His spokesperson Kit Beyer said testimony at the hearings, delivered by high-profile state educators like UW System chancellors and Board of Regents members, raised
concerns about the split. She added Vos had been looking into the possible split before the hearings as something that needed to be examined more before making a stance. Vos, whose district ends just shy of UW-Parkside, wanted to make sure the UW-Madison split would not mean other state universities would be
treated as secondary. Despite Vos’ comments to Gousha, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin, who spent part of Monday with Vos in his district, said she remains optimistic the split will be approved. “This is not really a disappointment. The
UW SPLIT, page 3
SSFC denies CFACT funding for 2nd time Committee members say they believe group’s failure to return ASM equipment intentional, student org representatives deny allegation Melissa Hanson Senior News Reporter Despite Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow’s effort to prove it did not intentionally violate a student government policy, the student organization was denied funding eligibility for the second time this year at a hearing Monday night. CFACT was denied General Student Services Fund eligibility by the Student Services Finance Committee early last semester after the committee found the group intentionally violated an Associated Students of Madison policy by failing to return equipment owned by ASM by its due date in 2009. After an ensuing battle through Student Judiciary, CFACT won another eligibility hearing in front of SSFC.
CFACT President Joshua Smith addressed the policy violation and gave the committee a timeline of the equipment return process during the meeting. “As soon as we had the list of all the stuff we had to turn in, we promptly returned it,” Smith said. Committee members were not convinced CFACT’s policy violation was unintentional. Several committee members raised concerns about a letter between the University of Wisconsin’s branch of CFACT and CFACT National, in which members of the UW branch were told not to return the equipment if they were not certain about who owned which items. SSFC representative
CFACT, page 3
I WANT YOU... TO EAT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST Megan McCormick The Badger Herald
Students gathered on Bascom Hill Monday morning to join Bucky for free breakfast as a part of All Campus Party.
Six Wisconsin state senators now facing possible special elections Recall groups gather needed signatures for Olsen, Wirch, petitions for others imminent Sean Kirkby News Reporter Another Republican Senator risks removal from office after a recall committee handed in the required amount of signatures Monday. The Committee to Recall Luther Olsen filed their petition
to recall Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, with the Government Accountability Board after collecting around 23,000 signatures, roughly 9,000 more than they needed, GAB spokesperson Reid Magney said. Olsen joins Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac, and Sen. Dan Kapanke, R-LaCrosse, who have also had recall petitions filed against
them due largely to their support and approval of Gov. Scott Walker ’s controversial bill limiting the collective bargaining authority of public employee unions. “Luther Olsen, like Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper before him, is facing the music for casting his lot with Scott Walker,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said in a statement. “The only
question that remains — who’s next?” However, some recall campaigns seeking to remove Democrats from office due to their nearly month-long flight from Wisconsin have also been working on collecting signatures and expect to hand in the petitions soon. The Jim Holperin Recall Committee has collected enough signatures to recall the Eagle River,
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Wis., Democrat and will file the petition later this week, committee spokesperson Kim Simac said in an email to The Badger Herald. Petitioners have also collected enough signatures to file against Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, and plan to do so with the GAB later this week, Wirch recall committee spokesperson Dan Hunt said.
Incumbents who face recall have 10 days after a petition has been filed against them to challenge it, Magney said. “Challenges usually occur when a candidate claims that so many people who signed the petition do not live in the district or if somebody gives the wrong address,” Magney said.
SENATORS, page 3