How Wall Street Shenanigans And Greed Cost Five Wisconsin School Districts Big Bucks

Nicely-crafted explanation.

New Mexico Joins The Civilized World, Bans Death Penalty

Another step in the right direction, and towards Wisconsin's historic position barring capital punishment.

I have blogged about this, and my views were formed in large measure by a months-long project on the death penalty I completed for the Journal Sentinel in 1995.

The sister of a murdered woman in the Chicago suburbs told me that she urged the judge in the killer's case at sentencing not to impose the death penalty, but to put the murderer in prison for life (and that indeed was the sentence) so that the killer would have to be reminded everyday why it was that he was locked away.

That made a lot of sense to me; that life without parole was in some ways a more harsh punishment than execution.

I studied sentencings and concluded that poor, badly-defended, minority and plain unlucky killers - - and some wrongly-accused defendants - - got the death penalty, while others walked, copped pleas or weren't executed.

And I witnessed one execution in Texas, which firmed up for me that the practice is barbaric and out of place in the modern world.

Most countries ban it; more states are getting rid of it, so cheers for New Mexico.

But don't expect its big state neighbor to the east to follow suit.

Yet.

SEWRPC Will Stick With Airport Meeting Site, But Will Cover Attendees' Paid Parking

I raised on my blog yesterday an issue with where the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission had scheduled the 3/24 meeting of its Environmental Justice Task Force - - the airport, where parking is $2 per hour.

I noted that people attending from low-income communities might not have funds to spend on the parking, or expense accounts from which to obtain reimbursement, and I emailed SEWRPC my concerns.

SEWRPC responded this afternoon by email that the airport location will remain for the meeting, the location will be discussed (having been raised at the 1/27 meeting without objection - - a meeting I had not attended), but attendees can have their parking costs paid for by SEWRPC.

Seems like a fair solution to me, though I believe SEWRPC needs to make a better effort to find meeting venues that provide free parking, as the agency has done routinely in the past.

Waukesha Authorities Looking Inept, Again, In Benson Repeat Arrest

You will remember that Mark Benson, the Oconomowoc physician charged in a high-profile multiple-homicide drunk driving crash last year, was at the time of the free on bail, thanks to a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge who did not incarcerate Benson immediately following his conviction.

Following the crash, and after several months in jail on the drunk-driving homicide charges, Benson was released on $500,000 bail.

Fair enough: he made bail, with strings attached.

Now we learn that Benson has been arrested again for possession of prescription drugs that violated the terms of the bail agreement.

His re-arrest came after a tip from a parcel delivery driver.

Searching Benson's residence, police also found six firearms, and 20,000-to-50,000 rounds of ammunition - - a separate bail violation because the agreement forbade him from possessing firearms.

Wait a minute: this is the address to which Waukesha officials allowed Benson to return.

Apparently, the authorities do not check records or conduct a thorough background investigation to see if a person in a homicide case is being bailed out to an address where firearms and a massive cache of ammunition - - and, as WTMJ-TV4 reported tonight, explosives.

Turns out that the some of the drugs that Benson obtained while out on bail were steroids.

Lots of steroids and nearly 200 syringes.

So let's add this up: Steroids. Six guns, explosives, and enough ammo to supply a small army, in the possession of a repeat OWI offender, facing homicide charges.

And a Waukesha judge set bail for the re-arrest offenses at $150,000.

Does that sound right?

Waukesha officials continue to have a casual attitude towards this defendant.

[Update: Benson's bail was raised another $500,000. Maybe the public outrage is having some effect.]

Lots Of St. Patrick's Day OWI Arrests In Milwaukee County

The Journal Sentinel catalogues at least 36 OWI arrests in Milwaukee County on St. Patrick's Day - - 29 by county deputies - - plus 30 more on the previous weekend leading into this co-called Wisconsin cultural practice.

Separately, there was at least one multiple-injury OWI crash in Waukesha County on St. Patrick's Day, which this year fell on a weekday.

Allowing the bars to keep extended hours on St. Patrick's Day certainly doesn't help.

