Give Business Control Of Public Resources - - Bad Things Will Happen

[Originally posted, 3:00 p.m. Sunday, May 6, 2012] If you let developers have their way with the Milwaukee County Grounds, you can kiss open space and historic buildings good-bye, and say hello to more roads and traffic, too.

With the not-so-surprising 'news' that buildings at the Milwaukee Grounds on the National Historic Registry may be razed as part of the UW-M research park plan there, remember also that Wauwatosa officials told the Waukesha Patch a few months ago they were dismayed at the effects of the Zoo Interchange freeway plan on the development and site, too.

...a sort of glum realization seemed to settle over aldermen as they saw what impact the project will really have on the County Grounds.

"The road looks really – big," Ald. Tim Hanson said after seeing the plans for the north-to-south route planned to serve the research and development center between Watertown Plank Road and Swan Boulevard.

If you let right-wing corporate ideologues run state government and the natural resources department - - this warning dates to 2010 - -   laissez-faire regulation and favoritism inevitably will let human waste hauling trucks unload near your Wisconsin farm fields and drinking water supplies.

It's the logical consequence of letting the fox move into the hen house.

We'll leave it to State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, (R-Oconomowoc) - - husband of recall-worthy Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and back of the waste hauling dumper explain, courtesy of Ron Seely at the Wisconsin State Journal, businesses these days in Scott Walker's Wisconsin should be allowed do do whatever they pretty well damn please wherever and whenever they want:

At a second meeting, on Dec. 20, [Joel] Kleefisch — who also received $100 in campaign donations from [hauler Richard] Herr and whose wife Rebecca received $2,250 from the Herr family during her campaign for lieutenant governor — challenged [DNR Executive Assistant Scott] Gunderson to reconsider the citations the DNR was weighing against Herr.

“In the age of the DNR/Wisconsin Governor being pro-business, why is the DNR giving Herr 5 citations and why can’t 2 or 3 be taken away as a show of good faith?” Joel Kleefisch asked, according to [DNR investigator David] Bolha’s notes of the meeting.

He also reportedly asked that the fine be reduced. Kleefisch didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Bolha also noted Kleefisch asked Gunderson to write the district attorneys involved suggesting the DNR would be in favor of even lower fines.

Gunderson, Bolha reported, “did not seem enthusiastic about writing a letter” but emphasized the agency “had done everything the DNR could to keep the referral from going to the DOJ where the civil forfeitures could have reached $20,000 to $40,000.”

In an interview last week, Gunderson said he recalled making the comments but said he did not ultimately write a letter to the district attorneys suggesting lower fines.

You may remember this recent DNR/Joel Kleefisch interaction.