Possible Executive Director Appointment Still On Thursday, 3/20 SEWRPC Agenda

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 Pabst Farm Interchange Debate Continues

On Tuesday, I posted commentary on the fast-tracked deal to spend $25 million for the Pabst Farms shopping mall Interstate interchange.

I said it would use public funds to induce sprawl and drain business away from nearby small-town Main streets.

I also argued that it was a sweet deal for the mall's developers because they are paying just 7% of the interchange cost while taxpayers will pick up the remaining 93%.

Later in this post, you will see that Kurt Bauer, Executive Director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, holds personal opinions that support much of my land-use argumentation.

In an editorial today, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel disagrees, but also notes that along with better highways, the region needs improved transit, upgraded water treatment facilities and more sensitive planning overall.

Points well taken - - though sprawl and poor planning in Waukesha are more likely to accelerate in direct proportion to the amount of highway concrete that is poured, farmland that is converted, and new water supply that is piped there.

It's worth remembering that the Pabst Farms project - - really a self-contained small city with hundreds of homes, a hospital, a school, parking lots and multiple commercial ventures that will include a million-square foot mega-mall - - spreads acres of pavement right on top of once-agricultural land.

The very same land that still serves as the vital recharge area through which rain and snowfall are absorbed for the aquifer, which is the region's underground water supply.

The Pabst Farms project will spur more construction throughout the historic Kettle Moraine, encroaching on or near environmental corridor lands that the regional planning commission (SEWRPC) has recommended for decades in its Land Use Plan be left alone.

Kurt Bauer, SEWRPC executive director emeritus, has said often that the commission's original Land Use Plan, updated since, contains many good recommendations, including some that have been followed and some that have not.

(Bauer is the chairman of SEWRPC's controversial water supply study advisory committee - - controversial because it is headed, in my opinion, towards recommending sprawl-inducing diversions of Lake Michigan water into Waukesha County, so the spiral continues. Though retired as the agency's long-time executive director, he remains an agency consultant.)

At the advisory committee meeting of November 30, 2005, Bauer said that some local governments' failure to adopt SEWRPC's environmental corridor recommendations "in the Land Use Plan for 20 or 30 years" had been "a tragedy."

He recommended that environmentalists read the plan, and thinking he was aiming that comment at me (I was in the audience), I talked to Bauer after the meeting and he made sure I got a copy of the plan to peruse.

And as an aside, Bauer said to me, "Pabst Farms should never have been built."

That statement stuck with me.

Today I asked Bauer by telephone to amplify it, which he did, emphasizing that it was "a personal view."

Said Bauer: "Pabst Farms was at one time in a prime agricultural area. If the Regional Land Use Plan had been followed, it [Pabst Farms] would not have been given over for development...it should have been kept in agricultural, open use."

And as to agriculture in Waukesha County, which Bauer said was a worldwide cattle provider as late as the 1960's?

"Agriculture is pretty much gone there," he said.

Bauer said the key to containing sprawl is land use decision-making at the front end of the planning and development processes because "land use is the key to all these problems that we don't address" - - but he said that residential developers across the region continue to convert open land, with commercial and industrial land following.

"The containment of sprawl: [SEWRPC] has been preaching against it for forty years, but it's crying in the wilderness."

"Pabst Farms is a big change. You can see it," Bauer said.

"But alot of these changes occur in small increments. What do the Chinese say? 'It's the death by a thousand cuts.'"

My take on sprawl, both in smaller increments and the big, Pabst Farms' scale examples, in Waukesha County and across the region?

If regionalism and regional planning don't have preservation as their centerpiece, then we are squandering God-given gifts of water, forests and glacial hills, leaving behind a lament of failure through greed as our grandchildren's legacy.

Some Highlights From Tuesday's SEWRPC Water Study Meeting

Here are a few notes from today's meeting of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's advisory water study committee.

[Regrettably, SEWRPC does not transcribe, videotape, audiotape or stream these meetings; hand-taken notes by a staffer are eventually posted online - - sometimes delayed by months - - so if you are not there, you miss the details, nuances, and asides. I'm putting down a few highlights, and some observations in italics.]

1. SEWRPC officials told the committee their work will not be completed until November or December. That is because SEWRPC is adding a socio-economic analysis to the draft report as urged by the Environmental Justice Task Force. The analysis will be written by a consultant not yet selected, SEWRPC officials said.

It is unclear whether the amended draft report will be circulated at public meetings, as was the current draft. If I had to guess, I'd predict it will be discussed at a meeting of the justice task force, and a water committee meeting - - but not at another round of public sessions with a comment period. Continuing to treat this issue like the study's ignored step-child could come back and bite SEWRPC's wobbly credibility.

2. The committee addressed and then skirted efforts by committee member Lisa Conley, representing the rural group Town and Country Resource Conservation and Development, Inc., to have her strong concerns about drug and other exotic water pollutants added to the section of the draft report that included SEWRPC's formal responses about comments made by the public.

