The Far Right Hates The Stewardship Fund

J.J. Blonien, whose antics even got stale on the Sunday Mark Belling TV show, raises his extreme, rightwing voice against Wisconsin's stewardship fund.

That's the bi-partisan property aquisition fund that buys land for public uses by hikers, anglers, and hunters.

J.J. says the government shouldn't own all this land for the public to use, and it'd be okey-dokey by him to let the fund sunset in 2010.

J.J. thinks we don't need to put more land into conservancy, and why not, when there are strip malls, big box parking lots and subdivisions just crying out for more space?

Seems after his recent stint with failed State Sen. Tom Reynolds, (R-Wauwatosa), J.J. is up to a tired schtick nicely summed up in 2001 when he left Belling's show:

"You just never knew what was going to come out of his mouth," wrote Tim Cuprisin, Inside TV & Radio Writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Water Recycling Underway In One Major City

Public officials in this region have not fully embraced water recycling as a means of supplying meaningful quantities of water.

We still like sending all that expensive, purified, chemically-treated, potable water onto our lawns, dirty cars, golf courses and into many other locations, situations and processes.

Other highly-industrialized regions are moving faster in this area, including Singapore.

As we learned after Katrina flooded New Orleans, better systems protect the Netherlands: there are best practices and technological opportunities, along with the political will to make changes elsewhere in the world, and we'd do ourselves an economic and resource management favor by paying closer attention.

Big Cuts Coming to US Fish & Wildlife Service - - How Much in Iraq Spending?

I recently posted an item about the daily cost of the Iraq war - - $250 million - - and showed that the entire annual cost of renewing the US Clean Water Revolving Fund, $4 billion, amounts to 14 days of Iraq war financing.

Here's another example of how important domestic programs don't have the money they need - - but figured in Iraq daily spending, the shortfalls look easily affordable.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service needs $2.5 billion to meet a backlog of tasks. That's 10 days of Iraq spending.

But without the money, the service, which operates in all 50 states, will cut 20% of its staff.

Anglers, hunters, hikers, conservations, whether red state or blue, Democratic or Republican, etc. etc. etc. - - does that make sense?

Western Wisconsin Event Part of National Effort on April 14th

Careful readers of The New York Times may have noticed last Wednesday that an intriguing climate change event is scheduled on Saturday, April 14th, at the bucolic Mississippi River retreat center at Sinsinawa Mound.

The event, a conference, is being sponsored by the Madison-based environmental group Clean Wisconsin, and the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa Mound, located near Hazel Green in southwestern Wisconsin.

The conference will be one of nearly 900 varied national climate change gatherings and rallies scheduled so far on April 14th.

This national action chain is the brainchild of William Mr. McKibben, an author, long-time environmental philosopher and activist.

The Wisconsin event, on regional global warming and water issues, will feature Mike Tidwell, whose book, Bayou Farewell, predicted tragic consequences if a large hurricane were to hit New Orleans.

Other experts, including staffers from Clean Wisconsin, will give talks and conduct workshops on media, activism and other subjects.

To get more information and register, visit either Clean Wisconsin or the Domincan Sisters registration site.

As they say: April 14th - - Save The Day.

Will This Type of You Tube Ad Aimed At Hillary Become Standard in Wisconsin Campaigns, Too?

The Obama people said they didn't create it, and I'm not taking a position one way or the other in the Obama/Hillary Clinton/Rest of the field contest - - but is it where campaign ads are headed, assuming it is indeed an truly independent attack ad?

It could be the beginning of the end of campaign control of electronic advertising.

In Indiana, The Regional Planners Are Slowing Down Sprawl Highways

New mantra for southeastern Wisconsin, where the local planning agency (SEWRPC) is the lead group pushing widened expressways into both cities and rural areas:
Be More Like Indiana.

Who'd Want These Upstream Neighbors?

As this story indicates, who'd want to live downstream from these Waukesha Lake Country folks?

Lake Michigan Level Still Dropping: Will Waukesha Water Diverters Give A Hoot?

Probably not, even though this Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story ought to make readers sit up and take notice. And notes.

Advocates of moving water out of Lake Michigan to the City of Waukesha without a solid commitment to returning it often pooh-pooh the impact their 20-24 million gallon daily diversion would have on the lake.

Heck - - Larry Nelson, Waukesha's Mayor, has said the amount of water that Waukesha wants evaporates from the lake in less than a minute.

A million gallons a day here. A billion gallons a week there. Multiplied exponentially by other communities (Chicago, and the fast-growing northern Illinois suburbs included), power plants (WE Energies' Oak Creek complex included), and various other users including water bottlers, and it won't take long to deal the Great Lakes a mortal blow.

Two questions not addressed in the Journal Sentinel article:

Where on these issues is Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources, the key water management agency in the state, which bungled the initial review of New Berlin's Lake Michigan diversion application?

And will the state's legislative study committee get off dead center and recommend the necessary legislation to implement pending amendments to the vital, conservation centered US-Canada Great Lakes Compact?

Without the Compact's upgraded standards and procedures, diversions could happen without guaranteed conservation and water return flow measures, adding to the Great Lakes decline.

More Bad News For the Climate Change Deniers

Uh, oh: they're producing a powerpoint version of Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth - - for kids!

And while you're on that site, get more acquainted with Grist. It's a fine online stop always filled with informative and funny stuff about politics and the environment.

Miller Park Sewer Fix An Object Lesson

Finding out that an error in Miller Park's construction had been sending bathorom flushings into the Menomonee River for years shows how vulnerable our waterways are to human error.

And how one project - - the stadium's construction - - could undo so much of the good work of another - - the Menomonee Valley restoration.

These lessons in the laws of unintended consequences should be at the forefront of other regional proposals that involve water.

Officials in New Berlin and Waukesha continue to press for diversions of water from Lake Michigan that are now prevented by federal law.

Those cities continually tell us that diversions would no negative impact on lake levels or quality - - but there is no consensus on those arguments.

Waukesha is considering using a Lake Michigan tributary, like the Root River, as its discharge point for new millions of gallons daily of diverted water for return flow, but is this a good solution for the Root River, and for the people and communities downstream from Waukesha?

The estimates for fixing the Miller Park plumbing problems have been pegged at about $10,000 (no estimates yet for the pollution impact on the valley, river and lake).

But the estimates for building new water utility pumping equipment in Milwaukee to supply New Berlin and Waukesha with Lake Michigan water, let alone the associated costs to those communities as well, and to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Commission are in the multiple millions.

And because moving Lake Michigan water farther from Milwaukee will also move the regional economy farther away, too, who will calculate and address those socio-economic costs?

Realigning water supplies from one basin to another across a region - - using one of the inter-connected Great lakes as the source - - is fraught with ecological and financial costs.

Those who want to fast-track these changes need to be mindful of the bigger pictures, of which the Miller Park screwup was but a little snapshot - - yet an instructive one.

Guest Post Goes National - - You Read It Here First!

A few days ago, I was happy to post a guest essay on regionalism and sprawl in southeastern Wisconsin by Steven Branca, longtime city planner and formerly the sustainability officer at Wingspread.

Brainy guy, Steve is, and a heckuva writer with credentials, too.

Steve's post was picked up and posted also in the March 14th edition of Regional Community News, as item #12.13 in the listings.

That site is structured as a Yahoo Group, and free online subscriptions are available.

Branca's was the second guest post put up since I started this blog about six weeks ago.

The first, from a Vietnam vet from Wisconsin who offered personal insight into the troubled Veterans Administration healthcare system, generated comment, too.

I'm glad to help with these messages: I think this internet thing is gonna catch on, so thanks to these guest authors and our readers, too.

State Committee On Great Lakes Water Stuck In Neutral

One of the more consistently undercovered stories this winter in Wisconsin has been the disagreement, and now apparent stalemate, among members of a state legislative study committee drafting legislation to help protect the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes. You wouldn't have thought this would be so hard.

The legislation, if drafted, would approve and implement amendments to the US-Canada Great Lakes Compact, establishing first-ever rules, standards and procedures governing diversions of water out of the Great Lakes basin.

Without these amendments, and their approval in all eight US Great Lakes states, communities and states could push to divert water without taking the common interest into consideration, and would not be compelled to return an equal amount of diverted water back to the Great Lakes basin.

That could stress the Great Lakes by reducing water levels, making the remaining water and ecosystem more susceptible to damage from invasive species and pollution.

And jeopardize the economies of all the Great Lakes states and provinces, Wisconsin included, where water is a key component in recreation and manufacturing.

Wisconsin was a leader in getting the Compact adopted in 1985.

And its negotiators participated in four years of meetings to help craft the proposed amendments (Gov. Jim Doyle is now the co-chair of the Great Lakes governors' council that will eventually implement and enforce the amendmed Compact).

But powerful business and political leaders in Waukesha County have objected at the study committee to the amendments, and especially to the requirement that all eight US Great Lakes states would have to approve any diversion request.

(You can read the committee staff's most recent memo outlining the areas of failed consensus in key areas that suggest impasse here.)

The international agreement's guiding principle is unanimity of state action on diversions because the Great Lakes are shared water resources held in trust for the common good.

