Thursday, May 19, 2011

Alberta Darling Double-Talks Herself Into Stewardship Program Self-Parody

The Joint Committee on Finance approves deep short-and-long-term cuts in the borrowing and resources that fund Wisconsin's popular, bi-partisan land conservation and stewardship program - - where open space is preserved for hikers, hunters, anglers and other public users - - by 30% annually to $60 million annually, and by $234 million through 2020, no doubt making real estate and development interests real happy.

Committee co-chair Alberta Darling's take is that the reduction "does not reflect a backpedaling of interest in stewardship."

Yes it does.

Read the words in the Journal Sentinel story, headlined - -

State budget panel cuts $26 million from stewardship program

"I think $60 million is a very reasonable number and does not reflect a backpedaling of interest in stewardship," committee Co-Chairwoman Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) said

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My understanding is the Walker budget makes it much harder to actually spend Stewardship Fund money. Purchases require approval by the local tax jurisdiction and the state is barred from giving that jurisdiction money to replace the lost tax revenue, so in these times such purchases would rarely be approved locally. Is this still true?

James Rowen said...

I am not sure. I see this provision:

Further, specify that, for any proposed acquisition using stewardship funds within 30 days of receiving notice, each city, village, town, or county may adopt a nonbinding resolution that supports or opposes the proposed acquisition of land if any portion of the land is located in the city, village, town, or county and require DNR to consider a resolution if one is adopted before approving or denying the grant or acquisition.