Thrift Store “Update”? No, Just More Diversionary Anti-Community Arguments

Last updated on 2013.09.18

As I review the full twelve minutes of the "thrift store update" at last night's Madison City Commission meeting, I realize I should have stood and shouted "Point of order! The agenda says thrift store update, and we're not getting one!"

Thrift store committee members Clark Sinclair and Jerry Johnson could have updated us on a lot:

• They could have provided the business plan that no one has seen yet, with revenue numbers establishing that the store is viable.
• They could have explained why they used to claim the store would not compete with local secondhand stores but have now decided to admit and embrace that competition as an advantage.
• They could have provided endorsement letters from the LAIC, ICAP, and the Madison Community Foundation, the three organizations that figure prominently in the plan but who remain publicly silent on it.
• They could have explained and quantified the threat of government funds for poverty assistance drying up, which they say their thrift store would hedge against.
• They could have explained who will be in charge of disbursing the revenue raised and why that private committee would be a better mechanism than the publicly accountable county commission.

But check the full transcript below. Clark Sinclair said "thrift store" four times. Jerry Johnson didn't say the phrase once. At the mic, on the record, they answered none of the above questions as to how the thrift store would operate.

Sinclair and Johnson did not even do us the courtesy of making clear where they stand on their request for public dollars for the thrift store. They would neither repeat nor rescind their request for $150,000 from the city. They simply said they wanted to "step back" last night and ask for an official task force on the broader issue of downtown development.

Instead, their speeches last night were a vague mishmash of rebuttals to a handful of objections raised to the thrift store project, in a format where the city attorney would allow no public response.

Clark, Jerry, and our city fathers obviously don't want a debate about the thrift store. Believe it or not, neither do I. I want an honest community conversation, where instead of starting with a preconceived scheme favored by a few business elites, we ask everyone to talk about what Madison needs, what Madison wants, and what Madison can do to set and achieve some common goals.

However, unlike our city fathers, I recognize that we can't have that conversation without hearing opposing views. Thus, now that the city's lawyer is not around, let's re-rebut:

Precedents: Jerry Johnson implied that the city's investment in three past projects proposed by private groups justifies the city's investment in the thrift store. He cited these three projects:

1. Farmers Elevator requested the paving of Farmer Avenue several years ago. The city, county, and state worked together to do so. Not mentioned by Johnson: the fact that the city still hasn't paved all of its residential streets. Johnson's example only reaffirms that in Madison, money talks, and common folk walk... on gravel.
2. East River Electric got the city to chip in $127,000 last year toward renovating the street infrastructure outside East River's new building on South Harth Avenue. Here the money was spent on actual public infrastructure.
3. The city facilitated the great LAIC-Rosebud land swap, which was a net revenue loser for the city, and which was forced in part by the city's refusal in 2007 to let Rosebud Manufacturing expand downtown around its original facilities.

Apparently Johnson's concept of "precedent" hasn't developed much past, "Everyone else jumped off a cliff, so why can't I?" Not one of his three examples showed the city doing what the thrift store boosters are asking: use tax dollars to destroy functional commercial properties and subsidize a new non-profit that would cut into existing businesses' profits.

Madison Community Foundation: Johnson continued with what I can only read as a response to my June 17 post on all the money the Madison Community Foundation has in its bank account that could be used to build a decent thrift store without asking for tax dollars. Johnson insisted that MCF's money can only be used for the community center. He did not explain how the MCF could use or even hold any money, given that the Secretary of State dissolved them in 2005.

"They don't have Main Street businesses...." Commissioner Dick Ericsson said this line by way of commending Sinclair and Johnson for "investing their time and efforts in trying to make the community better." I'm still trying to figure out what Dick was saying... especially considering Clark Sinclair owns a Main Street business, or at least a Main Street building whose top floor he rents out to Bulldog Media and whose main floor he could rent out to the next great downtown business idea.

Whatever Commissioner Ericsson was saying, I suggest the thrift store committee might have come up with a better idea if it had included some Main Street business owners, like Gayle Maberry and Tami Smith, in their secret deliberations (or better yet, public deliberations!).

