Murphy Oil Co. touts the several hundred jobs it would create at an expanded refinery in Superior.
But if Murphy's president hadn't received a 2007 total compensation increase of 26% to $8.8 million, there might be even more jobs there - - or at least something approaching salary rationality across-the-board, doncha' think?
Hard to believe, but Murphy Oil Co. is still riling neighbors not recovered from the massive Katrina spill.
You folks in Superior, and at the Wisconsin DNR, taking all this in?
Wisconsin's reputation is on the line Tuesday, inextricably tied to the outcome of the ballot contest between incumbent State Supreme Court Louis Butler and challenger Burnett County Circuit Court Judge Michael Gableman.
That's because Butler, an African-American jurist, has been subjected to misleading, even racist attacks as part of the plan to remove him from the Court.
Should Gableman win, validating reprehensible tactics of sympathetic outside groups and his own campaign committee as well, Wisconsin's already thinning reputation as a fair and progressive-minded state would be erased.
I've noted the irony of the Butler-Gableman faceoff taking place in the context of the Barack Obama presidential campaign, where the US Senator from Illinois has been undercut by his own pastor, the Clintons, and former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro as he tries to conduct a ground-breaking adult national conversation about race in America.
It's painful that Gableman, who should certainly know better, had at the same time aired, then stood by his slimy race-baiting, Willie Horton-style television ad - - a commercial so misleading that even right-wing talk show Charlie Sykes, a Gableman supporter, said it should be pulled.
Though Gableman's ad played the race card, blatantly, on the offense and offensively, without provocation, the candidate stood by the ad and didn't take it down.
Many editorial writers and bloggers too numerous to list have blasted Gableman over the ad.
It was even noted by Newsweek.
The most precise of the Wisconsin critics was Isthmus' Bill Lueders who wrote that Gableman's double-embrace of the ad should be a disqualification from holding any judicial office in Wisconsin.
The documented ploys unleashed to get Gableman onto the Circuit Court bench, then into contention against the eminently-qualified Butler, by corporate attack-ad funders, have been just as cynical.
If those tactics are validated in a campaign accurately labeled "a new low" in state judicial contests by 34 Wisconsin judges - - something of an unprecedented "no confidence" decision handed down by judges statewide - - the Wisconsin Supreme Court, our justice system and the state's image will be indelibly marred.
So the State Supreme Court election on Tuesday will tell us a lot about who we are as a state.
Are we still the state with an identity forged by the La Follettes, or civil rights giants like Gaylord Nelson, Robert Kastenmeier, Percy Julian Jr, and Father James Groppi?
Or will we stand revealed to the nation as the time-warped Northern reflection of 1950's-era Mississippi, or Georgia, or Alabama, where, in 2008, Jim Crow was resurrected by some shameless corporate power brokers on the Right to boot the state's only African-American jurist off the State Supreme Court?
4th District Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Patricia Jursik provided the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with the following outstanding letter published March 28th:
"Regional cooperation
"The March 24 article on the Great Lakes compact, "State struggles on where to draw the line," highlighted the political stakes for counties like Waukesha in the water debate, which raises another interesting issue: regional cooperation.
"Waukesha often has been a reluctant partner at best with Milwaukee County in transportation and employment.
"In Milwaukee County's last budget, Waukesha's cooperation was lost in maintaining a shared bus route to Brookfield Square, even though many employers in Waukesha County wanted this service.
"More recently, state and county leaders attended a meeting that included state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) to explore regional growth obtained through maximizing the services of Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee County.
"Waukesha cannot have regional cooperation only when it suits Waukesha County.
"The Great Lakes basin is a natural boundary first. It is only a political boundary through the efforts of politicians such as Lazich and Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford).
"When Waukesha County and other out-of-basin communities embrace true regionalism, their commitment to cooperation through conservation and respect of the natural environment will be a welcome sign of regionalism.
"Patricia Jursik
Milwaukee County Supervisor, 4th District
Milwaukee"
***
And in the case of a Franklin blogger showcased at the Journal Company's FranklinNow.com site, smear Wisconsin workers at the Department of Natural Resources, and the agency itself, with the Nazi label.
Kevin Fischer, the aforementioned blogger (and fulltime staff aide to State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) can you explain yourself?
In a discussion of water parks, what is the purpose of this line?
'The Wisconsin wing of the Nazi Party, the DNR did get involved..."
(Full text, below at bottom, fyi.)
We've heard this before over on the Right side of the radio dial, too.
Rush Limbaugh calls feminists "feminazis," and AM620-WTMJ talker Jeff Wagner calls anti-smoking activists the "anti-smoking Nazis."
Is it sick humor (sic)? Ignorance? Sheer stupidity?
Has "Nazi" become just another all-purpose political synonym for "people I don't like?"
Full text of Fischer blog posting;
This Just In...Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades. Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “INTERchange,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, in Franklin.
Illinois fights back in the waterpark wars
By Kevin Fischer
Friday, Mar 28 2008, 08:15 PM
In most cases pitting developers vs. obstructionists (usually environmentalists run amok) who stand in the way of business, jobs, and progress in general, I typically come down on the side of the developers who perform a common good.
Sure, they stand to make money, but they open the doors for many others to profit. It’s called capitalism, folks.
Despite previous mischaracterizations of my philosophy, I understand a certain degree of time is needed for review, negotiations, permitting, etc., but not an eternity.
Unlike the Franklin Target fiasco that became an endless protest over how often Windex would be applied, there is an honest-to-goodness developer vs. environmentalists case unfolding in Wisconsin that is truly compelling and worth debate.
By way of introduction, head south about 45 miles to Gurnee, the Brussels of the Midwest.
Last month, a new $135 million Florida-themed waterpark called KeyLime Cove opened along I-94 across from the Gurnee Mills shopping mall.
The resort has 414 rooms and suites; the waterpark is 65,000 square feet.
What is your strategy if you just put up a waterpark in Gurnee, Illinois?
You tell Illinois families to stay put.The Chicago Tribune is onboard with a recent article headlined, “Why go to Wisconsin when KeyLime Cove is just 45 minutes away from the city?”
Sure, Wisconsin Dells is the waterpark capital of the world, but Tribune reporter Chris Jones writes, “You still have to pay your tolls and drive about 200 miles. Why not jump straight in the water instead of sucking down fumes on the torturous tarmac of the jane Addams Memorial Tollway?”
The rest of Jones’ article relates the many problems he and his family encountered at a just-opened resort that hasn’t worked out all the kinks yet.
What’s my point?Our neighbor to the south, that just happens to have a much healthier business climate than we do, has just opened a sparkling, spanking brand new resort/waterpark aimed at directly competing for our customers and the dollars they spend.
Here in gigantic slide country, we have waterparks on top of waterparks, but we too are poised to open a sparkling, spanking brand new resort/waterpark, except…………….a bunch of environmentalists have filed lawsuits to try to stop it. (I swear, these people must be an absolute riot at parties).
Plans are in the works to build a $160 million condo/hotel complex, the Grand Cambrian, complete with waterparks, in Wisconsin Dells.
The location is the sticky point, in the pristine, historic lower Dells, right next to a state nature area.This isn’t about whether there will be a place to sit outside Target so I can have my latte and danish and discuss how consistently wonderful Kevin Fischer’s blog is.
We’re talking the lower Wisconsin Dells. Environmentalists reacted like the Tasmanian Devil, literally screwing themselves into the Dells turf.
One of their grievances is that the top floors of the resort will be still be visible to horrified and shocked boaters and canoeists on the Wisconsin River (And I don't think there's a support group for people subjected to this horror).
The Wisconsin wing of the Nazi Party, the DNR did get involved.
(“Now we’re getting somewhere” thought the litigious mob).
Those nasty DNR folks went and approved a permit, with some restrictions.
We’re not done, shouted the busybodies. We’ll go to the state Department of Commerce.
And on and on it goes.
No table and chairs or coffee and crullers will make them go away.Seriously, as I mentioned earlier, this particular case has some interest because it does involve some of the most beautiful natural landscaping in the entire state.
But enviros go too far, throwing themselves on the tracks of economic development.
Meanwhile, in Gurnee, you hear that sucking sound? Those are Wisconsin dollars being scooped into the Illinois coffers.Developers vs. obstructionist environmentalists?
Not even close. Mark me down again with the developers.
Law enforcement officials know that first-time (as in finally-caught) drunk drivers are the largest category of arrested OWI offenders, but the state has recently ramped up the penalties for those arrested a 7th, 8th, and 9th time.
It's good to protect innocent people on the road by throwing the book at habitual offenders.
They are a menace.
But Wisconsin still gives many offenders a pass by treating their eventual, and predicatable first arrest with a ticket, not with a criminal charge.
Would we treat discharging a firearm into a crowd as a civil offense, with a ticket, and only criminalize the behavior if it happened again?
What's the difference?
In the hands of a motorist driving while intoxicated, an automobile or truck is a deadly weapon aimed, with speed and force, at unsuspecting people.
With a weak first-offenders' law, Wisconsin enables drunk drivers to put the public at major risk, with only a civil penalties - - a citation, alcohol dependency assessment and license revocation - - as the consequences when and if they get caught.
A first DWI should be criminalized.
That means mandatory jail time, a whopping fine and a lengthy license suspension - - at least a year.
Anything less doesn't get offenders' full attention or produce a lasting impact.
An accident caused by a drunk driver, first-time or otherwise, absolutely has lasting impact.
The good folks in Waukesha and Washington Counties trying to deal with an obnoxious four-lane road expansion through their front yards and the Kettle Moraine are still in court, seeking redress.
Their coalition update is here.
Keep in mind that when the widening of Highway 164 north from I-94 was proposed, 7,000 people signed petitions against the project (the number of project opponents is now up to 15,000) and turned them into the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.
Those signatures went into SEWRPC's reflexive 'react and dismiss' procedure, and the project was approved.
Jim Bouman, blogging as Water Blogged in Waukesha, decided to protest the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce's far-right policies by writing a letter of complaint to a business whose CEO and President sits on WMC's Board of Directors.
Bouman patronized the business, TDS Metrocom, as a subscribing customer.
The TDS Metrocom official is David Wittwer.
At his blog, Bouman shares the letter he got back from Wittwer disclosing his resignation from the WMC Board.
Bouman's direct action is certainly a heckuva model.
The Journal Sentinel endorsed Scott Walker for another term as Milwaukee County Executive.
So failure is an option after all.
Too strong for some of you?
Look no farther than the ongoing breakdowns at the jail and House of Correction, in the parks, the pension system, and the transit system.
All failures, and getting worse.
Walker is not a visionary, or a leader, or a problem solver.
He's an unimaginative one-note (tax freeze) tactical politico, a willing tool of talk radio, a place-holder waiting his turn to run for F. James Sensenbrenner's Congressional seat.
He got elected in 2002, despite an undistinguished career as an anonymous GOP Assemblyman from Wauwatosa, because the Ament administration corrupted itself out of office.
But Walker has not been the breath of fresh air he promised he'd be, and basic county services, like the parks and the transit system, are worse than they were when Walker took over.
And continuing pension system malfeasance is simply unacceptable.
Little wonder that county government is living on credit, and teeters towards financial bankruptcy.
Lena Taylor is an attorney and State Senator. Her credentials are more substantial than Walker's.
She would have been a breath of fresh air, and a fresh start for the county and local politics.
The paper got this one wrong.
We city folk may not realize it, but farming operations are getting bigger and more hazardous - - and wouldn't you know it? - - state and federal regulators (sic) are exempting these mega-farms from operating and reporting rules governing toxic emissions.
Wisconsin environmental organizations are joining a national effort to mandate cleaner and more transparent farming operations so that surrounding residents can breathe cleaner air and know what the hazards are.
If you were living down the street from a chemical plant, or a business of any kind with a belching smokestack, you'd expect and receive better protection from state and federal clean air officials.
But if you live out in the country, with 7,000 dairy cattle down the road, the government is less interested in the quality of the air you breathe.
Those double-standards make little sense, and as consumers of farm production, we should help our rural neighbors in the quest for environmental justice.
Ann Brummitt gets her due...in The Freeman.
What is it about conservation, done voluntarily, that gets some conservatives (note the irony in the label) so upset?
I posted a little item the other day about a worldwide effort this evening - -being carried out willingly by citizens, governments and businesses alike - - wherein people will turn off their lights for an hour to demonstrate an energy savings.
Meaning that for that one hour - - 60 minutes, tops - - a lot of natural gas, oil and other energy resources will be used somewhat more sparingly, leaving a bit more for everyone to access another day.
One blogger calls it the vomit of the day, and writes that the last fifteen minutes of that blogger's day has been spent turning on all the lights in her house.
Why all the anger? No one is forcing anyone to do anything. It's completely optional.
I don't get it.
Saturday morning update;
It's working!
Sunday update:
The blogger whom I cited above has posted an answer.
It's a fascinating read - - headed way out on a tangent, or around the bend, turning a mild-mannered original few words about something voluntary into a screed about freedom.
Where "hate," "bitterness," "disgust" and more anger and emotion almost drip off the screen.
Again, about something that was completely optional.
It's about as rational as finding out that a group of people chose to go on a diet - - their diet - - and you shout, "hands off my salt-and-pepper shaker collection!"
While Wisconsin waits for Murphy Oil Co. to submit its permit applications to expand by seven-fold its Superior oil refining capacity across an unprecedented 400-500 acres of wetlands, those backing several of these projects in the US Midwest are defining the question along national security lines.
And taking shots at environmental organizations that argue that the resulting air and water pollution that accompany such refinery activities will harm, not help, national resources.
National security? Depends on what you include in the equation, don't you think?
Murphy Oil's impending expansion at Superior to handle the controversial Canadian tar sand crude - - gouged from the Canadian north in a blowout sacrificing vast quantities of energy and water resources - - is but one of several such projects.
(Peruse a Canadian website devoted to information about tar sand oil and all the implications of its removal, here. (http://www.tarsandswatch.org/)
Some history of Wisconsin's preliminary work with Murphy on the developing project, pre-permitting, is here - - and explains Wisconsin's noticeable silence in 2007 when other Great Lakes states' officials, particularly in Illinois, were confronting British Petroleum's expansion at Whiting, IN, to process a share of Canadian tar sand crude for refining.
Marathon Oil is expanding its Detroit refinery for the same reason; all these projects, and no doubt others in the lower 48 states ,will require vast networks of new pipelines across hundreds of miles of farm, forest and wetlands to move the crude in, and refined products out.
As the great scarring to get at the oil continues in Alberta - - requiring so much energy to extract it that there has been talk in the business media, citing corporate sources, about possibily building a nuclear powerplant nearby.
Proponents are framing the issue around job growth and now, national security.
Conservation? As Dick Cheney famously said, a personal virtue, but certainly no guide for national policy-making.
The oil expansionists are omitting from their national security calculus the jobs lost in alternative energy R&D and production if all the new billions are poured into the oil economy.
They are overlooking the damage to other water-based commerce, such as commercial fishing and tourism.
Not to mention the cleanup costs when the inevitable air and water pollution occurs at pipeline breaks, from smokestacks, or in everyday refinery operations.
In a word, it's sustainability that they disregard: environmentally, economically, politically, even diplomatically, as, sooner rather than later, Americans in the Great Lakes region are going to object to all this Canadian crude spilling into the US Upper Midwest.
And Canadians are not going to like the pollution from refineries wafting across and into the Great Lakes and beyond - - after coming to grips with the environmental disaster unfolding in the Alberta tar sands region.
And was this what the work on the Great Lakes Compact was all about?
Years negotiating an agreement on water quantity protections, only to begin intentionally jeopardizing the quality of those same waters?
And for Wisconsinites and their neighbors who love Lake Superior, here is a specific, bitter irony:
Local, state, federal and Murphy Oil officials have begun touting the positive effects of a multi-million cleanup around the Superior refinery that was years in the making.
What a bizarre time to put all that in jeopardy - - proving that if you don't have a broad view of what constitutes the national (dare I say, an international, or two-nations' interest) - - you will disregard huge opportunities, sustainable benefits, and in Superior's case, even your own recent history.
Saying that he is "proud" of his widely-condemned campaign - - including a broadside launched by 33 current judges and one retired State Supreme Court Justice who called it "a new low in judicial campaigns in this state" - - Mike Gableman might be the worst candidate to ever run for Wisconsin's high court.
And that's paying Annette Ziegler a compliment.
Census figures show the US population still booming in the warmer, even arid, portions of the southwest and west.
And while that defeats commonsense and available water resources, too, it continues to drag with it Congressional delegation members from the shrinking Great Lakes region.
Including Wisconsin.
If the Great Lakes Compact stalls through intransigence in Ohio and Wisconsin, the more populous and dryer regions of the country will come after Great Lakes water.
You can bank on that.
And if there is no Compact in place, the Congress, with our lessened representation, is more likely to let the water loose to their larger constituencies down South and out West.
I wonder if those Waukesha Republican legislators and their allies on the outer fringes of reality and politics in Ohio understand this?
Earth Hour, 2008, is a worldwide movement organized around a simple principle and act:
Turn off your lights for a mere hour, at 8 PM this Saturday, March 29th, to demonstrate that energy can be conserved through painless, coordinated effort.
Video and information here.
Now here's some regional cooperation for ya:
FRIDAY, March 28, 2008, 1:15 p.m.By Scott Williams
Waukesha plan would help Milwaukee ME
Waukesha - Milwaukee County would get temporary help handling death investigations at an estimated cost of $464,000, under a deal advanced today by a committee of the Waukesha County Board.Waukesha County is considering helping its neighbor because of sudden turnover in the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office.
Two top officials in the Milwaukee County office have vacated their positions in recent weeks.
The Waukesha County medical examiner's office is offering to provide assistance for up to six months, anticipating nine autopsies a week from Milwaukee County at a cost of $2,000 each.
Milwaukee County would be required to cover all such expenses, as well as the cost of providing pathologists to testify in court, if needed.
The deal still must be ratified by the full Waukesha County Board, which is scheduled to consider it April 8.
More than thirty Wisconsin judges have condemned Supreme Court candidate Mike Gableman for airing an outrageously misleading television commercial.
Their statement is here.
Their main point:
"Judge Michael Gableman has released a television ad which, in our collective view, marks a new low in judicial campaigns in this state … Gableman has exceeded the boundaries of fairness, honesty and integrity for candidates running for judicial office."
