Final Walker Nail In Milwaukee Train Factory, Jobs

Our fake job-creating Governor and his anti-rail ideology are literally driving jobs out of town.

When the Talgo train factory closes, and the two moth-balled train sets just like these 

roll away from their intended Milwaukee-Madison market, I hope people with banners and signs assigning blame for the loss of well-paying jobs in the low-income Milwaukee neighborhood will be on the scene to memorialize Walker's hostility to both Milwaukee and transit.

Among the conventional wisdom of the day from editorial writers who backed Walker for election and re-election is that Governors really can't influence job creation:

But is it all Walker's fault that Wisconsin trails other states in economic growth? No. Wisconsin's performance is more a function of long-term trends in the state's core industries. Voters have to realize that there is only so much that any governor can do. He or she should manage state resources wisely and bring those limited dollars to bear in a cost-efficient manner. But the governor should neither take too much credit for creating jobs when times are good or get too much blame when times are not. Bigger forces are at play.

That nicely lets Walker off the hook of his making when he said he'd create 250,000 new jobs, but does not account for actions like his blockade of $810 million Amtrak federal funding, his derailing of the KRM commuter train and his obstruction of Milwaukee's streetcar.

All of those projects had or have immediate and long-term job creating potential - - on and along the lines - - and Walker is responsible for the loss of those jobs.

WI DNR Catalogs Impaired State Waters

Let's keep the Bad River and its tributaries forever off these lists.

Wisconsin’s 2014 Impaired Waters List Submitted to US EPA

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) submitted an updated list of impaired waters to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) on April 1, 2014.  Prior to submitting the list to US EPA, WDNR held a public informational webinar on February 12, 2014 and a formal public comment period from February 4 to March 6, 2014. A small number of changes were made to the list based on public input.

Comments received during the public notice period and WDNR responses, indicating any changes to the draft 2014 impaired waters list, and an updated impaired waters list were submitted to US EPA for their review.  US EPA will review the list according to the requirements of Section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act.  When US EPA makes an approval decision on the submitted list, WDNR will announce the final 2014 list via GovDelivery message and posting on our website. More information about the impaired waters list is available on WDNR’s website. For questions, please contact Aaron Larson (608.264.6129,AaronM.Larson@wi.gov).

Despite Real World Data, WisDOT Rolls Out North Shore Nightmare

Americans are driving less and taking transit more often, according to recent data reported in The New York Times and also in USA Today.

And I'm sure you've heard that Wisconsin is in a transportation (read:highway financing) crisis.

That came from the top guy WisDOt Walkerite himself.

The solution?

Add more lanes and spend more money.

The Wisconsin Political/Road-Builders Complex, managed and funded with taxpayer dollars at the same WisDOT in line for a new $200 million palace on Madison's west side, is forging ahead with a $450 million transit-free budget-busting binge and without the financing in hand to add lanes and exists to a segment of Southeastern Wisconsin free[Sic]ways.

The same WisDOT that rolled over rural and suburban citizens along the State Highway J/164 corridor in Washington and Waukesha Counties and spent millions of public dollars expanding a road with unsafe, higher speed limits until a Federal judge said no more.

I noted and predicted this impending fiscal and landscape FUBAR the other day - - so let's call it the I-43 Northshore Nightmare - - years of artificially-created, orange-barrelled congestion, diverted traffic on side streets, lots of added noise and dust pollution - - to move traffic, and phantom motorists, too.

WisDOT says it's the only option that will work.

That's about as surprising as KFC saying the only solution to American obesity is eating more Double-Downs.

GOP In US Senate Keeps Poor People Poor

No debate on a higher minimum wage, GOP makes certain, killing $10.10/hr.

Senate Republicans rejected opening debate on a Democratic bill to gradually raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour on Wednesday, arguing the legislation would cost the nation jobs while it undergoes a tepid economic recovery.

Righty Voting Suppression Could Cost WI Taxpayers Big Bucks

Wisconsin's right-wing voting suppressionists, unembarrassed by their exposure in Federal Court as poor legislators with discriminatory practices, put forward one of their lesser lights to toss up some word salad and signal the base that Voter ID and Jim Crow weren't dead yet in Wisconsin:

Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-Oconomowoc) said he was confident the voter ID requirement would be reinstated on appeal and state taxpayers wouldn't be out any money. 

