OPINION & EDITORIAL
Students need to voice opinion
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
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- $$FC (December 6, 2007)
- In a bind (December 5, 2007)
- Entitlement Town (December 4, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Haloween needs responsibility (September 15, 2005)
- Let Halloween fall where it may (October 9, 2003)
- A rocking Halloween solution (January 25, 2005)
- T minus 46 (September 13, 2005)
- Students add to Madison's mystique (October 6, 2005)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Tonight, Associated Students of Madison will play host to a forum to discuss what this city can do to prevent riots — once again — on State Street this Halloween. Representatives from the Office of the Dean of Students, the City of Madison and the Madison Police Department will be on hand to field questions and take suggestions from students.
We encourage students to attend this meeting to voice their opinions and suggestions to members of the Halloween Planning Committee, as we feel it is vital for members of the UW community to be actively involved in the process.
The city's tentative plans include using high-intensity lights at dusk on State Street, closing pedestrian access to certain areas downtown, and adding more police presence on the pedestrian walkway, among others. UW has also suggested myriad policies to limit the mayhem that has routinely marred the last three celebrations in Madison.
While these proposals could be debated ad nauseam on this page, we prefer students take their suggestions and comments to those who have the ability to make decisions that can affect the potential success of controlling riots.
During the last few years, a plethora of forums between city leaders and students have been held to discuss measures to control the chaos that frequently consumes this city annually. Obviously, the results of these forums were disappointing. We only hope this time around, the forum is more successful. The city ultimately has the final word in the plan to prevent unrest in downtown Madison during this year's Halloween celebration. However, we hope students can find the time to attend the forum, as their input is essential.
You can't complain if you don't put in your two cents.
Bill Dietzen (October 8, 2005 @ 6:05am):
Madison's solution to the Halloween problem is one of the greatest oxymorons that I have ever heard. Number one, it's not a problem. Number two, there is no solution. Tens of thousands of people flock to downtown Madison every year for our Halloween celebration. I have seen the Halloween celebration in Madison firsthand more personally than I really wanted to. I was on State Street for about eight hours last year. I was in many bars, drank many beers, and I talked with many respectful people who like myself were out looking to have a good time. I was inadvertently caught in the 500 block of State Street shortly after bar close and I saw firsthand what happened. A few idiots decided to start a relatively harmless fire (seriously, it was a couple of tires and costumes, when did we all become a bunch of wimps?). People were all very well behaved. That is, until the cops decided to freak out and launch pepper spray into a mostly harmless crowd of 5,000 people. This goes back to my first point that there is no Halloween problem. Every one of us has seen a campfire from the time we were kids, we all know not to get too close to or jump into a fire, and this small fire was nowhere near any buildings. The crowd was very subdued until the cops decided to be bullies (maybe because they were all bullied in high school) and effectively start a riot. Nobody got punched, nothing got broken until the cops decided that a few idiots were somehow endangering everybody's safety and used this as an excuse to be their big badass cop selves and incite a riot when otherwise there would not have been one. And now onto my second point. Even if Madison did have a Halloween problem (believe me we don't, I've seen Halloween in Detroit), and assuming that you completely missed my first point in this article, there is no solution. People are going to come to Madison, people are going to drink themselves stupid, and people are going to lay down insane amounts of money to support the local economy. Try to stop 100,000 people from coming to Madison for a night. I've heard of this before in the eastern bloc. It's called Communism. Bring in the National Guard and tell me and my friends to stay off State Street. I'll drink wherever the hell I want this year and hopefully the cops won't incite a riot again. That's just my opinion.