Minnesota has already approved the Compact amendments, but Wisconsin's study committee last met in December; reports from the State Capitol suggest the committee could close up shop without forwarding a recommendation to the legislature.

That could lead to no bill to implement the Compact moving through the legislature.

Or...it could result in multiple bills being introduced, with so many deviations from the proposed Compact amendents that none would pass a divided, partisan legislature.

Or...what comes out of the legislature could have radical changes to the proposed amendments, as a bill that did not incorporate the basic law and science discussed at the committee, meaning that other states would see Wisconsin as a renegade on conservation and cooperation, putting the entire agreement at risk.

Creating another study committee is possible because the current committee is chaired by a Republican Senator, Neal Kedzie (Elkhorn), and the committee membership and chairmanship do not reflect the Senate Democrats' post 2006 election majority.

Regardless, delay only sends a message of uncertainty about Wisconsin's commitment to resource management and regional cooperation across the Great Lakes states.

And it keeps Wisconsin communities like New Berlin and Waukesha that are interested in diversions in legal limbo, so the 'Waukesha County-First' objectors on the committee are pursuing a self-defeating strategy.

Belling Misfires Pitch At Doyle

Mark Belling aimed a dustoff pitch at Gov. Jim Doyle in a Waukesha Freeman column the other day, but it was just another Belling wild pitch.

Belling's column is a rant, in familiar talk radio style, this time directed against Frank Busalacchi, Doyle's embattled transportation department secretary.

But Belling piles it on, accusing Busalacchi of leading former Mayor John Norquist's "goon squad" on the Summerfest Board of Directors.

As errors go, this one's a whopper.

Busalacchi was doing such a good job raking Norquist over the coals as chairman of the stadium board that Black added Busalacchi to the Summerfest board, and made him vice-chairman, to give him another platform from which to jab the Mayor.

Norquist never controlled the board: Most of the Summerfest board, in fact, was hand-picked by Black, who eventually lost control of the board, and her job, because she was too controversial despite her long career building up the festival.

Calling Norquist a Nazi looked unprofessional on Black's part, for example, but the bottom line is, and I can't figure out how the well-informed Belling missed all this: Busalacchi was not a Norquist appointee or a friend on the Summerfest board.

Miller Park Blame Game To Begin - - And Opening Day Is Several Weeks Off!

Let the finger pointing begin at Miller Park, and I don't mean the kind that managers wave at umpires over a blown call at home plate.

I'm referring to the inevitable excuses and denials of responsibility that are sure to follow in the wake of the discovery that someone, somehow, sometime connected toilet piping to a storm drain instead of the sanitary sewer system, flushing human waste for years into the Menomonee River, and eventually into Lake Michigan.

From which the city and much of the region takes its drinking water.

Granted Miller Park was a complex project, and there were multiple water and sewer connections to be made correctly, but there was also supposed to be a level of competency and sophistication built into the process, including checks, balances, certifications and inspections.

As screw-ups go, this is a pretty substantial one.

Think of all the effort that has gone into cleaning up the river, and the Valley. The goal there was to eliminate a brownfield, not create...well...you get it, right?

Will the stadium district board and staff point to its general contractor, who, in turn, will call out sub-contractors, who will then flush out a supervisor who can dump on a plumber who might rat out an apprentice who long ago left the state?

Miller Park sure has had a checkered history.

Tommy Thompson and the Selig family decided the stadium would be built where Bud Selig wanted it constructed - - far enough from downtown so it couldn't be part of the historic revival that was taking shape there - - and inaccessible enough to require ticket holders to drive there, and pay parking fees that all went to the team.

To make matters even more controversial, Thompson assigned local property taxpayers tens of millions in mandatory infrastructure costs, and then laid on top of that a five-county stadium construction sales tax that freed the team from any out-of-pocket donation.

Then the project's financing plan fell apart when Fritz Ruf, a savvy state development agency director, pegged the agency's terms at 10% on a crucial, $50 million loan to make sure it never happened.

And it didn't.

After the financing got cobbled together in dribs and drabs, including lending or loan guarantees by a diverse cast of non-traditional lender/investors including The American League, local foundations, The Metropolitan Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce and Journal Communications, three workers died when the partially-constructed roof collapsed due to unsafe winds during heavy lifts.

Finally open, Miller Park was rewarded with the 2002 All-Star game by now-Commissioner Bug Selig, who then declared that year's annual classic a tie when the managers ran out of bench players.

Now don't misunderstand: I'm a huge baseball fan, and I went to see The Brewers often during all the losing seasons, which has meant pretty much every year.

But Miller Park has had a wierd vibe to it - - from the first day that Selig suddenly announced that the place would have a roof at the cost of an extra hundred million dollars of other people's money.

So learning now that toilets have been draining directly into the Menomonee River Valley - - well, somehow that's just another not-so-surprising chapter in the project's troubled history.

Helping To Maintain Working Wisconsin Farms

Wisconsin has a program to help farmers keep farming, but the program has shortcomings.

Governor Jim Doyle's 2007-'09 proposed budget includes additional funding, and a diverse study committee has made recommendations to make the program work better, but there is a major need for public education about the program - - or else we'll have less homegrown food and more sprawl.

The Waukesha Freeman published a comprehensive examination of the program, and it's worth a read.

Congressman Dave Obey Is The Wrong Target For Antiwar Activists

Talk about not knowing who is an ally and who isn't: antiwar activists targeting Dave Obey in Washington, DC and at his home office, too, are going after the wrong guy.

Obey is as antiwar as they get, and has done so while based in the conservative northern 7th Congressional district.

He opposed the war in Vietnam and voted against the original Iraq war authorization.

While he lost his temper with activists who confronted him in a House office building hallway (Obey's always had a direct manner and short fuse, which is a welcome alternative to the people-pleasing phonies who heavily-populate elected offices), his quick apology should help folks listen to what he has been saying for a while:

The Democrats don't have a big enough majority to cut off war funding, or override a Presidential veto, let alone get tough resolutions through committees for floor debate, so he's looking for a workable, winnable solution.

That's frustrating to antiwar people (including me), and certainly to those with family members in harm's way, but for goodness sakes: Obey didn't start the war and isn't the problem.

Antiwar activists should be pressuring pro-war Republican congressmen like Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner if they want to help create a real congressional counterweight to the troop surge and the rest of the Bush administration's devastating Middle East 'policy.'

Former Wal-Mart To Become Pedestrian-Friendly Housing And Shops

Call it a business development/man-bites-dog story.

Call it something straight out of The Onion.

Call it simply amazing:

A former Wal-Mart site in Baton Rouge is being razed in favor of a mixed-use development with modestly-sized townhouse units aimed at pretty much everyday folk, even grad students at nearby Louisians State University.

Imagine a Wal-Mart becoming "Acadian Village," embracing "pedestrian-friendly, smart-growth principles: a public plaza, landscaped parking lot and public transportation pavilion...," according to one Louisiana television news report.

(Comparitive local angle: Unlike the new BayShore Town Center's layout, the parking structure at Acadian Village is more correctly situated - - off the street, and in the back.)

I'll bet not even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Whitney Gould could have imagined that one day, a community would tear down a Wal-Mart and turn it into a New Urbanist daydream.

Sprawl Is Coming To Rural Waukesha Faster Than First Thought

It's one thing for traffic noise and other surefire sounds of civilization to worm their way into rural Waukesha County, but consider the implications over the plan by an Oconomowoc dentist to use his rural Village of Dousman yard as a helipad.

Said one neighbor:

"There have been days when I’ve heard that helicopter fly by my house three to four times," said Bob Pfaff, a neighbor of Michaels. "The noise is obnoxious. I want to be able to sit outside in my back yard and enjoy peace and quite."

Location, location, location: Put a few more of those whirlybirds in once bucolic rural Waukesha County and a nice condo along the river in downtown Milwaukee's gonna feel serene by comparison.

Big-Time Rightists Want To Silence Evangelical Policy Director. Why?

Though their groups are not members, leading right-wing spokesmen James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Paul Weyrich are urging the National Association of Evangelicals to muzzle Richard Cizik, the NAE's policy director.

Did he say something positive about gay rights?

No.

Did Cizik perhaps transgress on the issue of a woman's right to choose?

Worse: He's suggesting that evangelicals embrace environmental stewardship!

On religious and spiritual grounds.

The horror! The horror!

Four Year Funding To Help Clean US Waters = Eight Weeks of Iraq Spending

The good news is that the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) passed the House of Representatives last week.

This US Environmental Protection Agency program helps make sure our drinking and recreational waters are free of pollutants.

If approved by the US Senate (a bit iffier, but probable) and actually funded with appropriations by the Bush administration (even iffier, since the Bush administration prefers spending our tax money to blow up water systems in Iraq), the Fund would provide
$14 billion over four years for basic drinking water and sewage treatment upgrades across the country.

Getting new money into the Fund is an important piece of a related effort specifically to help clean up and preserve the Great Lakes.

And that's why it's crucial to move on a third front: passing pending amendments to the Great Lakes Compact that require active conservation plans and guarantees of return flow prior to diversions of water away from the Great Lakes basin.

Conservation. Improved drinking water and sewage treatment. Making sure that diversions from the Great Lakes are approved only as science-based last resorts, with guaranteed return flow of diverted water:

It's all linked together, something that Compact opponents like State Sen. Mary Lazich and the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce just will not or cannot see.

