Your Daily Guide

🚸 Kids Rule, Grownups Drool on Jenifer Street

• Kids biking or walking to Marquette Elementary School this week pretty much have Jenifer Street to themselves, thanks to a new pilot program that’s part of the new School Street Pilot Project to improve safety and traffic.
• Jenifer Street between Thornton Avenue and Rogers Street will be closed to through traffic for an hour before and after school to allow students to walk or bike to school safely. Motorists will have to find alternate routes from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Mondays and 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. the rest of the week.
• After school ends on June 10, the city will assess the success of the program and consider bringing it back in the fall or expanding it to other schools. [City of Madison]

🚨 Police Monitor Decries Arrest of School Board Member

• Madison’s independent police monitor pushed back against the findings of an internal police department review which determined that the arrest of Madison School Board member Maia Pearson did not violate any policies or procedures.
• On December 19, police arrested Pearson and Urban Triage CEO Brandi Grayson over a parking dispute near the Majestic Theatre. Pearson was the passenger in the vehicle, and has pleaded not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
• Aeiramique Glass, interim head of the Office of the Independent Police Monitor said police failed to properly communicate commands or charges to Pearson before using force to arrest her, and also used obscene language. Even where their actions did not technically violate policy, Glass said they were “unacceptable.”
• Madison Police Chief John Patterson told the Cap Times he would reopen the investigation after learning of the allegations of foul language. Grayson was on the City Cast Madison podcast recently to detail her version of events. [Madison365, Cap Times, 🎧 City Cast Madison]

👋 Shorewood Hills Removes President From Leadership

• In another twist in the ongoing turmoil that has engulfed Shorewood Hills village government, trustees narrowly voted to remove President John Imes from his leadership role.
• The vote stems from a long-running dispute over a now-rejected plan to purchase the Lodgic Building on Marshall Court to use as the new village hall. Imes’ critics have accused him of failing to disclose conflicts of interest in the proposed sale, which Imes has denied.
• Trustees weighed hundreds of pages of evidence in a five-plus-hours meeting last week before voting to oust Imes for “gross neglect of duty.” Imes’ attorney, Erin Deeley, said his team is considering a legal challenge against the board. [Cap Times]