"Despite the unions' expenditure of millions to put the Capitol under siege in the last few years, I don't believe they'll see one thin dime for the reasonable photo ID law," he said.

Stunt? Heck, No; It's A Win-Win

Or Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:

Ron Johnson, James Sensenbrenner trade words over Obamacare

Well, Sheriff Clarke Has The Cowboy Hat...

So not surprising that he's tight with the group of US Guvmint authority denier sheriffs who rushed to support the old cotton-picker Cliven Bundy. 

Voter ID Ruling Is Second Today With Wisconsin Importance

Wisconsin's Voter ID law was struck down definitively in a Federal Court just hours after the US Supreme Court dismissed an argument by Walker's Wisconsin and several other states against Obama administration clean air regulations.

On, Wisconsin.

Supreme Court Rules Against Walker And In Favor Of Clean Air

The US Supreme Court ruled 6-2 today (link to the decision) that the Obama administration can use US Environmental Protection Administration rule-making authority to make dirty coal-burning power plants get more of their pollutants out of the air. That we breathe.

Here is a good analysis of the decision.

And the local angle:

Wisconsin, with Walker and Attorney General Van Hollen directing state strategy, was on the losing side.

Also trying to stop the cleanup - - leading state trade associations and utilities.

The pro-pollution Wisconsin position got only two votes on the Court - - from Justices and Tea Party symnpathizers Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - - who suggested the ruling smacked of Marxism

I suppose Walker concurs.

Though that line of reasoning is more Groucho than Karl.

Official Language, Policies Sanitize WI Wolf Hunt

Every line of work - - even clubs and hobbies and games - - have their insider shorthand, jargon and specialized vocabulary.

But language that is dense or obfuscatory when used by government officials - - word chaff, if you will, like "enhanced interrogation techniques" - - can block or overwhelm the public's mandatory need to know and fully understand what's happening in its name, and with its money

No offense to the particular speaker below because he's reflecting his agency's culture, but take a look at how a DNR official earlier today disclosed and explained the major reduction in the state's estimated wolf population following the 2013/14 hunting and trapping season:

The state’s wolf population was estimated at between 658 and 687 animals in late winter, down from 809 to 834 in late winter 2012-’13... 

“The goal for the season was to apply downward pressure (on the wolf population),” said Dave MacFarland, DNR large carnivore specialist. “The increased mortality associated with harvest was the difference.”

"...downward pressure...increased mortality associated with harvest..."

Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Let me make a suggestion: If you are interested in the less-sanitized reality behind those terms, Google "trapped wolves images." 

The Internet and social media are filled with pictures, videos and first-person accounts and comments about trapped/and or shot wolves hoisted aloft like found treasure, or otherwise posed.

The Wisconsin Legislature and Governor Walker created the wolf hunt in 2012, and have allowed dogs into the fray of behalf of special-interest bear hounders and other lobbies close to the NRA. 

No state other than ours lets dogs chase down wolves in the hunt because the other states know that the worst-case/wolf vs. dog confrontation pictures, pain and public protests are not going to be pretty.

In fact, if a bear hounder loses a dog to wolves, Wisconsin will pay the hunter up to $2,500 per dog. 

Even to a scofflaw. Even if the dog's death takes place in a known wolf activity area, or near bait put out by bear hunters.

No state other than Wisconsin does that, either. (One post about all this, among many on this blog, is here.)

A mature and transparent state government would honor its stewardship role on behalf of wildlife it holds in trust for all the people of the state.

And would be more honest with its citizens in explaining and justifying how state wolf hunting policies are implemented, rather than cluttering their meaning and outcomes with terminology and extra syllables.

WI DNR OK With Manure - - Human Or Cattle - - In The Wrong Places

Since the DNR let human waste spreading violations go with simple slaps on the wrist, is there any real surprise that the agency tolerates widespread - - no pun intended - - aerial manure spreading at big farming operations.

Bigger and bigger dairy operations mean a lot more of that unhealthy stuff is in the air, downwind, in your lungs, and working its way into the ground and surface waters which you drink, cook with, swim in and fish.

