Today is the day, you crazy students. If you want to live up to the party school reputation and participate in a fun and safe Halloween, here is your chance. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz proposed his plan, and the students of UW expressed their displeasure. So much, in fact, that Ald. Austin King and Ald. Mike Verveer were able to delay the vote. So today, Sept. 13, go to Bascom Hall at 7:30 p.m. so that Halloween does not become a ghost.
Halloween is a problem; if it wasn't, the last three years would not have ended with students being forced off State Street by pepper spray. The cost of the event, which reached $580,000 in 2005, $349,000 of which went to the Madison Police Department, wasted taxpayers’ money. The three goals for this year's Halloween are to enhance public safety, find ways of alleviating the costs associated with the event and continue preventing excessive consumption of alcohol and use of other drugs. Let's get these goals accomplished.
Mayor Cieslewicz's plan was overzealous and bound for failure. Limiting attendance by charging $5 and only allowing 50,000 people to enter State Street through three entrances and then enforcing the capacity limit via a flexible construction fencing system devised by City Engineering? Be serious. I guarantee that the intelligent students of Madison will find a way to get through it, over it or around it. And then what happens? Someone gets stabbed or trampled? I'll take pepper spray over those options any day.
For those who hate Halloween in Madison and decide to stay home in surrounding State Street neighborhoods, the proposed capacity limit of 50,000 will bring party-goers to your doorstep, where there will not be proper law enforcement. The broken windows will be those of students, not businesses, and the fires will start in homes. And don't think city officials are afraid of ending the holiday altogether. They have the power to not only aggravate students but also bar owners, whose cooperation would be necessary to enact a full termination.
Imagine an entire weekend without third-party vendors, liquor stores and obscene partiers. To some this may seem like heaven, and to others, hell. Most UW students are not destructive to their campus when they are drunk. They do not start fires, throw things into windows or start riots. Limiting visitors from surrounding schools is a difficult task. Outsiders come and ruin the celebration not only due to a lack of respect for the school, but also the difficulty they experience when figuring out where to go. Consider the situation this year with UW's football team playing the University of Illinois on Saturday, the scheduled night of the celebration. The final score of the game may predict not only the future of the Badgers but also the status of the city itself.
The Halloween Action Committee, also know as HAC, led by UW students Brandon Sivret and Tom Wangard, is an organization created to work with Mayor Cieslewicz's office to create an enjoyable Halloween experience. They held their first public meeting Thursday evening to receive student input and unveil their new campaign, titled "Freakfest on State Street." It is motivated students like this who are trying to save the Halloween festivities, and they need help.
Tell friends from the University of Illinois wanting to visit that weekend for the game and Halloween to stay home and come another time — when they can actually enjoy Madison's campus.
What do you think that Madison should do? Make a list, go to the meeting and tell them. The next city council vote is scheduled for Sept. 19, and this time, give them something reasonable to vote on.
Joelle Parks ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and Spanish.
