Madison Ald. Mike Verveer was almost gleeful.
“I’m exceedingly pleasantly surprised,” he said at 2:40 am, early Sunday morning. “I’m in the command post now and they’re packing up and going home. The only police left on State are those patrol cars avoiding the street sweepers. Half of State Street is clean and it’s only bartime now.”
In recent years, Verveer had been among the group of city officials and police leadership fretting over the necessity of using pepper spray and other measures to quell a late-night crowd intent on destruction of property at worst and a brush with confrontation at best.