And while $14 billion for the Clean Water Fund allocated over four years - - or $3.5 billion each year is a lot of money, consider that:

First, the Fund makes loans, so the money comes back.

Second, the Iraq war is costing $250 million dollars a day, and that money literally goes up in smoke.

(And that was the figure before the troop surge, and the administration's proposal for another $100 billion this year, and an eventual cost that could hit two trillion dollars, according to a year-old, pre-surge estimate from a Nobel Prize-winning economist.)

But back to spending $250 million a day in this now four-year-old war: At that price, the annual cost to finance the Clean Water Fund is a mere 14 days worth of Iraq spending.

And the entire four-year Clean Water Fund's $14 billion could be financed with just 56 days of Iraq spending. Think about it: That's just eight weeks. Summer doesn't even start for nine weeks.

We often hear that the country can't afford a domestic agenda.

Universal health care? Too expensive. Better passenger trains and light rail? Where would the money come from? Better schools, and pre-schools, too? Forget about it.

Remember when you hear the costs of things we cannot afford that the war in Iraq costs about $10 million dollars an hour, $250 million a day, $1.75 billion a week.

You decide if that's contributing real value to your security and our shared domestic tranquility.

Milwaukee Trolley Plan Gets Study OK: Walker's "No" Inconsequential

With a lot less noise than its controversial launch a few weeks earlier, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's downtown trolley and cross-town express bus proposal was approved by a study committee for a review that could run until the end of the year.

The positive vote by the study committee was something of a foregone conclusion, since Barrett has one representative on the committee, and members from two other institutions - - the Metropolitan Metropolitan Association of Commerce and the Wisconsin Center District - - backed earlier and even more expensive mass transit upgrades, so their "aye" votes were not really surprising.

The lone "no" vote was cast by Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's representative - - another predictable move: Walker has backed himself into a corner with repetitive objections to anything running on a track in his county as "light rail," thus continuing his robotic marriage to archaic buses only.

Not to mention his belief that someday, Milwaukee County would be magically transformed into a municipal car-o-topia, where those he called transit dependent could afford to buy cars, insure and maintain them, and pour expensive gasoline into their tanks for the long ride to new jobs in faraway Waukesha County.

Of course, the Barrett plan has those two enticing new express routes connecting the west side, UW-M, and two county operations - - the airport and the County grounds in Wauwatosa - - but Walker still doesn't want the entire commuter/student/downtown shopper/tourist transit plan studied.

Good thing Walker has but one vote on the committee: The notion that it is better to study something new and innovative than stamp your foot and shake your head and pass that off as a transportation strategy with the local transit rider in mind carried by three votes to one.

With a projected completion date just months before the April, 2008 local elections, including those for Mayor and County Executive, the study committee's outcome, and its probable move into the next, "preliminary engineering" phase could make transit the defining issue in these races.

And it's about time - - politically and financially.

There is $91.5 million in federal funds dedicated to transit improvements available for a system upgrade like the one Barrett has proposed (federal money cannot be spent on bus replacements, as Walker has proposed) - - enough money to get a new system started.

State and regional support, with pre-paid passes accompanying conferees' registration fees at Midwest Convention Center conferences adding to fare box revenues (pre-paid passes and other transit tie-ins are a staple at other convention-and-tourism linked transit systems), could also help get the system into the ground and boost already sagging bus ridership numbers.

What's been lacking is a fiscally-manageable plan and enough political will to take bold steps.

Maybe the elections for the top posts in city and county government will drive Milwaukee out of its stodgy transit past and down a completely new and modern track

Milwaukee's Image: Embrace The 50's?

A suburban Milwaukee resident in Fox Point suggests in Sunday's Journal Sentinel "Crossroads" section that Milwaukee's 50's image is what we should be selling to the rest of the world.

Here's what Richard Thieme says he liked about Milwaukee, er, Fox Point, when he got here 20 years ago:

"Milwaukee!" cried a biker. "Harley!"

"Milwaukee!" cried a porky pal. "Cheese and sauerbraten!"

"Milwaukee!" cried a drinking buddy. "Beer!"

Selling a 50's image?

I remember a meeting of youngish business types at City Hall a few years organized by the chamber of commerce where the most frequently-asked question wasn't "where can I get me a cheesehead?"

It was - - swear to God - - "Where is the local train system?"

Note to Milwaukee 7 regional planners and assorted imagemakers:

Let's all move on to something...what...broader...more contemporary?

Paul Soglin Advances The Annette Ziegler Fiasco

Madison's former Mayor and now-blogger Paul Soglin offers up another take on Annette Ziegler's conflict-plagued judgeship and imploding candidacy for Stare Supreme Court.

Tips on Letters To The Editor - - And a Solid Example

Sometimes a great letter to the editor jumps off the page because it's well-written and informative, and ever-so-timely.

Here's an example from Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - - "Hydropower is not a clean energy source," by Helen Sarakinos (among a group of letters), about matters as diverse as hydropower and the politcal right's reflexive abuse of environmentalism.

Newspaper editors get hundreds of letters a week and have room for but a small fraction. Here is how the decision-makers at one major US newspaper say they make their picks.

Some Commonsense From A Waukesha Blogger

Jim Bouman, Waukesha resident and blogger, has posted items worth viewing and reading.

After a discourse about real estate values, development and taxes, Bouman comes to this conclusion:

"We have enough water for now, and enough for a conservative future. We do need to conserve it. It's the CONSERVATIVE thing to do. We might do well to recognize that continued uncontrolled growth of the city through annexation will produce a situation in which we do not have sufficient water from our only available source--deep wells and shallow wells.

Cutting back on development and annexation is the sensible choice. Pursuing an incredibly expensive and decidedly iffy path like trying to get expensive Lake Michigan water pumped to Waukesha (and then back to the lake) is not the choice of the homeowner who is concerned that the taxes are too high in Waukesha."

Of course, this is not the mainstream Chamber of Commerce and bankers' roundtable position out Waukesha way, but note that the Waukesha City Council and Plan Commission have held their ground in precedent-setting opposition to a 300+ acre annexation that was ostensibly to get access to more shallow well water.

Critics said it would be a costly extension of city services too far beyond the city's current borders and would remove land and water from the Vernon Marsh Wildlife Area.

So Bouman's down-to-earth conservatism in the name of conservation may be gaining acceptance in Waukesha, where sprawl is pushing west to the Jefferson County line

Another Thompson In The Race? More Bad News For Our Tommy

How many Thompsons does it take to make a presidential race exciting?

Or confusing?

Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson can't be happy that former US Senator and "Law and Order" fake District Attorney Fred Thompson is thinking of entering the 2008 GOP presidential race - - thus overwhelming our Tommy's moribund candidacy with quasi-Hollywood star power.

Remember: This is Fred Thompson - - not to be confused with Tommy's more colorful brother Ed Thompson - - the political libertarian/supper club owner who helped tip the 2002 Wisconsin gubernatorial election to Democrat Jim Doyle.

Too bad that Hunter Thompson isn't available: There'd be a Thompson Trifecta worth following.

UW-M Continues to Pinpoint How Municipalities Foul Lake Michigan

Talk radio has for years bashed the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Commission as the villain for polluting Lake Michigan, when, in fact, the MMSD has been working with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to identify and fix the multiple ways that pollutants find their way into the lake.

More than two years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece for WisPolitics.com about UW-M testing having shown that storm water pipe outlets placed on Bradford Beach by Milwaukee County government was pouring water contaminated with e. Coli bacteria right across the sandy beaches and into the water.

But those findings were not widely reported in a timely way by the traditional news media because opinion makers and news editors were still more interested in hammering MMSD than looking at all the potential sources of lake pollution and fixing them.

And that meant that the world-class resources at the UW-M WATER Institute were not fully realized and appreciated as problem-solvers by media, governments and taxpayers.

That seems to be changing: A front-page story in Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows that UW-M scientists have found that fecal pollutants are in dozens of non-MMSD municipal pipes across the region..

And those pipes are contributing to contamination at beaches, in streams and other popular recreational sites at or close to the lake.

In the past, there was sensational finger-pointing at the MMSD, and, in fairness, the MMSD often fought its critics with a getting-nowhere-fast/tit-for-tat.

Now the focus seems to be on problem-solving, with the necessary first steps taken: better identifying just what the problems are, who the contributors are, and finally, getting to solutions.

The same science-based approach needs to be taken also when it comes to getting chemical and other non-organic pollutants out of the lake - - like metals and other contaminants that wash off streets and parking lots.

And, of course, science needs to drive the decision-making about who gets to take water out of the lake and return it - - but that has been and will be grist for other commentaries.

One Woman's Photo Diary of Her Fiance's Iraq War Injuries...And Their Wedding

This iconic Internet photo pretty much says it all.

The full story and 42-picture diary is at Salon.com and another posting.

Salon may offer you a free one-day pass to view its materials. A subscription is pretty cheap and always worth it.

One Attorney's Succinct View Of The Annette Ziegler Conflict-Of-Interest Cases

This updates an earlier posting:

What will be the tipping point in the conflict-of-issue saga now dominating Annette Ziegler's race for the Supreme Court - - the very branch of government that investigates and disciplines jusges for ethical lapses? What began as a single case involving Wal-Mart ballooned to 24, then 35, then 59 - - and today there another 164, according to blogger Bill Christofferson and others.

