Welp, it’s official. I’m back in office again! I hope you all voted for me!

I especially want to thank the AFSCME team for helping me get signatures and the South Central Federation of Labor for the endorsement. As I’ll explain more below, life has really taken some turns so my time is extraordinarily constrained these days; I literally couldn’t have done it without these folks’ help. THANK YOU!!!

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First, I want to thank everyone that reached out to me during this last term. I’m grateful whenever constituents reach out. There have been a lot of big issues floating around, and I’m glad people feel like they can speak up and voice their opinion. I’m here for you, so the more data I have on what you want, the better I can be at my job.

Second, it’s been an interesting term. I’ve written about it pretty extensively so I won’t go over it again, but there have been a lot of ups and downs. We have a new County Executive which brings a new cast of characters to work with. I’ve been heavily involved in leadership behind the scenes, so things have felt very hectic at times. But I think we managed to get most of it right with this latest budget given our challenges. I’m hopeful that the County Executive leans into collaboration on the next budget so we can get out of this hole. I’ll have more to say on the Alliant Energy Center soon.

Finally, speaking of hectic. I have 3 kids who are 4.5, 6, and 8. At times this position has felt very overwhelming with work, kids, and the county. I considered very strongly whether to run or not. After discussing it at length with my family I will be back. I won’t be able to take on many of the leadership positions and I will need to dial back my committee participation, but I will continue.

Thank you so much for electing me to represent you. I’ve lived in this district for 14 years now and I’m still learning more about it every day. Y’all are awesome and together we’re making a real difference to make Dane County better!

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And, finally, some thoughts before we go-go. I know we don’t speak much, so I wanted you to know a little more about me and how I work.

Election Day has arrived, and as I reflect on the work we’ve done together, I want to take a moment to say thank you. Not just for the votes, but for the partnership—the trust you’ve placed in me to tackle the hard questions, to stand up for what’s right, and to do the work, even when it’s not easy.

Leadership, to me, isn’t about the titles or the podiums. It’s about the problems we solve and the people we lift along the way. What matters isn’t who gets the credit, but that the work gets done—and that the communities we serve see the impact. Every project, every initiative, every tough decision is rooted in a simple question: Does this serve the people who need it most?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is how to navigate rules/laws/ordinances. Rules exist for a reason, but they must serve a purpose. "Rules exist to serve a purpose, but rules must be enforced." And when a rule doesn’t align with the public good, it’s not about breaking the rules; it’s about changing them. That’s why I ask myself: Is this rule serving the people it was meant to protect? If not, how do we make it right?

I hope you see that my approach isn’t about being the loudest voice in the room. It’s about being the one who listens, who questions, and who acts—when it matters most. It’s about integrity. It’s about doing the job, not seeking the spotlight. And it’s about believing that the right work, done the right way, will always find its way forward.

Thank you for giving me the chance to serve. I’m honored to continue that work, and I promise to keep asking the hard questions, to keep fighting for what’s right, and to keep doing the work—no matter what.

County Board meetings always begin with an “inspirational message” from a supervisor. This job rotates alphabetically. November 20, 2025 was my turn. Below is my speech.

I want to share some thoughts on identity. As you listen, I invite you to think about your own contradictions. I think we’ll find we have more in common than we think.

I am a puzzle unto
myself
I am from the industrial Midwest
I own a farm
I love beer and coffee
I can’t grow a beard
I am an anarchist
I am a parent
I want free education
I want fiscal responsibility
I am a feminist
I am raising three boys
I believe in the American Dream
I find it hard to believe in America
I listen to Public Enemy
and Merle Haggard

I am a puzzle unto
myself
I believe in free speech
I believe that some people should not be platformed
Damn “the man”
I am “the man”
All of my favorite sports teams are “red”
My favorite color is blue
I want to defund the police
I want police
I want free healthcare
I never go to the doctor
I am an introvert
I am a public official
I love to read
I hate closed captioning

I am a puzzle unto
myself
I am a gun owner
I want gun restrictions
I am a job creator
I support worker’s rights
I believe in climate change
I don’t understand how recycling works
I am an atheist
I have a God and Country Religious Medal
I do not hate
I find it hard to love
I write beautifully
I have terrible penmanship

I am a puzzle unto
myself
I love Transformers
I hate Transformers movies
I am a punk
I am terrible at DIY

I am an extremist
I want everyone to get along
I am polite
I support civil disobedience
I am a Democrat
I voted for Bob Dole
I am not one thing
I am everything
I am a puzzle unto
Myself

We all carry pieces that don’t fit neatly together. That’s not a flaw—it’s a feature of being human.

Let us bring all of our pieces together to construct the Dane County puzzle.

If you go back in the Archives of Glazer.Vote, you’ll find Book 1 in the District 8 Book Club - Courage to Dissent.

These are books that I’ve read that have particularly inspired me to think differently about public service, the role of government in our lives, or to better understand political struggle.

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It really all comes back to “why does government exist” and even “what is a government?” Government can take many forms, of course, so I’m not really talking about specific forms of government. But really, why do we have it all? What’s the point?

In the United States we have a lot of government: Federal, State, County, Municipal, School District, Water District, Neighborhood Associations, Condo Associations. All are forms of government. So, what then do we mean by “government”? Oxford dictionary (via Google) defines it as: the action or manner of controlling or regulating a nation, organization, or people.

This definition is striking for a couple of reasons, but I will point out two. First, it applies to a limited, defined group of people such as a nation, organization, or people - presumably “people” meaning a culture or cultural subset. So, first we need a defined set of people - for example, those found within the borders of a nation. The United States Government governs those found within the defined1 borders of the US. So, we need to define those being “governed.”

Second, there need to be “controlling or regulating.” I find this phrasing interesting. “Controlling” and “Regulating” are pretty hostile words. If I said, “Hey, my job is to control you.” You’d probably take some offense to that. Indeed, the phrase makes for some strange bedfellows: The Heritage Foundation (“What is administrative rule? It’s a system of government where nearly every aspect of citizens’ lives is regulated by obnoxious laws that nobody voted on enforced by pedantic bureaucrats who nobody voted for.”) and David Graeber, a noted anarchist philosopher:

“… violence, particularly structural violence, where all the power is on one side, creates ignorance. If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don’t. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it.”