And basically, the DNR tells neighbors who complain, 'go ahead and sue us,' as if everyone had deep pockets with which to do the agency's work.

Where is the agency's concern as the state's natural resources regulator for the public interest, health and safety?

DNR Springs Big Wolf Kill Statistics At Wausau Meeting

Well, maybe we know now why the DNR didn't hold what has been described as an annual all-day, public wolf population data sharing meeting before announcing the estimated wolf count in Wisconsin:

Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Last year's hunting season helped reduce the wolf population by 19% - - a very big number disclosed by the DNR this morning at a meeting of the its Wolf Advisory Committee on which hunting supporters are heavily-represented, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Public awareness of the big 2013/'14 seasonal killing could have spurred fresh opposition to the state's wolf hunting policies (dogs, traps OK), and led to demands for a lower 2014/'15 quota - - a number still to be set by the committee, the DNR and the state's Natural Resources Board later this spring or this summer.

Oh, Brother, Grothman. Again?

The latest Journal Sentinel poll could turn ugly:

State Sen. Glenn Grothman says he will introduce legislation aimed at ending affirmative action in Wisconsin. Good idea?

Yes (51%)

No (49%)

Total Responses: 452

In Walker's WI, Manure Isn't Just Flying At Big Dairies

I'd noted yesterday that Scott Walker's business-friendly, regulation-averse, public-be-damned DNR, by enabling unhealthy, controversial big-dairy aerial manure spraying, has created something of a relevant metaphor and image for an agency that Walker said he wanted run with a "chamber of commerce mentality."

And you could say that the manure has been flying - - or spread, illegally - - on other matters in and around the State Capitol since Walker and his game-playing, anti-environmental gang took over, including:

Sweetheart iron mining laws.

Wetlands filling.

Recycling.

Frac sand mining.

Clean air rail industries.

Straight talk.

Honesty.

Cable Customers Only Pawns In Companies' Games

Remember when the customer was King?

Well, you can change that channel:

Most Time Warner Cable subscribers in Wisconsin, including all in the metro Milwaukee area, will become customers of Charter Communications as part of a divestiture deal announced Monday by Comcast.

And remember that when Milwaukee handed over cabling rights it was under a monopolistic agreement that was also a license to print money, raise rates, put people on hold while they aged - - and, apparently - - to sell out and dump customers on to another system where they can get overcharged, underserved and generally disrespected anew.

Talk about corporate welfare and special considerations from government, at the expense of the governed.

No wonder cable is a dying, consolidating industry.

Pro-Dairy WI DNR 'Regulation' Lets Liquid Manure Fly

Gag orders needed, literally, as the WI DNR is enabling this disgusting and unhealthy practice to proliferate:

...the DNR continues to grant approvals for CAFOs to use manure spraying, once even exempting an applicant from current regulations, according to a legal challenge. Critics doubt the work group will ban the practice, given that the push to expand it is coming from big agricultural interests.

Walker said he wanted the DNR to be run with a "chamber of commerce mentality," so file under be careful of what you wish for.

The battle against these profit-driven environmental ripoffs is being led in court by Midwest Environmental Advocates. The work is costly, so think about MEA when you write checks to groups doing good, activist work.

Gruesome Crash Highlights Dangerous, Disputed WI Highway

[updated] Residents on and near Wisconsin State Highway J/164 that runs through Waukesha and Washington Counties have been petitioning, suing-and-winning, organizing and practically begging for a safer, cost-saving lowered speed limit, but the Road-Building/Political Complex has arrogantly stalled and resisted and spent millions to expand the road and keep the speed limit high.

I've been writing about these issues, and the citizens' groups - - WEAL, headquartered in Waukesha County, and the Highway J/164 Coalition, based in Washington County - - which are fighting The Power, as recently as two weeks ago - - and as long ago as this posting from May, 2008:

The latest installment in this blog's continuing series "The Road To Sprawlville" takes us across two Southeastern Wisconsin counties, misguided, as is often the case, by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's Madison-based Central Office. 

And just when you think that WisDOT and its Central Office (should that read, "Central Committee?") couldn't out-spend or out-shame itself, it carries out a stealthy, breathtakingly arrogant double-cross to show a citizens group in the southeastern Wisconsin heartland who's the boss... 