UPDATE: A Wisconsin attorney with a practice of more than thirty years sent me the comment below. I put it in bold face type.

The attorney offers the simplist reason why "gut checks" are the wrong way to measure whether a judge should sit on a potentially-conflicted case, and what this issue should mean for Ziegler's campaign:

"This should cost Ziegler the election. I really can't believe that she was dumb enough not to have just gotten off the cases.

The "gut check" line is quite outrageous. The rules of judicial conduct are written precisely so that judges don't do "gut checks."

They just have to read the rules.

That's what judges do."

WE Energies Court Ruling Raises Lake Michigan Profile

I posted information yesterday about the Dane County Circuit Court ruling that found problems with the permit issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources allowing WE Energies to construct a massive power plant complex in Oak Creek without cooling towers.

Without cooling towers, 1.8 billion gallons of water a day is going to be sucked into the plant and returned 15 degrees warmer, resulting in fish kills and other unacceptable ecological problems.

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers more in-depth coverage.

The importance of the ruling is two-fold.

First, if upheld in higher courts, the design of the plant may change to better protect the lake.

Second, better protecting the lake will inform and instruct other controversial plans that are also not in the lake's best interest - - specifically, the ragged efforts to date by the City of Waukesha to get permission to divert water from Lake Michigan - - without having to justify it with a formal application, or agreeing to return it.

Waukesha's sense of entitlement to Lake Michigan water, though currently blocked by geography, federal law and a US-Canada Great Lakes management compact, has stirred deep opposition in southeastern Wisconsin.

Recent statements by some Waukesha legislators, business interests and the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce that Wisconsin should weaken diversion provisions in the Compact and/or refuse to sign some pending Compact agreements suggest they find protecting Lake Michigan less important than getting water into new sprawling subdivisions.

What the Madison ruling has done, along with the good work by the Sierra Club and Clean Wisconsin to get the attention of the court and the force of law, is to remind us that Lake Michigan and the rest of the Great Lakes are precious and finite resources that need stewardship, management and conservation before consumption and bottom-line considerations.

Oak Creek Power Plant Permit Has Legal Problem, As Critics Had Alleged

Pesky federal regulations that protect our common resources, like Lake Michigan, have been applied by a Wisconsin judge at the Oak Creek Power Plant under construction.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's newsblog Friday afternoon, with, no doubt, a major story tomorrow:

"A Dane County judge has sent an environmental permit for the We Energies power plant under construction in Oak Creek back for further consideration, based on a federal court ruling earlier this year.

At issue is a permit issued by state environmental regulators for a water intake structure in Lake Michigan that would serve the coal-fired power plant, a $2.2 billion project.

Judge Shelley Gaylord said a federal appeals court ruling in January means the permit needs to be revised. The federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite the rules that were used by the state Department of Natural Resources when it granted the Oak Creek permit.

"This decision affirms what we've been saying since 2003: that this is an illegal facility," said Katie Nekola, staff attorney for Clean Wisconsin, one of the environmental groups challenging the permit. "When the DNR reconsiders this permit as directed by Judge Gaylord, it will have no choice but to invalidate the permit."

But We Energies says the decision does not invalidate its permit and that the utility plans to continue building the plant, the largest construction project in state history.

"We will continue construction of the needed project while we work with DNR on those aspects that have been remanded," said utility spokesman Barry McNulty."

Wonder if others thinking of tapping into Lake Michigan for other purposes, like diverting water to communities in Waukesha County, will get the message, too:

Federal law and procedures have to be adhered to, or you do nothing but buy yourself trouble and raise your costs - - so thanks again to Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club for taking these arguments to court and making sure that basic natural resources get genuine stewardship, even if takes a lawsuit to ensure it.

(Note: An earlier post about the WE Energies permit issue from February read this way:

Was The Oak Creek Power Plant Approval Legal?

Good Question.
It turns out that the huge new coal-fired power plant that WE Energies is building along Lake Michigan in Oak Creek is not yet free of the legal and regulatory questions that had slowed its approval.

Partially built, the $2.2 billion project will begin operations in 2009.

The State of Wisconsin gave the utility its permitting approval under a federal rule that defined the project as "existing," rather than "new" - - a nuanced, pro-industry bureaucratic ruling - - and that meant the utility could eliminate expensive cooling towers from the construction plans.

Without cooling towers - - and they've been standard in modern power plant construction for decades - - the more than two billion gallons of water daily required by the plant for operations will be sucked in through a pipe in Lake Michigan.

That will kill alot of fish, according to experts within the federal government and environmental groups.

Last week, a New York federal appeals court struck down the rule that allowed the Oak Creek project to be built without cooling towers.

A Wisconsin circuit court judge in Madison must decide if the Oak Creek project needs cooling towers.

The utility denies its plant and water intake pipe will kill fish or harm the lake, and says its state-issued permits are valid.

This is another of those cases that pits industry against environmentalists, and a company's bottom line against stewardship of natural resources.

You'd think by now, especially with the multiple concerns about climate change and stresses on the Great Lakes, that industry would have done more to avoid these adversarial relationships with the natural world that we all depend on for survival.

As this case winds its way through the courts, let's praise Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club for these publicly-spirited achievements:

They've kept a steady eye and the media's focus on the health of Lake Michigan, and they've made sure that the convenience of utilities isn't allowed to supersede the rule of law.

Wisconsin utilities operate with state-approved monopolies and guaranteed rates of return. That's a pretty sweet deal in a free enterprise economy, so is it asking too much of the utilities to meet the highest legal and environmental standards?)

UPDATED: The Hits Just Keep On Coming: Annette Ziegler Conflicted Case Load Rises to 164

What will be the tipping point in the conflict-of-issue saga now dominating Annette Ziegler's race for the Supreme Court - - the very branch of government that investigates and disciplines jusges for ethical lapses? What began as a single case involving Wal-Mart ballooned to 24, then 35, then 59 - - and today there another 164, according to blogger Bill Christofferson and others.

UPDATE: A Wisconsin attorney with a practice of more than thirty years sent me this comment. The attorney offers the simplist reason why "gut checks" are the wrong way to measure whether a judge should sit on a potentially-conflicted case, and what this should mean for Ziegler's campaign:

"This should cost Ziegler the election. I really can't believe that she was dumb enough not to have just gotten off the cases.

"The "gut check" line is quite outrageous. The rules of judicial conduct are written precisely so that judges don't do "gut checks."

They just have to read the rules.

That's what judges do."

Anti-Public Intoxication Ordinance in LaCrosse Suggests Community Is Ending Its Denial

Good thing that LaCrosse is beginning to face up to its college student binge drinking problem with a first-ever ordinance against public intoxication: Spring is coming and that is the sad time in that Mississippi River town when very drunk and disoriented college students tend to end up drowned in the river after bar closing time.

I wrote a piece nearly three years ago for The Capital Times about what I think is the bigger picture, both for LaCrosse and across the state. Here it is.

Rising Tide: Doug Hissom Weighs In on Annette Ziegler.

Doug Hissom, a former Shepherd Express stalwart, updates the Annette Ziegler political story here. Look for more online reporting on a regular basis from Hissom, according to Dave Berkman, a former Hissom colleague at the Shepherd and now a regular panelist on Eric Von's Thursday afternoon "Backstory" media panel on 1290 WMCS-AM.

Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce's Erroneous Canadian Xenophobia

Conservative politicians and commentators routinely invoke fear of foreigners in the current political environment, with most of the misinformation or downright demagoging directed at immigrants from south of the border.

Curiously, some misleading misinformation about Canadian influence over Wisconsin water supplies has worked its way into the debate about whether Great Lakes water should be diverted beyond Great Lakes basin boundaries and into communities in western Waukesha County.

The Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce has entered that debate and opposes Wisconsin endorsing a set of new diversion rules and standards in pending amendments to the 22-year-old US-Canada Great Lakes Compact.

The Chamber says it's wrong to require the eight US Great Lakes states to unanimously approve an application from out-of-basin communities like Waukesha or New Berlin.

But in a posting on its website, the Chamber says that the two Great Lakes Canadian provinces could also veto a US community's diversion application - - and that is not the case.

Says the Chamber's posting:

"Specifically, the compact includes a provision by which any one of the member states or provinces can veto any future requests for Great Lakes water diversions. Waukesha County, considered a straddling county by compact definition as the basin lies partially within the county, may need to consider Great Lakes diversions to meet future water needs. As the compact is currently written, our destiny may be in the hands of governors or premiers who are not accountable in any way to our electorate nor invested in the future success of our region."

The italicization is mine - - so you spot the worries raised about Waukesha's future being in foreigners' hands.

Under the US-Canada agreement, the Canadian provinces are to be consulted on US diversion applications, but the Canadians do not have a vote - - something that has not gone down well in Canada.

And the absence of the 'Canadian veto' was reported factually in the local media: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it this way in three paragraphs of a February 10th story by reporter Darryl Enriquez:

"The proposed compact contains a controversial condition that Brian J. Nemoir, chairman of the chamber's Advocacy Committee, called "a deal buster."

