Gavel Passes, Literally, at DDC Reorganization Meeting

The Downtown Development Commission held its reorganization meeting Thursday night at Bayley-Ellard in Room 320 before immediately going into its first regular meeting of 2010.

The nomination and voting in of chair and vice chair was highlighted by an exchange between Brad Cramer and Carla Brady.

Brady, who was the commission's previous chair, presented Cramer with a new gavel and her own personal sounding block after Cramer had been nominated and voted in as this year's chair.

Brady informed the commission and the public that she was doing so because Cramer had given her the same sounding block and a gavel when she was voted in as chair the previous year. She said Cramer would get his own personal sounding block, and she'd take hers back, when the order came in.

"I want to thank Carla for an exceptional job being chair of the DDC," Cramer said. "I hope I can do just as well as she did during her reign."

Brady was voted in as vice chair for the 2010 term. Marsha Ann Zimmerman was appointed to the post of treasurer, while Eric Range was named recording secretary and Michael Kopas was made member at large.

The commission then went into its first regular meeting of the year, discussing who would sit on different committees. There was also preliminary talks about what direction to take a number of Madison events.

The decision was made for the committees to talk first on their own before the DDC at later meetings would seriously look into which direction to take the events, for example the location and duration of this year's Farmer's Market.