Dane County Jail / Moral Restart – Calls to Action for Oct 1

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Dane County Jail / Moral Restart – Calls to Action for Oct 1

There are two major items on the agenda for the Dane County Board of Supervisors’ Oct 1 meeting:

  1. 2020 Res-145 (Under section G of the Board agenda) – aka “the Doyle Resolution” –  ADDRESSING SYSTEMIC RACISM IN THE DANE COUNTY CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND INVESTING IN ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION OUTSIDE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT (full text here)
  2. 2020 Res-217 – URGING THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON TO DISCONTINUE IN PERSON CLASSES (full text here which draws language from our Moral Restart demands)

We encourage members to contact your supervisors, to attend the meeting, and/or to submit comments on these issues. Below are a few potential ways you can support these resolutions:

CALL TO ACTION from Freedom Inc [5 min]

CALL TO ACTION on 2020 Res-145

Contact your Dane County Board Supervisor. It’s time to take real action to make sure our budgets reflect our values. Contact your Dane County Board Supervisor! Directions and template below!

What’s at Stake: Sherif Mahoney is asking for a lot this year, including $132,088,208 to build and staff a new jail. The Problem: COVID has proven that putting people in cages does more harm than good. We have dramatically reduced the jail population because people don’t need to be caged in the first place. It’s inhumane, and doesn’t lead to accountability, restoration, healing, or an end to harm.

Especially those who live on Madison’s Eastside, Northside, and Bayview area should contact their Supervisor.

District 13: https://board.countyofdane.com/Supervisors/Detail/13

District 17: https://board.countyofdane.com/Supervisors/Detail/17

District 18: https://board.countyofdane.com/Supervisors/Detail/18

DIRECTIONS:Please contact your supervisor before Thursday Oct 1st at 7pm and tell them to support Resolution 145!

You can visit the county board website to find your own supervisor – bit.ly/DCsupers

If you want a template for your email, feel free to copy and paste the script below:

Dear Supervisor(s),

If there was ever a good time to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to cage human beings, now is certainly not that time. There is no way that you can in good conscience vote anything but YES on the Doyle Resolution and stop the building of a new jail in our county.

We understand the terrible condition the old jail is in, but we also understand that jail is inhumane, period. We cannot afford to spend this egregious sum to lock people up in slightly better conditions, especially when our communities need this money so much.

If you believe that Black lives matter then I urge you to understand that we must center the voices of those most impacted by jails and see: an investment in incarceration is an investment in white supremacy. As your constituent, I will not stand for this and I will tell my friends, family, and neighbors to stand with me. Thank you so much to everyone who is taking this stand, including the board supervisors who have done so. Together, we can and will beat white supremacy.

Sincerely,
YOUR NAME

CALL TO ACTION for 2020 Res-217 [5 min]

Dane County Supervisors have recognized the way that UW–Madison’s reopening plans have put our community at risk.

This resolution echoes the calls for a Moral Restart by demanding that the university take action to de-densify campus by safely limiting the amount of students who remain in dorms.

Support this resolution by contacting your supervisor (noted above) and raising some of the following points:

  • UW–Madison should only offer online instruction until it is safe to resume in-person operations
  • UW–Madison should use online instruction as the default modality, allowing departments to offer courses in-person only when pedagogically necessary
  • UW–Madison should make accessibility the default for educational delivery, providing no-cost access to necessary tools and technology
  • UW–Madison should close residence halls and refund housing costs with exceptions granted for students facing houselessness or unsafe home life

Register your support for these resolutions [2 min]

Use the following link to register your support for 2020 Res-145 and 2020 Res-217:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_edV5nyDgSNSU7e6WRjtVdw

You can also use that link to register to speak on those topics during the meeting, but you do not have to speak to register your support!