Conley said the exotic chemicals were "a looming threat" that needed more attention now, citing earlier chemical dangers, like DDT and others that were disregarded for far too long.

SEWRPC staff and other committee members agreed with Conley that water quality is a big-picture concern that was not addressed directly by the Great Lakes Compact, which governs diversions and focuses mainly on water quantity issues, but said water quality was primarily the responsibility of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources or the US Environmental Protection Administration, or could be addressed in other studies.

SEWRPC agreed to add some language in the final report to address Conley's concerns, but not in the comment section or in the specific context of Waukesha adding its treated wastewater to Lake Michigan.

Over the years of the study, Conley, with few allies on a committee dominated by water industry, utility and local government officials, has persistently tried to get the committee and staff's attention to big-picture water conservation and quality issues that others at the table do not whole-heartedly embrace.

Among her passions have been rainwater catchment systems as a working water conservation alternative, and now - - at the Tuesday meeting - - a heightened sense of concern about water pollution and water quality.

3. Milwaukee's committee member, water works manager Carrie Lewis, told the committee that the City of Milwaukee's official position is that no diversions that are subject to approval under the new Great Lakes Compact be approved until the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources writes its administrative rules governing Wisconsin's review and approval procedures.

She pointed out that when the committee began meeting in 2005, there was no Compact.

Waukesha's representative, water utility manager Daniel Duchniak, said the DNR had indicated "they do not need to wait...this [action prior to rule-making] happens all the time."

Lewis and Duchniak engaged in some friendly 'let's-take-this-outside' banter: in the end, SEWRPC staff, looking for some middle ground, said it would work on language stating for its its final recommendations that recognized the need for full compliance with the Compact, but did not add today Milwaukee's official position as part of the committee recommendations.

I suspect this issue is not resolved; the committee's inclination to side with Waukesha on this issue will help move Waukesha's application-drafting process forward, but could put Waukesha's application at risk in the eight-state approval process.

That is because other states may see the DNR and the state as renegade, uncollegial regulators, with the SEWRPC committee in Waukesha's pocket.

4. SEWRPC staff at several points strongly defended the integrity of its land use plan - - the SEWRPC over-arching master plan document in place for decades and that is regularly updated - - that some environmental groups and activists are continuing to challenge as flawed, weak or ineffective.

Even inducing sprawl.

Some recent history here.

At one point, SEWRPC Executive Director Ken Yunker acknowledged that some development in the region had occurred away from urban centers "regardless of what the land use plan recommended...but it was not recommended."

Also weighing in: SEWRPC's emeritus director Kurt Bauer - - the agency's first executive director, and now the water committee's chair and also for years a SEWRPC consultant.

Bauer directed the writing of the original land use plan and is very much identified with what is SEWRPC's corporate identity and seminal document.

Bauer has long argued that the land use plan is sound, and that if inappropriate development in the region had taken place it was because local governments disregarded the plan.

For example, Bauer has cited development at Pabst Farms on agricultural lands as a project that took place against the recommendations of the land use plan.

At one point in today's discussion - - during a presentation about regional water supplies that led to some discussion of the land use plan - - Bauer made this observation:

"All this nit-picking by the environmental groups on the land use plan is dead wrong. It's a good plan."

Final observation:

SEWRPC writes plans, but they are not followed. And SEWRPC does not believe that plan advocacy is part of the agency mission. Finger-pointing aside, why defend a plan or the processes that create them if they are ignored?

Taxpayers Provide Local Government Officials With Gas-Guzzlers

No, that's not an April Fool's Day headline.

Here's the story:

I noticed when reading the minutes of the February meeting of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's executive committee that the agency had taken delivery of a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria.

Usually you see those big 'ol Crown Vics - - souped-up with special speed and handling packages - - in law enforcement fleets.

That makes sense, since officers need big cars to catch speeders and haul prisoners.

But in regular, civilian life, where cost is a substantial factor, Crown Vics are joining other big domestic cars as memories of an era that's ending.

Case in point:

New York City cab companies are replacing their Crown Vics with hybrid vehicles to save money, given the price of gasoline.

And you'd think that getting a green fleet in operation would be a priority at SEWRPC, our regional planning agency, where sustainability - - fiscal and environmental - - should be something of a model.

Both to conserve resources, and to save taxpayer money. I mean, why not?

But signs to the contrary have been routine at the Pewaukee-based agency, whose headquarters in an industrial park isn't even on a bus line.

The $6.5 freeway upgrade SEWRPC wrote for the region, with more than $2.7 billion in the ground or about to be committed by state transportation officials, contained no transit extensions or recommendations, and projected usage of our rebuilt and expanded freeway system when gasoline was at $2.30 a gallon, SEWRPC records indicate.

In 2005 dollars.

