Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry will get a bill from the city of Madison for his planned stop at the Capitol Wednesday.
The city of Madison incurs extra costs when big-name candidates come to town, said City Council President Brenda Konkel, District 2, so Madison will charge the campaigns for the expense beginning with Kerry's visit this week.
\I think it's a good idea that we charge the campaigns,"" Konkel said. ""We charge for other events, like Rhythm and Booms. ... I think we need to charge for these events as well.""
Konkel said there are several expenses to the city of Madison for campaign events but any economic benefit from these events would not likely be substantial.
""I think that economic benefit is probably a lot smaller because I think these campaign tours are directed at people who already live in the city of Madison,"" Konkel said.
Increased police force is a primary expense, though Konkel said other expenses from past campaigns included re-routing buses and having more ambulances ready.
For Kerry's appearance Wednesday, the Madison Police Department plans to have 25 of its regularly scheduled officers arrive four hours early for their 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shifts and be paid overtime, according to Madison Police Officer Thai Xiong.
The police presence is to keep the peace among Madison citizens and rally attendees, not to give security service for Kerry, Xiong said.
""We don't do any special security-John Kerry has his own people that do that for him-all we do is that we boost up the number of police on the street just in case that something does happen, we've got the number of police to accommodate the situation,"" Xiong said.
According to NBC 15 News, a Clinton-Gore campaign stop in Madison in 1992 cost more than $80,000 to the city.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said in a Friday meeting the Kerry-Edwards campaign agreed to pay 100 percent of the costs incurred by the city except for the cost of added security. The campaign said its own security would be sufficient and the city's policing would be optional.
According to the La Crosse Tribune, the finance committee of La Crosse recommended on June 3 to charge the Bush-Cheney campaign $7,823 for expenses accrued during a May 7 stop by President George W. Bush. La Crosse Mayor John Medinger said the total cost of the visit to the city was $60,277, according to the Tribune.