For several years, WisDOT and thousands of people living on or near Highway J (State Highway 164) have been locked in a dispute about widening a stretch of two-lane blacktop to four lanes, with limited access and a wide median, for about 18 miles... 

Little slows WisDOT, or the traffic its planning (sic) induces, or pares its spending. 

Several sources, including the Highway J Coalition, and State Rep. Don Pridemore, (R-Hartford), said they had received pledges from WisDOT that the speed limit on the highway would be lowered from 55 mph to 45 mph, and a WisDOT-paid consultant recommended the lowering after a study. 

But then, WisDOT quietly went out and found a second consultant to overrule the first. The second consultant - - and isn't it nice to have so much consulting money lying around that you can just keep on shopping and spending until you get the one you like? - - suggested raising the speed limit to 60 mph, so the final decision is a compromise to leave it at 55, and not lower it.

(Here is a link to the file in the federal court case the citizen petitioners had won.)

Now there has been a horrible crash on that very stretch of highway. A young couple was killed, leaving behind five children to be raised without their parents.

Media are covering the story.

Finally.

Some more information comes to me from the citizens' coalition coordinator, Jeff Gonyo, below. I also posted some of his remarks taken from the second of the April 26 interviews' pdf texts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the past 15 years, many citizens in this area have asked the WisDOT to reduce the speed limit to 45 mph.  Based upon past, proven experience (during the time when Highway 164 speed limit was temporarily reduced to 45 mph for five months back in 2000), the number of traffic accidents dropped by nearly 80%!  

However, the WisDOT roadbuilding bureaucrats have refused to lower the speed limit to 45 mph (which would only cost $8,000 to do according to their own estimates) because they need these accident statistics to justify their unnecessary and unwanted $16 million Highway 164 expansion project (which will make matters much worse with even more deadly traffic accidents at higher speeds).  In short, "45 SAVES LIVES!"

Over the weekend, three HJCG members (Terry Margherita, David Radermacher and I) appeared on Fox 6 News to call for the immediate implementation of a 45 mph speed limit on Highway 164 to prevent future tragic accidents like the one on Friday. You can watch our television interviews by clicking on the following links:

1) April 25, 2014 Fox 6 News story where HJCG member Terry Margherita was interviewed in front of her Highway 164 home on Friday which is where the accident occurred -- http://fox6now.com/2014/04/25/two-killed-in-one-vehicle-crash-in-washington-county/

2) April 26, 2014 Fox 6 News interviews former Washington County Supervisor David Radermacher, and me, supporting a 45 MPH speed limit on Highway 164: http://fox6now.com/2014/04/26/lives-could-have-been-saved-does-highway-164-have-a-speed-limit-problem/

“I have photographs some of these accidents just up the road here right up about two houses up this accident occurred in the 55 mile an hour zone right here right next to the 55 mile an hour sign and it killed the driver of the van,” said Gonyo. 

Gonyo has meticulously cataloged accident after accident that has happened on the highway. Friday’s crash that killed a mother and father of five young children was just the latest in a string of deaths in recent years. 

“Since 2008 we’ve had eight fatalities on this roadway that I know of,” said Gonyo.
Gonyo says he and others would like to see the speed limit drop to 45 mph

City Hall, Public Life In Madison Will Miss Wanda Fullmore

Wanda Fullmore is retiring Monday Wednesday.

And that's more than a staff change in City Hall and the Mayor's Office.

It's a sea change in the life and daily mechanics of the city.

Not just in its governance, but in the city's relationship to the outside world, writ large, because since 1975, Wanda was the face and voice of the city as the first person you'd see or talk to if you contacted  the Mayor's office.

The State Journal had a nice piece about her last week, with some photos. Here is the link.

You'd be surprised at the volume and variety of these contacts. People having no business with the Mayor would call from around the city, or the state, or the country or the world looking for someone to point them in the right direction.

People looking for a phone number, or an address.

Reporters checking a fact or looking for a source.

People of all kinds would walk in: business owners, tourists, elected officials, lost souls, lost kids, friends of friends of friends - - even people with appointments! - - and Wanda would handle the ballet and din and frequent long line with equanimity and aplomb.