Under it, water withdrawals from communities outside of the Great Lakes Basin, but in a county that straddles the basin, must be approved by all of the Great Lakes states.

That means a single negative vote can veto a project, Nemoir noted. The provinces have a say, but not a vote, in diversions." (Again, the italics are mine).

Isn't it time that the Chamber starts giving its members and website readers a more accurate explanation of just what the Compact and the pending amendments are all about?

It could begin a more rational regional discussion of the benefits of protecting a shared, common resource.

WMC Investing In State Supreme Court Buyout

Bill Christofferson tells us how the WMC is heavily investing in the Annette Ziegler (R-West Bend Savings Bank) State Supreme Court campaign.

The WMC is looking at the State Supreme Court as just another corporate board with a vacant director's seat - - and is pushing an insider candidate to put WMC's interests first.

Sports Illustrated Gets On The Green Bandwagon

While conservative climate change deniers still argue that all's well with the earth they think is still flat, an apolitical mainstream publication aimed at the red-blooded American male - - Sports Illustrated - - is publicizing green efforts from the National Football League to NASCAR.

You can read this homerun reportage here.

Here's a couple of paragraphs to whet your appetite:

"The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is working with the NBA and Major League Baseball to help their teams get greener. Scientists told the NFL that Super Bowl XLI would put one million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air -- not counting air travel to Miami -- so the league planted 3,000 trees around Florida in an attempt to pull at least that much of the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.

"By going green, motor sports could have the quickest impact on public awareness of the planet's fate. The Formula One circuit has already discovered hybrids and biofuels, and Indy cars are mixing ethanol into their fuel. NASCAR is poised to phase out leaded gasoline, a neurotoxin. (The Clean Air Act of 1970 included an exemption for race cars even as the public was barred from buying cars that ran on leaded gas.) It's only a short jump from a NASCAR driver with a raised consciousness to a NASCAR fan with the same."

Bottled Water: Bad For The Pocketbook, Bad For The Great Lakes

Wisconsin environmental groups have banded together to urge closing a loophole in the pending Great Lakes Compact that allows unregulated sales of Great Lakes water in bottles smaller than 5.7 gallons.

That's a pretty big bottle, and along with the billions of those ubiquitous, costly smaller containers inexorably moving Great Lakes water away from source supplies, the bottled water binge is bad news for everyone except the big corporate bottlers.

Here's a Canadian perspective on why bottled water sales are harming the Great Lakes.

It's another addition to demands across the entire Great Lakes basin for tougher diversion standards in the Compact, and in implementing legislation pending or being drafted.

That effort is stalled in Wisconsin.

More Court Cases That Passed Annette Ziegler's Gut Check Standard

Seems there's at least 14 additional cases involving a health insurer in which she owned stock - - on top of the 24-to-45 cases where her husband's bank was a party, too.

Thanks to Progressive Majority for posting the findings.

The Ziegler State Supreme Court candidacy is looking more tenuous day-by-day, along with her Washington County Circuit Court judgeship

Belling, Other Hysterics, Added Nothing To Mayfair Debate

I think the community lost when out-of-proportion media coverage and nattering negativists like Mark Belling stirred things up while Mayfair Mall and public officials worked directly to deal with disruptive behavior there.

That's the point of this commentary I had published Tuesday in The Capital Times.

The Awful Truthiness of Annette Ziegler's "Gut Check" Philosophy

State Supreme Court candidate and sitting Washington County Circuit Court Judge Annette Ziegler's statement in Tuesday's Wisconsin State Journal that she uses a "gut check" when considering whether cases before her might present a conflict-of-interest got me wondering:

Who else said he listens to his gut instead of pesky, bookish facts - - like, say, those in a published code of conduct - - to get to the truthiness of correct official behavior?

Then I remembered: It's Stephen Colbert, the Comedy Central Bill O'Reilly charicature, who explained himself, his gut and its relative superiority to books and facts when he introduced himself last year to President Bush and the assembled media at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

Let Mr. Colbert shed light on Ziegler's baffling courtroom style:

"Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert," the comedian said, "and tonight it is my privilege to celebrate this president, ‘cause we’re not so different, he and I. We both get it. Guys like us, we’re not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We’re not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut. Right, sir?

"That’s where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, “I did look it up, and that’s not true.” That’s ’cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.

"Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, okay? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the “No Fact Zone.'”

Guest Post: Steven Branca On Regionalism, And A Few Other Things

Long-time urbanist, city planner and sustainability expert Steven Branca offers commentary which I am glad to put up as a guest post.

(Note: A shorter version of Branca's commentary ran as a Letter to the Editor in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on March 5th, 2007; the debate began with a Journal Sentinel report about remarks Barrett gave to a regional meeting of environmental activists in support of the amended Great Lakes Compact.)

Writes Branca:

There is a significant fallacy in your 2/27/07 editorial about Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s 2/21/07 comments on urban sprawl.

Nowhere is there any acknowledgement that suburban development comes at great cost, and it is not the cost of building houses, or the cost to taxpayers for highways and infrastructure.

There are indeed “definitions” of sprawl, but accepting these definitions requires the acceptance of the concept of sprawl to begin with, and this is something the Journal Sentinel and suburban leaders will not do.

Some of the definition can be found in the costs.

A simple and obvious cost is reflected in new suburban neighborhoods, at the expense of destroyed city neighborhoods. A little-known fact is that freeways are much more efficient at moving land value than they are at moving cars.

What were solid neighborhoods in the central cities – poor, maybe, but cohesive and culturally-rich – are now poor and unattractive. How do you justify destroying neighborhoods in one place to build spiffy new ones elsewhere, especially at taxpayer expense?

Following from that, you can look at sprawl as an economic justice issue. (This may be another concept that goes unacknowledged by the community.) Winners and losers fall along racial, age, and economic lines. Public policy that creates such a gap in opportunity or quality of life is by definition bad public policy.

Sprawl is that public policy.

Another way to look at sprawl is the rate of land development versus the population growth rate. The Milwaukee region is in a no-growth mode, but that hasn’t stopped massive consumption of land.

One need look no farther than to the regional data on the Milwaukee 7 website to see the reality of this. More to the point, no one county has grown to any significant degree, while losing economic activity with the loss of farm and forest land. Suburban development is not growth, it’s building stuff.

Whatever “growth” may come of it is in the developers’ bottom line, and they’re in it only for the short term with no interest in long-term value.

Citing “the market” as the final arbiter of urban development is specious. The distortion of the land development market is the primary factor in its momentum and self-perpetuation.

From the original federal Housing Act of 1949, the GI Bill, and the mortgage interest deduction, the financial markets have been given extraordinary incentive to invest in suburbs.

Highways built solely with taxpayer money are, according to research as well as observation, the principal drivers of sprawl, even though the losers pay that tax, too.

That is why “growth will continue whether [Mayor Barrett] wants it to or not.”

As if this isn’t enough, the assertion that Milwaukee will reap wonderful economic gains from selling water is also false.

Whatever revenue Milwaukee gains will be overwhelmed by the development that the suburbs realize. This is like selling the key to your house.

No, Milwaukee has given enough: it’s population, cohesive neighborhoods, school quality, land value and more. Draw the line at water.

The region has done little or nothing to make central cities more attractive. A true regional partnership would be predicated on equity, and even try to make up for past inequities.

There has been a 50-year history of one-way “partnerships” in which the city loses its assets to the suburbs without so much as a thank you. Given this region’s competitiveness at a national level, what is the purpose of continuing on the same business-as-usual path?

Noted Subdivision Builder Discusses Interest Rates With God

Know your Waukesha Homebuilder, Part 1:

Mark Neumann, the former US Congressman and defeated GOP candidate for US Senate, is now a home builder in some of the hottest areas of Waukesha County.

He had this to say last year to the Wisconsin Builders magazine (full text here), who added Neumann to its "A List":

"A burning question with ...
Mark Neumann owner of Neumann Enterprises Inc., Waukesha

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

“I’ve just decided we’re going to lower the interest rates so the building industry can be more successful.”

State Supreme Court Candidate Could Face Harsher Row Than Campaign

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has weighed in with its own accounting - 24 - of the number of cases that Washington County Circuit Court Judge Annette Ziegler has heard since 2004 involving a West Bend bank on whose board her husband sits as a paid diector.

The bank won 21 of those case, a batting average of .875 - - not too shabby.

This follows earlier disclosures by progressive bloggers and websites, along with the Wisconsin State Journal, that Ziegler had a pattern of hearing these cases without the conflict-of-interest disclosure - - one report said as many as 45.

Failing to disclose a conflict of interest to the parties in a legal case places a judge's mandatory impartiality in doubt; Wisconsin judicial ethics and rules require the disclosure.

Here's how the Journal Sentinel story summed it up:

"Despite judicial rules that say judges must step aside in such matters, Ziegler has heard 24 cases since 2004 involving West Bend Savings Bank, where her husband, J.J. Ziegler, sits on the board of directors.

The state judicial ethics code says a judge must withdraw from a case if his or her spouse is a director of a business involved in a case."

It would not be surprising if state regulators at the Judicial Commission - - ironically, an arm of the Wisconsin Supreme Court - - were to open an investigation into Ziegler's conduct.

