Given the heavy presence of Pabst Farms in the new Oconomowoc, it's good to know that there is a "Greener Oconomowoc" meeting around the principles of The Natural Step, a guide to sustainability.
Details here.
Steve Jagler, editor of the Small Business Times, reprises how it feels to endure Mark Belling's wrath.
And gives as good as he got.
Take in the evening program at the Waukesha Public Library on Wednesday, 1/23.
Details here.
A Polk County Circuit Court judge ruled last week that certain trails are off-limits to all-terrain-vehicles.
It was a win for commonsense and good for the environment.
There are plenty of trails where motorized vehicles can move logically without tearing through land where people are moving more slowly and quietly.
As you settle in to watch the Green Bay Packers defeat The New York Giants on a brutally cold field - - and no doubt the announcers will make the requisite 'bring on global warming' wisecracks - - keep in mind that predictions for the 2008 climate are for a year among the hottest, but not a record-breaker.
That's because it's time for the cyclical La Nina, which produces cooling from tropical water.
The climate change deniers will probably say this means that global warming is a hoax.
Unfortunately, they are wrong, but expect them to demagogue a bit, courtesy of the La Nina phenomenon.
A few years ago, an attorney working for the City of Waukesha Water Utility said in a memo that sharing tax revenues from new development could be a factor in convincing the City of Milwaukee to sell Lake Michigan water.
I have blogged about this memo more than once, and now I can finally post an online link to the memo, and in the same file, the written response from the water utility distancing itself from the memo, all of which is here.
Ultimately, the water utility declined to pay the bill for the memo's preparation, then settled for a small portion of the total.
All that history is here - - along with State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), suggesting that Milwaukee is interested in extorting money from the suburbs for water.
(Expect that kind of opposition from the suburbs to become even hotter, since it gets to the nub of what a lot of that opposition is all about: moolah.)
Many observers believe that if water deals are approved to the suburbs under the regional, cooperative eight-state Great Lakes Compact - - deals that would include return of water to the lake and conservation measures, too - - payment for the water will have to include money more than a simple, per-gallon charge, and will have to bring in housing, transportation and other related regional issues, too.
That's because as the memo points out, and it's common knowledge, too, development has moved from the city to the suburbs, and along with it, jobs and tax-base expansion.
Taxable property is the revenue life-blood of Wisconsin municipalities, so a water-selling community could end up damaging its ability to provide basic services to its citizens, visitors, commercial properties and infrastructure if it made a deal for water that chipped away at the city's tax base.
And those losses would happen regardless of the income that might come in on the supply, much of which would be eaten up meeting the fixed costs of the selling city's water utility.
Selling what is essentially a priceless resource requires the creation of an entirely new balance sheet to make sure that the liability to the seller does not overwhelm whatever income is derived.
Tax-base sharing, or as the memo calls it, "tax sharing," are methods to share the fruits of new development and help protect the seller while providing the resource the buyer wants.
With Lake Michigan water certainly believed to be an asset that would fuel the creation of new industry and the building of residential properties that could tout access to the new, fresh water supply, tax sharing of some sort becomes logical.
Finding the documents as I did through Open Records law procedures in the files of the Waukesha Water Utility about a year-and-a-half ago was a surprise.
Publicizing it then and again now continues to genuinely inform the diversion debate, especially as Compact legislation is poised for introduction into the Wisconsin legislature before the end of the month, and the rules and ramifications of diversions can finally be comprehensively addressed.
Buried at the bottom of this story about getting invasive species out of ships' ballast tanks is word from State Sen. Robert Cowles, (R-Allouez), a probable Great Lakes Compact bill co-sponsor, that a hearing is scheduled on February 5th at the Capitol.
That would suggest something of a fast-track for the bill, since it has not yet been introduced.
While Wisconsin continues to spend itself towards highway budget ruin - - a torrent of un-budgeted commitments, including $5.7 billion is being poured into more lanes and modifications to the misnamed 'freeway' system in Southeastern Wisconsin - - other states are turning their existing, taxpayer-paid interstates into toll roads under new federal rules.
Used to be you could do that, but the feds have eased the rules, so expect other states to do the same, with corporations, even foreign entities building and managing the systems, and collecting the tolls in some cases.
Wisconsin hasn't asked for that permission yet, instead forging ahead as it has for decades, building and expanding roads and adding to expensive maintenance, patrolling, plowing, debt-service and other recurring costs.
The highway lobby in Wisconsin is the Badger State equivalent of the national Military-Industrial Complex - - an interconnected, self-serving web of lobbyists, contractors and government officials keeping one hand in our pockets and the other on the revenue spigot.