All the while answering the phones and interacting with the Mayor and the rest of the staff.

I could never figure out how she did it.

No one could.

I remember walking to the reception area one day and seeing a television reporter sitting silently. I asked if was waiting for someone or needed anything.

"Nope," he said. "I'm just watching Wanda. In amazement."

Wanda quickly became invaluable in staff meetings because she knew and could work her way/our way through all the official, off-site and behind-the-scenes lines of communications and paths to a problem's source or solution.

And her judgement was impeccable: I never heard anyone say, "Wanda got that wrong," or "Wanda really botched that."

It's impossible to say how many people Wanda has helped with good information or solid advice or the shortest, best right route through a bureaucracy in the City-County Building, or at the Capitol, or in a Congressional office in Washington, DC.

Or how many people's days Wanda made brighter with a smile, or "take care, Sweetie."

So if you want to see Wanda one last time in her element, do it Monday because that's her last day running that show.

They're having a party for her at the Frank Lloyd Wright Center Thursday afternoon, and if I were advising local businesses or government officials or agencies that would benefit from bringing on or consulting with Madison's Institutional Memory, I'd make sure I went to that event, made my pitch and got my business card in her hand.

Wanda told me she wants to take it easy and spend more time with her family and see more of the world.

Which she certainly has coming.

But people looking for talent and competency and spirit and leadership will always find their way to talent and expertise, so they are going to beat a path to her door like executives who heard that Jodie Foster was looking for a new project or Mariano Rivera was available for a front-office position.

I've been gone from Madison and the Mayor's office for a long, long time, yet when I think of my time there I remain greatful that I was one of Wanda's co-workers and stayed in touch with her.

You don't get too many chances like that in this life.

Walker In the Doe's Headlights

Scott Walker gets some Christie-like ink in The New York Times: 

But with the prospect of an even higher office on the horizon, Mr. Walker finds his earlier track record under increasing scrutiny, not only for how closely it hews to conservative principles but also for the criminal convictions of some staff members and the release of staff emails that included racial and ethnic slurs. 

These date to his time as Milwaukee County executive, a post he held from 2002 to 2010, and raise questions about the people he chose as confidants, the same sorts of questions that have caused more acute troubles for Mr. Christie in the scandal surrounding lane closings at the George Washington Bridge. 

Three of Mr. Walker’s former aides and several other associates have been convicted of crimes in an investigation into whether campaign work was being done on county time. That investigation exposed the insensitive email exchanges among his aides, like this chain email forwarded by a former chief of staff in the county office: “I can handle being a black, disabled, one-armed, drug-addicted, Jewish homosexual on a pacemaker who is H.I.V.-positive, bald, orphaned, unemployed, lives in a slum, and has a Mexican boyfriend, but please, Oh dear God, please don’t tell me I’m a Democrat!”

WI Wolf Count Insiders Contradict DNR On Data Review

I'd written Friday about how the DNR goes about estimating the size of Wisconsin's wolf population prior to a series of advisory committee meetings that will produce a recommendation to state policy-makers about the 2014/15 wolf kill quota.

Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

DNR spokesman Dan Kaminski told me by email, after I'd asked, that the process the DNR is using this year to estimate the size of the wolf population "is the same process that we have previously used...."

People with direct knowledge of the procedures used in past years' Wisconsin wolf population estimation have independently contacted me to say they are disappointed that, so far this year, one key step in the process has not taken place:

A day-long public meeting at which people with expertise, tracking data, or an opinion about the validity of numbers brought forward by other persons or groups - - a meeting where numbers were debated and a consensus estimate or range was produced that the DNR would then turn over to the advisory committee for its consideration.

I suppose that meeting could still be held, since Kaminski said the data crunching is still underway, though he did say in the email exchange:

There are not specific meetings for developing these data or for crunching the numbers with our research scientists.  So in short, there are not opportunities at that level for the public to provide input on the data, nor are there any meeting minutes associated with the data development to provide.

