Madison's own potential pay-to-play scheme

The whole idea of being a street musician is that, if a passerby enjoys the music being offered by the busker, the passerby drops some coin (or bill, if they're feeling particularly generous) into the busker's basket.

Instead, Madison Alder Mike Verveer has expressed his support--and the Common Council seems inclined to agree--for an ordinance that would charge street musicians for their time.

The city does not currently regulate street musicians beyond the reasonable restrictions (that apply to everyone) regarding not obstructing public sidewalks or creating "unreasonable noise." There are also rules governing musicians wishing to use public electricity--ie: be amplified on the street--and those who want to sell anything. These all seem like perfectly legitimate rules to me.

Recently, however, Warren Hansen, coordinator of Madison's street vending, proposed putting legal and financial limits on performer's ability to do their thing. He "suggested charging performers $50 for an annual permit, or $10 a day and setting standards for things like how close they could operate to a business and one another."

Advocates of this system point to the fact that Madison is apparently one of very few cities of its size not to charge a fee for buskers. But since when has our city been all that keen on keeping up with the Jones'? And why now?

...during this year’s Dane County Farmers’ Markets on the Capitol Square, a glut of street performers — including balloon hat artists and a masseuse — has made even Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, change his position on the issue.

“I really thought it was a solution in search of a problem,” Verveer said. “Now staff is bringing this to our attention again, and in a more adamant way.”

I've been a busker and I've been a pedestrian, and I can say that 90% of the people out there performing are courteous and polite. Like all weird, seemingly unnecessary laws, this one may come about as the result of the actions of a few thoughtless and/or bad apples. But it doesn't have to be quite so severe.

Instead of charging the proposed $50/year and $10/day rate--the latter of which is more than some buskers make in a day, by the way--why not simply require a free permit that places mild restrictions on duration and location? That way, we avoid the problem of too many buskers in one spot, and for too long (I'm sure the food cart vendors would appreciate that in regards to the Piccolo Man).

And if the idea of not charging for these permits gets the city's panties into too hard a twist, then make the fee nominal--say, $1 for a day, $5 for the year? Yeah, it's a pesky token thing, but if it deters the nuisance-inclined and rewards the nice 90%, then why not?

Honestly, I'm not entirely comfortable with any permitting requirements for acoustic acts, but the above represents what I believe to be a reasonable compromise. The street musicians and performers are a major part of keeping State Street at all unique and interesting. We need to stop moving toward the sterilization efforts that seem to have been at the forefront of "improvements" to the area for a number of years now, and realize that these funky, earthy, impromptu elements are what makes the street so appealing.

UPDATE TO ADD: Silly of me not to think of and do this in the first place, but I encourage anyone interested in this issue to contact Ald. Verveer and the Common Council to express, politely, their views. Verveer can be contacted directly here, and the CC here. They won't know what we think unless we speak up!

Five years of crushing optimism

Five years ago today, some 9,000 people converged on downtown Madison to express their opposition to the Bush Administration's calls for preemptive war with Iraq. The rally and march were the first of many, the most well-known being on Feb. 15 as part of a worldwide day of protest that saw participation by well over 8 million people in 60 countries.

Our city is no stranger to demonstrations. We're famous, and somewhat infamous, for them. Regardless, or perhaps because of their frequency, we're serious about the reasons behind the gatherings.

In February of 2003, I was a junior in college and therefor hyper-aware of what was going on in the news. I became so obsessed with checking the internet, television and radio for updates that it actually came to the point where I was hearing and seeing loud, unpleasant static in my head every time I tried to read something.

When the day of protest was announced, I was psyched. It would be a chance to take action, and a chance to stretch my budding journalistic legs. So on that cold winter day, I slung my old Canon Rebel across my shoulders, bundled up, and headed to Library Mall. And there, from my perch atop the speakers' tower, I was greeted by a pretty awesome sight.


Estimates put the crowd at between nine and ten thousand people. For a city of our size, that's a mighty respectable turn-out. People were energized and committed to making their voices heard: surely after weeks wherein millions of people took to the streets in protest it would force the saber-rattlers to take notice and stop their march toward unnecessary war. How could you ignore it? Right?


There were the usual speakers, political satire singers, and even radical cheerleaders to get the rally started. From there, we marched the length of State Street up to the capitol building, where more fiery speeches and calls for peace were shouted through the PA system.

The crowd was a fascinating mix: every age group from elderly sign wavers to crunchy Vietnam-era peaceniks to college students to grade schoolers were represented. There were people who'd never been to a protest before, seasoned hippies, pro-Palestinian activists and anarchists. If there's one thing left-leaning rallies suffer from sometimes, it's an inability to focus on just one issue, but in this singular case, everyone was there for the same reason: a deeply held belief that war with Iraq was wrong, that we were being misled by our leaders, and that it would end very, very badly.

We all left that day feeling energized, made impervious to the cold by our idealism. I would have never dreamed that five years later, when I dug these photographs out of an old album, we'd still be in Iraq. Nearly 4,000 soldiers killed. 60,000 wounded. Over 80,000 Iraqi civilians dead, countless wounded and displaced. Hundreds of billions of dollars spent and counting.

It's hard to believe that this has been going on for so long now, and still with no end in sight. Our fears that the war would turn into a bloody quagmire of epic proportions seem to have come true, something none of us ever wanted.

So I can't help but look back wistfully at the photos I took of that day in February, 2003. They help to remind me never to give up hope, no matter how bleak things might get. But it's hard. Really hard. They also remind me that an administration that can ignore millions of people protesting doesn't deserve their position of leadership. They've failed on so many levels, and are long overdue for a clean sweep from office. So let's get to it.

(for the whole set of photos from the rally, click here)