Graeber, David. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology.

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Speaking of ignoring passion, insight, and mutual understanding and just hitting people over the head, let’s talk a little about life under Vladimir Putin. Specifically, let’s talk about Alexei Navalny’s all-too-short life under Putin.

Navalny was a person living within the borders of Russia; indeed, he was a Russian. He was proud of being Russian. He was Russian in the days of the Soviet Union, he was a Russian under Boris Yeltsin once the soviet state collapsed under its own mix of age, bureaucracy, and vodka. And he was a Russian when Vladimir Putin installed himself upon his own throne.

I’m going to be honest. I received this book as a gift and was not expecting much. I know Navalny was a “dissident,” but that word holds a lot of different meanings. I had heard of his poisoning and near death and I remember hearing that he died. And, honestly, that’s probably more than most people outside of Russia and Eastern Europe know of Navalny. I now know that Navalny was a lawyer. I also know that he loves Russia and the Russian people. And, he hated corruption - that oligarchs would use the assets of the people (what we might call “government resources”) for their own personal enrichment.

Navalny’s story is a stark reminder that government, at its core, is about the relationship between power and people. His life and work exposed how easily that relationship can turn toxic; where the mechanisms of control become tools for personal gain rather than public service.

Navalny didn’t just critique corruption; he illuminated how it thrives in the shadows of unchecked authority. When government loses sight of its purpose to serve as a vehicle for collective action and mutual benefit it risks becoming a machine for extracting value to the benefit of those oligarchs and autocrats.2 This is the antithesis of why government exists in the first place.

The best governments recognize that “control” and “regulation” are not ends in themselves but means to foster environments where people can thrive. Navalny’s fight was, in many ways, a fight to reclaim that balance. He understood that a government’s legitimacy is not derived from its ability to enforce rules (or, in Graeber’s words, commit “structural violence”) but from its capacity to reflect (and, yes, enforce) the will and well-being of its people. When a government becomes a tool for repression and enrichment it betrays its fundamental purpose.

This brings us back to the question of “why have a government at all?” If we accept that government is, at its best, a framework for collective action, then its success should be measured by how well it enables each person within its governing borders to live meaningful lives. That’s a far cry from the cynical view that government is merely a necessary evil or, worse, a mechanism for control.

The Heritage Foundation and David Graeber, despite their vastly different ideologies, both highlight the dangers of government becoming disconnected from the people it’s meant to serve. Whether through bureaucratic overreach or outright authoritarianism, the result is the same: a system that ignores the complexity and humanity of those it governs.

So, what’s the alternative? It’s not anarchy, nor is it blind faith in institutions. It’s a commitment to building governments that are transparent, accountable, and responsive. It’s recognizing that the “controlling or regulating” aspects of governance must always be tempered by empathy, dialogue, and a willingness to adapt.

Navalny’s legacy challenges us to ask not just what government is, but what it could/should be. It encapsulates a vision worth fighting for, and it’s one that requires constant vigilance, participation, and, yes, even dissent.

We are a couple of weeks away from the County Executive releasing her proposed 2026 budget, but it’s already causing much consternation throughout the district, the city, and the county. So, I’d like to address some of it head on.

First, going forward there is a $31,000,000 deficit. What does that mean? That means that on a (mostly) permanent basis, the county’s expenses exceed our revenues by $31,000,000. How did this happen? Well, that’s a very long story, and while I’m reluctant to throw anybody under the bus, I’ll just say that we didn’t have this deficit when Kathleen Falk left office in 2013, and it was already a fait accompli by the time Interim County Executive Jamie Kuhn took over. So read into that what you will.

The problem facing County Executive Agard is how to fix it. There are “a lot of headwinds” (economist speak for: the economy is about to head into the shitter) that will make a “natural” recovery difficult. What does that mean in normal human language? Most of the county’s revenue (income) comes from a .5% sales tax and property taxes. Property taxes are relatively stable, so we get more money (budget surpluses) when the economy is good and people are coming to Dane County and spending money. That’s not likely to be happening for the foreseeable future (call it 3 years at the earliest).

That means we don’t have an easy way of raising more money. So, we need to find expenses to cut. To her credit, the Executive, to date, has continued to say she wants to solve this problem without “reducing headcount” (i.e. firing people) or reducing salaries. So, where does the county spend its regular, on-going (operating) money1? Two places: internal people doing internal projects (e.g., medical examiner’s office, jail, Badger Prairie, highway services, etc.) and external people doing external projects (service providers like shelters, mental health services, etc.).

The Executive has asked every department in the county to cut 4% from its requested budget and to do so without cutting people. Largely these cuts comprise cuts to projects that haven’t been terribly successful (good!) and to positions that either aren’t needed or haven’t been getting filled for a variety of reasons.2 This 4% cut will save the county approximately $14,000,000, leaving approximately $17,000,000 more to be cut (expenses) or filled (revenue).

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The Executive is currently proposing, and the Board will vote on Thursday (tomorrow), to cut employee healthcare by $6,000,000.3 You can find my public comments on this cut in a variety places, but I’d look here (video of 9/8/2025) and here (9/15/2025; video is not yet up)4, if you are particularly interested in the debate and hearing what I have to say.

The debate to cut $6M in healthcare costs is extremely complex. First, it does not, of itself, solve the remaining $17,000,000 hole. If fact, it doesn’t even cover half of it and barely covers 1/3 of it. Where will the other $11M for the hole come from? I don’t know. Nobody except the Executive knows and she’s not telling anyone. I am very not happy this5. I also don’t know what else was considered before the Executive came up with cutting health care. So I have to evaluate this cut entirely on its own merits.

The county’s employee group representatives (“EGRs”) have presented a lot of data that this money can be made up elsewhere and they have a strong preference for NOT cutting health care. For example furloughs; county administrative calculations are that every employee would suffer approximately 7 furlough days (unpaid days off). Obviously, this is not a sustainable cut, unless we are going to make the furloughs permanent and the entire county just works 7 fewer days a year. The EGRs insist that the $6M can be made up through negotiation of a new health care plan and better Request for Proposal (“RFP”) for the next health care plan negotiation in 2 years. Amongst other ideas (none of which are permanent solutions).