Waukesha Seeking $87 Million In Federal Funds, Earmarks, For Water Programs

The City of Waukesha has requested through the Wisconsin congressional delegation a total of $87 million, from three federal programs, to fund current and future water program needs, including ongoing radium treatment and potential new water sources from Lake Michigan and Western Waukesha wells, according to documents provided upon request by the Waukesha Water Utility.

With estimates of the Lake Michigan diversion and return flow efforts in the $50-$60 million range, the federal funding - - if obtained - - could conceivably pay for much or all of the work.

The applications continue a process Waukesha has followed in recent years that has included hiring lobbyists in Wisconsin and Washington, DC, and which has led to $2.65 million in grants from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the documents indicate.

Receiving funds at the level sought in the current proposals to Congress - - all carry a 2/10/09 date - - would dwarf the total received in the last few years, the documents indicate.

The 2009 requests of Wisconsin's Congressional delegation - - and Waukesha Water Utility general manager Daniel Duchniak said by email this morning there has been no response back yet - - seek the following:

$2 million from the US Department of Interior. That document is here.

$10 million from the EPA. That figure, along with a fact sheet and related materials, is in this document.

$75 million from a US Army Corps of Engineers program that would fund $100 million in activities in a service territory comprised of Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. The remaining 25% would be a local match.

The document - - here - - does not indicate whether any other municipality in the two counties is part of the application.

[Updated graph] Duchniak said in follow-up emails Wednesday afternoon that "the $100 Million request is for Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, not for the City of Waukesha," and that both Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are aware of the funding request.

The document acknowledges that an approach to the Corps of Engineers for the two-county service area and funding is a strategic departure for Waukesha.

Waukesha Aldermen Opposed Stimulus Cash For Transit, But...

Would this trio oppose stimulus funding if it were to help pay for Lake Michigan diversion and wastewater pipes, pumps, and related expenses that could all top out at $60 million, or more?

Just asking.

SEWRPC Schedules Justice Task Force Meeting At Airport, With Pricey Parking

SEWRPC has done a good job scheduling meetings of a task force that provides outreach to low-income, disadvantaged and minority communities at venues with accessible, free parking - - on King Dr., for example, in Waukesha and elsewhere in the region, but it has laid an egg with the scheduling of the 3/24 meeting - - a Mitchell Field conference room.

At $2 per hour in the airport lots, attendees can expect to spend $4-6 to attend, or ride long bus routes with transfers to get there.

Government shouldn't schedule meetings that make people pay to attend.

Many of the people who attend these meetings don't have money to burn, or expense accounts from which they can be reimbursed.

Regardless if SEWRPC's intention was to get the meeting rotated close to the south suburbs, or counties, it needs to find a more suitable, affordable and convenient site for this meeting.

I did write an email to SEWRPC Tuesday about noon about the meeting site, but didn't hear back.

Get Your Hybrid Now: Buyer's Market

Tax credits and incentives make them an even better bargain, plus burning less gasoline is good for the air we all breathe.

Abrahamson Opponent Rambles On, Validating His Unsuitability

I have not had much to say about the State Supreme Court race underway between incumbent Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and her challenger, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koshnick.

I support the incumbent, a nationally-recongnized scholar and one of Wisconsin's greatest jurists, and I see nothing of merit in the challenger.

Then I noticed a rambling news release issued by, or on behalf of, the challenger, and if this is the way he thinks and writes or manages staff, he certainly shouldn't be on the state's highest court.

Here is the release. You decide.

SEWRPC Will Distribute $28 Million Regionally In Transportation Stimulus Funds

Oh, great news! Knowing SEWRPC, I'm sure there are some suburban water slides or shopping mall aisles that will get funded.

Rush Limbaugh Prattle Reaches New Comedic Height

Today he called the $165 million in bonuses distributed by the bailed-out insurance giant AIG "chickenfeed," and said efforts by the Obama administration and the Congress to get the funds returned were dangerously confiscatory.

So to continue his one-microphone crusade against Obama, El Rushbo had to ridicule efforts to get back $165 million in taxpayer dollars.

Payments that Rush said made sense, as these so-called retention bonuses kept key employees working...while they were shutting down the very arm of AIG that helped run the company into the ground.

CNN is reporting that 15% of those receiving retention bonuses, some amounting to more than $3 million, have already left AIG.

Beer For Breakfast: Good Image For Milwaukee?

