Kelly Nolan. Joel Marino. Brittany Zimmerman.

That’s three murders just off the top of my head that have gone unsolved. All three of them young people with bright futures, and it’s starting to make me wonder if Madison might have a serial killer and whether it’s a safe place to live anymore. I personally don’t feel scared of being murdered, but I don’t know how I’d feel about sending my children to college in the Madison area right now.

The Madison Police have given the public very little reason to believe any of those three murders cases will ever be solved, and it leads me to believe the investigators are just incompetent. That’s three murder cases with very few leads, at least that the public knows about, and probably no chance of them getting solved. Maybe I watch too much CSI, but I find that hard to believe. I do realize the police must keep certain information confidential as to not hurt their case, but the public deserves more.

There has been a man living in a red Isuzu Trooper just south of Elver Park, where S. Gammon comes to a dead-end, right next to the garbage cans. I believe he’s been living there since sometime last Summer, which means he toughed out a nasty Winter living in his vehicle. Yikes! The cops must know about him since they frequent that street, but I’m not sure there’s much they can do about it. It’s not like the guy is breaking the law.

I have two issues with this:

1. There is trash on the ground around the area that he parks, but I’ve never seen him actually litter. Regardless, he lives there, so he should pick up around the home.
2. He’s a big guy and it makes me nervous when my girlfriend goes for walks by herself. He more or less keeps to himself, but you never know.

Yesterday, I was walking my dog, and he was laying on his side with his shirt off inside of a sleeping bag. Another time, I saw him washing his hair with a jug of water. It’s not exactly what you want to see on the street you live on.

I realize this has been a bad Winter, but what is the deal with the roads being so awful? I feel like the last month or so the snow removal folks have given up. I’m not knocking the workers that have been busting their ass all Winter, but we had a storm Sunday, I couldn’t get into to work yesterday, and barely made it today. I don’t even think they’ve plowed, salted, or put gravel down in my area. I tried to get up the S. Gammon hill that goes up to Raymond Road and had to back down it…two days after the storm! Midtown Road doesn’t even seem like it’s been plowed and looks excellent for ice skating. Another good ice skating rink is the intersection of Raymond Road and Whitney Way. It took me an HOUR to get to work today!

Also, when it was raining Sunday morning, why weren’t there salt/gravel trucks out being a little more proactive? Instead, Madison roads turned into pure ice. You can argue that it’s too cold for salt, but my place of employment put down salt in their parking lot and it’s melting. Again, I realize the Madison snow removal crew has had one hell of a Winter, but come on, step it up!!!

<Sigh> Is Winter ever going to end?

Madison’s new trash system, the one with the ginormous trash cans, will fail before Winter’s end, less than a year after starting this venture. What a waste of taxpayer’s money.

Why it will fail

The trash cans need to be on semi-flat surface, and as it is, they have a hard enough time staying upright on a relatively flat grass surface. What happens when it snows? What happens when there’s so much snow the only place to put them is on the sidewalks or on the road. Either of those of places are going to anger a lot people. I also think they’re ugly as hell. People typically put out their in the morning and then leave for work, so the streets are lined with these ugly trash cans.

I drive down Raymond Road to and from work, and it’s unbelievable to see the number of trash cans, let alone how disturbing it is to see a large percentage of them knocked over. Last week, there were a handful of them knocked over in front of an apartment complex which were blocking an entire lane of traffic. This was just up the street from Raymond and McKenna.

So, who came up this bonehead plan anyway? I’m guessing the same bonehead that came up with Trolley idea.

I went to the Taste of Madison last Sunday, and although I had a great time, and left with a full belly, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of diverse music. You had the soft/classic rock stage(Magic 98/The Lake), the hard rock stage(JJO), the country stage(Q106), and the token minority stage(Jamz/LaMovida). Yes, you could argue that there was diversity with the LaMovida and Jamz stage, but they also got the worst location, and seemed almost like an afterthought when I walked by their corner of the “Taste of Madison” world.

Since I moved to Madison 10+ years ago, the Taste of Madison has almost become more of a music festival than a food festival. I just think it would show a little class to mix things up and have a more diverse selection of live music.

Am I the only person bothered by the fact Kelly Nolan’s killer is still on the loose. I haven’t heard a peep out of the Madison Police Department about this case lately, which leads me to believe they don’t have a clue who it might be. There was a lot of activity once the body was found, but nothing has surfaced, and I’m beginning to think the killer got away with it and now the media doesn’t deem it newsworthy. I also get feeling the local community feels the murder was a one time thing, and it’s nothing to worry about.

“There ’s a killer in the community that has not been caught and the Police Department is working very hard to try and catch this person, ” police spokesman Mike Hanson said. “Until we have him in custody, we don ‘t know his future intentions. “

The Police Department, which is understaffed and is dealing with increased crime, is busy trying to find Nolan’s killer? You could have fooled me.