Below is my exchange with Kaminski about data collection and public input prior to the advisory committee meetings. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kaminski wrote:]

The data collected through our winter track surveys, along with telemetry data and last year’s harvest data, will all be used to develop minimum winter counts.  Based on those counts, the Wolf Advisory Committee will analyze various harvest levels and how each of those is expected to impact the population going forward.  Again, this meeting will be open to the public and the public in attendance will be allowed an opportunity to speak, typically at the end of the meeting.  Furthermore, the Natural Resource Board will give final approval to recommended quotas and those meetings are typically open to the public and allow public comment.  Most likely, the wolf quotas will be addressed at the June Board meeting, although I can’t confirm this for sure as the agenda has yet to be determined.  For more information on the NRB meetings, please visit the following web page: http://dnr.wi.gov/about/nrb/. 

The minimum winter counts are not completed to my knowledge; they are currently being developed by our staff as we have just finalized the winter track surveys early this month or last month.  There are not specific meetings for developing these data or for crunching the numbers with our research scientists.  So in short, there are not opportunities at that level for the public to provide input on the data, nor are there any meeting minutes associated with the data development to provide.

[So I asked]:

And so I understand - - the process to gather and assess the count is a purely internal process, without any outside input - - other than the volunteers'? And is the same process as in past years?

[To which Kaminski responded]:

This is the same process that we have previously used and is no different than how we evaluate population data for any other species (committees exist for deer, elk, turkey, grouse, fisheries, etc.).  Our research scientists run the statistics on the population data and generate various harvest levels and their expected effects which are presented to the Wolf Advisory Committee for review.  The Wolf Advisory Committee is comprised of various state and federal biologists from the DNR, US Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, and US Forest Service, as well as public interests groups such as the Timber Wolf Alliance, WI Bear Hunters Association, Wildlife Federation, WI Trappers Association, and Cattleman’s Association, among others.  Also, from my understanding wolf data are independently reviewed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other wolf experts, to ensure reliability and impartiality of our data.  

If you have concerns regarding the process, the WAC is currently in the process of revising the state wolf management plan and there will be several opportunities for the public to provide comment and input regarding wolf management in the state.  It is too early to know where the various aspects of the plan will be set but there will certainly be opportunities for the public to provide input during the process.  Once a draft plan is completed, we will post the plan online and provide a 30-45 day comment period.  We will also host public meetings around the state to allow the public to provide comments directly regarding the plan.  Once a final draft is developed, we will present the plan to the Natural Resource Board and provide an additional 30-day public comment period.  Furthermore, the NRB meetings will be open to the public as to give citizens another opportunity to provide input.  I encourage you to participate in this process as there will be multiple opportunities for you to provide comments on the plan.  Public input throughout this process is highly important and we are working to provide multiple opportunities for such to better inform our decision-making in the development of the new plan.  So far, we have completed a public survey which was sent out to randomly chosen citizens throughout the state to gauge public opinions on various aspects of wolf management; we are currently in the process of compiling those surveys.  A draft of the new plan is expected this fall with the final plan going to the NRB for final approval later in winter.

Why Nevada Rancher Has New Friend, Donald Sterling

Because the owner of the LA ClippersNBA franchise has our-racialized Cliven Bundy and knock him off the front pages.

Milwaukee Business Community Dug Itself Arena-Sized Hole

The Milwaukee business community correctly sees the downtown development/big picture opportunities that could flow from a new Milwaukee Bucks arena.

But the obstacles to moving that larger vision to brick-and-mortar arise in the anti-urban Republican party that those same business leaders have helped install at the controls of the state government where some element of financial support will need tapping.

GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, (Rochester), is already saying "no" to state tax revenue support for a new arena, and I can't imagine Scott Fitzgerald, his GOP State Senate counterpart from Juneau suddenly joining the Congress for the New Urbanism and taking any different position.

And Governor Walker? The man who told a Waukesha County crowd on the eve of the 2012 recall election to get out and vote so Wisconsin wouldn't become another Milwaukee?

By and large, the Republicans running the state right now represent smaller-town, suburban constituencies and have no use for cities - - even though it is the cities in Wisconsin that support higher education, provide the most jobs and business opportunities and finance the state's economy.

As the GOP sees it, there are too many Democrats in cities, so the party in charge cut the state's second-largest city off from Amtrak connections to Milwaukee and Minneapolis (more cities: ugh) and is busy diminishing Madison's biggest asset - - the UW campus - - by turning it into a work-experience diploma mill with more business-centric management and programs.

