Pubdate: Wed, 09 Aug 2006
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)
Copyright: 2006 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.madison.com/wsj/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506
Author: Dean Mosiman

LOITERING LAW URGED AS ANSWER TO CITY CRIME

The grass-roots Common Sense Coalition and a majority of Madison City 
Council members want to reinstate the city's controversial 
anti-loitering law to help stop a surge in serious crime.

But Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said the move is divisive, politically 
motivated and distracts from an important community conversation on 
public safety.

The effort "is designed to pull people apart," he said.

The original law, passed in 1997 and dropped over concerns about 
discrimination in 2002, made it illegal to loiter for the purpose of 
selling drugs.

A revised law - with civil liberties protections - is needed to help 
police cope with rising crime Downtown and in neighborhoods, said 
Michael Quigley, spokesman for the coalition, which is spearheading 
the effort to revive the law and marshaling council support.

"The City Council is looking to give the police the tools it needs to 
start dealing with some of these issues," Quigley said. "It's time to 
get going."

Although the coalition is not yet offering specifics, such laws 
generally let police contact and issue citations to people who gather 
at places when they have no reason to be there.

A revised law could be crafted to include "criminal intent" and be 
used to help quell violence Downtown, Quigley said.

Ald. Tim Bruer of the South Side's 14th District, where the law was 
most used in the year before it was dropped in 2002, intends to be a 
prime sponsor.

The former law, he said, helped efforts to revitalize troubled South 
Side neighborhoods and a revised version would benefit other parts of the city.

The coalition, Quigley said, intends to sponsor a community forum 
near the end of the month to help shape a detailed proposal to be 
introduced by council members in September.

So far, 11 of the council's 20 members support the effort, Quigley 
said. The coalition, he acknowledged, has not contacted any of the 
seven members belonging to the grass-roots, leftist political party 
Progressive Dane, which opposed the law in the past.

The coalition's initiative presents a political challenge for 
Cieslewicz and liberal council members who want to be tough on crime 
but face pressures from constituencies to protect civil rights.

"I don't support an anti-loitering ordinance in concept," Cieslewicz 
said, reserving judgment on a veto. "We don't know what they're going 
to propose, but I'd be a tough sell."

Cieslewicz, who had not been contacted by the coalition, said that 
fact "lends credence" to the idea the proposal is political.

Ray Allen, who is running against Cieslewicz for mayor, led the 
coalition before he announced his candidacy this spring.

Allen could not be reached for comment.

Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, a Progressive Dane member and 
assistant district attorney who represents the core Downtown, said he 
had not been contacted either and opposes the move.

"This is absolutely not the solution to solving the Downtown's public 
safety dilemma," he said. "It is largely symbolic and political."

Bruer, who said he was contacted by the coalition about supporting 
the proposal, acknowledged the political implications but said his 
personal motivation is about public safety, not politics.

Quigley said he hopes Cieslewicz and members of Progressive Dane will 
eventually support the move on its merits.

The proposal comes as public safety becomes an increasingly hot topic.

On Aug. 3, Police Chief Noble Wray voiced the need for a special plan 
involving more officers, different strategies and environmental 
improvements such as lighting to stop an increase in violent fights, 
muggings and robberies this spring and summer around Downtown.

The city, meanwhile, has seen a 76 percent rise in robberies for the 
first six months of this year.

The chief's proposals have also come amid chaos and violence erupting 
at bar time on the 100 block of King Street the past two weekends, 
and a double murder at a South Side apartment building last weekend.

Wray could not be reached for comment on the coalition's proposal.

Scott Favour, the police union president and a coalition member, said 
the union would support adding another crime-fighting tool.

The former law, backed by police, generated controversy.

The council voted 11-7 to extend the law when it was set to expire in 
2002, but the former mayor, Sue Bauman, vetoed it over concern it 
wasn't working and discriminated against blacks. The council voted 
9-6 to override the veto, falling short of the required 14-vote 
"supermajority."

Of the 77 citations issued in 2001, the final year of the law, 80 
percent were to blacks; 55 were in the Burr Oaks neighborhood around 
Cypress Way, Magnolia Lane, Hughes Place and West Badger Road, the 
area where last weekend's double homicide occurred. Most citations 
were to people who lived out of the neighborhood and had a history of 
drug use, violence or both.

In fact, neighborhood leaders, including many minorities, testified 
in favor of the law.

But opponents said the council should find a nondiscriminatory way to 
fight drug dealing and crime in neighborhoods.

Those supporting a revised law, according to Quigley, are: Alds. Jed 
Sanborn, Lauren Cnare, Zach Brandon, Paul Skidmore, Isadore Knox, 
Jr., Bruer, Larry Palm, Judy Compton, Paul Van Rooy, Noel Radomski 
and Cindy Thomas.
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