Uppity Wisconsin

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has joined the let’s-set-up-police-roadblocks-(sobriety checkpoints) bandwagon.

See, Falk—she of the let’s-cover-our-asses-fast reaction to the Dane County 911 Center’s widely reported screw-ups leading to the murder of Brittany Zimmermann—says she wants to change the attitudes towards and culture of Wisconsin drinking.

Gee, changing the culture, that's an interesting if unenlightened, proposed role for politicians and elected officeholders.

Anyway, let’s set up “checkpoints,” she advises our governor.

After thinking you see, Falk “… quickly realized that steps must be taken on the level of state policy to help curb the tide of alcohol abuse," Falk writes to Gov. Doyle, it is reported in the State Journal (Matthew DeFour) this morning.

A “tide” in the culture that we must address by draconian measures like "checkpoints" and criminalization?

The Dane County Sheriff's Department endorsed Kathleen Falk when she ran for Attorney General in 2006.

Now, former Dane County Sheriff's Deputy and current Dane County 911 Center Director Joe Norwick has been loudly, and justifiably criticized for the handling of Brittany Zimmermann's call for help. 

It doesn't help that Norwick had no public safety management experience on the level his current position requires. That stands in sharp contrast to this:

“We searched far and wide, and found the best candidate here at home,” Falk said of Norwick.

Is Falk's support of him payback for a past political endorsement?

It's nice that Executrix Falk is apologizing to the Zimmermann family a month after it was revealed their daughter called 911 and got no help.  

And now, Dane County Executrix Falk could restore some citizen faith in the 911 Call Center operations, you know, show some political backbone that she presumably had enough of to run for the governor's seat, and throw the State Attorney General's race to J.B. Van Hollen. But, here's what we get instead:

"Falk plans to instruct Dane County 911 director Joe Norwick on Tuesday as to what steps need to be taken to assure that a similar situation does not occur in the future, and has also told Norwick that she expects to be updated regularly on events in the 911 center ..."

They'll discipline someone when the 911 call center finishes its now month-plus long internal investigation of what they did wrong ... ah yes, a report by the same foxes guarding hen houses that never revealed Zimmermann's call for help in the first place.

A Wisconsin State Journal online op-ed gets it right in noting that secrecy threatens safety.

Here's another secret that demands explanation:

The dispatcher claims she heard nothing on the line.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray has said "there's evidence in the call that should've prompted the dispatch of a police officer ... County and city officials refuse to describe the content ..."

There's content in the call, or there's nothing. Which is it?