And the only value the current GOP sees in Milwaukee is a pool of workers available at the lowest of minimum wages, and land to take and pave for more freeway lanes and ramps.

GOP anti-urbanites blocked light rail for Milwaukee and are monkey-wrenching a downtown streetcar - - transportation systems that work well moving arena-event audiences and add value to businesses along the rail lines and at the stations.

The GOP which the Milwaukee business community is trying to turn 180 degrees on the worth of Milwaukee's downtown simply isn't a fan of cities.

The short-sighted business leaders who backed the state GOP and its anti-urban agendas have made it harder to keep Milwaukee in the NBA.

GOP Goes For The Big Gunners

These pictures tell the same story in very different places.

Gov. Walker's office green-lighted these unlicensed armed men in the Penokees. GOP legislators rationalized their presence

GOP politicians and Fox News cheered these men on in Nevada for backing Cliven Bundy.

Data Again Show Walker's Job-Creation Fail; Add Christie To The Hoodwinked

PolitiFact continues tracking job creation in Wisconsin and again documents the gap between Scott Walker's infamous 250,000 new private-sector jobs promise and the fact that he is only 40% or so there.

Here is the link about Walker and the "baby steps" taken to meet his promise:

The latest report, when combined with previously released data, shows the state created an estimated 105,872  jobs since Walker took office in January 2011 

That leaves 144,128 jobs to go.

Walker is so concerned about the pledge that he has tried to walk away or duck it, including a recent effort to rewrite the record by saying he deserved five years in office to meet the goal, not the four-year term which had always defined the pledge, as media had repeatedly documented.

So how do you square that performance with New Jersey Governor and traffic manager Chris Christie's fantastical ode to Walker in Time magazine, where the magazine inexplicably said Walker was one of the world's most 100 influential people and Christie lauds growth in the state that isn't happening?

Time says Walker is the Midwest GOP's hope, but Wisconsin ranks 32nd-to-35th nationally in job growth, depending on the measure, and ninth in job growth among ten Midwestern states, data show.

That would rank Walker among the most inept among the 100 most important people in the world, and puts Time high up in the easiest-to-fool publications.

In fact, the real star of the Midwest when it comes to growth and jobs and prosperity is Minnesota, where a Democratic Governor shines, putting Walker and his penurious, poor-people-punishing policies to shame.

I figure the Christie people called Walker's people for wording to undermine Walker's greatest weakness and provided Christie's people the text or the inspiration.

If Christie wrote that malarkey himself, he has too much time on his hands.

Questions, Concerns About The 2014/15 WI Wolf Hunt Quota

[Updated, 12:45 a.m. Friday] The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and its Board, after hearing from a wolf advisory committee, will soon establish a kill quota for the upcoming 2014/15 wolf hunting season after having set quotas of 116 in the 2012/13 season and 251 in 2013/14.

Courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

I would expect the 2014/15 quota to be no lower.

So-called sporting lobbies, and backers of Wisconsin's bear-hunting season were among the strong supporters of the wolf hunt, and pro-hunting interests now dominate the advisory committee, critics note.

The lobbies are so strong that they have convinced the Legislature to provide, in a reimbursement program unique to Wisconsin, up to $2,500 per bear-hunting dog killed by a wolf - - even if the predation takes place in a declared wolf-caution area. Even to scofflaws.

The establishment of the wolf hunt through 2012 state law was especially controversial because legislators allowed hunters to use leg traps to snare wolves that are then shot in the head. 

Dogs are also permitted in the hunt's late stages - - a practice disallowed in all other states.

As the third wolf hunting season approaches - - the advisory committee meets next week in Wausau - -  concerns have been recently raised by critics on social media about whether wolf pack population data that will be presented to the advisory committee upon which it will use in ultimately making its 2014/15 wolf hunt kill quota recommendation is being vetted with neutrality and transparency.

So I asked DNR officials this week by email to describe how the advisory committee meetings will operate and also about how the wolf pack data has been collected and analyzed.

DNR officials said that all advisory committee meetings will be open to the public, provide for a comment period after the members' discussions are completed, and produce notes - - not electronic recordings - - to be posted on the committee's website.