It's much the same in other states, except in Wisconsin, the lobby is monomanically focused on only one form of transportation spending - - roads - - while excluding rail innovation from the mix.
There's plenty of money to be made building, maintaining and operating transit lines, but in Wisconsin, change comes slowly. What the Government-Contractor Highway Complex knows is only one thing.
More roads.
The lack of choices keeps city, suburban and rural populations heavily auto-dependant, artificially fueling the demand for more road-building, the unsustainable spending it requires, and the additionally unsustainable development sprawl it creates.
In southeastern Wisconsin, this distortion has been aided and abetted by the regional planning commission, SEWRPC, which gives lip service to transit recommendations and enthusiastic support for highway planning.
The regional 'freeway' plan - - zero funding for any transit components- - that began its 25-30 year implementation in 2004 - - was drafted by SEWRPC with a million-dollar grant from the state transportation department.
An unintended consequence, perhaps?
The need for new funding sources to pay for and maintain all these new roads and lanes - - so it may be the specter of tolls on the horizon that causes some road warriors to think twice about this unrestrained highway construction.
Toll road advocates, like former Milwaukee State Rep. Kevin Soucie, have said that tolling to pay for projects like those in the Southeastern Wisconsin plan is the only way to continue to support the size major highway projects.
I used to think: No Way - - that anti-tolling, anti-Illinois sentiment would help keep tolls out of Wisconsin, but with public budgets getting thinner and thinner, and the highway lobby continuing to lobby for, get and spend fresh billions here each year, maybe Soucie will turn out to be right.
The burden would fall heaviest on the poor, and on business people who could not afford to risk taking non-tolled, more circuitous routes to their destinations.
Some special toll lanes, or those with tolls rising and falling with the time of day, or level of congestion, are called "Lexus lanes," and not without justification.
Much of this entire debate would be different if rail were in the mix, if there were balance in the transportation plan, and if there was some semblance of reason or limits in the highway lobby's dreams.
There there are no such restraints, making toll roads in Wisconsin more likely in our lifetimes, and sooner that you might think.
Another year, another quarter of a million bucks+ for public relations and technical advisors contracted by the Waukesha Water Utility, its general manager reports.
The City of Waukesha, already having unsuccessfully tried twice to obtain a back-door diversion of Lake Michigan water, could insert its next application under the rules and guidelines of the Great Lakes Compact - - if that regional water management agreement is adopted by the Wisconsin legislature this year.
(To date, Illinois and Minnesota have approved the Compact; several of the other states have bills under review, and only Wisconsin has not yet considered a bill.)
A Wisconsin bill is expected later this month after more than two years of delay.
Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson is on record favoring the Compact, as is Jack Chiovatero, Mayor of New Berlin - - a city partially within the Great Lakes basin, and whose application for an out-of-basin diversion has been forwarded to the other states by Wisconsin officials.
But it is not yet clear which among several versions of Compact bills might advance in our state's legislature, especially in the State Assembly.
There has been strong resistance among Waukesha-area business leaders and legislators to Compact procedures that require the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors to a diversion of water to a city like Waukesha which is entirely outside of the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin.
Among the opponents to that provision are the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce, the Wisconsin Builders Association, and State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin).
Call this chapter IX in our continuing series, The Road To Sprawlville:
Rare Native American effigy mounds, some in the shape of panthers, have been damaged at Pabst Farms, the Journal Sentinel reports.
Turns out it's not the first time this has happened out Waukesha way. More on that in a few paragraphs.
In the march towards Progress that has moved the economy west on the Interstate Highway across the region - - and in the case of Pabst Farms, turned 1,500 acres of prime agricultural land into big homes, on large lots, surrounded by businesses and a hospital - - degradation of the land has been among the outcomes.
That these 800-1,400-year-old Native American mounds were there is a known fact.
Pabst Farm's website contains this information:
"Our vision is to carry on the Pabst family’s love of the land through protection of important natural resources including wetlands, woodland areas, and historically significant Indian mounds. And what we build to the Pabst Farms land must also be a tribute to the rich heritage handed down from generation to generation. "
The irony is that Pabst Farms is constantly referred to as a "planned community."
Except that the planners a) forgot to pencil in an interstate interchange so motorists could get to the fancy shopping mall still under consideration, and b) didn't get the word to employees in vehicles clearing brush that rare effigy mounds were on the site and had to be protected.
Those are exhibit a) and b), to date.
Maybe we should have a contest to name what c) and d) will be?