It would be nice to be able to buy gasoline with three-year-old dollars, and at $2.30 a gallon, that's not what any of us are paying, and it's not what the taxpayers are spending to keep a new Crown Vic on the road, either.

Or another recently-obtained vehicle, a 2007 Chevrolet Impala, itself not known as a gas miser.

I asked the agency for more information, and an email came back, reprinted below, that provided a great deal of information about SEWRPC's fleet.

One highlight:

The assignment of the Crown Vic to contractor - - not fulltime staffer - - Kurt Bauer, the agency's Executive Director Emeritus.

Bauer, who retired as Executive Director in 1996, is a three-quarter-time consultant to SEWRPC earning $6,500 a month, and who also receives an office and a car, according to the agency.

Bauer's major contract duties at SEWRPC include chairing two SEWRPC advisory committees, and serving as County Surveyor, according to the agency.

Now I can see having roomy, heavy vehicles for some of SEWRPC's field work.

And I'm not suggesting that people be squeezed into a minicar.

But c'mon:

Buying relatively low mpg rides for the current Executive Director (Phil Evenson, an '06 minivan), Deputy Director (and '09 Executive Director designee Ken Yunker, the '07 Impala), and Bauer (the '08 Crown Vic - - which gets 18 mpg combined city, highway driving, per the newly-recalibrated federal estimates)?

And other trucks that also really burn gas?

Remember: taxpayers from seven counties pay all SEWRPC's expenses - - Milwaukeans the largest share - - but it doesn't appear if saving money or fossil fuels went into the vehicles' purchase or operation.

Here is the SEWRPC fleet information email, verbatim:

"All Commission vehicles are considered to be available to all employees on an as-needed, sign out basis; consequently, they constitute a pool.

"Certain individuals, including Messrs. Evenson, Yunker, and Bauer, are designated as the primary users and sign-outs need to be cleared with them. To the extent the vehicles are taken home or used for personal use, we follow all IRS regulations.

"The Commission auto pool consists of the following vehicles:

2006 Chrysler Town & Country Primary user - Executive Director

2008 Chevrolet Impala Primary user – Deputy Director

2008 Ford Crown Victoria Primary user – County Surveyor

2007 Chevrolet Suburban Primary user – Field Crew Chief – Wetlands

2000 Chevrolet Silverado Primary user – Field Crew Chief - Surveyor

2003 Ford Taurus No primary user

2004 Ford Freestar No primary user

2006 Chevrolet Silverado No primary user

2006 Dodge Grand Caravan No primary user"

The point is that the SEWRPC mindset still doesn't embrace sustainability.

The only green component of SEWRPC's fleet operation is the color of our money ending up at auto dealerships and gas stations.

Those Who Left Justice Issues Out Of SEWRPC Study Now Get To Advise On How To Add It Back

You want to know how dysfunctional it's gotten at SEWPRC - - the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission?

Let me reduce it to ten simple steps.

1. In December, 2005, SEWRPC selects a 31-member, all-Caucasian advisory committee to write a plan to address regional water supply issues.

2. The committee, with participation and direction by and from SEWRPC senior staff, drafts a study work plan focusing on engineering and scientific data, cost-benefit analyses, and other parameters that do not include potential socio-economic consequences of various water supply solution alternatives - - like sending Lake Michigan water to fast-growing suburbs west of Milwaukee and into Waukesha County.

3. A clamor of opposition to SEWRPC's exclusion of minorities and low-income communities from various committees and other SEWRPC activities and policy-making (and payrolls) leads to SEWRPC establishing an Environmental Justice Task Force.

4. After a protracted fight, SEWRPC accedes to the Task Force's desire to add to the water study - - and all future SEWRPC studies - - an independent analysis of socio-economic consequences.

As if you need to force a regional planning commission that such an analysis need be done - - underscoring, again, why Milwaukee is ill-served by the current planning commission structure..

5. Anyway: the water committee is all but done with its study, sends out , for comment its preliminary recommendations that include moving Lake Michigan water to Waukesha and other communities - - where there are relatively few minorities and low-income residents compared to Milwaukee.

6. At the 11th hour, SEWRPC agrees to hire a consultant - - an economic development institute at UWM - - to somehow add a socio-economic analysis to the water study recommendations.

The consultants at UWM will get 90 days to do their work, though the rest of the study has taken about four years.

And how the new relatively-short new study gets added intelligently and meaningfully to the pending recommendations - - which have already had a round of hearings and comment periods - - is anyone's guess.

Will it become an add-on? An appendix? Or a genuine guide to policy-and-decision-making that will require revisions to the water supply recommendations?

7. Today - - Tuesday - - the water supply committee met and got an update from current executive director Ken Yunker on the 90-day socio-economic study that is supposed to start soon.