Dick at War: Commissioner Ericsson proceeded to give the rest of the community the back of his hand, portraying much of the criticism of the thrift store plan as "digging foxholes and stringing barbed wire and making comments about people and different things." He chided that if we do discuss the thrift store, "let's do it civilly, let's do it respectfully, and let's do it intelligently"... implying, of course, that the discourse so far has been uncivil, disrespectful, and unintelligent.

Dick's soft diatribe shows how our leaders still take honest criticism far too personally. Dare to suggest that you might have a better idea than our elites, and you're one of those negative people (Clark used that word twice) who don't pull together like team players the way everyone in Madison is supposed to.

Dick must not have paid attention to the comment section on my first post on the thrift store topic. More than a dozen community members responded to my counterplans with a wealth of original suggestions, good ideas, and hardly any personal venom. Community members are having exactly the civil, respectful, and intelligent conversation Commissioner Ericsson seems to think we need his admonition to have. His finger-wagging unnecessarily insulted the people whom the commission had already silenced at Monday's meeting.

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This whole thrift store saga lays bare the fundamental defect in Madison's DNA. Our leaders praise our community, but they don't trust us. They exclude opinions and opinion-makers that challenge their plans and power. They view new ideas from anyone outside their small circle not as opportunities for change and growth but simply as "objections" to be "overcome." They view the great majority of Madison residents not as partners in building community, but as a captive audience for them to scold, "educate," and persuade into doing what they want.

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For the record, here's the full twelve minutes spent on the thrift store "update" at last night's commission meeting, video and transcript, all in one handy blog package for your (in)digestion.

First, city attorney David Jencks's admonition to the crowd that public input was not only unwelcome but forbidden:

Next, Clark Sinclair's speech:

Then Jerry Johnson's speech, Dick Ericsson's commentary, and Sinclair's closing statement:

Transcript, Madison City Commission, July 9, 2012:

City attorney David Jencks: Well, the rules of order under which we should operate are that unless there is a motion and second on the floor, that there should be no further discussion or there shouldn't be public comment or public input. If the public wants to be able to offer their positions, their views, or discuss their topics, they are certainly welcome to request to be on the agenda. It's my understanding that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Sinclair are the ones that have asked to be on the agenda. It is my understanding they'll be giving an update with respect to their project. But unless this commission puts a motion and a second on the floor, other input or other discussion should not be allowed.

[Laughter from audience]

[Mayor Gene Hexom calls Sinclair and Johnson to microphone]

Clark Sinclair: Thank you, commission, for agreeing to have us on the agenda to give you an update. It's been over a month ago that we came in front of you to discuss the project that we've been working on for quite a few months. At that time, we asked you to include some monies to help prepare a site in downtown Madison for our proposed thrift store. As a result of that we've had some really good discussions. It certainly made people start talking about what's going on in the community. Quite frankly, I think, some really good ideas have come out of it.

We have listened carefully. I can guarantee you that our committee has listened carefully to people's ideas and their concerns and taken it seriously. We're not trying to make something happen that isn't good for the community. We really seriously are trying to come up with a project that we can get some very good community support for that'll have a lot of great things accomplished over a period of years in our community.

We want to be open-minded. We're not trying to force something that nobody wants. I can guarantee you that we have taken a lot of the ideas and comments seriously.

I think one of the things that there seems to be a consensus on is that something needs to be done downtown Madison. There's a lot of properties that could be improved. There's not only the Jensen site but other areas downtown. There were some very good suggestions from some of the people about what they would like to see as positive things downtown.

Instead of coming before you tonight and asking you to support our proposal, what we'd like to do is step back here and ask the city commission to appoint a task force that would develop a comprehensive plan for revitalizing downtown. That seems to be the thing that most everybody can agree upon. Even the most negative people feel that something needs to be done.

That's what we would like to see happen is that the city commission appoint a task force that will develop a comprehensive plan including the Jensen property what should be happening downtown Madison. I think if you look at a lot of other communities, there have been other communities that you could take lessons from about the efforts they've made to improve their downtown. While a thrift store is not a new concept, downtown improvement is not a new concept, either. A lot of communities have made some great progress in working together to develop a plan and figure out ways to help people who want to do things downtown. That's what we'd like to see.