Or the losing parties in the cases where Ziegler ruled for the bank could appeal, or bring their own actions against her, and voters in Washington County could launch a recall.

Hardly the way to position yourself for a seat on the State Supreme Court; Ziegler's biggest challenge, though she won the February primary and is on the April 3rd statewide ballot for election to the state's highest court, now may be to hang on to her judgeship.

Waukesha City Council To Meet in Closed Session Tuesday on Water Issues: Isn't There A Better Way?

Last Thursday I posted the item copied below in the wake of the defeat by the Waukesha Plan Commission of a scheme to annex 334 acres of land outside of Waukesha's city limits so the city could get access to shallow well water.

The annexation proposal was controversial a) because it appeared to have been a sweetheart deal negotiated with a developer, b) would have extended costly city services in classic sprawl fashion, and c) would taken open space intended for inclusion in the Vernon Marsh Wildlife Area, and the shallow waters targeted by the city might have a negative impact on the marsh, too.

Here is an update:

The Waukesha City Council wlll meet in closed session Tuesday - - another of those infamous closed sessions favored by Waukesha government - - to plan the city's next move.

City officials have indicated previously that they could obtain an easment from the land's owners to as little as four or five acres for the well sites.

Looks now that the city is again considering obtaining that access through a very small purchase, or outright condemnation - - something the city can do - - but because the land is in the neighboring Town of Waukesha, the whole issue could get even messier.

And city officials keep running into citizen opposition to the many closed sessions of the council and water utility commission as water strategies - - with public dollars - - are hatched, announced, blown up and reconfigured.

Keeping the public in the dark guarantees another hostile reception to water policy development in Waukesha.

Original posting:

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Strong Conservation Message Reverberates Across Waukesha County
Late on Wednesday night, the City of Waukesha Plan Commission rejected, for a second time, a proposal to annex 334 acres in the Town of Waukesha for home and city well development southwest of the city.

Waukesha's Water Utility and Mayor Larry Nelson backed the plan as a short-term solution to the City's need for a cleaner water source; conservationists objected because the land, known as the Lathers parcel, is long-ticketed for inclusion into public property in the Vernon Marsh Wildlife Area; others balked at another costly extension of city services beyond the city's current borders. (Which some dare call "sprawl.")

The vote at the commission was 5-2.

So what's really going on?

For years in southeastern Wisconsin, and particularly in Waukesha County, planning decisions have been made by the same small group of builders, consultants and governing bodies that constitute an informal but powerful elite.

These people felt they had a monopoly on the information, on knowledge, on what was best for the region, and plans would get announced, then fast-tracked, more or less as done deals.

Annexation-after-annexation has been sought by developers, goosed along by consultants and adopted by governments, too often with relatively less regard for the long-term consequences beyond the elites' bottom lines.

So, year-after-year, open space has dwindled. Farms have been subdivided for homes, businesses and malls- - including the massive, 1,500-acre Pabst Farms that has profound ecological significance for the region because the water supply beneath it was replenished by rain and snow that filtered through the land.

The development also has brought more traffic throughout the County. Once-small towns are getting the Royal Treatment from cooperative state highway planners with wide bypasses and new interchanges.

Municipal borders have been extended. Even the environmental corridors recommended as buffers by the regional planning commission have been encroached upon as business-as-usual for decades.

But the process is not sustainable and has begun to stall under the weight of its own contradictions.

As the City of Waukesha slowly faced up to its water supply issues, and began campaigning for diverted Lake Michigan water as its preferred solution, it argued it could not return that water for treatment to the lake because its current disposal path - - the Fox River - - maintained water levels in the valuable Vernon Marsh.

Then it turned around and negotiated a deal with a developer to build on the Lathers parcel - - land at the edge of, and earmarked for, the Vernon Marsh - - in exchange for the right to withdraw three million gallons a day from groundwater also at the edge of the Marsh.

Even though the amount of land for homes was reduced in the version voted down by the Plan Commission, does building so close to the Marsh, and drawing up water from shallow wells nearby, make sense?

Not according to the City's planning staff, which did not support the plan, nor for the second time to the Plan Commission, and, once already, to the Waukesha City Council.

These days, a reaction like that is called pushback. It's not partisan in Waukesha. It's widespread. Maybe rejecting the Lathers annexation is the tipping point against sprawl in Waukesha County, making conservation welcomed as mainstream throughout southeastern Wisconsin.

Waukesha still has water supply options. It can negotiate the purchase from the developer of an easement of perhaps four or five of the acres for the well sites, thereby leaving 99% of the land intact.

Studies may indicate that removing the water that Waukesha wants, or a smaller amount, or changing the well site locations, may not harm the Vernon Marsh. I'm not sure. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and others will eventually decide. Certainly the Town of Waukesha has a say in the decision, too.

Time will tell.

Waukesha has implemented a solid water conservation plan. Give it a chance, along with changes in water rates, and see if all these modifications substantially reduce the amount of water that the City of Waukesha says it needs long-term.

And the plan can be substantially expanded with additional technologies and goals, adding to the water savings that, in turn, minimize the need for larger volumes of water in the coming years.

And Waukesha needs to get behind the adoption of the amended Great Lakes Compact, because a) it is the right thing from a conservation perspective to do for the entire Great Lakes region, and b) if Waukesha ever wants a justifiable application for Great Lakes water to be approved by the other Great Lakes states, Waukesha can't go to those states for permission having been the city in the eight-state region that fought, tried to water down, or otherwise compromise the agreement.

The battle over the parcel near the Vernon Marsh also tells the City and County of Waukesha, as well as the regional planning commission that people want conservation made a genuine priority.

Not a dollop of land here and a fake wetlands added there, but putting preservation of remaining open lands at the top of the list.

Conservation for the benefit of the public, not the narrow interests of developers, builders and their allies at consulting firms.

Posted by James Rowen at 8:03 AM

Guest Post: Wisconsin Vietnam Vet Speaks Up About The VA

A Vietnam veteran from Wisconsin, reacting to the horror stories flooding the news about deficient medical care at Walter Reed and other Veterans Administration facilities nationally, sends along this thoughtful guest posting. I'm happy to run it.

It's clearly an invitation to media to take a look at Wisconsin's VA presence.

The vet is a credible person. We agree that the posting should run anonymously:

Guest Post:

By way of local angles, there is a story at the Milwaukee and Madison VA hospitals, a direct spin off of Walter Reed.

The staffs are vocal in apologizing for the long delays on needed surgeries and treatments due to the lack of resources and increased demands due to the wars as well as Bush pandering to the non-needy, but huge pool of vets made newly eligible for various care programs.

The VA is the minor leagues for new medical personnel to attempt their first ops, treatments and case loads.

Some needed ops work OK. Some simply get lost in the shuffle. Some are misdiagnosed, and some are delayed for months.

There are staff who probably would be willing to talk if asked. The problem with patient sources is that so many of them are extremely vulnerable, and fearful of jeopardizing the care that they get.

And many more don't know what any other care looks like, and feel that what they get is the best available, so grateful are they for any medical attention at all.

There is the expected old boys network, where second opinions amount to little more than MD's scratching each other's back.

Can be frustrating. For me, the 'every nickel' strategy seems to work best. I am comfortable, as comfortable as the "owies" allow. And there is the certainty of shekels for all pleasures great and small. As long as one isn't too greedy.

So it is reasonable for me to see a future without the horrors of poverty and old age and isolation. And I do. I'm lucky.

But for a lot of these guys, life is just going to get worse. And despite the near-heroic efforts of some of the people I was fortunate enough to have as care-givers and guardian angels, the rewards for them aren't sufficient to buy the regular relief from the demands that just don't end.

They can't be everybody's hero and angel.

Would that it were so, though.

While Mary Lazich and Waukesha's Business Bigs Dither, Demands for Great Lakes Water Will Escalate

The New York Times tells us that the Bush Administration is making no real progress on curbing greenhouse emissions - - no surprise there - - since the nation's energy policies were set in secret during W's first term by Oil Man/Vice-President Cheney, who opined that conservation was a personal virtue, and nothing more.

But a draft United Nations report about US energy policies and emission output quoted by the Times indicates that continuing high levels of greenhouse emissions and the climate change those emissions help produce will have an impact that should make people in the Great Lakes states sit up and take notice:

"Drought, particularly, will become a persistent threat, it [the report] said: “Warmer temperatures expected with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are expected to exacerbate present drought risks in the United States by increasing the rate of evaporation.'”

"Water supplies in the Northwest and Southwest are also at risk. [Emphasis added] “Much of the water used by people in the western United States comes from snow melt,” the report said. “And a large fraction of the traditionally snow-covered areas of this region has experienced a decline in spring snow pack, especially since mid-century, despite increases in winter precipitation in many places.” Animal and plant species face risks as climate zones shift but urbanized regions prevent ecosystems from shifting as well, according to the draft report.'"

If water supplies in the Northwest and Southwest are at risk, where do you suppose those thirsty, growing regions will look?

That's right: To the US Great Lakes, which hold 20% of the world's fresh surface water.

And what will prevent the wholesale export of those resources away from the Great Lakes basin?