For the record, here is the list of judges signing this stunning statement:
Fmr. Justice William Bablitch, Wisconsin Supreme Court
Presiding Judge Paul B. Higginbotham, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV
Presiding Judge Daniel P. Anderson, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II
Judge Charles P. Dykman, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV
Judge Joan Kessler, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District I
Judge Dominic Amato, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Carl Ashley, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Dorothy Bain, Marathon County Circuit Court
Judge David Barowski, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Andrew Bissonnette, Dodge County Circuit Court
Judge Patrick Brady, Marathon County Circuit Court
Judge Karen Christenson, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Dennis Cimpl, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Jeffrey Conen, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Thomas Cooper, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge John Damon, Trempealeau County Circuit Court
Judge John DiMotto, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge M. Joseph Donald, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Thomas Donegan, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Ramona Gonzalez, LaCrosse County Circuit Court
Judge Glenn Hartley, Lincoln County Circuit Court
Judge John Hoffmann, Waupaca County Circuit Court
Judge Raymond Huber, Waupaca County Circuit Court
Judge Charles Kahn, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Philip Kirk, Waupaca Circuit Court
Judge Mary Kuhnmuench, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Edward Leineweber, Richland County Circuit Court
Judge Patricia McMahon, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Marshall Murray, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Dale Pasell, LaCrosse County Circuit Court
Judge William Pocan, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Mary Triggiano, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Timothy Van Akkeren, Sheboygan County Circuit Court
Judge Paul Van Grunsven, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge Jeffrey Wagner, Milwaukee County Circuit Court
The AP story about the judges' condemnation does not mince words, either.
Check out the lede:
"More than 30 judges say a dishonest campaign ad by Judge Michael Gableman has tarnished the entire judicial system."
Keep in mind that Gableman is a judge and is seeking a seat on the state's highest court.
A substantial number of his colleagues statewide are saying he's not fit.
I was among the large numbers of commentators who had attacked the ad.
It's the most offensive ad I've seen in all the years I been in and around political campaigns. In addition to its misleading content, it brought JIm Crow and Willie Horton-style race-baiting back to Wisconsin.
And it's important to remember that while some of the harshest ads in this race have been paid for and aired by outside groups, the commercial being condemned by the judges was "authorized and paid for" by Gableman, and his committee.
That's a crucial distinction, and should Gableman loose, the ad will rise to the top as "Exhibit A" in that suicidal campaign's post-mortem.
Jay Bullock says he's found basic research errors in the Right's latest attack on Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.
If Jay is right, and Right is not right, somebody's gonna get sued, since the facts in dispute involve lawyers, their identifications and ethical behavior.
Ouch.
The Journal Sentinel's Dave Umhoefer blows the whistle on more pension scandal - - bad news for County Executive Scott Walker.
Put this together with Walker's persistent red-ink budgets and you have to conclude he's no manager at all.
Getting harder and harder to watch his TV commercials with a straight face. You know he's just wishing next Tuesday could come a little faster.
Rumors are circulating among very reliable sources that State Sen. Alberta Darling's low-key campaign for re-election to her North Shore seat may, in fact, be signalling an intention to call it quits.
State Rep. Sheldon Wasserman, (D-Milwaukee), has been running flat out against the River Hills Republican incumbent for months, plodding through the worst winter in any living person's memory and hitting more than 10,000 doors.
Darling, by contrast, is scheduling small sit-downs with constituents, and some Republicans are nervous that without a vigorous defense, the seat may default to Wasserman and add to the Dems Senate majority.
Time will tell if Darling is in or out, or if another GOP option emerges - - regardless.
Gov. Doyle's Energy Independence initiative is a good start, focusing state R & D money into alternative energy activities.
The state has solid educational, agricultural, bio-mass and forest products sectors, plus ample wind, wave and water resources, that together can help develop and bring energy alternatives to market.
At the same time, the state has to get away from its emphasis on corn-based ethanol production and move towards the non-corn, cellulosic alternatives.
Like grasses and wood chips.
Corn-based ethanol may be money in the bank for corn growers, but its bad in the long run for energy and water consumption, and bad right now for consumers as the price of corn products skyrocket.
Corn is too valuable to grow and put into gas tanks. And in a hungry world, not defensible.
Out east, they're struggling with the details of something called "congestion pricing" - - a system of fees laid on motorists who drive into already congested urban areas.
The fees are supposed to help expand transit, and clean up the air, too.
London has instituted it: New York City is experiencing some bumps on the way, but they'll work things out.
Anyone who's been to Manhattan knows how insane the congestion can get, which is why transit there has always been a must, and why improvements are logical and crucial.
Milwaukee isn't anywhere near needing congestion pricing, so all you folks out there - - the proverbial Mike from Germantown who burns up the AM talk radio airwaves demanding that every new fee be annihilated can relax.
What Milwaukee does need, however, are two interrelated things:
Better transit, and a dedicated funding source to pay for it.
A documentary film is in production on the subject: check out the trailer on its website.
Without expanded transit lines, whether buses, trolleys, light rail or the guided-rail tram knows as The Connector, the city will experience more traffic congestion, dirtier air, hamstrung businesses, and inaccessible tourist destinations if alternatives and upgrades are not implemented.
I think funding could be formulated with a combination of dedicated, fractional sales tax increases paired with equivalent property tax reductions, and additional state transportation funds peeled off major highway plans.
With gasoline heading ever higher, transit will become a greater need for more people, while some drivers will be priced out of their cars, if only for a few trips a week, making transit a bigger need for larger numbers of people.
If more people use transit, the roads become less congested for motorists, so everyone wins.
There has been a little movement on the transit issue, with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) taking new leadership on finding a funding strategy that will make the Milwaukee County Transit System sustainable.
There has been widespread support for the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter train because regional business leaders understand that the region needs better links with Chicago.
A major impediment to transit alternatives has been the reflexive intransigence of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, and that's disappointing, but it will be market forces that will eventually drive Walker to accept transit and funding solutions, lest he preside over the collapse of the system that is under his control.
I don't think he really wants that to happen on his watch, or his resume, because if it did, major media would come into Milwaukee and write Milwaukee County government's political obituary.
New York's difficulties implementing congestion pricing to aid transit there show that city's commitment to solving transit dilemmas.
If New York and New Jersey can work their problems out, you'd think Scott Walker could find some common ground with the City of Milwaukee, the MMAC, and other public and private sector groups and leaders who understand that without better transit, Milwaukee and the surrounding region will stagnate.
Great Lakes author Dave Dempsey weighs in on the Waukesha-inspired notion of reopened Great Lakes Compact negotiations with a few ideas of his own.
Many thanks, Dave.
And why not? If everything's on the table, everything's on the table, right?
As I said the other day regarding those Waukesha and Ohio claims that the Compact needed 'just a few minor tweaks,' be careful what ye wish for.
The Rasmussen agency determines that McCain has benefited while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton remain in their standoff.
It's not a new discovery, and it's just one pollster's snapshot, but the various data are interesting.
The same small band of naysayers and corporate water carriers who tied up the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin's State Assembly are doing their thing in the Ohio State Senate, according to Ohio media.
Their leader is State Sen. Tim Grendell, mentor to Wisconsin State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin).
Both argue that the Compact should be sent back to the eight Great Lakes states that took four years to negotiate it and 28 more months to approve it - - though Grendell's key demand, brought to a State Capitol study committee by Lazich last year, was labeled irrelevant to state law here by Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources water experts.
An indeterminate period of further negotiations would add years in which the Great Lakes remain vulnerable to mismanagement.
And would no doubt tick off the other states that have worked more productively than Ohio and Wisconsin to bring the Compact through their legislatures and into their statutes.
Renegotiation opens up everything.
Lazich and Grendell cannot control exactly which portions of this lengthy agreement get modified once the Compact is back on the table.
And that could hurt some municipalities if renegotiation led to horsetrading, compromises and power plays that, for instance, could remove one key exemption inserted specifically to help communities at the edge of the Great Lakes basin in Wisconsin and Ohio, like New Berlin (ironically, Lazich's home town).
The exemption grants them easy access to Great lakes water - - a benefit not accorded to those communities under current federal law.
That's why New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero wants the Compact, under which only Wisconsin and not the other seven states could vote on a diversion application.
It's a privilege in the Compact just for communities that, through accidents of geography, literally straddle the boundary of the Great Lakes basin.
Chiovatero is the one with the grassroots water supply problem to solve, and regulatory consent decrees to honor - - but get this:
He is being fought by Lazich, his own State Senator, and the entire Waukesha County legislative delegation.
All of whom are Republicans, by the way, (the mayoralty is a non-partisan office) taking their talking points and marching orders from the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and pretending, like Grendell, that the changes they want in renegotiations they don't control are minor only.
Hardly.
One change they seek is letting fewer states approve out-of-basin applications for water to help relatively more distant municipalities like the City of Waukesha win diversions.
Because all eight Great Lakes share control of the waters, current federal law and the Compact require those distant communities to obtain the states' unanimous approval.
Since the procedure is already in the federal law, and gives the states protection against unwise diversions of waters they all share, why would any of them give it up?
Do Lazich and Grendell not know how to read the very simple federal statute - - the Water Resources Development Act of 1986?
Are they forgetting that the makeup of state legislatures and governors' offices can change, with perhaps more sustainability-minded decision-makers calling the shots?
Do they not know that both Akron, Ohio and Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin did win the unanimous diversion permission for diversions, after careful planning and skilled interstate communications?
Or do they not know how to count to eight, recongizing that one is a smaller number for New Berlin, and that a five or six will not satisfy the other seven who have nothing to gain by making up rules just to help one or two of the states?
Letting a community like Waukesha obtain water with only a majority of the states' approval would be like asking the other National Football teams to allow the Green Bay Packers to make a first down with only six yards.
Grendell and his counterparts in the Wisconsin legislature are not interested in helping New Berlin's Mayor solve his water and regulatory problems, or in at least winning a set of standards and application procedures for Waukesha that improve on the Federal legal process.
Waukesha's mayor Larry Nelson (in another non-partisan position) supports the Compact as it was approved by Wisconsin's State Senate on a bi-partisan, 26-6 vote.
Somehow Lazich and Grendell know what's better for Waukesha than the Waukesha Mayor? Or the New Berlin Mayor?
Here is the truth about these so-called minor changes allegedly availabe through quickie renegotiations among eight states from Minnesota to New York:
The naysayers prefer the game-playing side of politics, turning the Compact into a political football to keep away from Democratic Governor Jim Doyle.
There's the pleasure.
For Lazich, or State Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem), or key Assembly natural resources committee chair State Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford), the Compact is an opportunity for speech-making and cozying up with the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and other special interests.
Legislating on behalf of local taxpayers and Great Lakes preservation - - things which are not mutually exclusive if you are serious about your job?
Nah - - let's play the partisan, special-interest game.
And if they were to win this renegotiation, and New Berlin lost its favored diversion status - - approval by only the home state, not all eight or even a majority - - or if the diversion rules got toughened for Waukesha and other more distant communities, Lazich and Grendell could ask for another round of negotiations.
Ahh, that global warming stuff is all propaganda. There's no evidence...wait...what? A mass of ice the size of Connecticut is about to break apart in Antarctica?
Whew...I was was afraid you were going to offer some evidence about global warming. Like I said, it's all propaganda.
Isn't there some news about Britney Spears we can talk about?
UW-Downtown, or UW-Tosa, as the site for the school's engineering campus?
The downtown gets some needed publicity and visibility for its website:
http://www.uwmdowntown.org/.
Some of the downtown's benefits: Transit access, housing, amenities, job opportunities, proximity to Marquette, Milwaukee School of Engineering.
A good cup of coffee.
The city.
And so on.
An earlier post, here.
Dane County politicos - - it's a liberal stronghold - - are getting organized on behalf of incumbent State Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler, and want you to know about it.
An impressive list of endorsees was made public, and that's good because it feels like Milwaukee liberals are taking a more relaxed approach to the campaign and Madison seems to be showing the way.
I could be wrong. I don't get out much.
But I do know that right-wing talk radio is carrying water for challenger Michael Gableman, and it's aimed at a suburban audience in Milwaukee and the surrounding counties that tends to vote regularly, and conservatively.
An audience that is eating up Gableman's vicious ads and others paid for by millionaire funding from self-interested business groups like the Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
AM620 WTMJ morning righty talker Charlie Sykes told his listeners this morning that he would introduce a separate anti-Butler issue everyday until the April 1st election: liberals have no counterweight to conservative talk radio that dominates the region's two largest AM stations all day and all night.
In that regard, thank goodness for all the NCAA basketball and spring training baseball that can get on the radio.
Butler will do well in Dane County - - neutralizing Gableman's votes in Waukesha County, the state's GOP heartland - - but Butler will need a strong showing in Milwaukee County to counteract the Gableman turnout up north.
A sparse turnout in the City of Milwaukee could lead to a Gableman upset.
So Milwaukee activists: look to Dane County and ramp it up on behalf of Milwaukee resident Louis Butler.
I've become a big fan of Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, not just through his writing but through his always-informative appearances on Keith Olberman's cable news and commentary program on MSNBC.
Robinson's summation of the tragedy of the Iraq War on the occasion of the 4,000th US military death is certainly worth a read, and for those of you unfamiliar with Robinson, a solid introduction.
I have been posting for the last few days about SEWRPC, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, using its under-the-radar appointment of a new Executive Director as just the latest example of its disregard for genuine public input into its operations.
Summary here.
In one post - - here - - I highlighted the differences between SEWRPC's online and outreach operations with those of CMAP - - the newly-upgraded Chicago area regional planning commission, which like SEWRPC, covers a seven-county region that includes the state's most populous city and county, as well as growing suburban areas.
CMAP is launching a comprehensive, open, results-oriented, publicly-influenced effort to create a plan for its region.
It's got a separate website with details, here.
Can you imagine SEWRPC being able to pull something off like that?
Or being interested enough?
Or, in light of its insiders' process to hand-pick its next leader, and history of dismissing citizen input having the credibility to sell such outreach to the very public it keeps excluding?
I don't keep complete records on these kind of things, but when I heard Charlie Sykes ragging this morning on "Loophole Louie Butler," it reminded me of his earlier habit of calling former Milwaukee Public Schools Board member Leon Todd "Laptop Leon."
It was an oh-so-cute reference to Todd's long-ago proposal to give every MPS student a laptop computer - - a plan that went nowhere within the system, as I recall, but which wasn't a proposal unique to Milwaukee.
And Butler is on the State Supreme Court. Is there no respect left on the Right?
The righty bloggers who take their cues from Sykes have picked up the Loophole nickname, too.
Example, here.
And a new Club for Growth anti-Butler TV ad is built entirely around the nickname, which it says Butler labels affectionate.
Oh - - I get it: the Right is using it to be nice to Butler.
We'll hear more of that all week leading up to the April 1 election: Sykes told his audience this morning that he will introduce a new anti-Butler theme everyday until the election, focusing on Butler's supposed anti-business proclivities.
Those Club for Growth - - Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce - - Right-Wing talk radio connections are getting easier and easier to spot.
But back to their fixation on Black officials' names...
FranklinNow.com blogger Kevin Fischer, who also works full time for State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), and is the go-to fill-in host for two WISN-AM 1130 talk radio programs (man: how does he manage those hours?), likes to refer to Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama.
In this March 24th posting, Fischer recounts a liberal blogger's attack on Obama.
Fine.
But the blogger refers to "Barack Obama," while Fischer adds "Hussein" in his own lead sentence when introducing the other blogger's text.
How come?
Then you have this item, with a bold-faced headline: Yes, Barack Hussein Obama Is A Racist.
Is this super-technical due diligence journalism, wherein the writer uses subjects' full names, though the only place you see this style routinely used is in law-enforcement documents?
Apparently not.
In this blog example, again with "Barack Hussein Obama" in the bold-faced headline, Fischer displays the full, name-playing double-standard.
The blog posting is a horse-race round-up of opinion about where the campaign stood at the time, discussing and referencing opinion about John McCain - - no middle name by Fischer, while he ID's Hillary Clinton merely as "Clinton."
Only Obama gets the middle name treatment.
This repetition of "Hussein" throughout Fischer's blog is cheap and classless, and as deliberate an act of denigration as are "Loophole Louie" and Laptop Leon."
But because it enables Fischer to wield an irrelevant fear-mongering club against Obama - - Hussein = Middle East/foreigners/Muslims/Saddam - - it's even sleazier.
So here's the question, fellas:
Why do you guys like to fool around so much with the names of Black public officials?
Ken Yunker's ascension to the position of SEWRPC Executive Director was basically a done deal before last week's fait accompli hiring 'decision.'
No surprise, perhaps, given the agency's leadership hiring history and insularity from the public that pays its bills.
The real surprise:
The hiring move by the executive committee of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission last Thursday without a search or public vetting process was pretty much guaranteed a few years ago, according to a source with direct knowledge of the hiring events.
The executive committee was told at its meeting that current executive director, Philip Evenson, 68, had indicated several years ago, on more than one occasion, that he wished to retire - - but the agency prevailed upon him to remain in office until certain projects were completed or on their way to a conclusion.
The source indicated that as Evenson was pressured into remaining, Yunker, the deputy executive director was more-or-less-told - - but not formally promised, the source said - - that if Yunker stuck around he'd get the job when Evenson and the agency agreed the boss could quit.
Like Yunker, Evenson had been the agency deputy, then was moved into the Executive Director position when the long-term SEWRPC Executive Director, Kurt Bauer, moved to emeritus status in early 1997.
Members of the executive committee, liking Yunker's work and also feeling loyalty to their deputy, the source said, were thus even less to conduct a search and screening to find the next Executive Director.
Additionally, the uncertainties involved in any executive search, plus the desire for continuity and a belief that the SEWRPC salary structure would not automatically lead to a big applicant pool (Evenson receives $$125,000 annually, plus an automobile, and standard public sector benefits), naming Yunker as the Executive Director position was a fait accompli, the source reported.
One informative ancedote about how Yunker can interact with the public, and critics, is here.
As I've said repeatedly on this blog over the last week - - the way SEWRPc filled the position - - no public involvement, virtually no notice, etc. - - is the way you'd expect a private business to operate.
Not a taxpayer-financed governmental body that already has considerable credibility and image problems tied to its avoidance of genuine outreach.
It will be interesting to see if SEWRPC now adopts a real hiring process to fill Yunker's soon-to-be-vacant position, and for the next change at the top. Yunker is 56, so with past practice as a guide, that should happen sometime around 2017 or afterwards.
It will be further interesting to see if SEWRPC's continuing lack of accountability will have ramifications with the counties that dutifully send it taxpayer contributions annually, or with pressure groups, including the SEWRPC-created Environmental Justice Task Force.
That body, citing its mission to involve low-income and other disadvantaged groups in SEWPRC affairs, had asked the agency to hold off on making the executive director hiring purely administratively, without public input.
