April 18, 2026

Folks, the 77 Square Miles article below is excellent investigative reporting, an in-depth, fact-based examination of Madison City Attorney Michael Haas’s memo in which he lobbies hard for the harmful amendments to the civilian police oversight ordinances, M.19 and M.20.

Please take action friends. Ask your alder at allalders@cityofmadison.com to please respect the position of the Police Civilian Oversight Board, to vote down all proposed amendments to our independent police oversight ordinances, and bring their concerns with concrete evidence directly to the OIPM and PCOB, instead of letting a misinformation campaign poison the well and defamatory statements create a hostile work environment.

“Taken together, the proposed changes would make the Independent Monitor subservient to the Mayor and the Police Department, the very agency the OIM is charged with overseeing. That is the opposite of what the Council intended in 2020. … Either placing the OIM outside the Mayor’s supervisory chain was a deliberate and unusual departure from standard City practice, as [City Attorney] Haas said in 2020, or requiring the OIM to comply with all mayoral APMs is a clarification of existing practice, as he argues in 2026. The legislative record … answers that question clearly.”

Amelia Royko Maurer
Co-Member, The Community Response Team
roykomaurer@mac.com

Madison’s Independent Police Oversight Is Three Days From Being Gutted, Alex Saloutos, 77 Square Miles, April 18, 2026

2026.04.21: Call to Action to Preserve Madison Community Policing Oversight, Madison Municipal Building, 215 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, Room 215, 6:30 pm