The US-Canada Great Lakes Compact, signed in 1985 with amendments pending right now that call for all eight Great Lakes states to adopt similar, if not identical language, establishing common, regional rules, procedures, and standards.

The goal is to set a high bar against diversions of water away from the basin - - for the good of the Great Lakes region and its commonly-held water resources.

And what's holding up Wisconsin from adopting these amendments? What's preventing Wisconsin from assuming a leadership role among Great Lakes states, as our state proudly did when the Compact was negotiated, and then steered to its adoption in Milwaukee, in 1985, by then-Governor Tony Earl?

Narrow-minded business interests in sprawl-happy, annexation-crazed Waukesha County, and, in particular State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), and representatives from the Wisconsin Builders Association and the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce.

They are throwing all kinds of chaff and curveballs the committee's way, arguing that Wisconsin should not adopt the Compact's crucial principle and procedure - - that all eight states must approve a diversion application before water can be diverted outside of the Great Lakes basin boundaries.

These Waukesha County-based obstructionists are carrying out the Badger State version of standing in the schoolhouse door even though that could make them responsible for fatally weakening the Compact by negating the proposed amendments.

The unanimity standard for diversion approvals will ensure that they will be approved only when a genuine need is documented, justified and scientifically proven.

And only when the diverted water is guaranteed to be returned for treatment to the Great Lakes basin - - minus a reasonable portion consumed - - to help maintain balance across the Great Lakes ecosystem.

The objections have led to an impasse at a state legislative study committee that is trying to draft legislation to approve and implement the Compact's amendments.

If there is no consensus at the committee, and it is possible that gridlock over these diversion procedures may contnue into the committee's final meeting later this month, the Commitee could disband without sending a draft to the state legislature.

These obstacles to a smooth committee conclusion mirror the unfortunate, confidential efforts in 2006 by the City of Waukesha to win unilateral permission from Gov. Doyle for a Lake Michigan diversion - - a backdoor scheme that would have avoided the eight-state approval procedure altogether and even caused other states to trash the Compact altogether.

Waukesha's 2006 proposals to Doyle - - both were set aside correctly by the Governor, as he is the co-chairman of the a regional governors' council that drafted the amendments in the first place - - also would not have required Waukesha to return diverted water to the Great Lakes basin.

Delaying the drafting of Wisconsin's implementing legislation, and seeking exclusive exceptions to an agreement among eight states and two Canadian provinces, undercuts regional cooperation severly because they put the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem at risk.

An ecosystem that is held in trust for a vast region, and which is unique on the planet.

Conservationists concerned about the stability of the Great Lakes need to get in touch with their representatives in the legislature and urge them to pressure the legislative study committee's members, including Sen. Lazich and others from Waukesha County, to move the Compact forward.

And if ever there was a time for the much ballyhooed "Milwaukee Seven," the southeastern Wisconsin regional business and governmental collaborative, to step forward and act boldly on behalf of Wisconsin as a great - - and Great Lakes state - - it could hardly do better than taking a strong, pro-Great Lakes Compact position.

Supreme Court Candidate Stumbles Over Judicial Ethics

Front-running State Supreme Court candidate Annette Ziegler's campaign has run aground.

Her campaign is in trouble because the Wisconsin State Journal ran a major piece Sunday about cases over which she presided as a Washington County Circuit Judge without disclosing a conflict of interest.

The conflict involved cases that Ziegler heard involving The West Bend Savings Bank while her husband held a paid directorship on the bank's board.

The State Journal front-page story advanced previous research and online investigative reporting about Ziegler by One Wisconsin Now (OWN), a progressive statewide political and educational outfit based in Milwaukee (note: I sit on the OWN board, but was not involved in its online Ziegler stories).

The story has added weight because it was carried in the State Journal, the more conservative paper in Madison (Ziegler is the more conservative candidate in the State Supreme Court race), and ran in the city where the state's judicial regulatory machinery is located.

Ziegler's pre-primary theme was that she was the most qualified candidate in the race because she was a judge. Now that experience has torpedoed her campaign to move to the state's highest court.

Ziegler's campaign tried to play down the State Journal's big Sunday story - - written by Dee Hall, one the paper's pre-eminent reporters - - but expect the story to dominate the campaign through the April 3rd election.

Change The World Through A World-Changing Website

Want to know what your innovative eco-counterparts are doing and saying around the globe? There's a fascinating website that turns some of that aimless web-surfing time you logging everyday into something really productive.

And fun.

Waukesha's North Lake Finally To Get Public Boating Access

It's taken years, but the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has finally won in court what it could not arrange less litigiously on the shoreline of one of Waukesha County's largest bodies of water - - a public boating launch facility on North Lake.

Details here.

Wisconsin's Public Trust doctrine, dating to the Northwest Ordinance and then folded into the Wisconsin Constitution, has been interpreted to guarantee public access to all the state's waters.

North Lake, at 437 acres, was one of the state's largest without a public boat launch.

Private property property owners held up the deal for years, but it looks like the public, whomever and from wherever they may be, will soon be able to put a pleasure or fishing boat into North Lake.

Let's hope they get a warmer reception than a Milwaukee African-American family got last year in the nearby Town of Merton, when two off-duty North Lake volunteer fighters, including the now ex-chief, used a handgun and German Shepherd to run the Milwaukeeans off a public, river bridge fishing spot.

Ann Coulter, Pathetic Wingnut

Little surprise, really, that Ann Coulter would figure out a way to put herself in the headlines at a rightwing political conference where conservative GOP candidates were auditioning for 2008 electoral support.

She's always got a book to sell or a lecture tour to promote, and had to be annoyed that Anna Nicole Smith, Briteny Spears and Michael "Kramer" Richards have been getting all the limelight.

What was wierd, even by Coulter's standards - - remember, she was the one who suggested last year that 9/11 widows were somehow grooving on their situation - - was how she went about making sure that media paid her more attention than the candidates:

She swift-boated the married-guy John Edwards over on the Democratic side with a nasty, homophobic slur, and got cheered by an enthusiastic audience.

Edwards quickly turned Coulter's nutty remark into a fund-raising effort, and that's the mark of a savvy politician, but don't you wonder when even the right will decide that maybe you don't want Coulter representing you?

Washington County Can Vote In Major Land Preservation Plan: You Can Help

Washington County residents have a rare opportunity on their April 3rd ballot: They can commit their county and tax dollars to buy permanent land easements from willing sellers and effectively keep the land agricultural.

That would help to protect the county's rural character, environment and $630 million annual agricultural industry.

Supporters of a "yes" vote are getting organized, announcing a rally Thursday, March 8th, at 7 p.m. at the West Bend Mutual Insurance Co.

Washington County, located northwest of Milwaukee County, contains some of the region's most beautiful open space, including farmland, wetlands and remnants of the Kettle Moraine that have not yet fallen to the bulldozer, subdivider, and road-builder.

As one Washington County resident once said to me about why land conservancy was so strong there: "We want to preserve our rural character. We don't want to become another Waukesha County."

There are conservancy efforts across the state, and in Washington County, that utilize state grants and other resources.

But the Washington County-financed effort, if it wins voter approval (the Washington County Board had adopted the plan in March, 2006, then reversed itself two months later, finally agreeing to put the matter to a county-wide referendum), would be the first such county-financed program in the state and could help other counties follow suit.

The referendum would designate up to $800,000 in county revenues annually for ten years, "to preserve prime farmland, water resources and natural areas in the County through purchase of development rights, land acquisition or similar programs from willing sellers," provided matching, non-county funds are also raised.

Opponents have said the program is too expensive and would add to government power and regulation.

Here is some contact information about the "yes" vote iniative:

The Washington County Land Conservation Partnership, (LCP), has a website: www.lcpwc.org.

Phone inquiries can be directed to Sue Millin, at 262-707-0359.

Backers of the referendum have also established an action and education arm; donations can be mailed to it, c/o Bill Neureuther, treasurer, Washington County Citizens for Farmland & Natural Areas, 1351 Oak Drive, Huburtus, WI 53033.

Sounds like a great opportunity to help some of our region's activists win a big victory.

This Is Why Tommy Thompson Doesn't Stand A Chance In The GOP Nomination Sweepstakes

John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani are out in front, if the early polls can be believed.

The CNN story includes these data:

"According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released earlier this week, Giuliani is gaining support among Republicans. His chief rival for the GOP 2008 presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is not.

Last month, McCain and outsider Rudy Giuliani were pretty close in the Washington Post-ABC News poll. Guiliani enjoyed a 34 percent to 27 percent lead over McCain.

But in the poll released Wednesday, Giuliani is way ahead of McCain -- 44 percent to 21 percent. The poll's margin of error on questions about Republicans was plus-or-minus 5 percentage points."

With Giuliani and his star power moving into the center-right, and to a lead among bigger name GOP candidates, Tommy's handful of percentage points will whither during his vanity campaign to nothing.

Good Milwaukee Blogs For Outstate Readers

Friends in Madison and elsewhere around the state often ask about where they can turn for informed and lively commentary about Milwaukee's political culture.

Here are three solid choices, and they are over on the Blog Roll to my right (I could switch that layout, I guess!):

1. Milwaukee Rising, written by my former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel colleague Gretchen Schuldt. She has become an expert in highway spending and politicking, and the wayward ways of our highway happy regional planning commission, too.