So, tomorrow I will have to vote on whether to accept the Executive’s proposed $6M cut to health care, or whether to back the employee groups efforts to convince the Executive to find the money through furloughs. Keep in mind, that the furloughs are the EGRs’ proposal; the EGR does not represent 100% of employees, nor does the Executive have to agree to the furloughs.

In fact, the Executive has declined (so far) to even negotiate furloughs with the EGRs. Moreover, it’s not clear that all employees even back the EGRs’ plans; there is evidence to suggest that some employees would prefer the health care cut to furlough days (recall: they are unpaid days so are, in effect, pay cuts).

The Executive’s office is proposing that instead of furloughs (which are not ideal from a county services perspective), she will ask departments to cut an addition 2-3% of their budgets to cover the $6M (recall: nobody still knows where that other $11M is coming from…). But even her office admits that this cannot come equally across the county because some critical departments simply do not have another 2-3% to cut. Meaning, some departments will lose 0% more and others will lose 6% (averages…). It seems inevitable that this could more than likely result in positions being cut and potentially filled positions being cut.

How would you think about this problem? Send a message, leave a comment, or discuss in chat.

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Somewhat shockingly I find myself aligning with Melania: “I really don’t care, do u?”

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Fraud Waste and Abuse

This may seem like a crazy position. Article after Article after Article (after Article after Article, etc etc etc) proclaim BEAD to be the most egregious example of government grift in modern history. But, it isn’t.

BEAD is a well-designed program intended to move slowly and ensure accountability for both the government and the Internet Service Providers receiving the money. Given the history of this kind of money, the program is actually trying to avoid the government waste and private inurement that has plagued every such initiative. Going back to 2009, numerous attempts and billions of dollars have been wasted on obsolete technology and broken promises.

• 2023 - Rural Digital Opportunity Fund ($20B)

• 2018 - ReConnect Broadband ($700M)

• 2014 - CAF I and CAF II ($10B)

• 2009 - American Recovery and Rescue Act ($7B)

Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment

BEAD was an attempt to change that. The program had generational funding (over $42 Billion). It promised fiber deployment to every corner of the country. Both parts are important and are critical to the words “equity” and “access” in BEAD. First, equity means that everyone has the same opportunities; access means everyone has a connection. Everyone. Let me repeat that. Everyone. From the urban poor, to the suburban rich, to the rural farms. It demanded fiber because fiber is future proof. Data travels, literally, at the speed of light; in other words, the wire itself will never be obsolete - maybe the hardware connected to the wires, but fiber optic cable will never go obsolete.

BEAD demanded fiber to make sure everyone everywhere it is deployed have equal access. Yes, it discriminated against other forms of deployment. Fixed wireless deployments like BugTussel are not reliable in inclement weather and have limited range and (relatively) slow speeds, not to mention are functionally useless if there are hills or trees. Satellite providers like Starlink and Hughes are (somewhat to extremely) slow, subject to weather disruptions, and owned by Elon Musk (Starlink).

Moreover, related to the access prong of BEAD, the scoring criteria favors hard to access (read: expensive) places. These are places like Northern Wisconsin where there are a lot of hills, a lot of trees, and very hard rock just below the surface - in other words, they are very very expensive to lay fiber with sparse populations. For example, buried fiber costs between $10 and $27 per foot ($52,000 to $142,000 per mile) depending on terrain (fixed wireless, by comparison is $5 to $14 per foot). I should point out that, particularly in Wisconsin but even in Dane County, our most remote places are often not suitable for fixed wireless (remember? hills and trees?). Thus equity and access demand fiber deployment.

BEAD was never intended to connect everybody. Indeed its scoring criteria and intentional rollout actively prevented that. But, it was intended as a program to connect the hardest to connect. Those who live in places that are hard to connect (rural) and those that live in places where it isn’t affordable for ISPs to connect (urban poor).

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Fraud and Waste Revisited

In early June, the Trump Administration revised the BEAD rules and is now requiring states to consider projects that might include fixed wireless or satellite. These new rules “ease administrative burdens” (a euphemism for removing accountability) and make the program “technology neutral” (a euphemism for eliminating the fiber requirement so Elon Musk’s Starlink qualifies for the money).

By diluting the awards to allow fixed wireless and satellite we are undermining, and indeed gutting, the very equity and access goals of that the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Act was intended to cover. This will just be another case of government waste and fraud perpetuated by the very administration that proclaims to be eliminating it.

Why You Should Believe Me

DId you know I used to be a software developer? Did you know that I wrote my first computer game (a Zork-style text adventure game) when I was 8? I went to law school in 2001, leaving my job as a software developer at a Fortune 500 company because I was more interested in technology policy than in telling the technology what to do (as you’re probably aware, technology doesn’t listen very well, sometimes…). I played nerdy spaceship bulletin board service games in the 1980s. I got my first email address in 1993 (Earthlink for the curious). I used ICQ and IRC regularly. I graduated law school in 2004 and worked as an intellectual property and technology lawyer. I have switched teams and now work on the policy side of law, including helping communities understand internet deployment strategies in Wisconsin. I am the Chair of the Dane County Broadband Taskforce. I’ve been following these issues for a long, long time.

But I also recall the infamous words of Kurt Cobain and Joseph Heller: “Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”

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Public service (being an elected official) is a weird thing. By and large nobody is asking us (I mean the specific us, the me in particular) to participate in the collective decision-making of governance. I choose to get involved. Similarly, JD Vance chose to get involved. JD Vance wrote a national best seller and went to Yale. He can do whatever he wants, yet he chose to become an elected official.

Why? Presumably because he thinks he can be an agent for change. Because he can make his constituents (in this case the whole country; in my case, the people of Dane County) better off. My vision is one of pluralism and partnership and resiliency. His is one of family and church. Neither is an inherently “better” vision - and, indeed, I’d argue they are not mutually exclusive in an absolute sense even if either he or I would likely draw lines that precluded some portion of the other’s vision.

Thus I try to begin analysis of action with the assumption that the actor is not acting in malice.

But, and I don’t say this lightly, what if he’s not here to make his constituent’s lives better? What if it is malice? What if JD Vance is not here in good faith and is here to dismantle democracy to impose his will?