Committee chairman Kurt Bauer, SEWRPC's first executive director going back to the late 1960's - - and now executive director emeritus and a paid SEWRPC consultant - - grumbled about yet another delay to concluding the study.

But this has to be said:

Had Bauer or other SEWRPC staffers encouraged the committee to look broadly at the issues at hand - - if SEWRPC had taken socio-economic issues seriously over the years and decades - - none of this would be needed now.

8. Carrie Lewis, Milwaukee's Water Works manager and the city's lone representative on the committee, said aloud at the Tuesday meeting that she hoped this new wrinkle wouldn't add another five years to the committee's work.

9. Lewis asked Yunker if the committee could make suggestions for the scope of work that the socio-economic consultants at UWM are negotiating with SEWRPC.

10. Yunker agreed, and said the committee would also receive the consultant report (along with the Justice Task Force) - - meaning that the very committee that overlooked the entire environmental justice issue in the first place now gets to help tell the consultants who are going to fix that omission what the study scope should include, and then will be in a position to review those findings.

How backwards is that?

Will SEWRPC Have Two Executive Director Emeriti On Staff? Why Not?

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), has functioned as such an insiders' club that Kurt Bauer, first executive director of the nearly-49-year-old agency, is still a three-quarters' time consultant there - - with a $6,500-per-month salary, office and a 2008 Ford Crown Vic sedan at his disposal, to boot.

Now Phil Evenson, the executive director who replaced Bauer in 1997, is getting ready to retire at the end of this month.

Will history repeat itself?

Will Evenson step into another, no-bid SEWRPC consultancy for retired-executive directors, hang on to the Chrysler Town & Country SEWRPC-owned minivan to which he has a priority assignment, and chair an advisory committee or two, as Bauer has been doing?

SEWRPC has said that one reason there are so few minorities on staff (3 of 49 professionals, and no senior managers) is that there is little turnover in those ranks.

You can say again:

Bauer has been there since the beginning, while Evenson worked at SEWRPC for 37 years and his replacement, current deputy director Ken Yunker, has been there for 34 years.

And when the Environmental Justice Task Force got wind of Yunker's impending selection earlier this year, and asked Evenson to stop the hiring process so the Task Force could participate, it was Evenson who decided the hiring should go forward, telling the Task Force that keeping the process on track was his decision - - and also that promotions like Yunker's was SEWRPC past practice, meaning that to consider other candidates would have been unfair to them.

Details in this post, towards the bottom.

There's something good to be said for continuity, but Yunker's in-house, no-search selection as Evenson's successor spoke volumes about just how tight and self-selecting is the circle and thought-process running and directing the agency.

SEWRPC Task Force, Director, Clash Over Independent Analyses: Task Force Prevails

Talk about citizen empowerment and an effort to reform the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission from within:

By a vote of 8-1, the agency's relatively new Environmental Justice Task Force is recommending that "every SEWRPC plan, i.e. housing, land use, water, etc. will incorporate socio-economic impact analyses by a reputable, independent source other than SEWRPC before the plan may be adopted..."

The task force met in Waukesha on Tuesday afternoon.

The key word there is "independent," as the task force is saying that for SEWRPC's plans to be more credible, new professional voices from the outside have to be added to all the agency's studies.

The 8-1 vote came despite pointed remarks in opposition by outgoing Executive Director Philip Evenson. He said took the resolution "personally" and was "offended" by it.

The task force said it respectfully disagreed; the resolution is a recommendation only, and could be ignored or dismissed by the full Commission.

But doing so would send a signal to the task force, created in 2007 to satisfy federal reviewers who found the agency's outreach to minority and low-income communities lacking, that the task force was window-dressing.

SEWRPC has already dissed the task force once when the agency did not heed a request to include the task force in SEWRPC's closed process to name Deputy Director Ken Yunker to replace Evenson as Executive Director in January.

How self-defeating would that be, since the agency is currently the subject of two civil rights complaints by organizations alleging discrimination by the agency against the very people the task force represents?

SEWRPC would be smart to work with, not against its own task force, and to incorporate the perspectives sought by the task force into agency studies.

SEWRPC is nearly 50 years old, and has a decision-making structure in which a small number of people wield great power over its multi-million dollar budget and staff of about 75 people.

In its nearly 50-year history, it has had but two Executive Directors, and the first, Kurt Bauer, is still a three-quarter time consultant as Executive Director emeritus.

Other consultants do regular business with the agency: the current lead consultant on the agency's three-year water supply study, Ruekert-Mielke Inc., also sold SEWRPC its headquarters building in Pewaukee, and Bauer had a consultancy at R-M after his departure as full-time SEWRPDc Executive Director, too.

The task force is not a full-fledged SEWRPC technical advisory committee of the sort that often advises it on a detailed planning issue, like transportation, water, land use, telecommunications or housing - - the latter an item not reported on in a full study by SEWRPC for 33 years, though a study may be forthcoming by the end of the year, Evenson said Tuesday.