No - - we're not reprising Michael Gableman's misleading ad that claimed Justice Louis Butler, when only a public defender, freed a criminal.
Milwaukee County Exec. Scott Walker gets the credit for this whopper, with Xoff blowing the whistle.
His campaign filmed a perfect cross-section of purported Walker supporters and put them in a TV spot - - when in fact, they're actors.
Earlier, the campaign had told The Journal Sentinel the people in the ad were all bona fide Milwaukee County residents.
Or not.
What's a little, er, mistake when it comes to County politics.
Sorta like those budgets Walker fabricates each year.
Balanced.
Or not.
What's a few million bucks either way, a little red ink, blown projections, or cost figures whipped into spreadsheets like so much magic, or cotton-candy?
If you feel the credibility of your local government slipping away, you can blame Scott Walker.
He came into office as a reformer, but reveals himself to be a phony.
Only one term fits: Hypocrite.
The next time you read something about outrageous benefits for frontline public school teachers, pull up this story from your archives about retiring school superintendents who get boatloads of cash and benefits above and beyond even what had been called for in their contracts.
Some are simply moving into new jobs, not retiring from the profession and public payrolls.
As in the private sector, the disparities between those at the top and those at the bottom are hardly justifiable.
Shades of The Onion:
The Green Bay online gun and paraphernalia dealer who inadvertently helped arm the two most recent campus mass-shooters now wants students to be able to carry concealed guns on campus.
To protect themselves against mass-shooters.
Stop the madness.
State Sen. Mary Lazich tones it down significantly in her remarks in today's front-page Journal Sentinel story about the Great Lakes Compact - - no tirade, no ranting about totalitarianism and dictatorships - - but one question hangs over the story like a August thunderhead ready to break:
If her arguments against the Compact had merit, why did the body in which she serves - - the Wisconsin State Senate - - approve the Compact 26-6, with eight of her 15 Republican Senate colleagues voting "aye?"
The answer: Those 26 bi-partisan members were grounded in reality, while the others were playing partisan games or living in Neverneverland.
If she couldn't even sell her views to her own party, especially her plan to send the Compact back to multi-state renegotiation for major changes dismissed in the four Great Lakes states that already have approved it - - why should a reader think her ideas have any chance of resurrection now?
It's like making the case that the Milwaukee Braves should come back to Milwaukee.
That train has left the station.
Lazich continues to want so-called "majority rule" put into the Compact for water diversion approvals by the eight Great Lakes states to communities like Waukesha.
But wanting is one thing, and reality is another.
Across-the-board observers as diverse as then-Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager (2006) to the conservative Waukesha blogger Jim Widgerson last week have separately pointed out - - a unanimous approval from all eight states is the diversion approval procedure already etched into Federal law.
No state is going to give that up, and Wisconsin should not argue for it, since Wisconsin would be giving up its right to block a badly-designed diversion that could hurt the Great Lakes, too.
Lazich and others should also be careful of majority rule.
Sounds good (does she support it at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, SEWRPC, where the City of Milwaukee has no commission seats, but little Walworth and Ozaukee Counties each have three) but...
Is it a majority of those eight states, or a majority of the people in the those eight states?
Take majority rule to its logical, one-person-one-vote conclusion, and the states of Illinois, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania or Michigan could out-vote Wisconsin and Waukesha County any and every time.
What Mary Lazich wants and what the rest of the Great Lakes region and the Wisconsin legislature are going to do are very different things.
And thank goodness for that.
With the incumbent Justice Louis Butler under racial attack, and a challenger who has dissed the legal profession and voting public with a misleading ad, Paul Soglin correctly says that the Wisconsin State Journal's cowardly non-endorsement elevates only the challenger, Michael Gableman.
Newspapers that decline to endorse in these circumstances only enable negatives campaigns to succeed.
As Wisconsin blunders ahead on the next phase of its $6.5 billion freeway binge in Southeastern Wisconsin - - the brainchild of the regional planning commission's one-dimensional transportation (read: " highways") focus - - cities like Boston and Seattle are looking at simpler, less-expensive and city-friendly models.
Interestingly, those models are informed by Milwaukee's successful tear-down of the underutilized Park East Freeway ramp that led to millions in new development and that has opened up the Milwaukee River and linked the downtown to the North side.
Poor Boston: After suffering through gaudy cost overruns and at least one motorist fatality during the mess known as The Big Dig, it now turns out that $15-$19 billion in maintenance is going to have to come from the public to keep the rest of the state's highways from crumbling.
Talk about bleeding the public to support an essentially unsustainable system.
By the time that the freeway reconstruction plan in southeastern Wisconsin is finished, the Marquette Interchange will no doubt be ready for another fix and expansion and the highway Merry-go-Round in our rail-free city will deliver another trove of public dollars to the road-builders.
More information about to better integrate comprehensive transportation planning with city development is found at the Congress for the New Urbanism website, here.
Larry Sussman of the Journal Sentinel finds that business is good at two suburban restaurants that recently went smoke-free.
Of course, you wouldn't want the government, which establishes health codes throughout the culture, to do anything pro-active with this matter.
How might citizen input be handled at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC), now that the agency has selected long-time Deputy Director Ken Yunker as its next executive director?
Here's one little case study (and a previous posting, here.)
It was about a year ago that Patrick Marchese, an engineer and former leader at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Commission, gave a PowerPoint presentation at a meeting of the SEWRPC water study advisory committee.
The presentation suggested that the Public Policy Forum have a role in regional water policy planning: Marchese was a member of a Forum task force on water policy, and had SEWRPC's permission to give his presentation.
The Forum's work on regional water policy has found editorial praise from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as an example of regional cooperation with broad participation - - but that's not where SEWRPC is coming from.
It wants to be in charge, period, and anyone else having the temerity to offer any help gets dissed.
Yunker waited for Marchese to finish and then delivered to Marchese a tounge-lashing before the committee, claiming that the Public Policy Forum's group somehow had been operating arrogantly by not communicating better beforehand with SEWRPC - - as Yunker saw it.
Talk about inside-baseball taking precedence over the public interest.
Not to mention treating disrespectfully a member of the public whose presentation was scheduled.
I was at the meeting.
And in all my years attending public meetings as a reporter, or as a citizen observer, or as a local government official in both Madison and Milwaukee, I had never seen a member of the public treated by a government body that way - - especially a committee member scheduled to speak.
By a committee staffer!
Not long thereafter, Marchese, who had been trying to push the water advisory committee to broaden its focus past the parameters sought by the staff and other committee members, submitted his resignation.
The Associated Press lays out the case that the opportunistic Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, irked at State Supreme Court Justice's Louis Butler's pro-plaintiff opinion in the landmark lead paint liability case, helped create Michael Gableman's candidacy.
Which has since been steered towards sexier, scarier crime issues as a more likely route to victory.
Pretty cynical, as the crime focus has led to race-baiting, especially if you've got several million bucks to pour into Gableman's campaign.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Dan Egan reports at length from Georgia, where sprawl, population growth and resource overuse have dangerously drawn down the region's water supply.
And where politicians are going to wierd lengths to try and get their hands on water, including moving Georgia's borders to captures some water in Tennessee.
It's not a new story, but there's ample reason for the paper to send its water expert for some first-hand, page-one reporting.
There are parallels to the Waukesha County situation, as noted on this blog.
Having overused their resources, Waukesha political and business interests keep trying to rewrite a Great Lakes water management Compact already approved by four of the region's states to guarantee that Waukesha gets special access to the Great Lakes.
And invariably, these special interests call their 11 th-hour meddling minor tweaking, when in fact they want to undo years of negotiations that risk scuttling the Compact altogether.
Current federal law mandates that such water transfers be approved by all eight Great Lakes states, so the eased rules sought by Waukesha won't happen.
In 2006, the City of Waukesha pursued an even more audacious strategy: telling Gov. Jim Doyle in two confidential Lake Michigan diversion proposals (discovered through an Open Records request) that the Great Lakes basin boundary visible on the surface - - the subcontinental divide running atop Sunny Slope Hill and throughout much of eastern Wisconsin - - was something of a mirage.
The real basin boundary that controlled the city's legal right to Lake Michigan water, Waukesha argued, was beneath the ground, with unseen underground tributaries already connecting Waukesha to Lake Michigan.
In other words, Waukesha argued, it was already in the Great Lakes basin.
Voila!
With these connections already in place, so the city argued, Waukesha was entitled to grandfathering and 24 million gallons of Lake Michigan water a day, with no need to return a drop.
Gov. Doyle did not approve the applications, and the City of Waukesha says it has abandoned that back-door grandfathered activity and argument to pursue other strategies - - but they still can't shake their pattern of closed-door maneuvering, putting its credibility continually at risk.
So before we here in this region chuckle at wacky efforts in Georgia to find more water, remember that we've got boundary-movers and agreement-amenders and others tinkering with the Great Lakes right here.
The seven northern Illinois counties recently recreated, updated and improved their regional planning commission and the differences with SEWRPC's 1950's model couldn't be more striking.
Two planning commissions. Both made up of seven counties.
One takes its public planning role seriously.
The other, ours, behaves like a private consulting firm.
Compare their websites.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) site is interactive and detailed.
SEWRPC (the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission) - - boring site here - - likes to operate in the shadows, where technocrats meet and have little use for public participation.
The SEWRPC website - - its window to the world - - is a deliberate turnoff.
CMAP's, by contrast, is a trove of data, publications, video, links, and graphics that draw you in and encourage you to surf around, learn something and get in touch with employees for more information.
For goodness sake, it even carries the Executive Director's blog.
With comments!
A couple of years ago, I suggested to SEWRPC's now newly-designated Executive Director, Ken Yunker, that SEWRPC record its committee meetings and put them on the internet through streaming video.
Like so many suggestions to SEWRPC from the public, it went to planners' purgatory through "react and dismiss." (A recent example, the dismissal of all the comments received unanimously opposing the interchange for the Pabst Farm mall.)
And a blog by the SEWRPC Executive Director?
As the kids say these days by text, LOL.
And remember, it was Yunker who laid in the weeds at a meeting of the agency's water advisory committee, waited for a citizen member to finish a scheduled PowerPoint presentation that suggested another public policy group could have input into regional water policy-making - - then delivered a tounge-lashing before the committee that lead to the member's resignation.
History, here.
One more thing:
While SEWRPC filled its executive director position using closed doors and stealth, CMAP keep the public informed.
Including posting information about the hiring and candidate search process, mentioned on several occasions easily found in the CMAP site search function.
Example here.
The questions to SEWRPC:
Is this so hard?
Is it the money? Then stop buying your top staffers and consultants large American sedans and put that saving into technology for the public.
Stop doing things like forking over $73,000 to a consulting firm for the as-yet unimplemented suggestion to change your lengthy name from Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to The RPC of Southeastern Wisconsin.
True story. Thank you Gretchen Schuldt, July 16, 2007.
What do you have to hide besides throwing money away?
You still don't even post your commissioners' biographies. Some of them have been on the Commission for years, decades. Who are they really, and what do they do?
And to the county officials who keep including SEWRPC operating dollars in their annual budgets and shoveling them out to the agency's inaccessible offices in Pewaukee.
What are you getting out of this arrangement that is good for your taxpayers?
The more we read about Burnett County Circuit Judge Michael Gableman, the more we understand that he should never have been made a judge, let alone be positioned for the Supreme Court.
His campaign, bought and paid for by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, is an attack on the law itself.
Good thing the deal included loss of pay status for certain misdemeanors, I'd say.
State Sen. Ted Kanavas, (R-Brookfield), lauds the Twin Cities and Minnesota as models for Wisconsin to emulate.
I guess that means Kanavas is a big supporter of the Twin Cities' wildly-successful Hiawatha train system, the very sort of modern rail that Kanavas' party has kept out of Milwaukee.
The Twin Cities rail system has stimulated the construction of more than 7,000 housing units, as people and business builds along the routes, and ridership in the new system has already exceeded the pre-construction estimates for 2020.
Details here.
SEWRPC officials tell the Daily Reporter that picking a new Executive Director from within - - without public input and virtually no notice - - maintains political neutrality.
Wrong.
By excluding the public from the process, it merely reinforces the status quo, as SEWRPC acknowledges - - wherein corporate types keep their firm grip on their power and hone their connections.
That imbalance is inherently political. And while technically non-partisan, is there little wonder then that Republicans feel comfortable with SEWRPC's suburban, politically-conservative mindset?
Some nice connections made here by Franklin, WI blogger Greg Kowalski.
Must be suburban blogger day here.
Gretchen Schuldt, having struggled for years with SEWRPC's attitude and process (sic) over highway issues, takes note here of the agency's decision last Thursday to name its next Executive Director in secret.
I noted the last throes argumentation against a regional water agreement delivered the other day by State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) that her home town sorely needs.
Now the more conservative Waukesha County blogger James Widgerson continues to deconstruct Lazich's stance, here.
Frankly, Widgerson's method of turning Lazich's so-called arguments against her is almost too painful to read.
And his post on SEWRPC's closed-door hiring of a new Executive Director is worth a read, too, here.
More on SEWRPC's self-inflicted wounds, here.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission defied and poisoned its taxpayer-paid public planning mission when it completed three weeks of secret efforts with Thursday's closed-door selection of its next Executive Director, Kenneth Yunker.
[Note: this posting has been updated since 3/20, and is being reposted as a second take, II]
The agency's Executive Committee, an unelected arm of the unelected 21-member full commission, made the decision.
The committee makes up the inner-circle of a closed loop.
Not accountable through elections or normal political procsses, the committee shuttered itself in SEWRPC's Pewaukee office building's off-limits conference room, made the appointment, turned the final contract details over to an even more-obscure subcommittee and headed off to a holiday weekend while the news filtered out to the serfs who gathered a safe distance from the castle walls.
And "filtered out" is fair comment on the way the Journal Sentinel reported the agency's decision - - during what was ironically during the mainstream media's "Sunshine Week."
As it has done previously with some SEWRPC reporting, the paper carried a full account of the hiring decision in the paper's relatively small Waukesha edition's front page of the B, or local section.
That suggests the paper considers SEWRPC primarily of interest just in Waukesha County, not equally across the full seven-county region, or in Milwaukee County, which pays the largest share of the SEWRPC budget's operating funds each year.
In the main edition which includes Milwaukee, a briefer version of the story was placed by the paper in a metro section column of news bits inside on B-2, not far from "Easter egg hunt is rescheduled" in Germantown.
Yunker has been the agency's Deputy, so is being moved up administratively to the agency's directorship without a single public meeting, hearing, advertised search or interview procedure to justify the selection.
What a lost opportunity to bring the agency into the 21st century - - a matter I began to lay out here a couple of months ago once I began to hear that Evenson wanted out and a once-in-a-generation chance for SEWRPC change began looming.
Oddly, the Executive Committee made Yunker's appointment effective in January, 2009 - - so if there is more than eight months left in current Executive Director Phil Evenson's tenure, what was the rush to nail down Yunker's selection, and wasn't there ample time to search the country for candidates?
It's as if the agency wanted to make sure no one could force it to do a search, or gather local input, thus firmly isolating the new Executive Director from the outside world.
Talk about being sent out into a wider community already distrustful of government, and cynical about SEWRPC, yet completely stripped of credibility.
Once SEWRPC's intentions to choose and promote Yunker behind closed doors were made known - - in part through several postings on this blog - Evenson told the Journal Sentinel that the agency wasn't required to have a public process.
Which speaks volumes about how this 100% publicly-funded, seven-county planning agency functions, how it sees itself relative to the people who pay its bills. how far behind the times it really is.
There are libraries and archives galore at SEWRPC, but someone has snipped the words "disclosure" and "transparency " and "participation" from its dictionaries.
Two conservative bloggers have taken note of its questionable process, or lack of it, in picking Evenson's successor.
Chris Lato, here.
And James Widgerson, here.
Examples abound beyond the way the agency chose to bar the public from SEWRPC leadership selection.
SEWRPC finds it easy to shelve public comment through what planning professionals call "react and dismiss," in this case, the unanimously-recorded objections by citizens to fast-tracked highway spending for a special interchange to service a Pabst Farms' shopping center in western Waukesha County.
And it acquired its $4 million office building from one its favorite consulting firms without competitive bids - - details here - - a clear example of SEWRPC telling the taxpayers who pay its bills that the agency prefers to behave like a private business that makes its own rules .
I've argued for years that SEWRPC, by its actions, operates more like a special interest organization, like a suburban Chamber of Commerce, as opposed to a genuine public agency.
It pushes highway building for road contractors, and aids farmland conversion in the suburbs and exurbs for developers who also want roads for home buyers (not apartment dwellers).
That'll be the ultimate payoff in its three-year regional water supply study, another insider-dominated SEWRPC effort.
Close to a conclusion, that study will recommend - - its lead consultant is the same firm that sold SEWRPC its headquarters, and is also advising New Berlin on its Lake Michigan diversion application - - surprise! - -wide use of Lake Michigan water throughout the region, distributed by a new regional water authority, perhaps SEWRPC itself, or an agency it helps to create.
For the road-builders, developers, sprawl-seeking municipalities add SEWRPC's staff and consultants, the water supply study recommendations (which through more behind-the-scenes governmental alchemy become policy - - just you watch), will produce the regional rainbow's perpetual pot of gold.
So this is the right time for the counties, virtually mandated to pay SEWRPC's operating costs through a quiet property tax shift every year, to bring those payments to a close on behalf of the everyday taxpayers who gets nothing in return except the back of SEWRPC's hand.
Just strip those payments - - $2 million a year from the seven counties total - - out of the 2009 budget plans and either dedicate those dollars to another project - - pothole filling, perhaps, or just return them to the taxpayers who have been ripped off by SEWRPC long enough.
SEWRPC wants to behave like a private firm, then let it go out into the marketplace and fight for funding like the real private sector.
If it can raise the money, then it can go about producing studies and pitching them into the public square and see if anyone wants to buy in. We'll see just how valuable that work product really is, or whether the public wants different plans that mean something for everyday people:
Like open space, clean beaches, affordable housing, green development, transit that compensates for high gasoline prices, and more.
But let's stop paying the freight and giving SEWRPC the right to do all this work on land use and transportation, water and development, housing and telecommunications, with the public's imprimatur all over them.
Counties can pay for the planning services they need on their own, or in true partnership with each other.
They don't need to be paying for an autocratic agency that tells them to drop dead, but expects a perpetual bequeath in the will.
The headline, meant to grab attention, is unnecessarily fearful, but the content is extensive in this Small Business Times piece about the Great Lakes Compact.