Or, maybe I am being a little obtuse and I should be more clear. As I look around at the actions of this administration, I ask two basic questions:

1) Is it reasonable for a democracy to vote to dismantle itself? and
2) if so, don’t we at least owe it to the framers of the Constitution to follow the rules for dismantling it (i.e., calling a Constitutional Convention and formally amending the Constitution)?

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As a parliamentary matter, the answer to the first question is “yes.” A number of people could get together and decide that they no longer wish to be governed “by the people, for the people”2 but rather by a single benevolent dictator. Indeed, I’ll note here that in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address he specifically points out:

“these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The Constitution itself (Article 5) outlines two methods of holding a constitutional convention (but no rules for either, except one we’ll touch on in a second). BOTH methods require two-thirds (supermajority) vote: method 1 requires two-thirds of both houses of Congress to vote for the Convention; method 2 requires two-thirds of the states to vote for the Convention. Interestingly, the only rule the Framers imposed was that a State could not be deprived of its 2 Senators unless that state specifically voted to get rid of its Senators.3

So, yes, not only is it theoretically possible to vote to get rid of our democracy, we have 2 methods for doing so. Should I hate the player or the game?

It seems incumbent on me to state the obvious here: people that want to get rid of the rules, don’t particularly care about the rules for doing so. So, no, we do not (yet) have a supermajority of both houses of Congress nor do we have a supermajority of states.4

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There are, then, two routes for overthrowing this particular democracy. The “Constitutional” method for doing so requires supermajorities of either Congress or the States. Failing that, it requires violence.5

So how close are we to the supermajorities required to overthrow the democracy “constitutionally”? Well, the current administration did convince .9% more of those that voted (voter turnout was approx. 45.3% of the total population or 65.3% of the voter-eligible population, or roughly 2.3 million people) that the things it campaigned on were better ideas than those espoused by the loser. Should it matter, then, that a very slim popular (not-quite) majority, in fact, voted for a campaign that promised to deport millions of “illegal” immigrants, to fund the genocide of the Palestinian people against the wishes of the western world, and to run roughshod over our global allies - all of which were things that they did campaign on.

So. OK. It seems pretty clear then we voted for cruelty and isolationism. But it seems a stretch to say that “the people” voted for a dismantling of the Constitution’s guarantees of due process, separation of powers, free press, and free association (all of that just within the first 100 days in office, no less!!). None of which were things that this administration campaigned on (and even explicitly rejected during the campaign). Of course, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, the administration has said that “well, the people voted for us and our platform (see above). So we owe it to them to implement it, and the only way to do that is to get rid of these pesky protections for immigrants and the people that support them.”6

“Over 77 million Americans gave President Trump a resounding Election Day mandate to enforce our immigration laws and mass deport criminal illegal aliens,” said White House spokesperson Kush Desai. “The Trump administration is using every power endowed to the Executive Branch … to deliver on this mandate.”7

And, indeed, it seems the more the administration presses these latter ideas, the less popular they have become. Thus, the “constitutional” method for overthrowing our democracy is even less likely.

“I don’t know … I’m not a lawyer. … I was elected to get dangerous people out of the country.” Donald J. Trump when asked about whether non-citizens are entitled to Due Process. [Ed Note: They Are8]

As the administration comes to this realization, and it becomes clear that the only route to dismantling our democracy is violence, I fear for what the remaining 962 days of this Presidency will bring.

I want to highlight a few things that demonstrate that support.

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Extended Hands Food Pantry

Extended Hands Pantry on Schroeder Road shares a parking lot with Lighthouse School. The Pantry was started by Jenny and Andy Czerkas, the founders of River Food Pantry, during the Pandemic. It is one of the very few ethnic and culturally sensitive food pantries in Dane County. As a result, much of its inventory does not come from the publicly supported sources that support many of the food pantries throughout the county. It has been growing quickly and the Czerkas’ reached out asking if the county could help support that rapid growth.

We found $425,000 in COVID America Rescue Plan Act funds in 2024. During 2025 that money was spent.

As of January 2025, we are now serving between 590 - 620 families each week. This is a 103% increase from a year ago. The number of people coming is not tapering off either. … We don't think we would be able to keep up right now had we not been able to bulk up our capacity over the last year. Thanks to you, we now have pallet racking, a pallet stacker, a walk-in cooler and freezer, and a/c in our warehouse space. We also installed more efficient LED lighting. … we spent [almost $150,000] on cultural foods. Latinx families continue to be our largest demographic, but we also have many families from Northern Africa, Middle East, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Ukraine, Turkey, etc. We've been to provide a wide variety of foods for many different cultures, most of whom are accustomed to cooking from scratch every day. … Lastly, we were able to purchase a new refrigerated truck! … Andy and I, along with our entire board and team wish to express our deepest gratitude … for all your assistance in getting this funding. Jenny Czerkas, Extended Hands Pantry.

Know Your Rights

As you have probably heard, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) recently lost its director for failing to deport enough immigrants. To quote the Wall Street Journal: “Officials have been frustrated with the pace of deportations.” Well, I’ve been frustrated with the pace of deportations, too! But probably not for the same reasons.

In light of the change of directors, we are likely to see even more desperate attempts to root out and deport people who dared to find a better life for themselves. There are resources you should know about:

The ACLU of Wisconsin has a lot of materials about YOUR rights when confronted by ICE. You can print the graphic below or order a Red Card from the Immigrant Legal Resource Clinic.

VOCES de la Frontera

VOCES de la Frontera is Wisconsin’s leading immigrant rights organization with a chapter in Madison. They are a Latinx support organization with resources for immigration and citizenship, employment, youth, and arts. “We strive to create a world where all people live free of poverty and discrimination, have access to safe, dignified work, quality education, and health care; where immigrants can cross borders with dignity; and human rights and workers’ rights are respected; where government is truly ‘of the people,’ and all families thrive.”

Southwest Madison Employment Center

Here in District 8 is the Urban League Southwest Madison Employment Center. You can find the Employment Center in the former Griff’s Restaurant across from Elver Park. The Center helps with traditional job and employment services including job readiness classes, job leads, application assistance, and a computer lab. Moreover, in partnership with Dane County, the Center offers access to an Economic Support Specialist who can help with applying for benefits such as Food Share and BadgerCare and updating applications including childcare assistance applications, amongst numerous other services.

