Area Officials Looking To Repair Giant State Pothole

There's a huge pothole in Madison, but it's in the minds of the managers at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, (WisDOT), and not in the street that runs in front of their offices out at Hill Farms.

WisDOT wants to disregard the federal stimulus legal requirement that local transportation project spending be directed to economically-distressed populations.

Instead, WisDOT wants first to fund road and bridge work in upscale River Hills, Mequon and other Milwaukee-area suburbs, rather than in the City of Milwaukee, where the region and state's poverty is concentrated.

Tom Held of the Journal Sentinel brings us the latest chapter in this outrageous charade.

It's crazy that the Mayor of Milwaukee has to keep lobbying the local decision-making committee, and read to it the law and regional demographic data chapter and verse, to steer the local committee around the WisDOT pothole.

Actually, more like a sinkhole. It threatens to swallow millions is misdirected federal aid, to keep poor people unemployed, and to force Milwaukee to keep its degraded infrastructure unrepaired.

I think this has reached the point where the Governor has to step in and direct his transportation secretary to follow the law and use commonsense.

If Mequon and River Hills can get the first crack at stimulus dollars for economically-distressed communities, then the world has really gone mad.