Mike Gableman is withholding records sought under an Open Records request for documents.
That is a strange campaign strategy for a candidate for the state's highest court.
Details here.
The Dodge County District Attorney has withdrawn his campaign support for State Supreme Court candidate Michael Gableman, joining the critics of Gableman's now infamous and misleading Willie Horton- style TV spot.
Gableman continues to defend the ad.
I'm sure that national rightist 527 groups and the GOP are closely watching Mike Gableman's Supreme Court campaign to see if his notorious race-baiting ad helps defeat incumbent Justice Louis Butler.
They will use it as a measure of just how brazenly they can play the race card against Barack Obama, should be win the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Right has to be happy now that Willie Horton-type ads are back in vogue.
All the comedy/satire aside in last night's episode, make sure you watch the final fascinating interview and water purification demonstration with eclectic inventor Dean Kaman.
Program link here.
She's still trying to block a water agreement that would help her hometown get Lake Michigan water, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), tells the Small Business Times that Wisconsin legislators should partner with agreement obstructionists in the Ohio legislature dubbed "the lunatic fringe" by that state's leading newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
The agreement passed the Senate over Lazich's objections, is stalled in the State Assembly, and may yet be approved there in a special session that would mercifully bury Lazich's Ohio strategy.
State Rep. John Richards, (D-Milwaukee) gets it right.
Wisdom from the northwest corner of the state:
The Spooner Advocate calls out the two Assembly Republican renegades who are holding up the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin.
Bus ridership in Milwaukee County, falling.
Pothole expenses, rising.
Rail transit, non-existent.
Common complaint - - not enough money.
But the state is forging ahead with its $1.9 billion rebuilding and expansion of I-94 between Milwaukee and Illinois, all to squeeze a few minutes off that 38-mile commute.
Wisconsin's transportation problem is not a money shortage.
It's an idea shortage.
Scott Walker is engineering a huge pay raise for himself.
Now there's a political candidate who must be feeling pretty good about his chances, but is it the right thing to do, since Milwaukee County taxpayers' money is involved?
Walker is the Milwaukee County Executive.
Bill Christofferson, the blogger known as Xoff, explains what it means.
Most of the attention on new population estimates in our area focused on the modest gain in Milwaukee County,
And why not: the reversal of previous losses is a good thing.
What interested me was the growth - - steady but not spectacular - - in the other counties nearby - - 5.2% over the last seven years in Waukesha County, for instance.
Waukesha County officials and regional planners have been justifying the massive highway building underway and penciled in, or huge amounts of water from Lake Michigan, on growth scenarios that look much bigger than supported by these recent figures.
With baby-boom retirees more likely to head for warmer climes, and gasoline prices spiking with no end in sight, is there solid data around to justify the massive infrastructure spending ticketed for the region?
Outgoing SEWRPC Executive Director Philip Evenson tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the agency doesn't have to have an open hiring process to hire his replacement.
Just let an unelected, invisible SEWRPC committee meet in the agency's Pewaukee conference room in closed session Thursday at 2:00 p.m., pick the new director, perform the secret handshakes, announce it, run out of the momentary sunshine, and adjourn.
Some behavior by an agency that gets 100% of its budget from taxpayers - - homeowners and business taxed without representation.
So the appropriate response from the region's dissed taxpayers and their seven county boards, especially Milwaukee's, which automatically sends SEWRPC a big chuck of operating capital every year, should be:
"We don't need to send you any more money. You're not a public agency, so go raise your own budget, since you are deciding without our input how to lead the agency and spend our money."
I have been raising the alarm about this undemocratic scheme at SEWRPC for days on my blog: Some history is here.
And I am not sure, given the federal government's encouragement to SEWRPC that it do more intentional outreach in its programming - - leading the agency to form an Economical Justice Task Force and make other gestures towards openness (sic) - - whether snubbing its taxpaying constituents this boldly and baldly is even legal.
As a public relations move, in a democratic society, it's certainly tone-deaf, irrational and self-sabotaging.
Does SEWRPC even care?
If it goes ahead and picks Evenson's successor Thursday afternoon, with no public input at all, the message is clear:
We Just Want Your Money.
So the next time someone suggests that SEWRPC should be heard on regional cooperation, or public planning, just remind that person that SEWRPC forfeited its authority and credibility on March 20, 2008 - - the date on which it used a true Soviet-style template to pick its next leader - - in secret, operating and cooperating with no one in their inner circle, and then foisted the chosen one on the people.
If you're headed to Yellowstone National Park this summer to see the wild bison herd, think about leaving early: most of them are headed for the slaughterhouse.
Details, and an online petition of concern, here.
From the Taylor campaign, focusing on transit issues:
Dear Friend, This Saturday, March 22nd, Lena will board the route 20 bus on one of its final trips through Milwaukee.
She invites you to join her in calling attention to Scott Walker's deplorable mismanagement of our transit system.
The route 20 bus has long been a vibrant and important part of the Milwaukee County transit system, connecting the North and South sides of the city.
This route not only provides the citizens of Milwaukee County with transportation, but also a history lesson - this historic route runs along Caesar Chavez Drive and once passed by Borchert Field.
Today, the route 20 bus is in jeopardy and soon will be cut by Scott Walker.
Through misguided fiscal planning, Mr. Walker made the decision to cut bus routes and increase public transit fares. This has produced a public transit system that is ineffective and cost-inefficient at a time when rising gas prices are boosting public transportation ridership throughout the rest of the country.
We deserve better.
This Saturday, we hope you'll join us in standing together and standing strong against the mismanagement.
Lena will start at the route 20 bus stop at 12th and Wisconsin, in front of Gesu Church. We will ride the 4:08pm bus east to the Downtown Transit Center and ride back to 12th and Wisconsin leaving the Center at 4:35pm bus.
For more information or to RSVP, contact info@Lena2008.com.
Lena Taylor has pledged to make a stable transit system a priority as County Executive. But first, she needs your help to get elected.
Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you Saturday!
John Zapfel Campaign Manager Authorized and paid for by Committee to Elect Lena C. Taylor. Wilbert Taylor Treasurer
Though no search, screening or interviewing process has been announced, or implemented publicly, the "possible appointment" of an Executive Director is still on Thursday's agenda at SEWRPC's Executive Committee meeting, documents show.
Phil Evenson, the current Executive Director of the seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) told the agency February 28th that he did not want his contract renewed.
Since a item about his impending retirement appeared in last Friday's Journal Sentinel, and as a result of several items on my blog, there has been considerable speculation in the region about how and when SEWRPC might name Evenson's successor, and who that person might be if it is a quick, in-house promotion.
Several sources in regional governments have said this week they were trying to ascertain SEWRPC's procedures and intentions regarding the possible appointment: an email I sent Evenson last Friday about the matter has not been answered.
The Executive Committee has the authority to name Evenson's replacement.
Evenson was the agency's Deputy, the number-two official, when he replaced long-time Executive Director Kurt Bauer, who still serves as Executive Director Emeritus, and chairs SEWRPC's three-year water advisory committee study.
Evenson's having been promoted to replace his former boss Bauer has led to speculation that Ken Yunker, the current SEWRPC Deputy Executive Director, would be named Thursday as the next Executive Director, perhaps with a lengthy transition throughout much of 2008.
Evenson could stay on at SEWRPC as a consultant, using the Bauer model. Bauer has had an annually renewed half-time consultancy for many years following his mid-90's retirement, and also receives an office and car.
SEWRPC's leadership operates in and with a small insiders' loop, even though it is 100% publicly-funded.
Bauer also had a consultancy following his retirement as SEWRPC Executive Director at the high-profile Waukesha consulting firm of Ruekert & Mielke, which frequently contracts with SEWRPC and local governments in the region on water, land-use and other municipal issues.
Ruekert & Mielke is the lead consultant on the water supply study that Bauer chairs.
The committee will soon offer up alternative recommendations to resolve the region's water supply issues, including the controversial use of diversions from Lake Michigan to communities in Waukesha County.
The firm's senior water staffer, Steve Schultz, is writing much of the SEWRPC study, and also wrote concurrently, as a consultant, the pending Lake Michigan water diversion application for the City of New Berlin.
After Milwaukee County's Board of Supervisors dragged its feet supplying a $261,000 contribution to the water supply study's $1 million budget, Bauer helped secure the needed Milwaukee financing component from an obscure Milwaukee County public/private committee that had a budget comprised of real estate transaction fees.
Bauer was a member of that committee.
Among Bauer's other duties has been serving as the Milwaukee County Surveyor.
The network of planning consultants and officials in Waukesha who knew each other also paid off for both Ruekert & Mielke and SEWRPC when the agency wanted to move out of its offices in the old Waukesha County Historical Society in downtown Waukesha.
Evenson was authorized by SEWRPC's executive committee to negotiate the purchase of the agency's current Pewaukee office building from Ruekert & Mielke, on a no-bid basis, for about $4 million, according to SEWRPC records.
The Universtiy of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for Environmental Sustainability Education (CESE) is available online, here, with resources to access and bookmark, so check it out.
UW-M's School of Continuing Education, where the CESE is located, is among Milwaukee's under-appreciated assets, especially to out-of-Milwaukee environmental organizations and individuals.
Developers and the City of New Berlin are nailing down the final details for a major project to include a large hotel, convention facility - - and in water-strapped New Berlin - - a water park.
The new complex is in a portion of New Berlin that is outside of the Great Lakes basin, so its operations would rely upon water diverted from Lake Michigan - - if and when the city's diversion approval is obtained from regulators and the City of Milwaukee agrees to sell the water.
Two major points to consider:
Permission for the diversion to that portion of New Berlin requires the adoption of a regional water agreement known as the Great Lakes Compact.
But the Compact is stalled in the State Assembly, and obstructed, ironically, by New Berlin's State Senator, Mary Lazich, (R-), so New Berlin today does not have access to the water it needs to supply the project, and especially its water frolickers, with the water supply it wants.
Secondly: The hotel/convention facility/water park will be a direct competitor with Milwaukee's downtown convention center and nearby hotels.
Does it make economic sense for the City of Milwaukee to assist competitive development in New Berlin by selling it Milwaukee water?
And if the answer is deemed to be "Yes," or "Well, OK," then the next question is: At what price?
At a minimum, the New Berlin application, and especially the use of Lake Michigan water for this particular project, argue in favor of Milwaukee linking such water sales to formulas and prices that return to Milwaukee a portion of the tax-base enhancements in the buying community directly tied to the provision of water.
This is known as tax-base sharing, and its strategic value in the politics of water diversions in the region was favorably assessed by a legal consultant to the Waukesha Water Utility.
That consultant cited earlier business relocations and tax-base losses from Milwaukee to New Berlin's Industrial Park to support tax-base sharing as the way to help win Milwaukee's willingness to sell water to the suburbs.
Tax-base sharing, without regard to water, is already used in Minnesota to help guarantee that cities are not drained of their tax-base resources due to suburban development.
Milwaukee Alderman Michael Murphy has raised objections to the New Berlin diversion application, and Lazich has called tax-base sharing "extortion."
Information and references here and here.
Lazich's histrionics aside, tax-base sharing helps put dollars, substance and equity into regional cooperation.
Some history and a link to the Waukesha consultant's memo, are here.
Add the City of Brookfield to the municipalities interested in obtaining Lake Michigan water through the City of Milwaukee.
With some of the water ticketed for land outside of the Great Lakes basin, in Brookfield's southeastern corner.
Already on that out-of-the-basin list: The City of New Berlin, which has an application pending, and the City of Waukesha, which has consultants studying how to craft a formal application after two back-door applications to Gov. Jim Doyle went nowhere in 2006.
But with the legal structure for such applications stuck in the GOP-controlled State Assembly, all these applications are on hold.
Brookfield says it does need Lake Michigan water now.
Waukesha is pursuing new wells in the Town of Waukesha through land condemnation.
New Berlin says it needs the water now, though it could already have solved its water supply issues by purchasing radium-contamination removal filters that Brookfield has in operation.
There is talk that the State Assembly may approve the Compact following negotiations underway in Madison that would require Gov. Jim Doyle's approval, and also the State Senate's, since the Compact was already approved there with bi-partisan support.
Up to now, GOP leaders in the Assembly have turned a deaf ear to the pleas of New Berlin and Waukesha's Mayors who favor the Compact.
These Assembly Republicans have instead lined up with the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Metropolitan Builders Association, who, like State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), would rather throw the entire Compact approval process among the eight Great Lakes states into chaos than approve the Senate bill.
These business and political leaders want negotiations among the states re-opened to weaken diversion procedures, but those negotiations ended after four years in 2005, and the 27 months have been taken up with serious debates in the Great Lakes states, state-by-state, that have produced widespread agreement that the Compact, as written, is sound state and Great Lakes regional policy.
And: The State Senate bill affirms what four of the other states have already approved; adding Brookfield to the growing list of Waukesha County communities that need a workable Compact in place to meet their local water supply needs makes it more likely that, in the end, the Assembly will approve the Compact without major, deal-killing changes.
As I have noted a couple of times since Sunday on this blog - - one posting here - - the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's agenda for its Thursday executive committee meeting suggests that it may announce a new Executive Director for the agency following a closed committee session.
The committee has that authority: the incumbent, Philip Evenson, told the committee on February 28th that he did not want his contract extended, and he confirmed that to the Journal Sentinel on Friday.
OK. So far, so good.
But there has been no SEWRPC publicly-confirmed search process announced. No candidate selection parameters. No hearings scheduled, no public participation sought, no process disclosed, no tying the agency's mission to candidates' qualifications, expectations, etc.
SEWRPC is a 100% taxpayer-funded agency, with a mission established by state law that authorizes critical planning, land-use, transportation, housing and other important matters for seven counties.
As we speak, it is more than halfway through a water supply study that will influence development, housing, land-use and highway patterns in the region for decades.
Its work, already taking place in an obscure building in Pewaukee, and without any representation from the City of Milwaukee, despites having the largest municipal population in SEWRPC's region, cries out for more, not less public input.
If one SEWRPC committee made up of virtually invisible members can pick an Executive Director without effective public notice and involvement, then "taxation without representation" should be stamped on the agency's logo.
And if SEWRPC wants to behave more like a private consulting firm and less like a public agency, county officials across the region who automatically approve operating fund transfers to SEWRPC at budget-approval time need to think seriously about withdrawing their money or their participation from SEWRPC.
The Chicago Tribune recently catalogued the large expansion in greenhouse gas emissions across the Great Lakes region that will result from the planned increase in oil refining, including the seven-fold spike in capacity at Murphy Oil's Superior facility.
The Great Lakes oil refineries scheduled for large expansions will process heavy Canadian tar sand crude oil extracted with huge expenditures of money, energy and water resources.
The resulting air pollution is at odds with the Great Lakes governors' recent regional commitments to solving global warming with conservation measures and energy alternatives.
And a large expansion at Superior would expose the cleanest of the Great Lakes to pollution just as Superior residents and the region's fish and wildlife are beginning to reap the benefits of a $6.3 million cleanup of earlier polluted runoff from refinery operations.
Some details and history, here.
The uproar over a race-baiting television advertisement paid for by the Mike Gableman for Supreme Court campaign - - not an outside group, by the way - - has led to a formal complaint with the State Judicial Commission (text of story at the bottom).
That's all well and good, but it's after-the-fact, the ad is still on the air, so the swift-boating damage is already done to Butler's campaign.
And shame on the Gableman campaign for crafting, airing and continuing to defend it.
Butler is an African-American; the ad falsely implies that Butler released an African-American defendant back into the community, where the defendant re-offended.
Butler was not a judge during the case. He was the defendant's public defender. But the ad shows Butler and the defendant in unflattering, attack ad-style smear photos side-by-side.
What they have in common is their race, nothing more.
It's a Willie Horton-type ad, and drags Wisconsin into racist mud - - in a campaign for the State Supreme Court, no less.
Those parsing, chuckling about or defending the ad - - Gableman supporter Charlie Sykes did not, calling the ad misleading (Sykes' analysis and the ad are here,) - - are essentially confirming that when an African-American runs for statewide office, that candidate will be openly attacked using race as the club.
Counter-balance that negative, nasty, Jim Crow-George Wallace era attitude with the effort by Barack Obama today to try and move the political process past racial divisiveness towards dialogue and understanding.
Race has no place in the State Supreme Court campaign.
It's there only because Butler is African-American, and the state is overwhelmingly Caucasian, and the Gableman campaign cynically thinks the route to winning a seat on our state's highest court is to appeal to some voters' worst fears.
Gableman may win, but will always be known as the candidate who played the dirtiest of race cards to get there.
Journal Story text about the complaint is below:
TUESDAY, March 18, 2008, 1:01 p.m.
By Stacy Forster
Group files complaint over high court ad
Madison -- A group has filed a complaint with the state's Judicial Commission over a controversial ad from Mike Gableman in this year's state Supreme Court race.
Gableman, a Burnett County circuit judge, started running an ad last week that some say misrepresents the facts in a case handled by Justice Louis Butler when he was a public defender, and Citizen Action of Wisconsin has asked the commission to investigate whether the ad violates the judicial code of ethics.
Gableman's campaign continued to defend the ad.
The code says, "A candidate for a judicial office shall not knowingly or with reckless disregard for the statement's truth or falsity misrepresent the identity, qualifications, present position, or other fact concerning the candidate or an opponent. A candidate for judicial office should not knowingly make representations that, although true, are misleading, or knowingly make statements that are likely to confuse the public with respect to the proper role of judges and lawyers in the American adversary system."
"If Mike Gableman is willing to mislead the public and violate the judicial ethics code merely for political gain, think about what he would do on the bench," Robert Kraig of Wisconsin Citizen Action said in a statement.
The group said the ad misrepresents the facts of the case by implying that Butler was a judge at the time and that Butler's actions resulted in the release of the child molester, Reuben Lee Mitchell.
Gableman campaign adviser Darrin Schmitz downplayed the complaint, saying it was a "stunt from a left-leaning citizen action group" that is filled with meritless claims and falsehoods.
"The ad is factual, the so-called complaint is meritless and is based on falsehoods," Schmitz said. "Citizen Action is simply trying to divert voters' attention away from the clear choice in the race."
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation makes clear in a statement that it was big business - - including the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, et al - - that blocked final legislative approval to return the state Department of Natural Resources Secretary's position to its historical, non-partisan selection and role.
The WWF noted the reform plan, overwhelmingly popular and approved by the State Senate, was killed at the last minute by the State Assembly through money and influence.
Some additional background here.
It's also important to put the WMC's opposition to a measure of public control of the DNR into context: the WMC opposed a wide range of progressive policy issues in Wisconsin - - clean air, health care and so on.