A Brief Recap

Trust is a form of reliance; reliance is in turn a form of confidence. Trust means that each of two parties believe that one party is responsible to another for a particular outcome. Thus, we lose trust when one of three things happens:

• Z no longer believes Y capable, motivated, or have the opportunity to perform A

• Y no longer believes it is responsible to Z for A

• A is longer the within the purview of Y

“[O]verly trusting an automated aid may lead … to misuse; lack of trust in a superior aid may lead to disuse.”1 Stated differently, if you trust something that is less reliable than you think, we call this “misuse”; if you fail to trust something that is more reliable than you think, we call this “disuse.”

I propose that we are in the latter paradigm - our government institutions are far more reliable than we think. But because we perceive lack of reliability, we do not use it (or actively want it to go away).

“Paradoxically, the spread of democratic systems has been concomitant with a decline in institutional trust …. [C]itizens tend to have less institutional trust in regions with larger power distances. This outcome indicates a need for policy makers to adopt more inclusive decision-making processes to increase civic engagement among citizens.”2

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Be (and include) Public

Or, again stated differently … many of us are physically and metaphorically “far away” from our institutions. We may not even know we are dealing with a government institution. Famously, people love the “Healthcare Exchange” but hate “Obamacare” despite being different names for the same thing. The below map shows increase in Affordable Care Act Marketplaces from 2020-2024 (ahem: the Biden Administration).

What changed to increase trust in this institution? People used it. Recall: “lack of trust in a superior aid may lead to disuse.”

Why do cities and urban areas tend to have (more) trust in public institutions? A greater percentage of people in urban areas are reliant on public institutions and tend to be physically closer to those institutions.

One of my favorite “features” of Madison’s Metro Bus (a publicly provided institution): everyone says “thank you” when they get off at their stop. If you ride the public bus you hear “thank you” for a public institution dozens of times a day. It has it problems, but it is generally capable of getting people from point A to point B in an expected manner (even if you might need to change your expectations). Compare that with a person in a bedroom community (Evansville, Mount Horeb, Dane, etc.) who never rides the bus, doesn’t know anyone that rides a bus, and simply sees a line item for a service they never use and only ever sees negative headlines.3 They perceive lack of reliability that is far below its actual reliability (disuse).

We can increase trust by engaging more people in our institutions. We should have more citizen input, we should have more public engagement, we should put more citizens on public committees and boards. Citizens needs to believe that the institution is capable of performing the task.

Be Open/Transparent

But trust is not just about whether the institution is capable. The institution needs motivation to act in the public’s interest (as perceived by any given individual within the public), and that is has the opportunity to act.

Engaging the public is about proving the capability of the institution to perform. But transparency and openness is about communicating not just capability, but motivation and opportunity as well.

Motivation of the institution is important because someone needs to believe that the institution is acting in an interest that they care about. Often this is a person’s own interest, but it need not be. For most of my life (I’m almost 50), I care about Social Security not because I need it but because I will eventually need it and because my parents need it (or I have to support them myself). If I don’t see a need for it, I am unlikely to support or trust it.

Moreover, it’s easy to say what the motivation is, but transparency, showing the results, demonstrates motivation. We are far away from the exigencies that created the Social Security Administration; none of us alive today remember the abject poverty and abandonment of elders that was pervasive prior to this important social safety net.4 But, when we see that X dollars were spent on y millions of people over the age of 65, the motivation of supporting our elders today is underlined. By showing the financial investments being made by the Social Security Administration to ensure that the program will exist in the long-term, the motivation for continuing this important social safety net for myself and my kids is demonstrated.

Finally, transparency demonstrates the opportunity to perform. This is critical because many of us don’t engage with every public institution. I may never know the outcome of money spent by US AID. I may understand and believe its motivation, but if I don’t see that it is doing good work (even if I believe it capable), how can I trust that my money is being well spent? Openness and Transparency demonstrates both the opportunity to perform (US AID built schools in rural Iraq) and its connection to my own experience (a more stable US-friendly environment in that part of the Middle East which results in lower, more stable gas prices at the pump).

Conclusion

Trust in government institutions is increased when others feel that the institution is capable of providing the service, is motivated to provide the service for a reason I agree with, and has an opportunity to perform that service in a context that I value.

People are upset about DEI efforts because they don’t see how it is connected to their own experience (motivation and opportunity). People were upset about “Obamacare” because they didn’t see it as capable (see the history of its rollout, even if motivation and opportunity were well known); yet now it is trusted under a different name because it capably provides something directly relevant to lived experience (a job that doesn’t provide adequate health insurance).

Do you trust your health care will be there for you when you need it? Do you trust in your safety for retirement? Do you trust that the roads will not cause undue wear and tear on your car? Do you trust that every child is achieving a basic education? Do you trust your employer or co-workers not to discriminate based on race or gender?

Or, stated differently, when the whole world is on (metaphorical) fire, it’s hard to prioritize fires. Especially when empirical evidence seems to suggest that nothing is actually on fire in many cases.

Gates are Binary

We had declared the systems untrustworthy and created a gate: do you pass or not, zero or one. You only pass with a one. Health Care can only be trusted if it is single-payer; do you believe in single-payer, yes or no? If no, you are not a Democrat. Commitment to diversity is more important than commitment to profits; yes or no? If no, you are not a Democrat. Private School Vouchers are tools of classism; if you disagree, you are not a Democrat.

This system is untrustworthy for two reasons: 1) it creates smaller pools of better candidates, but it could result in zero candidates; and 2) Who decides which issues are gates and which candidates have to go through which gates? It is both untrustworthy in its results and untrustworthy in its application.

Similarly with government institutions: how do we know it’s working? and could the money be better spent? Who is the better actor, the people or the market? Or, more abstractly: ability, benevolence, and integrity.1

“Trust is crucial wherever risk, uncertainty, or interdependence exist. … As conditions become more uncertain because of downsizing, mergers, and more complex business dealings, the need for trust grows.” McKnight, D. Harrison and Chervany, Norman L., "What is Trust? A Conceptual Analysis and an Interdisciplinary Model" (2000). AMCIS 2000 Proceedings. 382.

What is Trust?

