via MAL Contends - Update: Cap Times back on it: See - Falk apologizes to Zimmermann's family, fiance (Capital Times, May 6) and County Board chair wants answers on 911 problems (Cap Times, May 6). 

Expert calls Dane County 911 staffing inadequate (WSJ, May 6) 

I was sorry to see the Capital Times hard copy newspaper go, but I told a friend its online iteration was an innovation that would see it stay on the bleeding edge of technology in bringing Dane County residents the news.

Updated: WI State Journal Edit (May 2, 2008), No apology? You better find one. WI State Journal (p.1) (May 4, 2008) 2004 report warned of 911 Center problems; Co officials warned to increase staffing, change procedures

The first rule in crisis management for public servants is not Save your ass.

It's serve the public.

So when the public clamors for answers about why a 21-year-old UW-Madison student was murdered in early April, and asks what could have been done to prevent her death, the response ought to be openness, transparency and honesty.

Unfortunately, the Dane County 911 Center doesn't see it that way, and the stonewalling has begun.

Jason Shepard writing for the Madison weekly, Isthmus, has run into a brickwall in his reporting on the death of Brittany Zimmermann.

For my money, Bill Lueders and John Nichols are the two best political writers living in Wisconsin.

But I was stunned to read Lueders’ piece, “In Defense of Annette Ziegler,” in which Lueders calls Nichols’ criticism of Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler’s admitted conflicts of interests “way overblown,” “unfair,” and motivated by hostility toward Ziegler’s “ideology.”

Lueders’ acknowledges “… Ziegler was wrong to preside over cases in which she had an undisclosed personal connection to one of the parties. Her poor judgment was exacerbated by her initial refusal to admit she'd done anything wrong. …”

Wrong? A more apt description of Ziegler’s judicial misconduct is appalling, and contrary to settled law and ethical rules that specifically call for judges to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Lueders knows better than most the violence that can be inflicted upon citizens by officials at all levels of law enforcement and the judiciary in civil and criminal litigation.