One week from today, Madison holds its spring election (school board, judges & county board). However and unfortunately, this race falls during spring break. If you are planning to be out of town, please obtain an absentee ballot from the City Clerk’s office.
Some have asked why I spent the time (and money) to put together this web page, dedicated to the Madison School Board Race. I’ve summarized a few reasons here:

• These type of races generally don’t attract all that much attention.
• There’s an intersting group of candidates this year.
• Encourage Madison citizens to vote (turnout is never all that great)
• Provide deep, convenient information on each candidate – as much as possible (four of the six agreed to sit for a video interview, as did Superintendent Art Rainwater – to his credit. I requested interviews from Mayor Dave & John Matthews, Executive Director of Madison Teachers, Inc., but never heard back from them.).
• General disappointment with the lack of depth in local news coverage from traditional tv & print sources
  • My favorite scene: the local nbc affiliate was the only station covering a candidate forum at Cherokee Middle School – it’s great they were there for a few minutes, however the end result was a 10 second video clip on the 10 o’clock news that night.
  • The local newspapers, have two education reporters, Doug Erickson & Lee Sensenbrenner. Lee’s paper, the afternoon Capital Times, has posted most of his articles online (including one with a description of this site, but not a link on the web version), while Doug’s paper, the morning Wisconsin State Journal has posted very few (Doug’s candidate interviews have NOT been online, which is just amazing – correction, they are available on this page).
• Support these candidates. Running and serving on the school board is a thankless job. I wanted to give them an opportunity to express their views without a filter.
• Contribute: I contributed to four of the six (those who took the time to sit for an interview – you should, too. I’ve posted links to all 6 candidate web sites here.)

How did it work out? My election page has received quite a bit of activity. It’s also received some interesting comments. I hope other Madison residents start their own blogs…. Email me if you have questions (zellmer AT mac.com) Vote!