Paul Hayes, SEWRPC Advocate, Defends Agency

Paul Hayes, the Milwaukee Journal's former environmental reporter, wrote an op-ed for the Journal Sentinel's Crossroads on June 29th that is in support of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), and I am happy to post a link to it, here.

It is essentially a response to a Crossroads op-ed I wrote on June 8th, linked here.

I have known Paul for a long time, as we both worked at the long-gone Journal.

He has a commanding voice in environmental reporting; the history of SEWRPC he is writing for the agency that he mentioned in his op-ed will be rich in detail and value.

I understand that Paul is coming at the SEWRPC debate from a different perspective than mine, and I'm fine with that. It's a disagreement.

And I'm raising issues with the agency's direction and priorities and management, not with individual staffers' technical work or expertise.

I believe that the City of Milwaukee's lack of representation on the Commission board - - which is a failing of the state law that created it, not of the agency - - is a severe problem that constitutes taxation without representation.

Without a constant and internal pro-city, pro-urban, Milwaukee-immersed perspective, SEWRPC has not been pushed to make Milwaukee issues the high priority they need and should be if regional cooperation and regionalism are going to have genuine and inclusive meaning.

Not has SEWRPC focused on making Milwaukee/minorities hires for top jobs, or made meaningful minority participation on its advisory committees a priority, either.

Examples?

The water supply advisory committee has 32 members, of which but one is a minority (Hispanic) individual;

No minority individual or City of Milwaukee resident is a member of the management staff, yet Milwaukee County pays the largest share among the seven SEWRPC counties to the agency's annual operating budget.

SEWRPC has not completed a regional housing study since 1975 - - and that one had its origins in the 60's. Housing is integral to land use, transportation, job creation and other planning and quality-of-life basics.
The freeway expansion plan written by SEWRPC, and being implemented by the state department of transportation contains no transit spending in, or parallel to, the freeway corridors.

I'm not talking about transit plans that are written and sit on shelves without clients or advocacy.

I'm talking studies that are moved to implementation.

Excising transit from that study was a short-sighted decision rooted in a one-dimensional mind-set when the recommendations were made - - and in the light of gas price spikes, a decision somewhere between serious and calamitous, especially for low-income people or those without automobiles.

These gaps and orientations and preferences are long-standing at the agency, and I see no urgency on the part of SEWRPC management to embrace a new ways of doing things.

One final note:

I did not propose terminating the agency.

I proposed that the City and or the County of Milwaukee use their shares of the agency's operating funding they provide automatically from local property taxes to create a new agency to partner with SEWRPC to change the definitions and dynamics of regionalism and planning in this part of the state.

Perhaps other jurisdictions with urban populations would care to join in.

It was meant as a constructive and creative suggestion, and I hope this discussion keeps on going with a conclusion that reforms SEWRPC and makes planning a better deal for Milwaukee.

A new agency is the best way to do that, in my opinion.