Planners and experts say the damage to the mounds can be fixed. Depends on what you mean by fixed.
Is a rare painting slashed by a vandal in a museum, or an icon or relic broken in one of our major religious shrines or temples, really restored after the damage is done?
For cultures that built and used these mounds for spiritual ceremonies, does adding fresh dirt in tire ruts repair the physical and psychic insult?
How long will it take someone to leave a comment on this posting essentially saying, 'who cares, those cultures are long gone, and roads and subdivisions are good for the regional economy?'
Repairing the damage done is moot argument, however, when it comes to other mounds in - - well, that were once in the area.
Officials and others were discussing the Native American mounds, and a pit in the Pabst Farm site, during the December 6, 2005 meeting of the Waukesha County Land Use, Planning and Environment Committee.
The minutes say:
"At one point there were close to 30 Indian mounds in this area. The I-94 construction wiped out the lion's share along with the [pit]."
Looks like the mound-builders were bad planners, too. Imagine putting these structures where an Interstate Highway, the road to Sprawlville, had to run.
In his State of the State message delivered Wednesday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer called on his legislature to approve the Great Lakes Compact.
The full text to the lengthy speech is here, but the portion relating to the Compact is below:
'We also must do all we can to protect Upstate's environment, so we can pass on cleaner air, cleaner water and beautiful landscapes to our children and grandchildren.
"When it comes to the environment, there are so many priorities, so let me just outline one. In recent years, many New Yorkers near the Great Lakes have been troubled to hear that water levels have been dropping. This poses a threat to shipping, to our fisheries, and to our ecosystems-in other words, to the economy and quality of life in Great Lakes communities.
"That's why, today, I call upon the Legislature to pass the Great Lakes Compact, so we can join a multi-state effort to regulate water levels and maintain a strong, sustainable Great Lakes ecosystem and economy. "
One of the bigger Great Lakes freighters is partially underwater in the Duluth-Superior harbor, having struck something underwater as it was docking, according to news reports.
The back, or stern section of the ship is submerged; the front end afloat and efforts are being made to refloat the entire vessel.
Lowered levels in Lake Superior had been increasing the risk to ships this summer: we'll have to see what caused this mishap. So stay tuned.
Conservatives in the GOP are pushing for voter ID to limit votes among lower-income citizens, presumably Democrats.
Now the Wisconsin Assembly Republicans want to limit the topics that can come before residents through referenda.
Like resolutions calling for the end to the Iraq War.
Yeah, all this democracy-stuff is just too, well, democratic.
Props to Joe Zilber for making the Pabst complex a green model of redevelopment, and to Avrum Lank at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for bringing the information to readers.
Pretty soon, green building, engine design, energy generation - - all this and more will become routine, and the only remaining question will be: "What took so long?"
People had their chance to urge public funding for a highway interchange to a privately-owned shopping mall owner in Western Waukesha County, and no one raised a hand in support, records show.
Here's the story:
Kenneth Yunker, SEWRPC's Deputy Director, made available what he described as the sum total of about 50 comments mailed or emailed to the agency to help planners decide whether the proposed I-94 interchange to an upscale shopping mall planned at Pabst Farms should move forward.
In order for the interchange to be funded and built, a regional transportation plan covering 2007-2010 projects would have to be amended; advisory public comments on such amendments are part of the process.
SEWRPC - - the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission - - is the agency delegated to accept such comments.
The interchange would cost $25 million, most of it state money, and is on a planning fast-track because officials had failed to include it in the overall Pabst Farms scheme.
Some background is here.
Pabst Farms is a mini-city on 1,500 acres of former farmland that now is the gateway from I-94, north along state highway 67 to the City of Oconomowoc.
Some of the parcels are on the south side of the interstate, too.
The overall development is set to contain 1,200 houses and condos (no apartments, no transit service), plus a hospital, offices, light manufacturing, a school, a YMCA, stores and shops - - and the retail centerpiece: a regional, upscale mall, first designed to mimic Mayfair Mall, but now to look more like the open-air Bayshore Town Center mall.
The initial mall plan fell through some months ago, and the replacement design is even more controversial because it's larger, places unsightly store backs, even Dumpsters facing the road leading to Oconomowoc, and raises the profile of adjacent proposed big-box stores, too.
Waukesha County, the City of Oconomowoc and the mall developer are to pay a total of $3.9 million of the cost, while $21.1 million would come from the state - - you and me and other taxpayers - - though some highway extensions to service private developments, or local communities, require much higher shares.
So I went out to SEWRPC today to read the comment file - - and found that the backers of the interchange completely whiffed: there was not one comment of support for the project in the file.