Related Links:

Unresolved Killing Worries Students

Kelly Nolan. No Longer Newsworthy?

There’s no question, crime is up right now in Madison. It could be a spike on the graph chart, but it could also be a new trend in a growing city without an adequate number of police officers. I was listening to WIBA this morning, they were interviewing a police officer that sounded frustrated. He said he wants the police force to be more pro-active by having more patrols, but there’s only so much the police force can do.

I found out just yesterday, a friend, who lives in a nice/quiet neighborhood on the West side, had his car broken into, with a boulder. I swear, this rock was about the size of a basketball. They threw it right through one of the windows, and took his video iPod. Seriously, who are these punks? That’s a pretty minor crime compared to some of the other things I’ve been hearing on the news. I’ve heard the word “murder” more than I care to the last few months, and it’s getting ridiculous.

I still think Madison is a very safe place to live, BUT, I think the City of Madison needs to take action.

Latest crimes in Madison

2006 Residential Burglary

2006 Non-Residential Burglary

2006 Robbery

MPD Report on Robbery Statistics

Is Madison Losing Another Neighborhood

I swear! I was driving down Raymond Road this past weekend and I saw a baby, still young enough to be in diapers, walking down the sidewalk by himself. My girlfriend and I saw a police officer pulled off the side of the road, so we went back to tell him about it. I pulled in front of the officer’s car and walked to his window. Immediately, I thought to myself, this cop looks pissed about something. I told him about the baby, and he talked to me like I was a criminal or something. Here I am trying to help a baby, and he’s pulling attitude with me.

Anyway, I get back in the car and we pull away. We don’t drive 30 feet and a kid that looked between 2-3 years old throws a rock at our car. That little boy was also unattended. The cop swiftly pulled up next to the boy, and I don’t know what happened because we just kept driving, we’d both had enough.

Unfortunately, I was out and about yesterday at about 10:00pm, and actually couldn’t get home because of the weather. I had to borrow a friend’s vehicle with 4-wheel drive so I could get home to let my dog out. During that almost two hours of travel, I didn’t see a single snowplow. There were probably 5-6+ inches of snow on the beltline, and even more on sidestreets. There were cars in the ditches everywhere, and ton of cars hung up on the snow. I saw one car hung up in the middle of County M and Midtown Rd., which is a busy intersection. He had stopped at the red light, and then couldn’t get enough momentum to get going again. Again, where were the snowplows? At that point, I didn’t expect to see any snowplows on the side roads, but they SHOULD have been hitting the main roads, like say THE BELTLINE.

I’m puzzled as to how Mayor Dave can actually believe street cars are a good idea. My only thought is it may help the economy, but how much, and at what expense? He obviously wants downtown to boom, but not everyone wants to take a street car to get there.

The people that already live downtown, and work downtown, can easily use the bus system, which is what I did for many years when I worked on the square. Unlike a street car, a bus is relatively fast and has the ability to go anywhere the streets go. Expanding the bus system doesn’t require millions of dollars worth of new track, not to mention finding where to lay the track.

One of the major problems that doesn’t get brought up very often, is the fact there are people that work downtown, but live somewhere other than the Isthmus. Before I moved downtown, I worked on the square and had to drive from the West side. At the time, I paid $65/month so I could park in an apartment complexes parking lot. I gave up that parking spot for a few months, and then later tried to get it back a few months later. The parking spot had gone up to $80/month. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s over $100 since I know people that pay much, much more. If you don’t live downtown, and don’t mind spending a few hours each day in a bus, the bus system might work for you. But, what about the people with children or other timely obligations once the workday is over? These people MUST drive to work. I suppose they can choose not to work downtown, but that’s not fair to people looking for work, and doesn’t promote the downtown area. I’m sure parking is a big reason why local businesses decide to locate elsewhere.

As a side note, why does the state have a huge flat parking lot just off of East Washington, around the 200-300 block? Couldn’t they have about 5 levels of heated parking underground, and another 5 levels above ground? It just seems like such a waste of space.

Please, fix our roads
Before Dave should even consider street cars, I’d really like it if he’d first fix our roads. Where do I even start? How about the High Point / Midtown Rd. area. Have you seen the crack that goes through the High Point / Mineral Point intersection? How about the intersection of County M and Mineral Point? Dave was asked during the last mayoral election at a mayoral forum about problem areas in Madison, and that was intersection he mentioned. What’s happened since he’s been in office? Nothing. Traffic has increased, the roads have gotten worse, and nothing has changed.

The fact is, street cars are old technology that doesn’t fix any of the many problems Madison faces today. I could go on and on as to why street cars are bad, but I have a day job.