Those committees are heavily-populated by local elected officials, agency heads, engineers, planners and other technicians; the task force is heavier on community activists with grassroots' experiences who are determined to speak for groups that have not had meaningful representation in SEWRPC processes.

That is the entire point of the task force, and it appears after Tuesday's session that it wants to be heard within SEWRPC.

We'll see if Evenson, Yunker & et al. are listening.

Reports Show Little Improvement Since 1996 In SEWRPC Minority Hiring

In the two-paragraph "overview" of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's 1996-1997 Affirmative Action plan - - the first such plan that SEWRPC says it produced - - the agency twice uses the phrase "action-oriented program" to describe what it has in mind.

Using SEWRPC affirmative action reports and other documents, it would be hard after more than a decade to describe those efforts as "action-oriented," or successful.

SEWRPC divides its staff among three categories: professional, technical and clerical.

Bottom line:

Of 66 full-time positions at the agency, there is one African-American female in the clerical category, one Asian, Pacific Island male in the professional category, and one Hispanic male, one Hispanic female and one Hispanic female in the technical division.

Five of 66.

And though its seven-county territory includes heavy minority populations in the cities of Milwaukee and Racine, SEWRPC, year-in-and-year-out has hired consistently few minority employees, yet has reported few solutions to self-reported "problem areas," results from affirmative action plans or meeting trend-setting goals, according to a review of SEWRPC affirmative action plans dating to 1996.

These reports are not online.

SEWRPC was created by state statute in 1960, and is comprised of Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, Walworth, Racine and Kenosha Counties.

Additionally, there are identical or nearly identical sections and language in both the 1996-1997 document and the current, 2007-2008 plan (the 2008-2009 report is not yet available).

This suggests that the reports, with hiring data changes and other tweaks added annually, appear to be produced from templates and texts from previous years' reports, and are not dynamic annual action plans looking forward to bold goals, or reacting to poor minority hiring records with innovative solutions.

The 1996-1997 plan's Equal Employment Opportunity Policy statement was signed by then-director Kurt Bauer, the agency's first lead manager.

The 2007-2008 statement was signed by Philip Evenson, Bauer's replacement and only the agency's second executive director.

Bauer is still employed by SEWRPC as a three-quarters' time consultant as executive director emeritus, records show.

SEWRPC is headquartered in the City of Pewaukee, in Western Waukesha County.

The 1996-1997 report indicates that among its 41 professional staffers - - civil engineers, surveyors, architects, planners and other relatively specialized jobs - - there was one minority, an Asian, Pacific Islander female.

One minority of 41 professionals.

Eleven years later, the 2007-2008 report indicates that of 42 professional staffers, there was still but one minority, an Asian, Pacific Islander male.

One minority of 42 professionals - - keeping the minority statistic in the professional ranks at a steady 2%, a percentage that is insignificant, but yet manages at two to bizarrely double the actual, even more paltry raw number of one.

The 1996-1997 report shows no minority members on a 10-person clerical staff; in 2007-2008, there was a slight improvement. One minority staffer had been hired, an African-American female, among eight clerical employees.

In the technical category - - comprising draftsmen, research aides, office equipment operators and others - - this was the breakdown:

In 1996-1997, there were four minorities - - two African-American males and two American Indian females - - on a 46-member technical staff.

In 2007-2008, on a smaller, 30-person technical staff, the report says there were seven minority staffers - - at first glance suggesting a significant percentage and raw number increase in minority hiring.

But wait: Those numbers do not tell the complete story, because the reports do not differentiate between full-time and part-time employees.

In response to a follow-up question, SEWRPC indicated of the seven minority technical staffers in the 2007-2008 report, four were part-time, and only three were full-time - - one Hispanic male, one Hispanic female and one American Indian female.

None of the technical staff minorities in full-time positions were African-American, though the four minority part-time technical staffer were all African-American, SEWRPC says.

Therefore, of 66 full-time employees at SEWRPC in the 2007-2008 affirmative action report, there are actually just five minority employees at the agency - - the aforementioned, three technical staffers, the one professionals and the one clerical employee, the sole SEWRPC African-American fullitime SEWRPC staffer - - for an agency-wide, minority full-time staff level of 7.5%.

You can decide if that is an Affirmative Action success for a public agency in the greater Milwaukee area. My conclusion is at the end.

Other interesting similarities between the current year report and the first one dating back to 1996-1997:

Both contain nearly identical lists of about three dozen media, educational and community organizations to which SEWRPC says it sends job notices as part of its minority outreach action.

The only difference is that Milwaukee central city radio station WNOV was dropped from the list after the 2006-2007 report, records show.

A minority summer internship program is referenced in the 2007-2008 report as one way SEWRPC can help place minority planning and engineering students at the agency.