A summary is here.
One Wisconsin Now (OWN), a statewide media and policy hub has even initiated a WMC Watch website to track and explain WMC's influence.
Pollution in China could pose a threat to athletes sucking in dirty air at this summer's Olympic Games, officials say.
We sympathize: why should a runner, or spectator, put himself or herself at risk at foolishly-scheduled events?
So here's a question: Chicago is the US entry for the 2016 Olympic Games, and that city does not meet allowable smog standards unveiled last week by the US Environmental Protection Agency, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Milwaukee would love to have some Olympic venues right here in our city, and Milwaukee doesn't meet the new standard, either.
According to this video presentation by a Chicago games' representative at a recent meeting of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, some possible Olympic events in Milwaukee are under discussion.
That's sure be cool.
So, sure, it's all a long ways off, and the whole Chicago 2016 bid might get rejected by the International Olympic committee.
But wouldn't just the possibility be another incentive for the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and other dirty air apologists to stifle their whining about government health regulations, and help the region get into compliance?
This is "Sunshine Week," when reporters and editors focus attention on closed government.
Great. So let's throw open the curtains.
Where is the reporting, other than on this blog, here, about the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's apparently closed, fast-track process to hire a new Executive Director for this crucial public agency?
Yes, public agency.
It was created by, and operates under guidelines established in, state statutes.
The agency's entire budget comes from taxpayer dollars - - federal, state and local property taxes from seven counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth.
Scientists say they may never discover why the major run of this year's Chinook salmon in the lower 48 states never happened.
The point is - - what we take for granted in the environment can change suddenly, with profound consequences - - so with these precious natural resources, it's better to be safe than sorry.
In the long debate about whether the Great Lakes Compact should be approved in Wisconsin, there have been any number of off-the-cuff statements claims thrown out by those want easy access to Lake Michigan water for distant communities, like:
We only want a tiny bit of water.
The Lakes will never miss it.
Diversion rules shouldn't apply to us: It's not a diversion if we call it something else.
We're working to see if we can return most of it.
The current, historic lows in the lakes are a blip.
We'd never let happened to the ruined Aral Sea happen to Lake Michigan.
And so on.
My point is failed stewardship on its own, or in concert with other forces, natural or artificial, can suddenly produce unintended or minimized consequences - - especially if you are not eternally vigilant, forward-thinking and rigorously honest and open about your plans and goals.
One day there's the biggest salmon run in the US south of Alaska. Then it's gone.
One day Lake Michigan and Lake Superior are at relatively-average depths, then ships are scraping the bottom in harbors as historic lows are hit.
Don't think that minimizing and spinning is a substitute for science, planning and conservation of a public resource.
And don't take the Great Lakes for granted.
One Wisconsin Now (OWN) took the lead in disclosing the failings of the most-recent State Supreme Court candidates (Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman) financed by the powerful business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC).
Today, OWN takes disclosure about the WMC to a higher level with the rollout of WMC Watch, a web-based trove of constantly-updated information about who and what the WMC is, how it operates, and where it is headed.
This is definitely an advance in progressives' use of the Internet, making available a site to be bookmarked, checked daily and posted far and wide as a link.
As I have pointed out more than once, the WMC is on the wrong side of many important issues facing Wisconsin right now: air pollution, tax fairness, health care reform, Great Lakes conservation, etc.
Shining sunlight on the WMC should help advance a genuine public agenda in the state.
OWN's release on the website's goals and functions is here.
(My standard personal disclosure, again: I sit on one of two OWN boards, but was not involved in the creation of this website).
Murphy Oil gets high praise for helping with a $6.3 million contamination cleanup near its Superior, WI, refinery (the company's contribution: $200,000, with taxpayers paying the rest).
The good news in that Superior Herald Telegram story: more species are returning to the previously-fouled area.
But the story avoids mentioning that the refinery is on the cusp of a seven-fold increase in refining capacity.
Processing heavy, Canadian tar sand crude, then piping it out in a new distribution system also to be constructed.
Needing, in all, the filling of 400-500 acres of wetlands, which Murphy expects both federal agencies and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to approve when permit applications are made later this year.
Yet these same agencies are working to restore once-fouled waters and land that are part of the same watershed on which the expanded refinery would be built and operated.
"But besides dealing with the contaminated sediments, the EPA and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources want to return the area to its natural state and encourage the animals, critters, bugs and birds to return," says the Telegram story.
Natural state?
Are you kidding?
What will the chances be of obtaining that lofty restoration goal with the expanded refinery requiring the largest wetlands filling in Wisconsin since the passage of the US Clean Water Act of 1972, the beginning of Earth Day in 1970, and other environmental and public health landmarks?
How many ways can you say "contradiction?"
How little value was left in the JP Morgan rescue of investment banking house Bear Stearns?
At $270 million - - a sum not overly less (heck, maybe with inflation, it's equal?) than current Yankee ballplayer Alex Rodriguez's $252 million deal in 2000 with the Texas Rangers - - the deal even includes the failed firm's Madison Ave. headquarters.
A year ago, Bear Stearns stock was at $170 per share. Today, in its fire sale acquisition by JP Morgan, with government backing - - $2 per share.
Anyone giving Pres. George Bush the news? Maybe he'll suggest we all go shopping. If it helps prevent terrorism, maybe we can all prop up the economy with a run to Target.
Just a few days ago, our fearless leader said the economy seemed OK to him, so we're still shoveling $12 billion a week out to Iraq.
Ah, who needs that dough: the Fed can apparently just print more.
Can you say weak dollar, getting weaker? Can you say high oil prices, sure to spike again and again?
Hold onto your hats and your IRA accounts' equity as the markets open Monday.
At this rate, we'll be lucky to get out of this downturn with only a recession - - which is why I predict you won't hear our radio squawkers yammering too much come Monday about creeping (galloping?) socialism and the Nanny State/Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns and the US banking system, if need be.
Talk show hosts certainly are a luxury, an afternooon bon-bon, a discretionary item for station owners if shrinking, ad-driven budgets need trims.
The microphone jocks could be replaced in a nano-second with cheaper alternatives: interns, community volunteers, even canned music or giveaway programs, like the repugnant, but free-to-stations "The Savage Nation," with Michael Savage.
So I suspect our radio rangers will applaud, or at least diplomatically stifle any ideological complaints about the Federal Reserve's actions, since our local conservative AM talkers are too old and privileged to enjoy selling pencils or apples on the street corner.
(New York Times banking story details here.)
More evidence that glacial melt is increasing.
With consequences ranging from drinking water loss, greater heat absorption on the earth's surface and in the oceans, etc.
No doubt climate change deniers will find something to attack, probably that the worldwide data collection is being distributed by the United Nations.
Or that video of actual humans tending to huge Bunsen burners underneath the glaciers has not been posted on YouTube yet, thus absolving people of any role in the phenomenon.
Much is being made of a new way to bring federal health care funding into the state budget, where the revenue - - health care reimbursements - - could help plug a deficit.
Some are calling the way the money gets claimed a new state tax on hospitals - - endorsed after a change in positions by, of all groups, the knee-jerk, anti-tax Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
Some history, courtesy of Paul Soglin, here.
The way I see it, the WMC is less endorsing a new 'tax' than it is backing a sensible accounting method aimed at getting federal funding to which Wisconsin taxpayers are entitled.
That's a good thing, but let's not get too giddy about the prospects of the WMC getting all progressive on us. They just know a good deal when they saw it: the story is that it took them a while to see past their own ideology.
And note that doctrinaire anti-tax legislators are still balking at the plan because to them, it's a tax - - and a tax is a tax is a tax.
The agenda for Thursday's 3/20 meeting of the Executive Committee of SEWRPC, the southeast regional planning commission, indicates that an appointment of a new agency Executive Director could take place following a closed session.
The agenda is here.
Agenda item #5 says that the Executive Committee will go into closed session "to consider the employment, promotion, compensation or performance of the Executive Director position," before returning to open session.
Then item #6 says "Possible appointment of a successor to the present Executive Director."
This seems to conflict with a search and hiring procedure outlined in the minutes of the previous Executive Committee meeting, on February 28th, which discusses a "broad search," though makes clear the Executive Committee retains all authority in filling the position.
The minutes are here.
Public input into the process, or movement towards not only new leadership, but to a new mission and approach for the Pewaukee-based agency - - on which the City of Milwaukee, with a population exceeding any of the non-Milwaukee Counties making up the SEWRPC region, has absolutely zero representation?
Or any movement towards a change in the way the agency does its basic business - - a management scheme that has excluded minorities and low-income participation for decades, failed to write a housing plan for its seven-county region, and left transit completely out of the $6.5 billion freeway-only transportation program it wrote for the state a few years ago for on-going implementation?
Doesn't seem to be on the agenda; some ideas are here.
Philip Evenson, the current executive director, told the Journal Sentinel last last week that he intended to retire at the end of the year.
So why the rush, and why is SEWRPC - - with 100% of its funding from taxpayer sources - - already lapsing into closed session/opaque mode when transparency would give the agency much-needed credibility?
There's talk of a deal to approve a compromised Great Lakes Compact bill.
Which is curious, as the version approved by the State Senate affirms the Compact as is, while the Assembly version sought such basic changes in diversion procedures that four other Great Lakes states would have to redo their own bills.
Pretty unlikely.
A deal could involve concessions in DNR rules or procedures down the road when diversion implementation, particularly to the City of Waukesha, would come into play.
There could also be Democratic trade-offs in other matters, such as details in the budget repair bill.
Not too clear on what's in it for the Dems and the Governor, since the GOP's obstructionism was so one-sided and blatant.
Time may tell.
Authorities trumpet a crackdown on St. Patrick's Day drunk driving - - which sounds smart, given the documented history of fatal OWI crashes that day - - until you read that the crackdown means "no warnings" to impaired drivers.
Do you mean to tell me that some suspected drunk drivers are merely warned, then allowed to weave back down the road?
For a more enlightened approach, read the related remarks of Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, here.
You get the word "misleads" in an AP newstory lede.
That'll make other media and commentators sit up and take notice.
Let the lawyer/blogger Illusory Tenant tell the story.
Thanks to the Small Business Times for publicizing new, low-fare bus service in the Midwest, including Chicago-Milwaukee roundtrips, via internet-only reservations.
The service is called Megabus.
Details here.
The Sheboygan Press editorially notes its county readers breathe the dirtiest air in the state, tied with Door County.
The paper should focus some of its outrage at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, or a certain high-profile mainstream media employee-blogger, who think the government should ease, not tighten the rules that could make Wisconsin's air cleaner.
Phil Evenson, SEWRPC's Executive Director, announced he is leaving his position at the end of 2008.
There was a small story about it in the Waukesha edition of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, below, begging the questions of how and when the new director will be named, and if there will be any public participation.
The agency's annual budgets are 100% public funded: each of seven counties in the region has three members on the SEWRPC board.
There are rumors among regional sources of a quick appointment, perhaps the in-house promotion of deputy director Kenneth Yunker.
In January I posted an extensive analysis of SEWRPC's historical and structural deficiences, and made some suggestions about how SEWRPC and the public bodies that fund it could begin to reshape the agency.
That analysis is here - - and a change at the helm would be the perfect time to begin to make SEWRPC's mission and activities much more transparent and relevant, even cutting-edge.
Of course, that can't happen unless SEWRPC and other regional officials and agencies get together and decide that SEWPRC needs to change and the public needs genuine input into its personnel and performance decisions.
Here is the newspaper story about Evenson's planned departure:
Waukesha County Community Briefing
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: March 13, 2008
Plan commission chief plans to retire
Village of Pewaukee - The longtime head of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has announced plans to retire at the end of this year.
Phil Evenson, who has been the commission's executive director for 12 years, said he decided not to seek renewal of an employment contract that expires in December.
"I'm ready to take it a little bit easier," he said. "I'm like Brett Favre - I'm tired."
Evenson, 68, has worked more than 40 years on the commission, which gets taxpayer support to plan transportation, development and other growth issues in a seven-county region surrounding Milwaukee.
His salary is $127,480 a year.
Appointed trustees of the village of Pewaukee-based planning agency are scheduled to consider a possible successor next week.
Mike McCabe uses the Assembly's stonewalling of popular DNR reform legislation (I had also written about it, here) to again highlight the power of big business at the State Capitol.
A few more examples - - health care, water conservation, tax fairness, are catalogued here.
And on the electoral side, here.
This struck me again when the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce continued lobbying against cleaner air in southeastern Wisconsin while the number of dirty air alerts from the DNR grew during the fall and winter.
And, of course, the WMC has influenced the blockade in the State Assembly of the Great Lakes Compact, a very dangerous development for the future of the Great Lakes.
The WMC has a huge lobbying presence staff and access to loads of cash to insert into the State Capitol.
But the harder the group works the Capitol, or the State Supreme Court campaigns, the more the WMC puts itself on the wrong side of many popular issues: credible government, clean air, water conservation, universal health care - - and in the DNR management debate that McCabe and I have blogged about - - a democratic method of selecting the DNR Secretary overwhelmingly endorsed by conservationists, environmentalists and the so-called "hook-and-bullet crowd" statewide.
Could it be that with its its short-term successes saying "No" - - blocking the Compact, or preserving its ability to influence the DNR's management - - the WMC is indelibly indetifying itself as selfish and elitist, which is 180 degrees different than the iconic Wisconsin Idea and the state's progressive history.
If it becomes branded as the Anti-Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce - - outside mainstream thinking and activity - - its power can be diluted and influence lessened.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk delivered the following speech to Madison's Downtown Rotary on Wednesday.
I'm posting the text below:
It’s a beautiful fall Saturday. You know Camp Randall is going to be rocking.
Michigan is coming to town. You say goodbye to the kids and head out to meet your buddies at your favorite college hang-out downtown.
Kick-off isn’t for several hours so you have plenty of time to knock back some beer.
By kick-off you’ve got a good buzz and everyone gets a good laugh when you miss the curb leaving the bar headed for the stadium.
I’ll stop there. How many people in this room have a concern or a problem with the behavior I’ve described?
Some of you are thinking…oh great here we go…another do-gooder preaching. Come on Falk….lighten up….have some fun. And let the rest of us have some fun, too.
Please hear me out for a few minutes here today.
I want to share with you some startling statistics that tell a disturbing story about how and how much we drink in Wisconsin.
I want to paint a picture of the human and societal costs of that drinking.
And I want to respectfully suggest that all of us need to think twice and maybe reconsider how we feel about situations like the one I just described.
Why?
Because the fact that many people in our state accept – and laugh about –that situation is symptomatic of a larger, cultural norm here in Wisconsin…a norm that not only tolerates but encourages excess alcohol consumption…consumption that is dangerous, deadly, destructive and costly.
And I think we can only make lasting inroads in reducing the human misery associated with alcohol abuse if we change that culture.
(Turn on cartoon on overhead screen)
That Wisconsin State Journal cartoon says a lot.
You know, there really is no easy way to begin this conversation…but it’s a conversation we need to start…and we need as many people as possible to be a part of it.
What you see in this cartoon….is this really the way we want to be thought of?
Let’s look at some cold, hard facts about drinking in Dane County and Wisconsin.
It’s tough to pick up the newspaper or turn on the news and not see stories about people arrested for their third, fourth, fifth, sixth, even their 13th drunk driving offense.
Two weeks ago, Dane County deputies arrested a Stoughton man on a Friday night for his sixth OWI and a Madison man the next night for his fifth OWI. Two days later a squad car was rear-ended by a drunk driver.
The very next night….deputies picked up a man in Windsor for his fifth drunk driving offense.
Keep in mind: these are stories from a five-day stretch…and this is just what made the papers.
A Capital Times headline earlier this year this year was a real head-turner: “Man Convicted for 13th OWI.”
So while we might become accustomed to reading these stories and we might even begin to think these kinds of incidents are typical, I want to assure you: Wisconsin is not typical in this regard. We are not normal.
Wisconsin has the absolute worst rate of binge and chronic heavy drinkers in the nation. Nearly 50-percent of our high school students drink…that’s more than any other state. We have the worst rate of underage drinking in the country.
Wisconsin has one and a half times the national rate of arrests for operating while intoxicated.
In a ten-year period from 1994 to 2004 three times as many people were arrested in this state for alcohol violations than the national average.
In our state….twice as many adults drive after having too much to drink than in other states. It should not be a surprise then that Wisconsin has the highest percentage of fatal auto crashes involving alcohol in the nation…no State is worse than we are.
In 2006, there were 8,400 crashes caused by alcohol in Wisconsin. More than 300 people were killed and 5,600 others were hurt in those wrecks.
So in just one year, nearly 6,000 people – each with family, friends, and co-workers – were hurt or lost their lives all because someone got behind the wheel after drinking.
Here in Dane County, about 3,000 people are booked on drunken driving charges in this county each year.
Deputies respond to around 800 car crashes each year where alcohol is a factor. More than 40% of the fatal car crashes last year involved alcohol.
But get this: three to four times as many people die in alcohol related traffic crashes…than are murdered in Dane County each year. A drunk driver is a lethal weapon.
Now, I think most of us believe that Dane County and Wisconsin are great places to live. I certainly do. We have a high quality of life. Good jobs. Good schools. 60 great communities. Beautiful farms and lakes and natural resources.
With all we have going for us, why do we accept the carnage due to too much alcohol?
Is it because we think we can’t change it? Because we think it’s always going to be this way? Because it is someone else’s responsibility to deal with this problem? Because that’s “just how things are”?
Alcohol makes us less safe not only on the roads but in other ways as well.
When it comes to crime, at the time of a sexual assault, nearly 40% of offenders and almost two-thirds of victims are under the influence.
Alcohol is a factor in 30-percent of the physical assaults in our state.
The health risks are startling.
Alcohol abuse leads to higher risks of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, cirrhosis of the liver and pancreatitis.
In 2005, nearly 17,000 Wisconsinites were so impaired by alcohol or drugs they needed to be hospitalized.
Alcohol abuse knows no age, gender, or socio-economic barrier. Men and women, young and old, rich and poor are all affected.
Wisconsin women lead the nation in binge drinking. More Wisconsin women, ages 19-44, prime child-bearing age…drink here than anywhere else in the country.
One in three of these women report having alcohol to drink during their pregnancy. This increases dangerous risk factors….jeopardizes the well being of the baby….and increases the risk of low birth-weight and other developmental problems.
Twenty-five percent of children in this country – one of every four children – are exposed to alcohol abuse in the family.
That means in Dane County nearly 25,000 kids under the age of 18 go home to dads or moms who could be everything from passed out on the couch to verbally abusive or physically dangerous.