Trust is a form of reliance; reliance is in turn a form of confidence. Or, think about it this way: Z can be confident that A will happen (confidence); Z can rely on Y to make A more likely to happen (reliance); Z believe that Y has a responsibility (either moral or normative) to make A more likely to happen (trust).2

Reliance is made more likely by Y’s competence, motivation, and opportunity with respect to Z and A (or what we called “ability, benevolence, and integrity” above). In other words if Z believes that Y is competent at making A occur, that Y is motivated to make A occur, and Y has the opportunity to make A occur, then Z will rely on Y to perform A, even if Y is unaware of Z’s reliance. Upon Y’s failure to make A happen, Y holds no blame to Z for the failure of A.

However, Y may be aware of Z’s reliance; maybe Y has suggested to Z that Z be reliant on Y performing A; at the least Y continues to let Z believe that Y has a responsibility Z for making A happen. Both Z and Y believe that Y is responsible to Z for making A happen. Z trusts Y with respect to A.

That is, when Y does not do A (or does not care for A), then Y is prima facie blameworthy for not A-ing, but only if it was in Y’s power to A (if the voluntariness condition of moral responsibility is satisfied) and if Y knew (or should have known) that he was normatively responsible for A (if the epistemic condition of moral responsibility is also satisfied). This explains why we tend to blame people who breach our trust. id.

Wha?

Trust means that each of two parties believe that one party is responsible to another for a particular outcome. Thus, we lose trust when one of three things happens:

• Z no longer believes Y capable, motivated, or have the opportunity to perform A

• Y no longer believes it is responsible to Z for A

• A is longer the within the purview of Y

Tell me if any of these sound familiar:

• The government is really bad at managing the health care market (ability)

• Gee, that hospital is only concerned about its Directors (benevolence)

• The FDA is losing enforcement funding. (integrity)

Each of these erodes trust. We prove our trust by demonstrating capability, motivation, and opportunity and that we stand ready to be relied upon. We cannot control others reliance or belief, but we can control and demonstrate our competency, motivation, and opportunity.

In my next post I’ll talk about my theory of how.

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One of my favorite podcasts is “Not Another Politics Podcast” from the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government. A recent episode being about, of course, the 2024 Presidential Election and “why” Donald Trump won.

You can find lots of debriefs of the election all over the internet, so I’m not going to spend too much time on the specifics of what Kamala did or didn’t do right. I voted for Kamala; I thought she was a pretty good candidate (unlike the podcasters who felt she wasn’t a particularly good Democratic candidate).

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I do want to highlight two things that seem to me to be related/feedback loop systemic issues highlighted by the election results. First, is that there seems to be some general consensus that the parties have swapped demographics. Second, is the eroding (eroded) trust in government institutions.

The NY Times token Conservative commenter, David Brooks, had a great editorial in the days after the election (warning: probable paywall) that sums up the great demographic switcheroo:

the diploma divide became the most important chasm in American life. High school graduates die nine years sooner than college-educated people. They die of opioid overdoses at six times the rate. They marry less and divorce more and are more likely to have a child out of wedlock. They are more likely to be obese. A recent American Enterprise Institute study found that 24 percent of people who graduated from high school at most have no close friends. They are less likely than college grads to visit public spaces or join community groups and sports leagues. They don’t speak in the right social justice jargon or hold the sort of luxury beliefs that are markers of public virtue.

Basically, Democrats have become the party of the college graduate - for our purposes we can think of them as the white-collar workforce, academia, and science nerds.

Republicans have become the party of ultra-wealthy and the non-college educated. No singular relationship defines this as well as Peter Thiel (the billionaire co-founder of Paypal, Palantir, and Founders Fund) being the primary benefactor of Yale-graduate and author of Hillbilly Elegy (about cultural resentment in Appalachia), Vice President JD Vance.

The Democrats are no longer the voice of labor, we are no longer the community organizers, we are no longer the voice of the down-trodden. We have all of the answers, all of the charts, and all of the science. We are excellent at lecturing, scolding, and belittling.

Why? What happened? I think it goes something like this:

Republicans (1960s): Government is bad, the private market can solve all of these problems.
Democrats (1960s): The whole point of government is to collectively care for all of our citizens.
Republicans (1980s): Government is bad, the private market can solve all of these problems.
Democrats (1980s): the private market is good at implementation but bad at fairness, we value fairness and the government can ensure accountability and fairness.
Republicans (2000s): Government is bad, the private market can solve all of these problems.
Democrats (2000s): The private market has captured our regulatory agencies and, ex-ante, has both reduced government efficiency through the revolving door of private market executives into and out of government agencies, and increased use of state military assets to further corporate interests.
Republicans (2020s): Government is bad, the private market can solve all of these problems.
Democrats (2020s): The private market and government are infected by systemic racism, sexism, and classism and until those problems are fixed before we all die in a fiery ball of smoke from the effects of climate change we can’t trust the police, health care, or educational system to provide fair and equitable service.

And we wonder why nobody trusts government institutions any more.

Remember me? Your friendly neighborhood … errr …. County Supervisor. How’ve you been? Holding up?

Hey! Have you heard?! There’s an election around the corner. You should go vote.

Me? Oh. You know. The usual.

2025 Budget - We’re in the thick of budget season. You can find everything you want (or need) to know about the budget on the county’s website. In short, it’s a very tight budget. The federal government isn’t doling out the cash they did post-pandemic, so there’s not as much to go around. Sales Tax collections are down. Employee insurance is up.

The budget headline will be the $20,000,000 the County is committing to set in action the Dane County Regional Housing Strategy. There are three pots of money: $2M will go to the Madison-Area Community Land Trust [ed note: land trusts are awesome!]; $10M will go towards housing that is supported by Low-Income Housing Tax Credits; the remaining $8M will go towards housing that is not supported by Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.

2024 In Review - With the jail passed and under construction-ish it’s been pretty quiet on the Board.

Housing continues to be a real challenge throughout Dane County (as elsewhere), so much of the Board is focused on how to improve housing for the unhoused, for the housing fragile, and for those for whom the purchase of a house (as opposed to an apartment) is simply too expensive.

The Dane County Ombuds program is officially kick-off (finally). The Ombuds provides a safe and trusted space to talk about an issue or concern, explore options to help resolve conflicts, and bring systemic concerns to the attention of the organization for resolution. The Ombuds program was written and driven by me in my first term and is now finally a reality. It was borne out of frustration from employees related to constant friction with management; an independent Ombuds is a great benefit to helping employees navigate workplace conflict.