But the report does not repeat earlier references to a proposed public-partnership, and steering committee, to create up to 50 additional intern positions "if at least ten organizations participated," according to reports from 2001-2002 through 2005-2006.

All the SEWRPC annual affirmative action reports beginning with the 1996-1997 document cite transit deficiencies as a real or potential barrier to minority employee hiring at the agency.

Yet citing problems with parking that were affecting staff recruiting, SEWRPC purchased office space farther west from its former downtown Waukesha headquarters- - where there were some transit connections- - to the more distant Pewaukee office park location that is not on a bus line.
It made the relocation even though SEWRPC acknowledged in its 1996-1997 affirmative action report's "problem areas" section that "the time and expense of commuting to downtown Waukesha is a major disincentive to potential job applicants from Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha Counties..."

But parking problems was an issue that SEWRPC affirmatively resolved with its move from downtown Waukesha to the smaller, more isolated and whiter City of Pewaukee.

The documentation: SEWRPC's Executive Committee minutes from 2/24/00, pps. 3-4, (not online), where the committee endorsed the making of an offer to purchase the Pewaukee office building:

"The discussion also included concerns about the existing Commission offices [in the Waukesha County Historical Society], including lack of parking and the inefficient layout of the current quarters, with a special concern being expressed on the probable detrimental effect on staff recruitment.".

But the resulting relocation by SEWRPC to Pewaukee made the transit disconnect and commuting distance even worse for the agency's Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine employees and applicants.

That lack of transit service and farther location to the west was not a sufficient reason for SEWRPC to either remain in downtown Waukesha, or to find new offices, if they they were truly needed, that were closer to the region's urban core.

So here we are in 2008, with SEWRPC, a 100% taxpayer-financed public agency that provides transportation, housing, water supply, land-use and other crucial planning services to that part of Wisconsin with the largest number of minorities - - but it can't do better than finding one minority professional for its full-time staff of 66, and has but four other full-time minority employees.

If you keep urban people off the payroll, and certainly off the all-white senior staff that SEWRPC also acknowledged did not have a single City of Milwaukee resident, it should come as no surprise that SEWRPC has been following a pro-suburban, highway-building policy agenda, too.

I've been arguing on this blog and in Milwaukee newspaper op-eds and one in Waukessha, too, that SEWRPC is a bad deal for Milwaukee, a city that sent SEWRPC $400,000 in operating money this year, has no representative on the SEWRPC 21-member governing board, and whose minority residents can barely break the color barriers on the SEWRPC staff.

I believe Milwaukee needs to withdraw from SEWRPC and either create a new, urban-focused planning commission in the region with other cities, or handle its share of the region's planning tasks in house, with its planning, transportation, public works and housing staffs.

After reading through the agency's Affirmative Action reports, and seeing little that has been successfully affirmative, or action-oriented, I renew my argument here, and rest my case.

More On Pabst Farms: Kurt Bauer Weighs In And He Might Surprise You

Kurt Bauer, executive director emeritus of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, weighs in on sprawl, Pabst Farms, and the decision to build that big interchange on I-94 to serve the mega-mall coming to the Pabst Farms project.

In a nutshell, his personal view is that Pabst Farms should have remained agricultural property, and that unheeded efforts to contain sprawl like Pabst Farms and smaller, "incremental" developments have been "crying in the wilderness."

Though retired from SEWRPC as its long-time executive director Bauer chairs its water supply advisory committee and is a paid agency consultant.

SEWRPC's Culture Of Indifference

Indifference.

That's what allowed the management at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's to wrap up their quarterly meeting two weeks ago and head over to The University Club and dine, at taxpayers' expense, on tenderloin, cordon bleu and truffle cake to the tune of $995.

In the middle of a severe recession.

In a community with harsh unemployment.

But routine for the agency, which said in the last five years these dinners had cost $5,299.

Indifference.

That's what permitted the sole planning agency in a region with a shortage of affordable housing, with media overwhelmed by stories about housing crises, to wait 34 years before beginning just this year to write a housing study and plan - - but to hold only three housing advisory committee meetings in 2009, and cancel its most recent, scheduled session.

Indifference is what allows management at SEWRPC to have routinely hired so few minority staffers in the agency's half-century of existence that civil rights advocates have had to file a formal federal complaint to try and bring the agency's workforce and vital committee structure into the 21st century.

Indifference is what permitted managers at the headquarters in Pewaukee to give away through an in-house raffle perfectly good computers to staffers when new machines with flat screens were delivered.

Or to give away used cars.

Or to hire outgoing senior managers as consultants through no-bid contracts.

Or to buy a $3+ million headquarters from a consulting company the agency often hires - - but without competing offers, or a search of other potential sites, or any public notice that SEWRPC wanted to buy a building.

Indifference allowed the agency to promote Ken Yunker, the Deputy Director last year to current Executive Director without a job search - - because that was how Phil Evenson, the outgoing Executive Director (post-retirement consulting agreement for 2009 secured) had been moved into the top spot years earlier.

