A list of transportation FUBAR's in Walker's 2013-'15 budget.
* Commercialization of WisDOT properties.
* Authorization of added I-94 E/W lanes at Wood National Cemetery and the City of Milwaukee's premier west side neighborhood, Story Hill.
* Transit forced to compete with all other government general purpose programs' funding, a smaller pot as millions is to be shifted to highway expansion.
From the Walker Rent-To-Own 2013-15 Budget, p. 52-53:
This bill allows DOT to enter into sponsorship agreements under which DOT displays a sponsor’s advertising or promotional material at locations owned or controlled by DOT in exchange for the sponsor’s payment of fees or provision of services to DOT.
The bill also allows DOT to enter into partnership agreements under which DOT authorizes a partner to engage in commercial activity at locations owned or controlled by DOT in exchange for the partner’s payment of fees or provision of services to DOT. Fees received by DOT under these agreements may be used by DOT for, among other purposes, maintenance and repair of state trunk
highways and roadside improvements. Contracts for sponsorship agreements and partnership agreements must be awarded on the basis of competitive proposals.
From p. 52 of the Walker anti-Milwaukee Vindictive Budget:
What Scott Walker's 2013-'15 budget tells us is that there is one vindictive former Milwaukee County Executive sitting in the Governor's Mansion now.
Walker continues to rob Milwaukee Public Schools - - the state's largest school district, and the one with the most minority and poor students - - while showering public dollars on choice, private, charter and home schools that can be far more selective in student body composition than the public schools.
And in further 'stick-it-to-Milwaukee' premeditation, Walker proposes a ban on local governments' creation of residency requirements for municipal employees.
In one fell swoop, Walker - - once a big opponent of mandates from Madison - - would preempt local decision-makers and any hope of negotiating the content in or end of such agreements - - with the impact falling most heavily and negatively on the state's largest city and public school system.
In other words - - push the consequences on localities, from Madison, where Father Knows Best.
This is pure payback for the city of Milwaukee, its Mayor Tom Barrett and his voters (read: Democrats) for twice standing tall in elections against Walker and right-wing governance.
Walker won, but he needs more.
He is wants to use the state budget process to tell Milwaukee and other local governments how to operate, sandbagging the people whom Paul Ryan dissed as 'urban voters' while boosting the tax base, housing values and populations in already-upper-scale Wauwatosa, Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, Franklin and other near-Milwaukee suburbs.
At Milwaukee's expense.
And what about public works, police and fire department employees called in for emergency duties from farther away addresses?
What about local control and grassroots' decision-making?
Not Walker's problem. He's got scores to settle.
The advisory inquest jury is still out today in the Derek Williams death-in-police-custody case, but just this thought after the testimony of one police officer who testified under a grant of immunity.
If you ever get stopped for an offense by a police officer, this is the kind of officer witness you'd pray for:
[Patrick] Coe, who also took the stand Tuesday, said he was unable to recall numerous key details about the arrest. When asked what position Williams was in when he first said he could not breathe, Coe said he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember whether anyone gave Williams a sternum rub. He couldn't remember whether Williams fell as they took him to a squad car. He couldn't remember who was sitting in the front of the squad car while Williams was in the back. He couldn't remember any of the names of the seven to 10 officers who were standing around the car.
Remember that its initial, Penokee Hills tear down phase is projected at
about 1,000 feet deep, a half-mile wide and 4.5 miles long - - or 30% farther, for example, than the 3.5 miles distance from the State Capitol to the landmark Oscar Mayer meat-packing plant on Madison's northeast side.
So when Walker touts the bazillion jobs the mine will create, and the
water-rich environment in Northern Wisconsin that the mine will somehow enrich, just
picture an dynamited and trucked excavation beyond a corridor from the meat-packing plant to
the State Capitol framed above a statement famously attributed to the former
New York Republican politician Al Smith:
"No matter how you slice it,
it's still bologna."
I've noted it before, and I'll continue to ask when I see it:
Why can't Scott Walker put together a couple of extemporaneous sentences without butchering the wording?
When asked about whether he'd support a mining tax (no), Walker responded:
I'm not issuing vetoes before I get bills in front of my desk," Walker said. "But I think you're right. That's not something I'm in favor of as a new tax in that regard."
David Clarke exchanged on-air conspiracy and nullification chatter with Alex Jones, the screaming gunophile who raged on Piers Morgan's CNN program after the Newtown shootings, Dan Bice reports.
With a post-grad study program underway requiring travel to California, the county sheriff sure does have a lot of time on his hands.
And how do you stay enrolled in a federal Homeland Security Master's program if you are willing to say out loud that you would not enforce certain federal orders, as Clarke told radio host Jones?
Essayist Eric Hansen, familiar with the Penokee Hills, is trying to save them:
I know this place. After walking 800 miles to assess Wisconsin's most memorable natural areas, I chose to highlight the Penokee Hills in my book "Hiking Wisconsin."