With a lull in substantive new initiatives and a new Board Chief of Staff, the Board has been looking at process efficiency and improved communication. There have been numerous debates about how to make voting smoother, how to more easily integrate hybrid work, and how to streamline the legislative process. It’s slow-going and a bit of a slog, but it is improving significantly.

Finally, a note on the County Executive.

The County Executive, Jamie Kuhn, has been great. She had the impossible task of coming in for only few months and overseeing the budget cycle for the County. She got her budget put together and basically kept the cost of operations flat across the board. But Jamie’s time as executive will come to a close when a County Executive is elected on November 5. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to work with her.

I endorsed1 Melissa Agard in the race for County Executive.

I have come to know Melissa well and I know Dana Pellebon (the other candidate) from her time on the County Board. Both candidates are amazing and would make excellent County Executives. I endorsed Melissa because she has not just County Board experience (which she does), but State Assembly, and State Senate experience. She knows not just great ideas, but how to implement great ideas. She knows how to find and gather resources, how to align the team to the goal, and how to execute. She has experience with very large and complicated budgets. She cares about the people and the employees of Dane County deeply.

I am a strong believer in community engagement. It’s why I do what I do both in my elected life and in my career. I was proud to sign on to the 2024 Budget that included these community feedback/listening/focus group sessions.

Please show up and let us know how the County can serve you better!

The focus groups for the strategic community engagement process will take place over the next several weeks. Residents can sign up to attend the first three sessions on the following dates:

Thursday, May 2, 5:30-7:00pm
Middleton Public Library
7425 Hubbard Ave
Middleton, WI 53562

Wednesday, May 8, 6:00-7:30pm
Sun Prairie Public Library
1350 Linnerud Dr
Sun Prairie, WI 53590

Tuesday, May 14, 6:00-7:30pm
Fitchburg Public Library
5530 Lacy Rd
Fitchburg, WI 53711

Residents can sign up for any of these three focus groups by using this link: ninacollective.com/focus-group-registration

The 2024 budget included funds for the Dane County Board of Supervisors to conduct a Strategic Community Engagement process via a contract with a consultant. The 2024 budget also included an amendment to include two focus groups with the same contract related to the Body Worn Camera Pilot project. Following a request for proposals, nINA Collective was selected to work with the County on these two projects.

The strategic community engagement process includes using a racial and social equity lens to hear from residents regarding their concerns and priorities for Dane County government. The process will include focus groups held throughout the geographic area of Dane County, with additional focus groups provided for Spanish and Hmong speaking residents.

"At nINA Collective, we envision a racially equitable world where everyone belongs and racial justice is at the foundation of all systems and structures. As members of the Dane County community ourselves, we are thrilled to be working with the County to ensure all voices in the community are part of the critical process of informing county priorities for the years to come,” said Colleen Butler Founder and Director of nINA Collective.

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First on the ballot, it is the Presidential Primary, then the various candidates for office, and, finally, 2 state-wide referenda. You can learn about the referenda from the League of Women Voters, here.

Speaking of the League of Women Voters … you can use vote411.org to find more information about all of the candidates and referenda on your ballot; my candidate information datasheet can be found by entering your address (if you live in the District), or by searching all of the Wisconsin candidates and finding Dane County District 8 (sorry, their website doesn’t let me directly link to it).

Madison Bikes, the Affordable Housing Action Alliance (AHAA), Madison is for People, and Madison Tenant Power (MTP) worked together on an election questionnaire. The questionnaire for Dane County Supervisor candidates is focused on Dane County’s ongoing housing crisis and related transportation issues. These are all incredibly important issues for me and the District, and you can find my responses on the website.

Now headed towards my second term, I am also proud to say that I have been endorsed by the following (you can always find more about me, my leadership roles, and my endorsements on the navigation header at district8.substack.com):

Dane Dems

Fair Wisconsin - Advancing, achieving and protecting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Wisconsinites.

South Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL–CIO

All of my signatures are collected and all of my papers are in. There are no other candidates for District 8, so I will be running unopposed. I suppose I’m vain enough to think that the first time was because no one else was interested, but this time it’s because you all think I’m doing a great job.

At the January Board of Supervisors Meeting, I gave the Inspirational Message. In the Message, I laid out what I think are Dane County’s short and mid-term challenges: housing, child care, racial justice reforms, and affordable broadband internet.

Or, to quote myself:

“We have a lot of hard problems in front of us - problems that can’t be solved simply by money or even labor. Problems that can only be solved by uncovering and understanding root causes. Problems that can only be solved by asking uncomfortable questions with uncomfortable answers. Solutions that can only be had by understanding individuals and their needs.” - Me, Jan 18, 2024

So, that’s it (for the most part). That’s my agenda for the term ahead: housing, child care, racial justice reforms, and affordable broadband internet.

Housing: We don’t have nearly enough of it, but we also need to think not just about housing stock and land management, but residential services such as waste and renewables, transportation, and even health care. It would also include: quality of life issues like parks and events; and climate issues like lake and water quality.

Child Care and Broadband Internet: I lump these together because they are both highly regulated spaces where there isn’t a whole lot that the county can explicitly do. But, I think in both cases there is opportunity to be creative with solutions.

Racial Justice Reform: We just finalized the financing for a complete renovation of the county jail. It will be a complete gut of the current facility and a new [6 floor, 750 bed] jail in its place. But Dane County justice systems also have some of the worst racial disparities in the country. We need a new head of the [Criminal Justice Panel].

I’d add Economic Development to the list, too - the Alliant Energy Center needs serious upgrade and it is a primary engine of economic development for the region. It will take a huge investment - both public and private - to get the AEC to where it needs to be and will require aligning a lot of stakeholders across the region and state to make it happen.

Coming Up Next Time: Candidate Glazer! I’m hoping to have some announcements about endorsements and maybe a campaign event or two before Election Day on April 2.

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Accomplishments

Public Works Committee: On Public Works we have supervision over the built infrastructure of the county - the buildings (jail, airport, and zoo, amongst others), services (for example the landfill and snow removal on non-city roads like the Beltline), and parks. As a member of the committee, I stood up for workers at the Alliant Energy Center, and against mismanagement at the zoo. I combined these stances into my major piece of legislation of my first term - the Dane County Ombuds program that will soon provide confidential, independent assistance for all employees in the county to register complaints, understand the processes at work, and provide much-needed transparency into how workplace disputes are resolved (or not).