People from River Hills, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Brown Deer, Oconomowoc, Mequon, Summit, Madison and Racine registered objections.
Remarks like "oppose...strongly oppose...huge waste of tax dollars...travesty...poor public policy...height of irresponsibility...and outrage" were sprinkled throughout the letters and emails.
Commenters, some on form letters, said they preferred more transit spending, didn't want more road-building to contribute to air pollution, opposed private development receiving a public highway subsidy and wanted farmland preserved.
Four non-profit organizations and one unit of government sent in comments of opposition, too.
They organizations were the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation, (ACLU-WI), Midwest Environmental Advocates (a public interest law firm), NAACP Milwaukee Branch and 1000 Friends of Wisconsin.
Additionally, the City of Milwaukee opposed amending the 2007-2010 regional highway plan and funding the interchange, but supported including it in a future transportation plan for the region "as necessary when the schedule and traffic demand associated with the proposed regional shopping mall have been defined."
That letter was signed by four Milwaukee officials: Jeffrey Mantes, Commissioner of Public Works, Jeffrey Polenske, City Engineer, Paul Vornholt, Intergovernmental Relations and Michael Maierle, Long Range Planning, Department of City Development.
Thanks to the Daily Reporter for this story about water supply struggles in Florida, where population and development growth has led certain areas to look to their neighbors for a water bailout, while others say it's time to manage the water more wisely first.
The Ozaukee Washington County Land Trust (OWLT) thought it was closing in on a plan to acquire the Squires Country Club, a 142-acre golf course on Lake Michigan in the Town of Belgium - - only to learn that a development group had swooped in with a higher and accepted offer of $2.6 million that keeps the property a golf course.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the deal came together quickly after "a casual conservation" between Ozaukee County Board Chairman Bob Brooks and Harm Modder, a development partner.
The Squires Country Club is owned by Bruce and Bonnie Bloemer.
The paper said this about the sale, which took place as the Land Trust was awaiting a counter-offer from Bruce Bloemer to its offer of something more than $2 million.
"Brooks, himself a real estate investor, said it [the property] was [on the market] and set up a Jan. 5 meeting between Modder and Bloemer, who negotiated the deal and signed an agreement on Friday, the three men said Monday.
"Brooks drew up the paperwork but was not involved in the price negotiations. He is not taking a commission on the deal, they said."
So the golf course remains a golf course and the Ozaukee County Board will not further pursue grant funding that was crucial to the conservancy plan.
Wisconsin business leaders routinely bash Gov. Doyle as anti-business, and look longingly to Illinois, where tax incentives and other inducements supposedly give the private sector there everything they are denied in Wisconsin.
Paul Soglin finds that some Illinois movers-and-shakers are complaining that they are losing out to...Doyle and Wisconsin.
Can't our business leaders get anything right?
Dave Dempsey, as others have tried, too, explains that business leaders quoted in a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about the Great Lakes compact misunderstand how the Compact would work and how it relates to existing federal law.
I reminded readers in a recent posting that Waukesha business and political leaders have been trying to evade or water down (sorry, bad pun) the Compact for years.
And suggesting, as they did at the forum to which Dempsey is referring, that they could support the Compact with its so-called "single-state veto" provision governing diversions removed is just another way of killing it altogether.
Which, as Dempsey and others keep saying, leaves everyone with the existing federal law where the single-state veto is chiseled in stone.
But would lead to the next logical/illogical step - - challenging the law in court, and losing control of the Great Lakes if the case were won.
Former US Ambassador and Senator George McGovern (D-SD) gave the Washington Post an op-ed published January 8th that summarized the case for impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney.
Here is a link to what I think is the most compelling case yet written to justify removing Bush and Cheney from office.
The political commentator Jim Hightower posted six days later a related approach on his website, which requires a paid registration.
Here is the key paragraph:
"There should be a barrage of investigative hearings, a proliferation of exposes on war profiteering, a surge of subpoenas, a hailstorm of contempt citations, a thousand specific cuts (none harming the troops) in Bush's war budget, an unleashing of Congress's "inherent contempt" power--in other words, a strategic, unrelenting antiwar offensive using all of the unique powers of the legislative branch to march right in the face of BushCheney executive arrogance, reframe the debate, and rally the people."
The progressive news aggregator, Alternet, posted the entire Hightower essay, here.
Hightower noted that he had worked with Sen. McGovern in 1970 as a volunteer organizing members of Congress, and public opinion, against the Vietnam War.
(Disclosure: Sen. McGovern is my father-in-law.)
