In times of belt tightening, declining State and Federal revenue assistance and voter rejection of expensive new spending projects, Madison has found the political will and enough money to hire an official municipal Alcohol Wonk.
City of Madison and UW-Madison leaders today announced that Joel Plant has been selected as the city's first Alcohol Policy Coordinator … The Alcohol Policy Coordinator position was created in the 2005 city budget. Funding for the position is evenly split between the City of Madison and UW-Madison.Apparently the existing method, where the Alcohol License Review Committee holds public meetings open to input from both business owners and concerned citizen groups, is no longer a sufficiently bureaucratic system for regulating alcohol in the home town of the nation’s #1 Party School. The official press release rattles off a list of job duties, reading like a collection of brainstorming thoughts hastily scribbled on an easel board in some back basement conference room. Stripped down to the essence, the job is to attend meetings and provide periodic reports.
Thinking about drinking on the taxpayer dime should not be surprising from the Dave Cieslewicz administration. These Democrats are government planners in their hearts and souls. They believe the proper role of government is to take care of society which means carefully planning how society should function. Careful planning means considering the all the details and contingencies, so careful planning is to time consuming for elected officials and to important to be left to the trial and error of the market.