(I will include at the end of this item the wolf advisory committee meeting schedules announced by the DNR for April and May.)

As to the issues related to the collection of the wolf population data, and whether it has been or will be available to the public prior to its presentation to the advisory committee, the DNR's Dan Kaminski and I have this dialogue over the last two days after I asked:

I gather that the volunteer trackers and DNR personnel come up with numbers of wolves in the state that are used in determining the hunt quota for 2014 that the advisory committee will recommend. 

Are those meetings or discussions to establish the number or that are used as the basis for the 2014 quota that will be put out at the April and May advisory committee meetings already completed? 

If not, will any further meetings or discussions to establish the hunt quota be open to the public for its input, and are there records of such meetings about the 2014 quota available for review?

To which Kaminski responded yesterday:

AprPM

The data collected through our winter track surveys, along with telemetry data and last year’s harvest data, will all be used to develop minimum winter counts.  Based on those counts, the Wolf Advisory Committee will analyze various harvest levels and how each of those is expected to impact the population going forward.  Again, this meeting will be open to the public and the public in attendance will be allowed an opportunity to speak, typically at the end of the meeting.  Furthermore, the Natural Resource Board will give final approval to recommended quotas and those meetings are typically open to the public and allow public comment.  Most likely, the wolf quotas will be addressed at the June Board meeting, although I can’t confirm this for sure as the agenda has yet to be determined.  For more information on the NRB meetings, please visit the following web page: http://dnr.wi.gov/about/nrb/. 

The minimum winter counts are not completed to my knowledge; they are currently being developed by our staff as we have just finalized the winter track surveys early this month or last month.  There are not specific meetings for developing these data or for crunching the numbers with our research scientists.  So in short, there are not opportunities at that level for the public to provide input on the data, nor are there any meeting minutes associated with the data development to provide.

So I asked yesterday afternoon:

And so I understand - - the process to gather and assess the count is a purely internal process, without any outside input - - other than the volunteers'? And is the same process as in past years?

To which Kaminski responded this morning:

This is the same process that we have previously used and is no different than how we evaluate population data for any other species (committees exist for deer, elk, turkey, grouse, fisheries, etc.).  Our research scientists run the statistics on the population data and generate various harvest levels and their expected effects which are presented to the Wolf Advisory Committee for review.  The Wolf Advisory Committee is comprised of various state and federal biologists from the DNR, US Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, and US Forest Service, as well as public interests groups such as the Timber Wolf Alliance, WI Bear Hunters Association, Wildlife Federation, WI Trappers Association, and Cattleman’s Association, among others.  Also, from my understanding wolf data are independently reviewed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other wolf experts, to ensure reliability and impartiality of our data.  

If you have concerns regarding the process, the WAC is currently in the process of revising the state wolf management plan and there will be several opportunities for the public to provide comment and input regarding wolf management in the state.  It is too early to know where the various aspects of the plan will be set but there will certainly be opportunities for the public to provide input during the process.  Once a draft plan is completed, we will post the plan online and provide a 30-45 day comment period.  We will also host public meetings around the state to allow the public to provide comments directly regarding the plan.  Once a final draft is developed, we will present the plan to the Natural Resource Board and provide an additional 30-day public comment period.  Furthermore, the NRB meetings will be open to the public as to give citizens another opportunity to provide input.  I encourage you to participate in this process as there will be multiple opportunities for you to provide comments on the plan.  Public input throughout this process is highly important and we are working to provide multiple opportunities for such to better inform our decision-making in the development of the new plan.  So far, we have completed a public survey which was sent out to randomly chosen citizens throughout the state to gauge public opinions on various aspects of wolf management; we are currently in the process of compiling those surveys.  A draft of the new plan is expected this fall with the final plan going to the NRB for final approval later in winter.

Here is the meeting information:

April 29 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Wausau Howard Johnson Hotel, 2101 North Mountain Road

DNR Wolf Advisory Committee

David MacFarland

The committee will continue wolf management plan discussions

May 19 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Wausau Howard Johnson Hotel, 2101 North Mountain Road

DNR Wolf Advisory Committee

David MacFarland

The committee will develop the 2014 wolf quota recommendation and continue wolf management plan discussions