Our young people are also putting themselves at tremendous risk due to their drinking, which is often excessive, binge-type behavior that is frighteningly dangerous.
A youth assessment taken in 2000 showed half of the guys in Wisconsin high schools and 40-percent of the gals reported they had been binge drinking at least one time in the past month.
More than 20-percent of those over the age of 16 reported riding in a motor vehicle with a teen driver who was under the influence.
UW-Madison police issued more than one-thousand underage drinking tickets to UW students in 2006. Campus police report finding students unresponsive in their own beds and in bathroom stalls…lying in their own vomit.
Students have fallen out of bed, off their bikes, down flights of stairs…and worse… while drunk.
Finally, let’s just consider briefly the economic price we pay for alcohol abuse.
In Dane County, we spend about $50-million in tax dollars each year to run our jail. Nearly half of the sentenced inmates in the jail…are there for drunk driving.
Many others behind bars for domestic violence or assault or battery were under the influence of too much alcohol. Many inmates are repeat offenders who cycle in and out of the criminal justice system because alcohol continues to drive their behavior.
It makes sense then, that as we see people with drug and alcohol dependencies come back to jail again and again, we focus resources on treatment programs to break that cycle.
Here in Dane County, we spend nearly eight million each year on such programs. That’s a major commitment. And we’ve had results…for example, our Pathfinders program that provides treatment to offenders works.
But as I review the statistics I’ve shared with you today, I’m struck by this thought:
Treating the consequences of alcohol abuse and treating those who suffer from it, is important work that we should do as efficiently and humanely as we can….but can’t we do more to prevent this to begin with?
Part of the reason you hired me as your county executive – and I’m honored to say you’ve kept renewing my contract for 11 years now – was that you want someone who likes solving problems and this is what I love doing. By bringing people together to find solutions we’ve done much.
There are lots of people doing lots of work on this issue across the county, including many people in this room. Together, we’re helping some people and making a dent in the problem….but clearly these statistics suggest there is much more to be done.
That’s why I’m determined to spend this spring and summer trying to figure out what else we can do, smarter or better, than what we are doing now.
This is NOT about putting a stop to Friday night fish fries. It isn’t about that glass of wine you have with dinner. It isn’t about grabbing a beer after work with your buddies.
It isn’t about stopping drinking to celebrate. It’s about stopping the celebration of drinking.
It is about exploring this mindset that we somehow should be proud of, or amused by, or find “normal” those who drink just to get drunk.
It’s about changing the perceptions you saw in those cartoons I showed you earlier. It’s about keeping kids safe, people alive, families together and improving our public safety and health.
It’s about doing more for our young people who right now grow up in a culture of thinking the only things to do on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night involves a bottle-opener, a screw cap or a keg.
It’s about changing a cultural mindset where drinking alcohol to excess is seen as a “rite of passage.”
It’s about changing adult behavior so our children and grand-children grow up seeing us acting differently than we do now.
I know we are taking on a sacred cow in this state. I know there are many powerful interests that profit from the way things are right now.
I’m willing to take that on. And I think there are corporate citizens who will be eager to help. But quite frankly the biggest obstacle is ourselves – thinking our drinking culture is normal. I need your help.
Now, I'm not naive about the magnitude of this problem: I grew up in a household where my father was an alcoholic. Everyone here likely knows a co-worker, a good friend, or a loved one who suffers from the misuse of alcohol and you know, like I do, how intractable a problem it can seem to be.
Maybe it is precisely because the problem seems so big and the struggle so difficult that we don’t do more to tackle it.
It may be that we feel hopeless and think we can’t change it. But I think we can.
I’m going to spend the next five months doing my homework: studying, reading, listening, and reviewing the options for how we can best move forward.
I’ll produce a set of steps I think we need to take. This is how I’ve worked to help solve other big problems, whether its policy for preventing sprawl, cleaning up our lakes or helping moms and dads in our poorest neighborhoods find jobs.
I’ll do the research, do the homework and most importantly listen; it’s a model that has served us well in the past.
I’ve also assembled a smart team, lead by Carol Lobes and Judy Adrian, to help. But I need your help. Now.
We all need to look inside ourselves and think twice about what we’re willing to accept as appropriate. Whether it’s looking in the mirror or talking with a co-worker, friend, or family member…we all can be part of the solution.
Our community can be different.
Let’s start with agreeing we can change a culture –ours -- that accepts alcohol abuse. This isn’t something that any one person or any one law can change. There is no silver bullet. This isn’t something that will happen overnight but we need to start somewhere. We have done other hard things.
Think back 20 years. Remember how widely accepted, how much of a cultural norm smoking was?
How about recycling? You couldn’t have convinced me 20 years ago that one day it would just be a way of life for people to recycle…and even have their own carts to do it.
These new norms have been achieved without huge government mandates.
They’ve happened because people worked together, educated one another, and were open to change. The end result…is progress.
Despite what the cartoonists poke fun at…we aren’t born in this state with the innate know-how to drink. Behaviors….both good and bad….are influenced by what we see going on around us.
Drinking is a learned behavior.
My wise Irish mother may have said it best. I remember calling her many years ago when my son was much younger to ask her advice on what I could do to get him to listen to me. As moms and dads…we’ve all been there.
I’ll never forget what she told me. It’s not what you say. It’s how you get up every day and live your life that teaches your children.
We learn from each other’s behavior. We set the expectations for one another.
What do you say….should we start today?
****
James Widgerson makes some sense on the Great Lakes Compact, proving that not every Waukesha County Republican is willing to follow Mary Lazich off the cliff.
New York State has joined Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota in approving the Great Lakes Compact.
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are in varying stages of debating the agreement, with Ohio and Wisconsin appearing to be the most serious obstacles.
Both those states have opponents who, citing state's rights and baseless fears about groundwater protection, believe the Compact can be renegotiated.
The four states and two Canadian provinces that have approved the Compact, however, are unlikely to re-open negotiations that ran from 2001-2005, and which have led in the last 28 months to the Compact's growing acceptability.
Charlie Sykes big annual "Insight " live radio panel at the Country Springs Hotel in Waukesha Wednesday was aired today.
One of the low-lights: a couple of the panelists talked over each other to eagerly agree that Milwaukee County Executive candidate Lena Taylor was "crazy."
They threw a few other adjectives the Milwaukee State Senator's way - - like "incompetent."
Nice.
Hard to identify the classy panelists who ganged up on Taylor, but the podcast portion of his blog should help.
The US Environmental Protection Agency - - an arm of the pro-business, pro-growth Bush administration - - wants to bring about modestly cleaner air, with less ozone, in 345 US counties.
The EPA didn't accept the plan endorsed unanimously by its own scientific panel for a more stringent approach, and backed a compromise.
Some of those counties are in Wisconsin - - Door, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine and Sheboygan - - but one conservative blogger from Milwaukee County, where ozone levels need improvement, thinks the EPA is wrong.
Stunning.
Or not.
Give the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce credit:
They must ascribe to that old saw that no publicity is bad publicity, as it is publicity galore that they are getting these days.
But it's not all about their attack ads in the State Supreme Court race, or their opposition to health care reform, Clean Air (and note their ally in that opposition, here) Great Lakes water protection or tax fairness, among others.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Outdoors columnist notes Wednesday that the WMC opposed a bill, now blocked through last-minute maneuvering in the State Assembly until 2009, that would have returned the governance of the Department of Natural Resources to greater citizen control and its historic roots.
All joking aside: is getting your group's name into the Journal Sentinel sports section, the last place where most political folks ever want to find themselves, really the best bang for the WMC's members' bucks?
Just wondering...anyway...there is an excellent history in this Journal Sentinel story of how the DNR position came to be so politicized in 1995.
Following effective grassroots organizing, the State Senate approved returning the appointment of the Secretary to the Board, and 75% of the State Assembly was poised to adopt it, too.
Those numbers are from the bill's leading champion, former DNR Secretary George Meyer.
He is now the executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, one of a coalition of conservation and environmental organizations backing the bill.
Their goal is to make DNR management and leadership more transparent and publicly-spirited, and to restore the non-partisan credibility of the position that was lost when it became a cabinet position.
But the WMC prefers the more closed system of DNR Secretary selection - - regardless of who is Governor - - because it heightens their power, as big-inside players in Madison, to influence the appointment and thus DNR policy.
Their statement of opposition is here.
Many DNR responsibilities have a direct bearing on business in Wisconsin.
That's a given, as is WMC's interest in how the position is filled.
But changing the DNR Secretary's method of appointment wasn't necessarily going to be bad for business.
It just meant that the WMC might have to work harder to lobby an entire board to get what it wanted from the agency, with the potential value of WMC members' or related contributions to gubernatorial candidates or incumbents thus diminished.
The bill cannot come again this year because the GOP-led Assembly adjourned without taking it up as this session ended.
The Assembly's GOP leadership bottled up the bill, but found the time to praise Brett Favre and grandstand by passing a bill going nowhere to make English the state's official language.
So the Assembly's leaders shouldn't be surprised to feel the wrath of the state's anglers and hunters at the ballot box come November.
These citizen organizations have been working openly and in non/bi-partisan fashion for years on the measure, and were given no good reason for its demise.
Because there wasn't one to give.
(Note: an earlier and unedited version of this posting was inadvertantly posted, and has been deleted. Sorry for any trouble caused.)
There's more fallout from the federal government's suppressed report that showed health hazards across the Great Lakes region.
Reminiscent, isn't it, of the Bush administration official who rewrote and dumbed-down a climate change report before resigning to join Exxon Mobil, or the White House muzzling of NASA's chief global warming scientist for similar political reasons?
Facts? We don't no stinkin' facts.
So it shouldn't come as a big surprise that when the US Environmental Protection Agency announced a modest decrease in tolerated smog concentrations is 345 US counties - - some in eastern Wisconsin - - it did so overruling the unanimous opinion of its own scientific panel that had urged a tougher standard?
Which brings us to the State Assembly's junior GOP lieutenants who balked at passing the Great Lakes water Compact, itself the product of years of negotiations with experts and business leaders as stakeholders.
Whether in Washington, or the Waukesha-led Assembly GOP caucus, the party's mantra is the same:
Don't let the facts get in the way when you're killing good public policy.
Though the states will be given years to clean their air, The US Environmental Protection released maps Wednesday showing 345 counties where there is an unhealthy level of ozone that needs to be improved.
Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shoreline counties are on the map.
Their names: Door, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine and Sheboygan counties.
AP story here: EPA release here.
And The New York Times explains that a tougher standard could have been set had the EPA followed the advice of a scientific panel, but caved into political pressure within the Bush administration for a compromised, lower standard.
The EPA findings and non-compliance map was released ironically as Milwaukee County, along with Waukesha County, were experienced an ozone warning, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Ozone, or smog, is bad for your lungs: some business groups argue that a little smog is the price we pay for job growth in southeast Wisconsin.
Look to those groups and national business organizations to challenge even these modest clean air improvements.
State Rep. Bill Kramer, (R-Waukesha), joins State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), in a stupefyingly contradictory exercise to waste state resources and taxpayers' money - - allegedly to fight government waste.
Talk about double-talk!
Lazich, Kramer and others are supporting a plan (sic) to create a state website that could allow you to track expenditures of small amounts - - as little as $100 - - in state funding.
How much state money will this cost? Or state employees' time?
A few days ago, I conservatively estimated the start-up and operating costs of the Lazich/Kramer $100 Misunderstanding at $12-$15 million.
They need to re-title this wacky plan "The Deliberate Wisconsin Inefficiency Act."
Remember: these legislators are using their his taxpayer-paid resources and salaries to dream this stuff up, but Kramer didn't want to spend any time on genuinely important measures, like the Great Lakes Compact on Monday - - so he and all members of his party voted against letting the bill come up for a vote.
Lazich recently complained that she was overworked.
I guess we now know with what.
The Great Lakes Compact has gotten some excellent reporting up North.
This is definitely worth a read.
Some establishment folks are looking at the fiscal impact of climate change on infrastructure costs in the US, and the picture ain't pretty.
Our infrastructure is already aging: heightened storms and other climate change conditions are only going to increase the costs of repairs.
Of course, that $12 billion headed to Iraq every week could be put to use here, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, right?
So let's fill in the current Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce scorecard and see how the state's largest business organization is approaching recent public policy debates in our state.
Here's a hint: The word "No" is pretty operative:
Supporting the Great Lakes Compact - - a regional water management and conservation agreement - - as approved by the State Senate and four of eight Great Lakes legislatures: Against.
Backing clean air monitoring and effective regulation in southeastern Wisconsin, where asthma rates are already high: Against.
Requiring state insurance plans to cover autism and related-illness treatment: Against.
Universal health care coverage in Wisconsin: Against.
Supporting State Supreme Court candidates with long experience or the public interest at heart: Against.
Instituting tax fairness in Wisconsin so that businesses pay an equitable share: Against.
So let's play this out.
The WMC spent millions last year and helped pro-business candidate Annette Ziegler onto the Court.
This year, the WMC is doing the same thing with Burnett County Circuit Court Judge Mike Gableman. His election could give the WMC a working majority on the Court.
So how do you think these senior jurists, our State Supreme Court justices, will rule if clean air, water management, Great Lakes regional issues, health care, or tax fairness/corporate welfare (thanks, Paul Soglin) and development questions come before them, especially if there is a WMC member, or Big Business side to the case?
Let's not be naive: that's why the WMC is pouring millions into State Supreme Court races.
It couldn't knock out Gov. Jim Doyle in 2006. And along with State Senate losses by the GOP that year, too, there is a good chance that the WMC-supported margin in the GOP-controlled State Assembly could fall in November, too.
So packing the State Supreme Court with WMC sycophants is more than an accident, or a fall-back strategy.
It's an effort to get through activist justices - - and let's not let the right co-opt and twist that phrase any longer - - what WMC's lobbyists will have a harder time winning in the more openly-partisan wings of the State Capitol.
If Wisconsin residents want to retain any shred of government-for-the-common good in our state, the WMC's scheme to install Gableman on the State Supreme Court has got to be blocked with the election of incumbent justice Louis Butler of Milwaukee.
Or get ready to have the state's clean air, fresh water and monetary assets given away per the WMC's welfare-for-the-rich agenda.
Mike Ivey at The Madison Capital Times notes that legislators at the Capitol are rebranding the state with a message to the world that we are either the ashtray of the Midwest, or the state that doesn't care about the Great Lakes.
I see a contest brewing.
My suggestion, inspired by what seems to have been our higher-esteem past, and the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce's endless negativity about the state:
"Wisconsin. You Won't Like It Here."
All together now: 50 GOP Assembly members vote "No" and refuse to even allow the Great Lakes Compact to come to a vote Tuesday.
Not one "Yes" vote.
There's your bi-partisan, regional cooperation caucus at work.
Message delivered from Wisconsin's lower House narrow majority, and narrow-minded leadership to the four Great Lakes states whose legislatures have approved the Compact, the broad 26-6 bi-partisan majority in the State Senate, the 80% of the public that said it wanted a strong Compact approved for Wisconsin, and leading state newspapers, like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
"In Your Face."
Multiple municipal water utilities in Wisconsin support the Great Lakes Compact.
Of course, the GOP-led State Assembly knew better, refusing to take up the bill and letting it languish for another year.
The water utilities noted that the bill represented something of a compromise, but the ideologues running the Assembly would only take that bit of advice as a fighting word.
Why accept a compromise when you can do damage by saying "no?"
There are pollution problems with the production of alternative fuels.
As with the contamination problems posed by careless disposal of new, compact fluoroscent lightbulbs - - address the problems - - but don't abandon the search and implementation of new technologies.
The Department of Natural Resources has issued a second air quality alert for today and tomorrow for Waukesha and Milwaukee counties, this one for particulate matter.
The other alert covered ozone.
All in all, a big day for polluters, and a bad day for everyone else.
DNR statement is here:
"The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Advisory for Particle Pollution (Orange) for Milwaukee and Waukesha counties effective 2:00 pm on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 through noon on Wednesday, March 12, 2008.
"The advisory is being issued because of persistent elevated levels of fine particles in the air. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and wood fires.
"The Air Quality Index is currently in the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an orange advisory for particle pollution is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities.
"People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms.
"Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.
To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.
He wasn't on board with US war planning against Iran - - and he's out, fast.
If Bush attacks Iran, oil at $110 a barrel will be a distant, fond memory.
Those following the Murphy Oil expansion in Superior might want to bookmark this Louisiana blog.
Yeah, southeastern Wisconsin's air quality sure is meeting the high standards that some of our political and business leaders have claimed.
Oops:
This today from the DNR:
"The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Advisory for Ozone (Orange) for Milwaukee and Waukesha counties effective 2:00 pm on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 through noon on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 .
"The advisory is being issued because of persistent elevated levels of ground level ozone. Ground level ozone is formed when pollution from power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and volatile organic compounds chemically reacts with hot temperatures, high humidity and atmospheric stagnation.
"The Air Quality Index is currently in the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups and others, including people who are not in sensitive groups but who are engaged in strenuous outside activities or exposed for prolonged periods of time.
'People in those sensitive groups include those with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, older adults, and active adults and children. When an orange advisory for ozone is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous outside activities."
The DNR issued a separate warning about particulate matter risks, but it had an error in the date.
More on that later if need be.
Wisconsin's State Assembly has blocked consideration of the Great Lakes Compact for the rest of the year, according to the Journal Sentinel.
Big surprise. The Assembly is so ruled by the forces of political darkness that it might outlaw opening its window shades before it adjourns this week.
This victory, of sorts, for the GOP's far-right Waukesha leaders, has several immediate consequences, and most reasonable people wouldn't want any of it on their resumes:
1. New Berlin cannot obtain the Lake Michigan diversion it wants under the Compact's relatively easy, Wisconsin-only application review.
Unless the state tries an end run around the existing, eight-state federal diversion approval process to enable the transfer (something that would provoke years of litigation across the region, more renegade runs at Great Lakes water, or both), New Berlin will now have to buy expensive radium-treatment equipment.
New Berlin taxpayers should thank State Rep. Scott Gunderson, (R-Waterford), and the Compact's self-proclaimed opposition leader, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), for their increased water bills or property tax bills, to pay for the millions in needed equipment.
And the GOP claims to be the party of tax reduction and fiscal restraint?
2. Legislatures in New York, Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana approved the Compact that Wisconsin's opponents have now blocked, and fancifully believe they can get renegotiated.
Expect even stronger resistance from those other states now that the State Assembly here intentionally tabled a detailed proposal that passed the State Senate with bi-partisan cooperation.
The Wisconsin opponents said the Compact gave Michigan too much power over Wisconsin diversions.