Now, imagine the Penokee's ridgeline, and the sparkling water of its trout streams, turned into an industrial sacrifice zone - on a scale that is almost beyond belief.
Not much reason to tune in tomorrow night and watch Scott Walker deliver his 2013-'15 budget address, though we'll still go through the document line-by-line looking for the landmines hidden in bureaucratese or footnotes that confer a generous benefit to a special interest or a sucker punch to the powerless and the unsuspecting.
Walker has drained the speech of drama by announcing or leaking what his side will call reforms and initiatives, and the rest of us see as dropping another bomb on important services, middle-class priorities and basic fairness that used to be part of The Wisconsin Idea:
* Health care for lower-income Wisconsinites: Walker turned down available federal funding for a Medicaid expansion. Some persons will be newly covered by a state program, but more will miss the federal expansion to satisfy the right's ideological need to teach the poor a lesson.
* Public schools will get a few new pennies after two years of massive cuts, while home-based, private and charter schools free of union teachers get a taxpayer-paid windfall. Local boards and government bodies will try and make up some of the shortfall, but state-imposed caps will continue the Grover Norquistian suffocation of public education that is job-one in Walker's privatized world.
* Speaking of jobs: Walker will toss out a symbolic cut in personal income taxes - - putting something like an extra $2 a week into your pocket.
And he'll make some effort to brew that extra cup of coffee into some kind of Reaganesque free-market achievement, but any fair assessment of Walker's first two years in office will rate his leadership on employment growth - - especially that absurd, 250,000 new jobs campaign PR pledge - - an abject, caffeine-free failure.
Walker will twist data, manipulate terminology and point self-servingly to governing through economic "uncertainties," like Act 10 protests, Obamacare, fear of the fiscal cliff or the defeat of an environmentally-crippling mining bill he still oversells as a real, and real time job-creator - - but the damage he inflicted on the purchasing power of thousands of public employees with Act 10 benefit cuts and their multiplier effects is a major factor in the state's relatively-slow job growth and recovery.
* The highway lobby - - including contractors and compliant politicians who get back a dollop of highway expansion dollars in campaign donations - - is ticketed to receive fresh billions to overbuild in an era of declining driving.
And holding a yard sale to pay for some of the unneeded concrete.
Left at the curb: local transit systems, which disproportionately serve urban minorities, lower-income citizens, the elderly, and students.
Whether you're without a car in Milwaukee and cannot access work in Waukesha or Washington County, or you're a low-income woman now hours away from a Planned Parenthood clinic Walker's ideology-first spending is closing, or you teach in an urban school system, the message is the same:
There's nothing compassionate about the conservatives running Wisconsin right now.
In the vernacular of Scott Walker's administration, government is all about the customers.
School choice? Expand it, to serve the parents.
Entrepreneurs? Here's $25 million for venture capitalists to pass around.
Truckers and commuters? Build more roads. Sell off public assets to come up with the money if need be, but customers first!
Anglers and hunters? Government is here to help. Heck, you don't have to waste your time and money driving downtown to get yourself a license anymore, the agency says:
To purchase a license online, use theBut female customers, particularly those in rural areas where there are fewer health-care options, particularly for lower-income women who need medical tests and procedures for, say, cancer?(cart icon) in the "Buy Online" column to go to our Wisconsin Licensing Services Center, for hunting and fishing sales. For online purchases, the "Delivery Method" column indicates how you receive your license: by printing
your license using your home computer or receiving the license via mail
.
The centers in Beaver Dam, Johnson Creek, Chippewa Falls and Shawano don't get enough private funding to stay financially viable without the state support, which the Legislature eliminated in the 2011-'13 state budget. The locations are the only reproductive health care providers in their communities, officials said during a conference call from Madison.Out-of-state media takes note of our Governor's compassionate conservatism:
“Women are going to have to drive even longer distances just to get basic health care like wellness exams, cancer screenings and birth control,” said Deb Bonilla, vice president of patient services for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. “We are doing all we can to ensure that women get the care they need, but in some instances the resulting barriers to care will make health care access very difficult.”
Remember that 250,000 new private sector jobs promise? Well, don't expect more from Walker's next budget rolled out Wednesday evening than fresh finger-pointing.
More compassionate conservatism:
Prolific Wisconsin lobbyist, hunting enthusiast and former Red Granite (WI) GOP State Sen. Bob Welch is still taking heat for his advice to the recent state NRA Convention that pro-gun forces under political pressure should wait out "the Connecticut effect."
I've heard of hugging trees, but this is the first time I've seen someone chatting with one.
Amazingly, the tree speaks English, knows current events, is short on manners and doesn't understand mining interests are about to rename him Stumpy McOverburden.
Thanks to the Journal Sentinel for posting this.
Are two heads really better than one? Or is that more of a diversion? And if the two heads are really clones of each other, and conversing, is it a dialogue or monologue?
So many questions bubbling to the surface in Waukesha's fresh water wrinkle.
