I-94 Interchange To Nowhere Needs To Be Halted

Now that the Mayor of Oconomowoc is saying that the upscale mall at Pabst Farms is a pipe dream, isn't it time that the state, Waukesha County and Oconomowoc withdraw their financing for nearly all that $25 million full-diamond interchange that was to service said mall?

Big glitzy malls are hardly being built anywhere. Retail is dying. The last thing the region needs is a new Mayfair dumped in a cornfield, complete with a fancy interchange for motorists who are more likely to be saving their money, or shopping to help save Main streets in downtown Oconomowoc, Jefferson, Fort Atkinson or Waukkesha.

And let's have the State Audit Bureau examine the process wherein the various parties and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission charged ahead on the interchange plan even as one mall developer pulled out and its replacement couldn't - - and still hasn't - - come up with potential tenants that you wouldn't find in a glorified strip mall?

$25 million would provide a lot of tax relief, or fill a lot of potholes, or get some local transit service running in a part of the region where buses are as scarce as albino deer.