Dane County Broadband Taskforce: I am Vice-Chair of the Dane County Broadband Taskforce. The Taskforce has been active in two regards this past term: first, in promoting and providing incentives for the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (“ACP”). The ACP provides discounts on broadband service and technology devices for qualifying households. The Taskforce received a federal grant to help support adoption amongst qualifying households in Dane County. Second, the Taskforce has been active in helping municipalities connect to service providers and apply for the millions of dollars available for broadband planning and implementation. To aid this endeavor we hired a County Broadband Coordinator, Jaron McCallum.

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Alliant Energy Center Redevelopment Committee: The Alliant Energy Center is an aging facility that is in desperate need of update to stay relevant for today’s large-scale events. World Dairy Expo and Midwest Horse Fair are two of the biggest events, but the facility needs upgrades if we want to keep these world-class events. Moreover, we lost CrossFit precisely because the facility wasn’t up to standards. If we want the large touring bands, comedians, and shows we need a facility that can support it. And, finally, the whole campus can be more efficient with its space and be better tuned to the immediate community, the needs of youth sports in Madison, and the region.

Next time, I’ll talk about what I hope to accomplish in my next term. In the meantime, I hope your holidays have been great and we’ll see you again in the new year!!

Serving as a Supervisor for District 8 has been a great privilege. I think I’ve been able to represent your interests in a responsible manner. I’ve supported efforts to improve the life of employees at the County, to improve health services for residents of the county, and to significantly improve funds available for affordable housing across the county. I worked with my colleagues to navigate getting a new jail approved and was part of the County committee that interviewed and hired our county’s new Broadband Coordinator. I have worked to make our county government more open and accessible to residents and employees.

I’m looking forward to getting out and knocking on doors to say hello. I’d love to hear more from you about what you are looking for from the county. Comments are turned on for this post. I’ve started a chat here on Substack, but also on my District 8 Facebook page.

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In later posts I’ll review my first term and then talk about what I hope to accomplish with a second.

Let me know what you think is going right or wrong with the County. You can be personal (“Jeff, you’re doing great/not great!”) or you can be general (“I’d like to see Dane County doing this better…”).

I promise this will only take a few minutes of time. The county has a poll out to find out more about how you engage with and learn about what’s going on at the County (or, frankly, if you care). Click the button below to go to the poll.

Take the Poll

Earlier this summer Supervisors Rose and McGinnity met with youth from the Boys and Girls Club and 4-H and asked about how to improve understanding of county government as well as how members of the community get information and provide input in local government.

As we’ve discussed here before, I believe civic engagement is extremely important. It is only by engaging with our neighbors that we learn more about who our community is, we build trust, and we build resiliency. Indeed, some interesting research shows that, contrary to our political engagement, civic engagement increases our sense of belonging and reduces our stress felt about the world around us.1

Get involved in your neighborhood. Get involved with your school, your church. Learn more about the people around you and understand our community. By being engaged we’ll feel a better sense of belonging and be more resilient together in the face of adversity.

Our state legislature has failed childcare providers. Governor Tony Evers called a special session on September 20, 2023 to address access and affordability for working families and the legislature basically gaveled in and out.

A childcare provider relayed to me that her own state representative told her when she suggested that the cutting of money would mean fewer childcare workers at her daycare center and, therefore, fewer kids: "Well, the moms can just stay at home with their kids instead." This isn't an acceptable answer.

On September 21, with a little help from my friends on the County Board, we introduced 2023 RES-159 supporting high quality, affordable, and accessible child care in Dane County. If the state is going to abandon its duties to care for and educate our children, Dane County isn't.

I am making childcare one of the challenges I prioritize in Dane County. On September 27, I participated in a Childcare Roundtable hosted by the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (“WECA”).

Luckily, on October 16, 2023 Governor Tony Evers announced that the state will receive $170M from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) as part of pandemic relief funds to continue to fund Child Care Counts. While this last-minute funding will certainly help, this is not a long-term strategy.

We need a long-term strategy to help with early childhood education. The problems of childcare are the same problems we face elsewhere manifested in children under the age of 5 (primarily). Inflation, slow wage growth, affordable housing, and underfunded mass transportation are just some of the problems facing childcare facilities. Childcare workers are underpaid and over-stressed. These problems won’t end before the FEMA money runs out; and the FEMA money is not designed to solve these problems.

Simply raising tuition fees is not sustainable. As noted in the resolution: “A study of 2021 child care rates by the non-profit Community Coordinated Child Care, Inc. showed that the median cost of child care for a 2 year old in Dane County was $245 per week. For a family with a gross income of $90,000 (two parents working $45,000 per year jobs), this represents over 14% of the family’s pre-tax income for a single child.

We need better, systemic solutions to make quality childcare affordable for everyone.

On October 2, the day before the World Dairy Expo was set to start, I took a tour with Alliant Energy Center (“AEC”) Director Adam Heffron. I wanted to get a sense of what’s really going on at the AEC.

The site where the AEC is now was first used as an exhibition space in Dane County back in 1896. The Arena, which is still on the site, was built in 1954; the Coliseum was built in 1967; the Exhibition Hall was built in 1995; Willow Island was developed in 2002; the Pavilions were added in 2014. It officially became the Alliant Energy Center in 2000 when the naming rights were sold to Alliant Energy.

These original buildings are still in-use, but rapidly becoming obsolete. AEC is competing with facilities around the world that are bigger, more flexible, and have more amenities. COVID destroyed much of the life-blood of the AEC and what has come back, are bigger events with more flexible event needs - indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces; ready access to other parts of the city; gathering spaces.

The AEC is horribly single-mode for transportation - if you’ve ever tried to walk, bike, take a bus, or even a ride sharing service, you know how frustratingly car-centric it is. There are acres and acres of space that the neighborhood where it sits has no access to.

The County needs to re-tool the AEC for its current customers so we can keep world-class events like the World Dairy Expo. We need to re-imagine the AEC to attract new events. And we need to re-integrate the AEC into the community to make Dane County a more vibrant place.