😀 Madison named one of nation’s happiest cities

🏫 Should Cesar Chavez Elementary Change Its Name?

• In Madison, questions have been raised about the name of Cesar Chavez Elementary following multiple allegations that the labor leader Cesar Chavez had sexually assaulted underage girls. The Madison Metropolitan School District said it is “gathering information and monitoring developments.”
• The New York Times published its investigation Wednesday into allegations that the co-founder of United Farm Workers, who died in 1993, groomed and sexually abused girls who joined the labor movement.
• Coincidentally, the school board announced this earlier week that it is relaunching long-delayed efforts to rename schools named after aviator Charles Lindbergh and former UW-Madison president Conrad Elvehjem. [Cap Times, 🔒New York Times, 🔒WSJ]

🗞️ Tone Madison Announces It’s Shutting Down

• The alternative Madison news and culture website Tone Madison announced it would cease operations. In a message in its Thursday newsletter, Tone editors, including its founder Scott Gordon, said the last article would post on April 3.
• The editors said that they reached the decision for a combination of financial and personal reasons, and noted that they have been reducing their own wages since January to try to keep the publication afloat. The existing articles Tone wrote will remain online.
• Tone launched in 2014 as Arts Extract, and became a worker-owned cooperative in 2023. The publication was known for in-depth cultural writing, including its insightful reporting on Madison’s film and local music scene, as well as coverage of political and economic issues facing the city that was both thoughtful and pugnacious. [Tone Madison, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

🗳️ Senate Majority Leader Won’t Run For Re-Election

• Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, announced Thursday that he is retiring and will not run for re-election. The announcement comes just weeks after Assembly Speaker Robin Vos announced that he also would not run again.
• LeMahieu’s departure makes him the fourth GOP senator to retire from the chamber, and leaves a power vacuum in state Republican politics ahead of what some observers predict will be a challenging midterm election for the GOP.
• Under more competitive maps prescription by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Democrats flipped four GOP Senate seats in the 2024 election, leaving Republicans with an 18-15 advantage and putting Democrats within striking distance of taking control of the Senate this fall. [WPR]

💻 Police Monitor Report Taken Down After Use of AI Questioned

• The annual report from Madison’s Independent Police Monitor was taken off the city’s website at least temporarily over questions of the use of AI. In a press conference Thursday, Aeiramique Glass acknowledged that she used artificial intelligence to “check and edit” the document and to create the cover page, which had an illustration that included two Capitol rotundas.
• 🎧 Dig deeper: We talk about the controversy, and the report’s underlying findings, on the City Cast Madison podcast today. We also talked about the city removing a plaque from an Indigenous burial mound on the west side, and how animal activists raided a beagle breeding and research facility in Blue Mounds. [City of Madison, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

Meet Bowie! He’s a next level cuddler and loves to chase squirrels. He loves treats, especially treats his humans eat. Bowie spends his days alternately lounging on the couch, or looking out the window on guard duty, like a true Great Pyrenees!