Where he replaced Kurt Bauer, the agency's first Executive Director - - who has been working for years at SEWRPC as Emeritus Director, surveyor and consultant.

With a Ford Crown Victoria automobile.

And an invite to the 2009, end-of-year soiree at at The University Club.

There have only been three SEWRPC Executive Directors - - Bauer, Evenson and Yunker, selected, promoted, retained, recycled in a tight circle - - indifferent to how that might look, or to public agency common behaviors, but not indifferent to their own, and each other's wants and needs.

Indifference by SEWRPC senior management, and by the 21 appointed commissioners to the agency's essential reality - - that the entire annual $8 million agency budget comes from local, state or taxpayers - - drains confidence in agency performance, dilutes its credibility, and damages its message.

As a corporate culture, indifference is poison.

As a mission statement, in practice - - self-parody.

As an identity - - unacceptable.

After Considerable Delay, SEWRPC Answers Open Meeting Question

I had posted an item sometime ago chronicling my efforts to get an answer from the regional planning commission about how it would conclude work on a high-level report being drafted by its justice task force and its consultant.

The question was: can a public body basically finish its work by email, especially if Open Meetings issues had been raised about the process - - a process not followed by other agency committees or advisory bodies.

The agency has responded; apparently there will be one more meeting, on 9/2.

Here is the full exchange.

Jim,

As you are likely aware, an extended review period for the EJTF to ask questions and comment upon the Socio-Economic Impact (SEI) Analysis prepared by UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development (UWM-CED) concluded on August 6, 2010.

Commission committees/task forces have not operated in an identical manner. Technical committees like the Water Supply Committee may have generally operated in the manner you described. Other committees/task forces have not. The Commission does not enforce a uniform method of operation on committees/task forces.

Over four meetings, the EJTF has reviewed, discussed, and commented on the scope and findings of the SEI. UWM-CED has responded to Task Force comments and expanded their analysis and report. You were present at the July 8^th meeting. At the meeting, EJTF member Jackie Schellinger desired to make a motion to accept the UWM-CED report. Vice-Chair Nancy Holmlund suggested that the EJTF not act on a motion, as she recalled there was an issue raised at the July 8^th meeting which should still be analyzed by UWM-CED and incorporated in the SEI report. After some EJTF discussion, it was determined that there was one remaining question to be answered—the potential impacts of the differential in the costs of water supply alternatives to the City of Waukesha. The potential need to schedule a meeting of the EJTF during the first week of August was discussed to consider this question and complete the EJTF review of the SEI. Professor Rast of UWM-CED indicated the need to complete the study by the end of July and suggested that the EJTF review of the response to this last unanswered question, and the SEI, be completed by email before the end of July. The EJTF was in unanimous agreement at the July 8^th meeting to complete the study in this manner, rather than to schedule an additional meeting in August or to hold off until September. Based upon recent interest expressed by Task Force members, however, we expect that further discussion of the SEI will be an item on the EJTF meeting agenda ofSeptember 2, 2010.

Sincerely,

Gary Korb

Regional Planning Educator

UW-Extension working with SEWRPC

262-547-6721

gkorb@sewrpc.org

From: James Rowen [mailto:jer45y@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 10:16 AM
To: Korb, Gary K.
Cc: jer45y@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: SEI Summary/Final Draft