Among her achievements: co-founding a regional anti-highway expansion coalition, CASH - - Citizens Allied for Sane Highways - - and making presentations about why its a bad idea to jam another $6 billion in new freeway lanes through Milwaukee and area neighborhoods, wetlands and commercial strips.

So her blog. and the separate online newsletter she edits for the Storyhill Neighborhood Association - - referenced at her blog - - are both valuable resources in understanding the battles over transportation planning and spending in southeastern Wisconsin.

2. I'm also a fan of Plaisted Writes. Mike Plaisted is an attorney and his focus is often on the media, especially talk radio.

If you live outside Milwaukee, it helps to understand how this ubiquitous rightwing radio media phenomena operates here, and Plaisted's blog offers solid commentary.

3. And of course, one of the granddaddies of progressive blogging - - Jay Bullock, the always readable Folkbum.

Schuldt, Bullock and Plaisted go a long way in explaining Milwaukee's political environment.

Looking for Better Alternatives Than Corn-based Ethanol

Wisconsin is on the corn-based ethanol bandwagon because farmers and politicians here think it's good for Wisconsin's economy.

And a useful way to make an additive to stretch gas supplies and help the country break its addiction to petroleum.

Good goals.

But there's also a growing awareness that the financial, fertilizer and water costs required to turn corn into ethanol have serious environmental and fiscal drawbacks.

So is there a better way to produce ethanol? And is it the best use of corn, or of Wisconsin land and water and resources that could keep producing food?

Now there's news that the federal government is putting several hundreds of millions of research dollars into ethanol production from non-food crops in states other than Wisconsin, meaning the market for ethanol could shift away from corn, and move elsewhere.

So-called cellulosic ethanol could be produced from certain grasses, quick-growing trees and waste products, too - - in other words: not corn.

Projects receiving initial federal support for its production are located as close as Iowa - - where they grow a lot of corn but also see the potential for different ethanol source.

The Forest Products Lab at UW-Madison is already looking at whether wood chips and similar materials could be turned into cellulosic ethanol.

Good start.

As an agricultural state, with major research universities, and a public sector getting 'greener' by the day, Wisconsin should direct its renewal fuel potential - - and maybe venture capital, too - - towards these alternatives.

What better way to catch the next big wave of job-producing research, development and production in the energy sector?

The Political Environment Blog: Blog of the Week!

The statewide progressive organization One Wisconsin Now's online "Forward Report" has designated The Political Environment blog as its Blog of the Week.

The designation is much appreciated, and thanks to people linking to the blog through OWN's postings last month.

You can access the OWN site and the Forward Report here.

Log on to receive the Forward Report and get linked to a growing statewide network of activists working on matters as diverse as health care reform, conservation, workplace rights and more. (Disclosure: I am on OWN's board).

Sprawl Warnings in SE Wisconsin Go Way Back

Reading through the news about sprawl development in Waukesha, long-time organizer and activist Marilyn Goris sent along this story - - published almost eight years ago to the day - - to add some perspective.

(The bold-faced emphasis is mine, fyi):

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 12, 1999
Sprawl a grave threat, group's report says
TOM VANDEN BROOK

Urban sprawl will spoil southeastern Wisconsin unless developers create compact neighborhoods served by mass transit, according to a report released Thursday by Citizens for a Better Environment.

The environmental organization studied land-use trends since 1960 and found that land used for development nearly doubled while the population in the area grew only 3%.

Such sprawling development consumes open space, lengthens commutes and requires costly extension of municipal services, such as police and fire protection, to far-flung subdivisions, according to the report. The added miles logged by commuters a 64% increase between 1972 and 1991 also would add to the region's smog problems.

If the trends continue, an additional 155,000 acres of farmland and other open space will be used for development by 2040, according to the report, "2040, Getting There: Alternatives to Sprawl in Southeast Wisconsin." That acreage is equal to the land now used for urban development in Milwaukee, Washington and Kenosha counties combined.

"We can expect southeast Wisconsin to become less and less a place we'll want to live in," said Susan Mudd, state director for the organization. The study calls for "Livable Neighborhoods" in revitalized urban areas, and new homes developed on smaller lots in compact neighborhoods.

Redeveloping and limiting development also would negate the need to build new schools, roads and other costly infrastructure, according to the report. These communities would be served by mass transit and have shopping and other amenities within walking distance.

Examples of such "livable" communities already exist, Mudd said, pointing to Shorewood, Cedarburg and Lake Mills. Following the "Livable Neighborhood" growth pattern would result in 40% less land used for residential development, 13% to 30% fewer new miles driven and 56% less pollution than envisioned under current development trends.

"In fact, living in an environmentally efficient home in a compact neighborhood is more convenient, fun, sociable, leisurely and livable than an isolated tract home in a scattered subdivision two miles from the nearest convenience store and it's good for the economy," said Rob Kennedy, author of the report.

The study calls for local zoning regulations to conform to regional plans, enacting local ordinances to make pedestrian-friendly developments possible and to re-allocate money from road building to pay for better mass transit and promote bicycling and walking.

Copyright 1999
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Strong Conservation Message Reverberates Across Waukesha County

Late on Wednesday night, the City of Waukesha Plan Commission rejected, for a second time, a proposal to annex 334 acres in the Town of Waukesha for home and city well development southwest of the city.

Waukesha's Water Utility and Mayor Larry Nelson backed the plan as a short-term solution to the City's need for a cleaner water source; conservationists objected because the land, known as the Lathers parcel, is long-ticketed for inclusion into public property in the Vernon Marsh Wildlife Area; others balked at another costly extension of city services beyond the city's current borders. (Which some dare call "sprawl.")

The vote at the commission was 5-2.

So what's really going on?

For years in southeastern Wisconsin, and particularly in Waukesha County, planning decisions have been made by the same small group of builders, consultants and governing bodies that constitute an informal but powerful elite.

These people felt they had a monopoly on the information, on knowledge, on what was best for the region, and plans would get announced, then fast-tracked, more or less as done deals.

Annexation-after-annexation has been sought by developers, goosed along by consultants and adopted by governments, too often with relatively less regard for the long-term consequences beyond the elites' bottom lines.

So, year-after-year, open space has dwindled. Farms have been subdivided for homes, businesses and malls- - including the massive, 1,500-acre Pabst Farms that has profound ecological significance for the region because the water supply beneath it was replenished by rain and snow that filtered through the land.

The development also has brought more traffic throughout the County. Once-small towns are getting the Royal Treatment from cooperative state highway planners with wide bypasses and new interchanges.

Municipal borders have been extended. Even the environmental corridors recommended as buffers by the regional planning commission have been encroached upon as business-as-usual for decades.

But the process is not sustainable and has begun to stall under the weight of its own contradictions.

As the City of Waukesha slowly faced up to its water supply issues, and began campaigning for diverted Lake Michigan water as its preferred solution, it argued it could not return that water for treatment to the lake because its current disposal path - - the Fox River - - maintained water levels in the valuable Vernon Marsh.

Then it turned around and negotiated a deal with a developer to build on the Lathers parcel - - land at the edge of, and earmarked for, the Vernon Marsh - - in exchange for the right to withdraw three million gallons a day from groundwater also at the edge of the Marsh.

Even though the amount of land for homes was reduced in the version voted down by the Plan Commission, does building so close to the Marsh, and drawing up water from shallow wells nearby, make sense?

Not according to the City's planning staff, which did not support the plan, nor for the second time to the Plan Commission, and, once already, to the Waukesha City Council.

These days, a reaction like that is called pushback. It's not partisan in Waukesha. It's widespread. Maybe rejecting the Lathers annexation is the tipping point against sprawl in Waukesha County, making conservation welcomed as mainstream throughout southeastern Wisconsin.

Waukesha still has water supply options. It can negotiate the purchase from the developer of an easement of perhaps four or five of the acres for the well sites, thereby leaving 99% of the land intact.

Studies may indicate that removing the water that Waukesha wants, or a smaller amount, or changing the well site locations, may not harm the Vernon Marsh. I'm not sure. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and others will eventually decide. Certainly the Town of Waukesha has a say in the decision, too.

Time will tell.

Waukesha has implemented a solid water conservation plan. Give it a chance, along with changes in water rates, and see if all these modifications substantially reduce the amount of water that the City of Waukesha says it needs long-term.

And the plan can be substantially expanded with additional technologies and goals, adding to the water savings that, in turn, minimize the need for larger volumes of water in the coming years.

And Waukesha needs to get behind the adoption of the amended Great Lakes Compact, because a) it is the right thing from a conservation perspective to do for the entire Great Lakes region, and b) if Waukesha ever wants a justifiable application for Great Lakes water to be approved by the other Great Lakes states, Waukesha can't go to those states for permission having been the city in the eight-state region that fought, tried to water down, or otherwise compromise the agreement.

The battle over the parcel near the Vernon Marsh also tells the City and County of Waukesha, as well as the regional planning commission that people want conservation made a genuine priority.

Not a dollop of land here and a fake wetlands added there, but putting preservation of remaining open lands at the top of the list.

Conservation for the benefit of the public, not the narrow interests of developers, builders and their allies at consulting firms.