The Journal Sentinel posts photos of early St. Patrick's Day drinking.

This is the face we show the world?

And we complain about our image?

UW-Milwaukee Gets Significant Boost In Doyle Plan

Gov. Jim Doyle is offering a substantial boost to the profile and content of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a $240 million investment package.

His proposals, which include creation of a school of freshwater science, a significant and long-overdue upgrade to UW-M's hidden gem - - the WATER Institute - - and a public health school downtown will add great value to the University.

Unfortunately, the spending plan endorses the off-note location of the University's proposed new engineering school at the County Grounds, miles from the East side campus.

The engineering school should be located downtown, where there are intersecting bus lines, housing, commercial and cultural amenities, and most-importantly - - related programs at both the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Marquette University.

The County Grounds siting decision is being driven by Milwaukee County, which is looking to sell land, and by UW-M, which has private funds with which to acquire the property.

Lost in that decision-making process are the needs of faculty and students - - you could bike in the nice weather from the East side downtown, then hop over to the lakefront, and so forth.

Also lost are spinoff benefits to downtown businesses and entertainment venues, as an exciting synergistic network of new schools and programs will lose one major element right from the start.

It's a social and economic mistake to isolate the new engineering school from what the rest of the University and city have to offer.

Rethinking and then relocating this element of the UW-M upgrade would turn a triple into a grand slam homerun.

Challenges Raised To Regional Water Plan; Will SEWRPC Listen Or Invite Formal Complaints?

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission would be well-advised to take seriously written comments it has received about its draft water supply plan and recommendations.

A coalition of attorneys and community organizations has told SEWRPC that there are civil rights and related legal issues with the recommendations, and how they were written.

The comments and a release about them, are here.

SEWRPC is a 100% publicly-financed regional planning body: how it handles these comments, along with the outcome of pending civil rights complaints facing the agency, will in large measure help define SEWRPC's credibility moving forward.

How the comments are received and evaluated will also reveal the value that SEWRPC officials and federal regulators that work with the agency place on open government, and discrimination-free public planning and spending in a region that includes Milwaukee, Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha, Walworth, Racine and Kenosha Counties - - close to 40% of the state's population and an area containing most of the state's non-white residents.

The SEWRPC water recommendations suggested massive regional spending on new water infrastructure, and precedent-setting diversions of Lake Michigan water to some suburbs, but did not include in its three year, nearly $1 million study a socio-economic analysis, or consideration of potential impacts on lower-income communities or people of color that a justice task force created by and staffed by SEWRPC itself had asked last year be folded into the water study.

The organizations and attorneys signing the comments are asking that the study remain open until broader parameters and participation are included in the writing of the plan and its final recommendations.

Though SEWRPC officials have said there is no water crisis in the region, they have not reacted positively to suggestions that the water study be kept open and new planning elements be added.

Earlier concerns about SEWRPC's staffing, committee composition and public spending recommendations that were raised with the agency resulted in two formal civil rights complaints filed last year with federal regulatory agencies.

More discussion of SEWRPC and these issues can be accessed by entering ACLU, or SEWRPC, into the search box on the top left of this blog's home page.

The complaints are still pending, as is the release of SEWRPC's quadrennial federal certification review that enables the agency to recommend the spending of certain transportation funds.

Also pending: resolutions to the state from Milwaukee County asking that SEWRPC receive a performance audit, and a separate resolution from the City of Milwaukee asking for substantial changes to the all-county SEWRPC governing structure, or an eventual Milwaukee County and city withdrawal from the agency.

A Little More Transit Funding History To Calm Scott Walker's Histrionics

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has complained that the Congress, with input from Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, divided $91.5 million in earmarked transit funds 60% to the city, 40% to the county.

Here are a few fun facts to remember about the transit funding:

* The money was always the federal government's to hand out. Originally, the earmark was $289 million, cut to $241 million because of the inability of local and state officials to decide where and when and how to spend it. Congress could have cut it to $0 if it so chose.