Hi, Gary; I sent this on a Sat. and you may not have seen it. Hoping you can let me know what is happening with this EJTF/consultant report. Thanks. James Rowen --- On Sat, 7/31/10, James Rowen wrote: From: James Rowen Subject: RE: SEI Summary/Final Draft To: "Gary K.Korb" Date: Saturday, July 31, 2010, 6:36 PM Gary: I want to clarify what is happening with the final review of the EJTF consultants' work. I continue to be concerned that this review, and perhaps an action by the task force, is to happen or has happened by email, and without an open meeting where there would be discussion before and including the public, and perhaps including a vote or decision on content that will be forwarded to the SEWRPC water supply advisory committee on water for inclusion in its pending draft report. As I remember the procedures of the water supply advisory committee: chapters or reports were drafted by the consultants and staff and were mailed out, then edited, often-line-by-line during a scheduled meeting, with changes being made by consensus,or occasionally by vote, or promised for inclusion prior to the next meeting by Bauer, or Biebel, or the consultants - - and then the chapter or report with those edits and changes was sent out in the packet for the next meeting - - and then adopted in minutes' approval at the beginning of that subsequent meeting. In fact, there were often corrections to the edits agreed upon as the minutes with the changes were being considered. Do I have that wrong? It seems to me that the process being permitted for the EJTF is different. Can you please clarify this, and if my analysis is correct, I'd urge you not have one process for the advisory committee on water supply and another for the EJTF, as the EJTF's work will be added to the draft report, and the EJTF itself was borne out of frustrations with SEWRPC outreach. Thanks. And if not, why is that procedure not being followed by the EJTF? James Rowen --- On Mon, 7/26/10, Korb, Gary K. wrote: From: Korb, Gary K. Subject: RE: SEI Summary/Final Draft To: "'Jim Rowen'" Date: Monday, July 26, 2010, 9:17 AM Ken, At the EJTF meeting of July 8th, it was determined that there was one remaining question to be answered---the potential impacts of the differential in the costs of water supply alternatives to the City of Waukesha. The potential need to schedule a meeting of the EJTF during the first week of August was discussed to consider this question and complete the review of the Socio-Economic Impact (SEI) Analysis. Professor Rast of UWM CED indicated the need to complete the study by the end of July and suggested that the review of the response to this last unanswered question, and the SEI, be completed by email before the end of July. The EJTF was in agreement to complete the study in this manner, rather than to schedule an additional meeting in August or to hold off until September. Gary Korb Regional Planning Educator UW-Extension working with SEWRPC 262-547-6721 gkorb@sewrpc.org From: James Rowen [mailto:jer45y@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 11:10 AM To: Korb, Gary K. Subject: Re: SEI Summary/Final Draft Does the email review constitute the EJTF approval of the draft? Or will there be a meeting at which a resolution to that effect will be taken up? James Rowen --- On Tue, 7/20/10, Korb, Gary K. wrote: From: Korb, Gary K. Subject: SEI Summary/Final Draft Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:57 AM Parties interested in SEWRPC’s Environmental Justice Task Force: In presenting findings of the Socio-Economic Impact (SEI) Analysis during the July 8th meeting of the Task Force, Dr. Rast of UW-Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development indicated that the Center would wrap up activity on the SEI by July 30, 2010. He requested that final review by the Task Force occur via email. We are providing you with the final materials which the Task Force has received and will highlight several key points. No Significant Socio-Economic Impacts Found/Procedural Recommendation For the Future The Center staff summarized the SEI of the Regional Water Supply Plan (RWSP) using a PowerPoint handout, which is attached above. The SEI responds to a series of five questions, addressing population distribution, job distribution, fiscal health and well-being of communities with relatively large populations of low and moderate income families, housing and land use patterns, and Federal regulations on civil rights and environmental justice—for each of the preliminary draft recommendations of the RWSP. In sum, no significant socio-economic impacts were found. There is a key recommendation in the SEI for any future updates to the RWSP, that one or more representatives be selected from either the EJTF or the environmental justice community to serve on the technical advisory committee. As noted on July 8th, the Task Force in 2008 recommended a policy to SEWRPC—which is being implemented—stating that all future advisory committees will have a member or liaison specifically representing environmental justice interests. Waukesha Water Utility’s Diversion Application/Unlikely Socio-Economic Impacts Under Any Alternative Also on July 8th , there was one remaining question regarding whether or not cost differences between the alternatives set forth in the Waukesha Water Utility diversion application would have any differential socio-economic impacts, particularly if either of Waukesha’s groundwater alternatives would need to be implemented. The UWM Center offered to investigate this question, comprising an evaluation of what was perceived by some parties as a remaining “loose end” in the SEI. The findings can be seen in the attachment above, are being fully incorporated into Chapter 4 of the SEI after the subsection entitled Comparison of Wholesale and Retail Water Supplies, and are reflected in the final bullet point at the bottom of p. 6, Chapter 7 (also attached). The UWM analysis concluded that a definitive answer was impossible due to assumptions on cost that may change over time. However, socio-economic impacts were unlikely, since current estimates are that future water rates in the Waukesha Water Utility service area will be significantly higher than in the Milwaukee Water Works service area, regardless of alternative. Future Steps With the additional analysis completed, UWM has indicated that its work will be finished within the next week. The Commission would like to thank the Center for Economic Development and its staff, particularly Policy Analyst Kate Madison, for the extra effort involved in conducting and documenting the SEI and addressing all EJTF questions and comments. The Task Force is similarly thanked for the time and energy invested in the SEI review process. Background information on the SEI and earlier chapters are available on the UWM website:http://www4.uwm.edu/ced/sewrpc/index.cfm. After July 30th, the findings of the SEI will be summarized, along with a synthesis and response to all public comments received on the preliminary draft RWSP, with documentation occurring in the recommended plan chapter (Chapter X) of forthcoming SEWRPC Planning Report No. 52, ARegional Water Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin. The Summary and Conclusions of the SEI (Chapter 7) will become an appendix to the Planning Report. All of these materials will be provided to the Regional Water Supply Plan Advisory Committee for review and consideration, and then forwarded to the Regional Planning Commission. Sincerely, Gary Korb Regional Planning Educator UW-Extension working with SEWRPC 262-547-6721 gkorb@sewrpc.org