This editorial board has never been shy about its disappointment with Dane County Supervisor Wyndham Manning, District 5, and has considered the mostly student district without representation.
However, now that Mr. Manning has stepped aside, we feel it’s time to put the last two years into proper context.
When Ashok Kumar, the previous supervisor from District 5, announced he would not seek a second term on the Dane County Board, this paper rejoiced. We rejoiced, as Mr. Kumar was more of an activist bulwark against productivity than a responsible representative of his constituency. For us, it was the beginning of the end for stubborn obstructionism in local government.
So, with an open seat, we asked ourselves who would fill the void. Every name bandied about with some potential got shot down. None of them wanted to fill the seat with no visibility and little initial activity.
And so we were left with then-freshman Conor O’Hagan and Mr. Manning. When Mr. Manning ran for the District 5 seat, he did it as a joke. It was only because his opponent was more of a joke than he was that he turned the run into a serious bid.
And so, Mr. Manning took his place on the Dane County Board. He started out pushing for an audit of the Dane County Public Safety Communications Center following the murder of Brittany Zimmermann.
And then — silence.
While he certainly must have done something while on the County Board, all we could discern was that he voted against funding for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and sponsored the posting of multilingual fish advisory signs.
But even if he hadn’t done much, we would have tempered our criticism had he only told us what he was doing. It was like pulling teeth to get him to answer questions regarding his tenure in December. And once we wrote an editorial criticizing his lack of office hours, his lack of responsiveness and his lack of action, he stopped talking to us altogether, untl recently.
Unfortunately, this is not unique to our paper. Charles Brace, editor in chief of The Daily Cardinal, said his paper hasn’t much more luck — Mr. Manning made no attempt to contact their paper and calls placed by the city editor have not been returned.
It is, therefore, only fitting that his first contact with this paper as a representative of the Dane County Board of Supervisors in 2009 comes with a farewell.
We asked Dane County Board Chair Scott McDonell what his opinion was of Mr. Manning’s time on the board. While Mr. McDonell said he believed Mr. Manning has been solidly committed to his work with the Cultural Affairs Commission, manure digesters and environmental issues, he admitted he may have been over his head.
“When he got in, I thought he was going to work on renewable energy, but it’s been more work than he’s realized,” Mr. McDonell said. “People sign up for these things and they don’t know how much work it is, for no pay. But it’s not too hard to respond to e-mails. I get the sense from Wyndham that this wasn’t what he was signing up for.”
We agree.
But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Manning can’t still do some good for that seat. By announcing the vacancy, he gives this paper some time to do our duty and educate this district on the issues of County Board, something we’ve neglected to do in the past.
We know both the (lack of) actions of Mr. Manning and those vitriolic attacks years before of former supervisor Ashok Kumar has brought the debate regarding District 5 to an all-time low. No one wants to touch the seat and most politicos would see the next election as dogs fighting over a piece of rotten meat.
We don’t. The decisions of County Board are far from insignificant. They affect the social services, taxes and life decisions of 475,000 people — and with this latest budget, Dane County is in crisis. We need someone who will step into this seat next year to approach these issues with passionate pragmatism.
The District 5 seat needs a refurbishing. Mr. Manning can aid this process by leaving it in better shape than he found it through one last burst of true representation during deliberations on the 2010 county budget.
If he can show the seat is worth a damn and students can actually have some say at a county level without also derailing the process, perhaps this editorial board can make that case to the student body. Perhaps we can convince competent, interested individuals to step up to an unpopular task. Perhaps we can make the county relevant to District 5 again.
But much of that depends on what you do now, Mr. Manning. So do us a favor: Tell us what you think. Make a stand for something or someone. Speak up, for once.
It may not save your reputation, but it just might save the seat.