Guess what? The existing federal law already gives Michigan and the other states that absolute power. The compact eased that authority for communities like New Berlin and clarified and restrained it for cities like Waukesha.
All the opponents have done with their irrational obstructionism is give the other states every reason to isolate Wisconsin by invoking the federal veto abilities.
If the opponents wanted a self-fulling prophecy, they will be wildly successful.
3. Don't overlook the cheap partisan leverage the GOP leadership believes it is strengthening with its opposition.
Besides handing Gov. Jim Doyle a setback - - he is also the chairman of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, which has crafted the Compact - - the opponents are using the Compact to beat up Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson, who is out on a limb supporting the agreement.
He is supporting the Compact because as a local chief executive, like New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero, Nelson understands that the Compact offers a clearer route to diverted water than does the federal law.
The Compact helps resolve these Mayors' nuts-and-bolts water service issues. Mayors don't have the luxury to toss out press releases and rant on the legislature's floor doing what for many is a part-time job.
Mayors have to be problem-solvers, but they are being blocked by partisan game-players who are delighting in making their own municipalities' problems even tougher.
Gunderson and his Assembly pals, now having added chaos to an already-difficult situation, leave Nelson and Chiovatero without a Compact.
Waukesha will now move more aggressively to obtain water supplies through messy and expensive condemnation proceedings in the Town of Waukesha, transferring more of these political and environmental uncertainties to the Town.
Bottom line:
The opponents' partisan, inside-baseball is now more important than protecting the Great Lakes or genuinely cooperating with neighbors to deal with the region's water issues.You keep hearing it loudly from GOP legislators and business groups that are attacking the Great Lakes Compact as a bad deal for Wisconsin:
'It gives Illinois advantages over Wisconsin. We can never compete against Big-Bad Illinois. We're doomed.'
But what's this? An Illinois source citing Wisconsin's advantages in a trend-setting environmental and business effort by WE Energies and others to build coal-fired power plants that clean the air by capturing carbon dioxide before it hits the atmosphere.
Oh, Illinois stop crying about it. You'll never be as good as we (WE?) are up here.
Or do businesses and politicians in neighboring states always whine about the perceived benefits across the border as a way leverage and win some more local advantages, too?
Paul Soglin has noted this earlier.
The Houston Chronicle reports on oil refinery safety violations nationwide, noting that Murphy Oil's Wisconsin operation turned off certain alarms because they were making pesky sounds.
That cost the company $179,000 - - but with oil now costing more than $100/barrel, the fine is the proverbial drop in the bucket, no?
Two more questions:
1. About those annoying alarms that raised, well, an alarm. Isn't that what alarms are supposed to do?
2. More importantly: the story says that OSHA inspectors hadn't been at the Superior, WI refinery for ten years to see how things were going before the alarming outcome of an inspection last year.
Here's how the Chronicle reported that factoid:
"In Wisconsin, refinery manager Dave Podratz hadn't seen OSHA inspectors in 10 years when an inspection team showed up in August at the Murphy Oil USA facility on the shores of Lake Superior. Inspectors found that safety alarms had been deactivated at the state's only refinery. That and other problems led to a $179,100 agreed penalty.
"Podratz said the alarms had been viewed as a nuisance because they went off when doors to various control rooms were opened. Podratz said the alarms should have been modified rather than disconnected.
"But alarm malfunctions that failed to alert operators of dangerous conditions were among several problems uncovered in the aftermath of the BP Texas City disaster in 2005."
In the Texas City disaster, 15 died and 170 others were injured, the Chronicle reports.
Ten years? What's up with that?
And why is the state already playing footsie with Murphy in the preliminary stages of its probable seven-fold expansion plan on 400-500 acres of wetlands?
Sources report that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources already has its marching orders on the permit approvals: Cross the t's, and dot the i's, but don't throw any obstacles in the company's way.
After all, the DNR was eerily silent this past summer when the rest of the Great Lakes region was in an uproar over expanded oil refining on Lake Michigan in Northern Indiana.
At the time, I speculated that one reason for the DNR's silence was that Wisconsin was soon to have its own refinery expansion issue to deal with.
Frankly, I don't think I was wrong.
Shouldn't Murphy get its house in order before it is permitted to run up the refining capacity in Superior from 35,000 barrels daily to 235,000?
Refining heavy, Canadian tar sand crude oil so close to what is, for now, the cleanest of the Great Lakes?
And with the state poised to try and lead the national on alternative energy generation - - including wind, wave, and non-corn ethanol production utilizing Wisconsin's ample farm and forest reserves - - is enabling a major oil refinery on Lake Superior really in the state's long-term policy, environmental and water-based tourism and recreational interests?
It's all really ironic: so much attention is being paid to the pending Great Lakes Compact, which involves all the Great Lakes, but in Wisconsin, it is Lake Michigan that has drawn most of the ink and political controversy.
Diversions from our other Great Lake, Superior, are less a prospective issue, but with a huge oil refinery expansion on the horizon, Lake Superior's well-being should be getting at least as much scrutiny, certainly on the water quality side.
The surface waters near the refinery that empty into Lake Superior have historically been heavily polluted.
Read the Newton Creek saga on the City of Superior's website.
You can install all the safeguards in the world, and do all the post-pollution cleanup affordable, and work out public-private partnerships that are well-intentioned and functioning - - but you are tempting fate with such a large refinery expansion in that location because human behavior and Mother Nature are always unpredictable.
And it isn't reassuring that federal health and safety inspectors seem to make one visit a decade, is it?
Compare the wording and approach in these competing positions.
First, regional cooperation in action:
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Racine Mayor Gary Becker together urge the State Assembly to join with the State Senate and approve the Great Lakes Compact.
Then you have what, for lack of a better phrase, is regional uncooperation, continuing:
Some are saying the Compact will lead to dictatorial and totalitarian government.
You decide.
If you are the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, your plan to turn the State Supreme Court into a subsidiary is simple:
Just spend millions.
It's a simple bottom-line calculation, as if the organization had hired a merger and acquisition specialist who came up with a per-share cost, and the investment/takeover strategy.
Last year, the WMC poured millions into the race won by Annette Ziegler, formerly a circuit court judge from West Bend.
This year's opportunity has surfaced in the selection of Burnett County circuit court judge Michael Gableman, a guy less obscure than was Ziegler and whom no one's heard of - - the dream candidate if you've got millions on hand to define the candidate for voters through saturation TV spots - - and who got his judicial appointment to the circuit court in a town 300 miles from his residence under very strange circumstances.
The tragedy for government and members of the general public below CEO status is that this strategic, money-driven insertion of activist justices beholden to the WMC will reduce the Supreme Court to little more than a Kangaroo Court.
Will the Court add the disclaimer "authorized and paid for by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, etc. etc." to its decisions if Gableman wins?
Here we go again: The DNR has issued a dirty air notice for 59 counties. There's more particulate matter risk, it seems, though wasn't it just a few days ago that the state was assuring us that the air quality here was okey-dokey?
And the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was lobbying for a rollback by the US Environmental Protection Agency in clean air enforcement in southeastern Wisconsin?
Note to the WMC: How's about rolling back your statewide campaigns for dirty air, quickie diversions of Great Lakes water, and State Supreme Court candidates with shaky credentials?
From the DNR:
"The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution for 59 counties, including Adams, Barron, Brown, Buffalo, Calumet, Chippewa, Clark, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Door, Dunn, Eau Claire, Fond Du Lac, Grant, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, Kenosha, Kewaunee, La Crosse, Lafayette, Langlade, Lincoln, Manitowoc, Marathon, Marquette, Menominee, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oconto, Outagamie, Ozaukee, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Portage, Racine, Richland, Rock, Rusk, Sauk, Shawano, Sheboygan, St. Croix, Taylor, Trempealeau, Vernon, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago and Wood.
"The advisory is effective effective midnight on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 through 11:59 pm on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 .
"The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires."
State Assembly Assistant Minority leader John Richards, (D-Milwaukee), wants the Assembly to vote on the Great Lakes Compact before Thursday, March 13th.
He notes that if the vote doesn't happen by then, it can't come up for a vote until 2009.
The bill's fate is in the hands of the GOP, which controls the Assembly, but whose members stepped up to the plate added significant voters to the Compact 26-6 approval in the Senate.
The entire Great Lakes region, and conservationists around the world, are watching: will the Assembly, where its GOP leaders have threatened to table the Compact, or seed it with poison pills, rise to the occasion?
Ah, regional cooperation. That dreamy idea that everyone's for it - - until money or power-sharing is involved.
Then it's every man/woman/village/town and city for themselves.
And I'm not talking about the really big issues, like how much will New Berlin pay if it gets Lake Michigan water - - certainly not on theoretical fee schedules that State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, has already deemed "extortion".
(For a link to her original statement, scroll down to Nov. 1, 2007 on her blog's postings, here.)
Or if Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker will stop blocking federal funds available for rail transit (Likely answer: "No!").
I'm talking about whether the City of New Berlin, and the neighboring City and Town of Brookfield governments, can agree to formulas and finish paying for one local road project - - Greenfield Ave.
It's ironic that these warring parties are on the turf of leading opponents of the Great Lakes Compact, like Lazich, and fellow Compact naysayer State Sen. Ted Kanavas, (R-Brookfield).
They want to send the Compact back into eight-state, two-nation negotiations, even though those discussions ended in 2005 after four years of meetings.
Perhaps Lazich and Kanavas' time and negotiation skills could be better spent getting Greenfield Ave. finished.
Or, maybe not.
From time to time, I post a list of online sites that offer information about Great Lakes water issues.
Here's the updated list. Please send me suggestions, and I will repost this in a few weeks or so.
Blogs:
1. Loon Commons Environmental Blog in Minnesota.
2. Michigan Liberal More politics than environment.
3. Dave Dempsey Blog, in Minnesota, via Michigan. A treasure.
4. The Political Environment Blog, in Wisconsin. This is my blog, fyi.
5. Energetich20 Blog- - A UW-Madison engineering student's effort.
6. Dale Olen Blog - - Wisconsin activist, writer.
7. Noah Hall - - Great Lakes Legal blog.
Online news and information sites:
1.Great Lakes United.org: All-purpose informational site.
2.Great Lakes Information Network, GLIN, collecting traditional media, daily (but no blog items).
3. Great Lakes Town Hall, an arm of the Biodiversity Project, Madison.
4. The environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell has an excellent newsletter and roundup (free registration required here).
Great Lakes For All.
5. University of Wisconsin-Miwaukee's WATER Institute: Numerous experts, papers, other resources. Excellent local resource with wide application.
6. Peter Annin's Great Lakes Water Wars: Comprehensive listing of Great Lakes resources, diversion applications and responses, and more. One of my personal favorites.
7. Good variety of sources at Great Lakes Shipwatchers.
8. Oregon State University's Water and Watersheds.
9. Wisconsin Association of Lakes e-newsletter and additional resources.
10. Midwest Lakes Policy Center. Water issues, generally.
Attorney and activist Melissa Malott continues to write about the Murphy Oil refinery expansion plan that is quietly moving forward for 400-500 acres of Lake Superior wetlands.
What's related to the explosive price of oil, the expanding Federal debt, the decline in your IRA's value, the erosion of your home equity, the rising numbers of jobless Americans, the dwindling funds returned by the Feds to cities and states, the growing foreign takeover of weak US corporations and the recession now spreading through every nook and cranny of the American economy?
That $3 trillion in US taxpayer expenditures and long-term costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Iraq alone is costing $12 billion upfront each month, so don't expect that $600 rebate check you can blow on a small-screen HDTV to right the ship or ease the economic pain that will keep your personal financial decline tied to the troubled national and international fiscal picture, for years.
You can't have cut taxes and committed to billions upon billions of new expenditures and longer-range military medical costs without it all catching up to and sapping the rest of the economy.
Even if the Democrats take over next year, the fiscal and geopolitical mess that needs to be fixed will take the better part of a generation - - and that assumes a relatively trouble-free next ten years.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Sunday editorial on the transit system's shocking decline finally calls out County Executive Scott Walker.
Walker has been the impediment to rational transit in Milwaukee for years, reflexively mouthing an ideologically-based opposition to any increase in taxes - - even minimal and focuses on saving a specific service like the bus system he manages - - as if a political line was a substitute for leadership, public planning and provision of services.
Though County Executive in an area with deep povertym Walker believes the ideal transportation system is the one in which everyone owns a car.
Talk about fairy tales.
I suspect that the editorial will fall on deaf ears in the Exec's office. Walker owes his political life to right wing talk radio, where talkers treat transit as a disease, and taxes as the carrier.
The Journal Sentinel endorsed Walker four years for his first full term: that endorsement should be withdrawn, because a County Executive who is willfully starving key services of their resources has sacrificed the right to lead.
(Curtain rises: Three imaginary State Senators - - Lazarus, Canvassback and Mullover meet at a coffee shop Saturday morning in Madison. Mullover is studying a newspaper story.)
Lazarus: You read a lot.
Mullover: Yes. Why, this very story, by a Waukesha bureau reporter of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, says the Great Lakes Compact that the Senate passed Thursday will make it easier for Waukesha County communities to apply for water diversions.
Lazarus: Stop shoving that down our throats.
Mullover: You should have read the bill. There were lengthy briefings, you know.
Lazarus: That sounds naughty to me. It is not OK.
Canvassback: I heard on the Senate floor that the bill sent down by the Committee was going to lead to dictatorial and totalitarian measures.
Lazarus: And I’m not familiar with that term “compromise.”
Canvassback: So, Mullover. This reading you're doing: Does it mean that the yelling and swearing at Waukesha’s Mayor Larry Nelson was uncalled for, if there has been this…this compromise?
Mullover: Yes.
Canvassback: So what do we do now?
Mullover: Apologize.
Canvassback: I’m not familiar with that term.
Lazarus: You’re not being fair. This is too much to grasp in a short period of time.
Mullover: Well, how about helping get the bill approved in the Assembly next week? There seem to be misconceptions over there, too.
Lazarus: But the Assembly’s more right about things than we are.
Mullover: It's easy: You sit down with people and go over the facts. It’s called collaboration.
Canvassback: Isn't that a felony?
Mullover: You’ve got the entire weekend to help straighten all this out.
Lazarus: That makes me really angry, Mullover. How can I represent my constituents? You know talk radio doesn’t come back on until Monday.
(Curtain)
Any similaries in this work of art to information in previous posts such as this, or this, are entirely coincidental.
Pres. George W. Bush cements his legacy, vetoing a bill that outlaws the use of methods of torture by the CIA.
January 20, 2009 cannot come fast enough.
State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) is the legislature's self-described leading opponent of the pending Great Lakes Compact.
But last Thursday, Lazich failed to sway the Senate to her point-of-view as it approved the Compact 26-6, with many GOP votes in support of the bill created in the Energy and Environment Committee chaired by State Sen. Mark Miller, (D-Madison).
Could it be that other Senators don't appreciate being yelled at?
You can hear and see Lazich's long tirade courtesy of Wisconsin Eye, the State Capitol's new audio and video taping service.
She begins at the 1-hour, 8-minute mark on the 3/6 debate, part one, on this link.
Note also, that fellow Senate sore-loser Ted Kanavas, (R-Brookfield), swore and yelled at Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson, according to the Waukesha Freeman.
WISN AM 1130 conservative talker and self-proclaimed guy-in-the-know Mark Belling revealed inadvertantly Friday afternoon that he doesn't read the Daily Reporter, an influential Milwaukee business publication.
That's because he gave high praise on his radio show to the Milwaukee Business Journal's breaking story about a twin-tower condo plan for the downtown.
Problem is, that story appeared in The Daily Reporter nine days ago.
Here's the link.
And a link to Belling's other Friday goof.
Mark Belling, WISN-AM 1130's drive time p.m. talker, gave his suburban rush hour audience some goofy information this afternoon in the 4:30 segment about the Great Lakes Compact.
In Belling's defense, he admitted often Friday afternoon that he was mismanaging his program's time, but here's what he got wrong:
He kept saying that Michigan and Ohio have special provisions under the Compact to Wisconsin's detriment.
Actually, the argument advanced by righty ideologues in Waukesha County who oppose the Compact is that Michigan and Illinois have some special privileges under the Compact.
Ohio, on the other hand, is the state where some Waukesha County Compact opponents have found ideological comfort, and a few allies.
So Belling confused Ohio with Illinois - - undermining his typically pompous conclusion of the segment by declaring that after his explanation of the Compact's flaws, no other human being need call in to further explain the issue.
Now let's remember that there are only eight Great Lakes states, and if you take our own state of Wisconsin out of the mix, only seven other states.
So how hard is it to remember the differences among them?
Especially if one of those states is aligned with the Compact opponents in the legislature whom Belling was praising - - Ohio - - and Illinois, our oft-targeted bordering neighboring state, which has a permanent Lake Michigan diversion codified by the US Supreme Court.
But, again, in Belling's defense, he said he was having a scattered day.
And Ohio and Illinois do each have the letter "i" and "o" in their names.
My home edition of Friday's Journal Sentinel has a bare bones account of the tumultuous adoption of the Great Lakes Compact on Thursday by the State Senate.
A more complete account is here, from the Journal Sentinel's online index, which I presume is what Waukesha readers found in their Friday paper.
Neither has the full flavor of a couple of legislators' meltdowns, which I have posted here.
The Capital Times has allowed me to explain why the Great Lakes Compact is likely to stall in the State Assembly next week, here.
And it was a bi-partisan vote, a true victory for democracy, but at least one State Senator sees the words "scream" and "shrieked" in news reports of her reaction to the passage in the State Senate, following 28 months of delay, of the Great Lakes Compact.
The envelope, please.
As I wrote some months ago, this is what happens when a State Senator shoots her entire district in the foot.
The local and statewide organizations urging the State Senate's adoption of the Great Lakes Compact got it right, as the Senate adopted the proposal 26-6 in a bi-partisan vote on Thursday.
As you can also see here, some other Republicans went off the deep end.
State Sen. Ted Kanavas, (R-Brookfield), accuses Waukesha City Mayor Larry Nelson of "collaborating" with Democrats on the Great Lakes Compact bill.
That's the pathetic foot-stomping of a bad loser, as the bi-partisan vote in the State Senate to pass the long-delayed Compact was 26-6. After this, do we identify Kanavas as (R-Sour Grapes)?
But ask yourself: is the atmosphere at the State Capitol really this poisoned?
That the "collaboration" piece of "regional collaboration" has become such an obscenity, with its seditious overtones?
Or that State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), would have what is reported as a shrieking fit, too?