Note that the Waukesha Water Utility Commission's Chairman is Dan Warren - - the same Dan Warren who is also President of the School District of Waukesha.
The Water Utility on behalf of the City of Waukesha has been pressuring the Town of Waukesha to join the city's application for Lake Michigan water - - and the Town has responded with a diversion acceptance plan - - but now the school district superintendent is pressuring the Town to add 14 acres to the water acceptance acreage that the school board has banked as a potential new school site.
Will there be eventually be discussions involving the Warren-led school board with the Warren-led City water commission over where diverted water is headed in the Town?
Reports The Freeman:
School district urges town to reconsider water decision
Potential school site would need municipal water, Gray says
By Josh Perttunen
Waukesha Freeman Staff
WAUKESHA – The Waukesha School District is imploring the Town of Waukesha Board to reconsider the boundaries of its water service area after learning that the territory selected would leave a potential school site high and dry. A strongly-worded letter was sent to Town Chairwoman Angie Van Scyoc Tuesday and potential litigation regarding the property was one of two agenda items that the School Board went into executive session to discuss Wednesday night.
So Walker wants to sell state assets - - buildings, power plants, forests (?), parks (?) - - to cover borrowing for road over-building - - and to pay off the road-building complex, too.
The state is becoming a right-wing piggy bank, and the withdrawals will reduce funding for social programs and transit that the right prefers to starve.
Also being sold off - - the state's water law legacy, with actual lakes and waterways available for filling as the Penokee Hills and the Bad River Ojibwe culture are targeted for obliteration under the mining law proposal.
To enrich the Cline Group, one Florida coal-mining, privately-owned and politically-active corporation.
Tax phobic (no mining tax allowed for Wisconsin resource extractors) and right-wing Grand Marshal Grover Norquist said government should be shrunk small enough to be drowned in a bathtub.
Walker, instead, wants to strip it of its best parts and sell them for the benefit of his private-sector, special interest campaign and ideological supporters.
In a democracy and for public policy - - equally damaging and cynical.
Sorry for the man-bites-dog headline, but I'm passing on Vicki McKenna's observations on child care so you get a real sense of what the right hears, all day long.
The ultra-conservative Madison-based talker told her 1130 WISN-AM morning audience Thursday that Pres. Barack Obama's proposal for federally-funded universal kindergarten was all about turning babies into liberals.
After kindergarten the kids would be assigned to Head Start, then into the clutches of public school union teachers, and finally to the finishing step in universities by lefty professors, and, presto! Fully-formed liberals.
McKenna added that Head Start was a failed place where parents "dump off" the kids, not an educational program.
We've got mining special interests writing Wisconsin mining legislation while donating heavily to legislators and the Governor.
The Assembly GOP leadership has begun dunning lobbyists - - not their clients - - $500 each.
Now the Assembly has quietly rolled back fund-raising prohibitions during the budget process.
How long until the next Pay for Play scandal breaks?
Let the clock begin rolling now.
Power-mad Republican legislators in Madison are falling into foot-stomping mode again.
They want the rest of the government - - thus constituents and citizens - - to kneel ever more deeply before them.
This time it's State Sen. and President Mike Ellis, (R-Neenah), who, after 42+ years in the legislator wants to change state law and require the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up directly (bypassing lower courts) any constitutional challenge to the Legislature's handiwork within 150 days.
For a guy who has been involved in a lot of law-making, Ellis seems oddly unaware of how the law realty works and doesn't care how transparent is his end-run around circuit and appellate courts a few blocks from the Capitol where elected judges might decline to march in lockstep with what Ellis' or any other Legislatures' agendas.
Maybe writing better law in the first place would result in fewer constitutional challenges.
Maybe 42 years in the Legislature overly-inflates some members' sense of personal or institution's value.
Ellis and his GOP colleagues also want to set a deadline of 420 days for a mining permit application to be fully vetted by the DNR. This calendar-bending sop to mining interests who wrote the bill also shows a lack of information about how state and federal law - - not to mention science - - works in a real world democracy.
It also reminds me of Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's demands in 2010 that the State Patrol arrest Democratic legislators who'd left the state during the Act 10 brouhaha.
The GOP legislative caucus is turning into a troupe of silly little dictators. Is there a seminar available for them in Separation of Powers And Calm Legislating 101?
Can we donate large quantities of decaf?
Cheryl Nenn of Milwaukee Riverkeeper told it like it is:
Several weeks ago, contractors used TIF funds to remove almost all the high-quality vegetation on the site, including a large stand of oaks and pines in a ravine that provides vital site drainage, and a stand of 100- to 200-year-old oak trees east of the Parks Department - all to make room for the new "Discovery Parkway."
UWM and the city have justified this by saying that the DOT ordered the road further east; however, the "parkway" could have been better designed to wind around existing trees and honor "existing natural resource features and topography" as stated in master plans for the site.
Innovation Park is well on its way to becoming neither innovative nor a park. It is possible to create jobs and tax revenue and still protect the environment. UWM has talented faculty and students, but where are they?
