OPINION & EDITORIAL
Miracle on Mifflin Street?
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by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Monday, May 5, 2003
Madison finally got it right. The city of Madison, that is.
The people of Madison have been on target for years: Celebrations like the Mifflin Street block party are about relaxing in the newfound sunshine and having a good time before finals. Like any party, the more fun everyone has, the better the event. If anyone shows up too tense or ready for aggression, the fun is likely to disintegrate or transform into something ugly.
Yet the city of Madison has embraced the Mifflin block party like a coyote embraces a cactus, ever since the street celebration turned riotous in 1996.
Not so this year. Police approached students and party-goers much more casually, abandoning the tactic of keeping all beer off the sidewalks, employed in recent years to control open intoxicants.
The city removed parked cars and eventually closed off the street from traffic, enabling revelers to amble from the bright East sidewalk to the shady West sidewalk — or toss a friendly football lengthwise in the corridor — without harassment from autos or officers.
There were a healthy number of citations and even a few arrests. But the most important difference between this Mifflin event and 1996, or among the minor disturbances the last two years, was the absence of any major violence or collision between students and police. Indeed, for all but an unlucky few, Saturday went off without a hitch.
Hopefully, the city can use this experience as a model for expected gatherings.
Maybe the police administrators who devised the strategic operations plans, and the community leaders who offered safety and awareness meetings, learned from the mistakes of Halloween and last summer’s Mayors Conference. Last July, protestors and infantry-like battalions of cops faced off in an embarrassing debacle outside Memorial Union. In October (actually November), police notoriously spread forces too weakly and could not handle the costumed crowd.
But now Madison has another model, in which drunk students and responsible officers can coexist without embattlement or excess on one gorgeous street in May, or any such fêtes in the future.