As far as our committee's concerned, we fully believe that the program we are proposing is a very good program, it's an ambitious project. We're taking a look at the costs of our project, the location of our project, we're looking at all the different components of our proposal. We fully intend to move forward with having a thrift store of some type in this community, because we know how much good it can do.

We're not here tonight to do anything but suggest that this task force be formed and let you know that our goal of having a thrift store built by this community for the benefit of this community is still our goal. We're not going to start the project tomorrow, but we're going to continue to educate the public and start raising funds privately and from businesses in the community to make this happen.

[Sinclair then invites Johnson to comment]

Jerry Johnson: A couple of things I think that came out of this. People were surprised and had several comments about why this group would come before the city and ask for public money to do something like this. There've been a couple of precedents that come to mind, one recently, one ten years ago.

There was a street on the west edge of Madison that wasn't even in the city limits, and we had a business come before the city commission and ask how can we do something with this? We need this road improved for our business. It was the Farmers Elevator. At that time the city, the state, and the county stepped up and made a huge commitment along with the Farmers elevator to build a road that serviced a lot of different needs within our county, not just within our city, but within our county. That's one thing that comes to mind.

As recently as last year, a business on South Harth came before you for a downtown improvement project. The city funded thousands and thousands of dollars to improve that street and that infrastructure, and I look at it as a downtown improvement.

Another one, we had a business, an industry that was looking to move out of town. The city helped facilitate a new home in the industrial park for that and purchase property downtown for revitalizing our downtown.

So it's not something unrealistic that we were asking for. I think it created a lot of concern about what we were trying to do, but ultimately what we were doing is what as a city commissioner I heard ten years ago: we have to do something on Main Street. I think this task force could maybe provide direction for a comprehensive and also a community-based plan going forward for our downtown, because it does need upgrading.

That's one comment. The other I would like to bring up is the Community Foundation. The Foundation has raised money ten years ago to fund scholarships up to the Community Center for families in need. The other thing it did was provide money to purchase equipment at the community center. All those funds were raised privately, and they were designated for those specific purposes. The thing about that is, over the last ten years, over $90,000 has been used for equipment purchases that helped alleviate some budget pressure from the city and also the university. The other thing it did is provided $131,000 in scholarship funds for families that otherwise maybe couldn't afford to be members at the community center. That was important to that foundation. The other thing it did was provide a mechanism to keep a local artist in town and keep him on Main Street, and it's one of the nicer buildings in our community on Main Street.

So this foundation is not anything bad. It's there to help promote our community and the community center. Those are the only comments I was going to make regarding why we're here before the city and the foundation.

Commissioner Dick Ericsson: I'd like to thank both these guys. There's a lot of discussion going on, and it's good. I think it's very helpful that people... and healthy for the community to have these discussions and conversations.

But I'd like to commend both these gentlemen. They don't have main street businesses, but they are investing their time and efforts in trying to make the community better. I've never seen that be a bad thing.

If people want to come forward with other ideas that's a wonderful thing, too, and so there's an opportunity here. I think we should take advantage of the opportunity. And rather than start digging foxholes and stringing barbed wire and making comments about people and different things, I think Madison has always pulled together. I've lived here my whole life, I intend to die here—hopefully a few years from now—I think that we have always been a good community. I think we have to remember that.

If nothing else, if we have a good conversation about it, let's do it civilly, let's do it respectfully, and let's do it intelligently, and I think that if we do that, we can improve our community and make it better.

Clark Sinclair: Remember the steering committee that was created about a dozen years ago for the community center. That came out of the Madison Action Plan, which was a task force basically endorsed by the city to do some study and planning and goal-setting for the community, and out of that there was a five-member steering committee, I happened to be one of the members of that. We spent two years working on that. And if you think the negative things that are thrown around today are anything, if you remember back then, that was really a situation where there were so many reasons why everybody thought we shouldn't do it. I don't see a lot of that today about the community center. It's proven to be a very big asset for the community, and it happened because citizens stood up and started a steering committee to bring it forward. And then we had the right partners in the community to overcome all of the objections and bring it to a vote and it passed. It's another great example of people working together.