Here, by the way, is Nelson's statement in support of the Compact, which Nelson correctly says gives Waukesha its best chance at obtaining Lake Michigan water.
Read it for yourself and see if it merits Kanavas' partisan tounge-lashing - - especially aimed at a local elected official, Nelson, who holds a non-partisan office.
Here's what's really going on - - and I laid this out just a few hours ago in this blog posting to call attention to the Republicans' having turned the Great Lakes Compact into a partisan charade.
It is Kanavas' GOP Assembly colleagues, as well as New Berlin's very own Mary Lazich who are obstructing the Compact in the legislature, and despite their Waukesha electoral base - - are blocking Waukesha and New Berlin's orderly application for Great Lakes waters under federal law and the Compact, a new multi-state and international agreement.
Talk about the politics of self-destruction!
And it is Lazich and others in the GOP-controlled Assembly who are working closely - - dare one say, "collaborating" - - with legislators in Ohio labeled the "lunatic fringe" by the Cleveland Plain Dealer who are trying render the Compact useless, and leave the Great Lakes unprotected.
These partisan Republicans need to tamp down their partisan proclivities and get busy representing Waukesha County, the State of Wisconsin, and in a role rarely handed to local and state officials - - the once-in-a-liftime opportunity to represent the planet and its threatened, finite water resources in the Great Lakes.
Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer has emerged as something of a consensus candidate for election to a full term on the Appeals Court, District II.
Among those supporting her candidacy as these co-chairs:
Governor Jim Doyle, who appointed her to the bench in the first place, US Sen. Herb Kohl, (D), Tommy Thompson's former unofficial Deputy Governor, Jim Klauser, and the biggest catch of all - - Attorney Mike Grebe, the former Republican Party's Wisconsin chairman and arguably, with his national connections to the White House, the state's most important Republican.
Grebe and Neubauer both worked at Foley & Lardner, the state's largest law firm, where Grebe says he watched her work and liked what he saw - - on many fronts.
Neubauer "understands the private sector," write Grebe in a laudatory, two-page "Dear Colleague" letter supporting Neubauer that is making the rounds.
District II of the State Appeals Court covers Calumet, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Ozaukee, Racine, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha, and Winnebago counties.
In the letter, Grebe praises Neubauer's temperment, skills, and widespread appeal, but also goes out of his way to also highlight information about Neubauer's opponent, Attorney Bill Gleisner, that adds punch to Grebe's amazing letter.
Grebe calls attention to campaign donations that Gleisner has received from Wisconsin trial lawyers - - a standard target of GOP politicians and major business lobbies - - and also notes Gleisner's contributions to high-profile Democratic and liberal candidates, including Doyle, former 2004 Presidential candidate and US Sen. John Kerry, (D-MA), and former State Supreme Court candidate Linda Clifford.
Grebe says in his letter, released by the Neubauer campaign, that he is airing Gleisner's history because he "neglects to tell Republicans and conservatives" about it when seeking their support.
Yipes!
It's all a bit confusing, but it sure is interesting to see Neubauer's crossover appeal with other Republicans seemingly out on a limb, or out of touch - - at least with Party bosses like Klauser and Grebe - - with their support of Gleisner.
Among the Republicans backing Gleinser is a contingent of Waukesha County elected officials, including one of the legislature's most ideologically rightwingers, State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) - - and, curiously, State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), who is the fight of her life against State Rep. Sheldon Wasserman, (D-Milwaukee).
If siding with Neubauer is the smart, moderate, dial-down-the-partisan-volume candidacy to support in the spring elections, then Lazich's position is par for her course, but in Darling's case, pure self-sabotage.
In every organization, there are essentially two kinds of people.
The workers and the game-players. You all have seen them at work and at play.
That bright dividing line is visible these days in the state legislature.
Despite objections from some Republicans, the Great Lakes Compact bill was approved 3-2 in the Senate Energy and Environment Committee Wednesday.
Twenty-eight months after the agreement was signed in Milwaukee by eight Great Lakes Governors and two Canadian provincial premiers.
After negotiations to produce it began in 2001.
It could have a floor vote Thursday, where it should pass with some Republican votes, though the Democrats control the Senate.
On this issue, bi-partisanship is crucial.
But don't break out the champagne.
The effort to approve this historic Great Lakes management procedure, and to achieve genuine water conservation across a large portion of North America moves to the Assembly...to die.
So much for Great Lakes water preservation.
It will die in the Assembly this session - - though do not rule out a special session where, frankly, anything could happen.
But it will stop in the Assembly in a matter of hours or days because GOP leaders in the lower house have said they will take up an alternative with just a few so-called 'minor tweaks' - - in actuality huge changes that the State Senate will not approve - - that undermine the entire, seven-year negotiating and agreement-writing process, and weaken the agreement's conservation protections and goals, too.
The Assembly substitute is going nowhere. The leadership there knows it, but this is what their financiers in the state's major trade and business organizations want, and that is what the Assembly leadership will do.
Their game-playing will rightly be dismissed as obstructionist and intellectually, if not politically and procedurally dishonest, by the four Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces - - because their legislatures have already approved Compact bills that came directly out of the long, bi-partisan and regional negotiating process.
Some information is here about who is playing these partisan, off-note games in Wisconsin, with an assist from some state's rights anachronoids in Ohio.
Game-players or workers.
Who do you want making water policy in Wisconsin?
Finally, the city forces are being organized, and heard.
Website, here.
Will The M-7 regional collaboration actually step up for Milwaukee?
A Baraboo, WI gun dealer is hawking cutely-painted guns.
Who other than children would be attracted, asks WAVE, the state's anti-gun lobby?
Republican legislators in the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly plotting the demise of the Great Lakes Compact have some pretty wacky allies in Ohio, according to reports in leading Ohio newspapers.
They also have a persistent, influential business ally in Waukesha County that continues to post a crucial erroneous message about the Compact on its website.
More about that in a minute - - though I began pointing to that error a year ago.
Read on.
Take Ohio's State Senator Tim Grendell, that body's leading Compact obstructionist, and his champion in Wisconsin, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin).
Last year, Lazich paraded Grendell's positions and proposals on the Compact around the Capitol in Madison, even sending them to a state study committee where they fell on deaf ears.
Lazich publicly said she was disappointed that she couldn't attend a July, 2007 meeting in Michigan where Compact opponents like Grendell were to pitch a regional legislators' summit about the evils of the Compact: accounts of that meeting are filtering out, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently carried one, here.
Seems there was dead silence in the room after Grendell spoke.
Later talk was that other states are viewing the Ohio opposition as "kooky."
Maybe Lazich is glad she missed the meeting, though her illogical, ideologically-based partisan opposition to the Compact is making sure that the Lake Michigan diversion application filed last year by her very own hometown of New Berlin is going nowhere fast.
Maybe all this turmoil surrounding some of the Ohio Compact opponents shouldn't be a surprise.
The Cincinnati Post had earlier reported that Grendell had to apologize for racially-tinged remarks aimed at an African-American legislative colleague.
Regardless, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, (R-West Salem) has taken his party's blockade of the Compact a step further by publicly writing to another Ohio legislative Compact opponent, suggesting they work "cooperatively" to consign the Compact to years of new negotiations.
The Plain Dealer was all over this stalling tactic.
In a recent editorial, the paper warned against efforts in the Ohio legislature's "lunatic fringe" to "hijack" the process of protecting the Great Lakes.
Pretty strong stuff.Gov. Jim Doyle's task force on global climate change is holding four listening sessions statewide from 4-7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 19th.
The schedule is here.
There certainly are issues of common resource conservation, access and protection in Wisconsin and the Milwaukee area on which task force members could focus with a strong assist from the public:
Adopting the Great Lakes Compact.
Promoting transit.
Reducing air pollution.
Pushing efficient, alternative energy sources, such as non-corn ethanol, wind, wave and solar power.
Coordinated, pro-cities strategies' that link all the above, from Smart Growth to to in-fill to urban agriculture.
You can bet that the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce has had its lobbyists pushing on many of these issues, but from the opposite perspective.
Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and Great Lakes' business owners join lakeshore city Mayors in appearances Wednesday to argue in favor of the Great Lakes Compact.
Details here.
Opposition to the Compact is centered in Waukesha County GOP circles, and in business organizations like the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, and the Metropolitan Builders Association.
It's good that businesses dependent on Great Lakes water are beginning to speak up for the Compact.
These businesses are being sold down the river by the WMC and the other so-called leadership organizations that have partisan and ideological agendas putting Wisconsin development and the health of the Great Lakes at risk.
When Brett Favre's retirement hit the County Courthouse, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker summoned the whole brain trust.
The wordsmiths got busy writing a statement for the ages, and they got it out the same day!
Rarely will you see such writing, such emotion, such deep sentiment and analysis tied together so masterfully, under so much pressure, on behalf of a million constituents in a stunned Packer Nation.
I can post the pdf link to the statement, but that doesn't do it justice.
That's why I'm copying and posting the text in it's entirety. It's worth printing out and putting up on the refrigerator, in that old grand Scott Walker tradition.
Here goes...
"Brett, thanks for 160 wins, 253 consecutive starts, 442 touchdown passes, 61,655 passing yards, and a million great memories. Thanks for making us proud to be Packer fans!"
Did they get all that to ESPN and Sports Illustrated?
Presidential candidate John McCain wins the endorsement of a Texas mega-church televangelist and preacher who thinks, among other things, that the Catholic Church is a cult - - "the great whore."
That's just for starters. Details here.
Looking for evangelical and religious conservatives' support, McCain won't really distance himself from the preacher, John Hagee.
Leadership!
There are two ways legislators could consider the Great Lakes Compact:
The open way, and the closed way.
Unfortunately, the difference has become completely partisan, with Republicans taking the obstructionist route, which makes the Great Lakes vulnerable to unregulated diversion and harm.
On the more open path, State Senator Robert Jauch, (D-Poplar), has announced two listening sessions on the Great Lakes Compact bill that has now been introduced in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
Read his statement, here.
These hearings stand in marked contrast to the machinations and spin that has kept the matter bottled up at the Capitol since late 2005, with the blame for inaction clearly at the doorstep of key Republican legislators.
One year was lost when a study committee, chaired by State Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn) and stacked deliberately with Republican business interests from Waukesha County, could not produce a bill, let alone a consensus.
That was the beginning of the closed path - - the GOP's hypocritical effort to appear interested in implementing the Compact in Wisconsin while stalling, weakening or defeating it here.
If one of the eight Great Lakes states fails to approve it, or makes substantial changes to the agreement's 2005 draft, the Compact does not take effect.
Two weeks ago, leaders in the GOP-controlled State Assembly went further down the closed path by saying that the bill will not be passed in their house unless amendments are added that would render the Compact useless across the Great Lakes.
All to help get Lake Michigan water without restraint to some communities in Waukesha County that have overdrawn their groundwater but continue to annex land for more water-hungry subdivisions and strip malls.
Now there's more activity on the closed path: Kedzie and Dale Schultz, (R-Richland Center) have asked Sen. Mark Miller (D-Madison) to cancel the first Senate Energy and Environment Committee executive session consideration of the bill. Miller chairs the committee.It's two steps forward on water issues and one step backwards for Waukesha blogger James Widgerson.
Note that his comment section is fully available.
While the community is distracted by Brett Favre's retirement, let's not overlook the most important story in today's Journal Sentinel:
The bureaucratic SNAFU - - and let's hope that's all it is - - that has made $91.5 million in long-dormant federal transit funding for Milwaukee inaccessible.
The money is what's left from an initial earmark of $289 million for Milwaukee transit improvements.
$48.5 million was already removed years ago through inertia.
A subsequent city/county/state agreement dedicated some of the remaining money to a variety of projects, including the Sixth St. Bridge reconstruction and the Park East Freeway spur deconstruction.
But the remaining $91.5 million piece has been frozen in dispute, primarily because Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has balked at using it on one or more rail transit investments.
Now the feds are apparently confused about the money's availability: perhaps this gets sorted out, or perhaps not - - leading to a damaging defeat for Milwaukee's lower-income, transit-dependent multitude, but a twisted ideological victory for Walker.
After all, Walker has championed the Do Nothing approach to transit, except cutting routes and raising fares - - while refusing to allow the $91.5 million's injection into any transit improvement.
He's let the County system fall behind Madison and its growing ridership figures, along with national ridership trends, as gasoline prices increase.
With federal funding removed, Walker could achieve a rightwing trifecta - - pleasing his railophobic talk radio pals, burying the bus system, and harming its strong union.
As I pointed out in an earlier blog posting, Madison's transit system is booming because the public and private sectors there appreciate the value of transit to the local and regional economies.
Milwaukee's business leadership helped install Walker after the justified removal of Tom Ament from the county leadership.
Now it's time for the business community and the Journal Sentinel to cut their ties to Walker, and help get the city and county on the same page when it comes to investing in transit alternatives.
Without a fresh start, the feds have no incentive to help Milwaukee relocate and tap the transit financing that some elected officials are ignoring.
From the feds' perspective, that money might be better spent in the 25 other large urban markets where transit, especially rail, is expanding.
Grover Norquist - - the other Norquist - - once opined that government should be shrunk to the point where it could be drowned in a bathtub and made to disappear.
That's the Scott Walker strategy when it comes to transit - - not drowning it so much as chopping off enough pieces so what remains could be tossed into a dumpster.
It looks like he's winning.
Ken Mobile reports on Scott Walker's last-minute bailout from a long-ago confirmed debate appearance in Bayview last night.
Politicians these days strive for transparency, but in Walker's case, you can see right through him.
There is one.
Charlie Sykes is not sniping on a pivotal primary election day at Democrats, holding Scott Walker's hand, or reading an overwrought screed from Sheriff David Clarke.
Another reason, among many, to say "thank you" to Brett Favre.
And if Brett rethinks it and comes back - - more venom-free days on AM radio!
Madison cultivates bus ridership.
It's the tradition there, regardless of who's in the Mayor's office, and local business leaders and planners in Madison and Dane County support transit because it's good for the economy.
Recent figures show that 2006 was a Madison bus ridership banner year, and preliminary figures for 2007 show the increases continuing, mirroring national trends as gas prices rise and private vehicle operation becomes more expensive.
Check the official Madison transit numbers on p.96 of the linked pdf here.
Now compare those numbers to crashing ridership data for Milwaukee County's Transit System, presided over by Scott Walker, an anti-transit rightwing Republican.
His title is Milwaukee County Executive, but when it comes to transit, he's the Wizard of His Own Oz, presiding over a make-believe Kingdom where all poor people own cars, so there's no need for something as distasteful as a public transit system.
And certainly no need for modern transit services, such as trolleys or, perish the thought - - light rail - - that connect with express buses to move people to and from jobs, college classes, the downtown and other destinations.
Another Madison-Milwaukee distinction:
Madison has the logical leadership role in its one-county regional planning commission.
But in our seven-county region, anti-urban/transit forces promote highway expansion to serve upper-income customers at the exurban edges, while Milwaukee and its transit-dependent central city populations get shut out of land-use and transportation benefits.
People in Milwaukee snicker at some things in Madison, but in the state capital city they do transit and transportation policy-making a lot better - - because serving the people is a genuine priority, and keeping their economy expanding is a civic no-brainer.
George Bush said last week said the economy's still OK.
Now some guy from Kansas named Warren Buffett says were in a recession.
C'mon. Think we're gonna believe that Warren guy?
Should Hillary Clinton win in Ohio and/or Texas Tuesday, there will be plenty of analyses crediting back-to-back shows with sympathetic material on Saturday Night Live - - some of which worked its way into the final candidates' debate and mainstream media discussions about reportorial biases.
Her appearance on The Daily Show tonight shows she's got some momentum, at least on comedy TV shows that have political content and impact.
Gretchen Schuldt correctly reminds us that region that can't get its potholes filled is about to have $1.9 billion in public bucks poured into 38 miles of new lanes and 'modernization' on I-94 from Mitchell airport to the Illinois state line.
Whoopeee! Get yourself down to Illinois a few minutes faster - - assuming in winters to come that your front wheels are still in alignment and the tires are on the rims.
And another $3.7 billion in spending is planned for additional so-called 'freeway' expansion and rebuilding in and around Milwaukee County, all concocted by the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission a few years ago - - when highway usage predictions were based on gasoline costing $2.30 per gallon.
And let's not forget that that the I-94 corridor south to Illinois (like the entire seven-county highway building plan) will be concrete-only - - no transit improvements included of any kind, especially rail enhancements, even though the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter train line is ready to go.
And could minimize and mitigate the years of construction congestion that will accompany that $1.9 billion orange-barrel binge.
And didn't we learn this weekend that Milwaukee County's faltering bus system is losing riders at a quickening clip even though nationally, bus ridership is up, up, up?
How is it that we are missing these national trends: increasing bus ridership...trolley and light rail introductions...commuter rail extensions?
Could our policies and priorities be, what, lacking?
Let's see, whadda we got here?
Failing and blocked transit options.
Struggling local road services.
Budget-busting billions for more big superhighways.
And what don't we have?
A comprehensive state transportation plan and budget that integrates local road needs, transit systems, highway projects, and dare we even dream it - - land use? - - for the entire taxpaying public.
We do have a Wisconsin Transportation Department where this sort of coordinated thinking and action could take place, but the department is something of a misnomer.
It's really the old-fashioned highway department, doling out contracts to road-builders to serve some customers, but without any sense of equity or balance.
That's because transit riders don't have political action committees, contribution-bundling conduits, trade associations, independent expenditure campaign advertising budgets, a full and generous fund-raising schedule and lobbyists to knit the money and influence and transportation outputs together.
So when you blow a tire in a pothole, or find your bus line discontinued, remember that WisDOT is working on getting you that extra freeway (sic) lane south of the airport so you can drive into the Illinois toll system a few minutes faster.
And WisDOT engineers are working frantically to get final approvals for that nifty, $25 million shopping mall-only Diamond Interchange out at Pabst Farms in Western Waukesha County so shoppers can zip right up to yet another Home Depot.
But don't plan on taking a new train to either destination, or reading in your local paper that WisDOT is sending emergency funding to your town so the roads don't look and ride like they were hit with mortars.
That's because everyday local road motorists and their poor relations - - the transit riders - - haven't thrown the local legislators enough $1,000-per-foursome fundraising golf outings to get their phone calls returned.
State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) abandons her shrink-the-government philosophy and suggests on her ironically-named "Conservatively Speaking" blog that the state create a Google-type website showing, with updates, where every expenditure of $100 is going.
Hey, big spender! Been in Madison too long?
OK, OK, I know...you think I am making this up.
Here are the salient paragraphs