* In 1998, then Gov. Tommy Thompson prevailed on Rep. Tom Petri (R) to allow Thompson to direct the transit funds to other transportation projects, including freeways, because Thompson wanted the money for the Marquette Interchange reconstruction. Intervention by then-Rep. Tom Barrett (D), and Sen. Herb Kohl, (D), prevented that outcome - - and I don't recall then State Rep. Scott Walker, (R), piping up and complaining that would mean less money for Milwaukee County buses someday.

* Walker has said the Congressional decision violated an agreement signed by then-County Executive Scott Walker, Thompson and then-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist to divide the remaining $241 million - - 50% to the state, and 50% to the city and county together.

The Congressional split honors that agreement, as the remaining local piece - - $91.5 million - - is being shared by Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee and will be spent on transit projects in those jurisdictions.

Besides - - Ament is no longer County Executive, Norquist is no longer Mayor, Thompson is no longer governor, and Grenadier's - - the restaurant where the local/state split was agreed to - - has closed.

What peeves Walker is that Barrett and the Democratic Congress worked together to get the $91.5 million moved from an earmark to an appropriation.

Thompson's earlier effort to grab all the money was not successful; this time, the Democrats were better organized than were the Republicans a decade ago.

So it goes.

Walker On Downtown Streetcars: Blind, Perhaps, But No Way Blindsided

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and some of his talk radio GOP water-carriers have said that they were blindsided by the Congressional agreement to allocate legislatively $91.5 million in languishing federal transit funding.

[Some history here.]

The division cut the money 60-40, with Milwaukee getting the lion's share ($55 million) for a downtown trolley system and the county getting the lesser share ($36) for bus purchases.

Walker and the gang's-blame-someone-else response is wrong, inaccurate and disproven by the record, so if Walker and the talkers felt blindsided, maybe they need to start reading the newspaper and perhaps remembering, photocopying or bookmarking its contents.

Twenty-one months ago, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, frustrated with Walker's refusal to accept a 50-50 split of the funding - - note that Walker and talk radio's self-defeating, city dissing position was and is 'not-one-dime-for-rail' - - told the Journal Sentinel he might independently seek to finance the trolley system if Walker declined the compromise.

Story here.

The headline writer didn't miss the point of the story:

Barrett explores bypassing county on transit plans

Then about two months ago, Barrett told the Journal Sentinel that he was pursuing a permanent resolution of the deadlock with both the incoming Obama administration and the state's congressional delegation.

"Barrett, meanwhile, said he was in talks with President-elect Barack Obama's staff and the Wisconsin congressional delegation "to end this stalemate once and for all." He declined to elaborate but said he remained committed to rail transit."

In the real world - - "end this stalemate once and for all...committed to rail transit... that indicated that Barrett was serious, and with Democrats running both the Congress and White House, a solution was very likely.

It was a trial balloon as big as the Goodyear blimp.

If Walker really missed it, whose fault is that?

I say: celebrate that a decision has finally been made, that there will be jobs in construction and operations, that Milwaukee is getting an upgrade to its bus fleet (unless Walker turns down the money because there are recurring operating costs attached, which he has said made stimulus funding toxic), and the beginning of a modern rail system to boost the downtown and the entire city and county.

Walker needs to start leading the community, and stop following talk radio.

Climate Change Escalating, Experts Warn

At least now we have an administration that values science over magic, and special interest carveouts.

Our Roads Need Repairs - - So Why Spend Road Budgets On New Roads?

The Journal Sentinel has documented the poor shape of Milwaukee's streets.

So why did the first round of federal transportation stimulus funds include not a nickel for Milwaukee?

And remind me again why the state is pouring $1.9 billion into rebuilding and expanding I-94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line, with $200 million for a new lane that will have its own repair schedules?

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission worked together and created a $6.5 billion regional freeway expansion and rebuilding plan, including 127 miles of new lanes.

Not a penny in that plan to rebuild or repair local streets, or, heaven forbid, expand or support transit.

Remember all this the next time you hit a pothole, or follow the debate about whether Milwaukee, unrepresented on the SEWRPC board, should formally withdraw its approximate $220,000 annual property tax transfer to SEWRPC and put that money into a city-based planning body.

Props To Gov. Doyle For Great Lakes Quality Plan

The Governor is declaring war on invasive species. Good idea.

These invaders are at the heart of what makes Lake Michigan beaches reek in the summer, damaging the regional economy.