Waukesha Water Diversion Preparation Is Aggressive, Multi-Faceted

Waukesha's lobbying and communications efforts in pursuit of a Lake Michigan diversion are leaving no stone unturned.

Read along, thanks to Waukesha records released to this blog that show:

* Face-to-face meetings at Waukesha's behest with various Milwaukee officials;

* Additional media, governmental, union and business sector meetings and organizing under discussion to help win a precedent-setting diversion of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha with Milwaukee being the water-seller most desired by Waukesha.

In summary: Waukesha is thinking strategically and resources behind it.

Milwaukee's strategy?

Not so clear.

The emails and other records reveal busy communications among Waukesha officials and contract lobbyists in October and November to schedule and prepare for the Milwaukee meetings.

Waukesha officials have also been meeting with outside groups and agencies, including staff at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, records show.

The meetings with the Milwaukee officials were to include one or more of the following: Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson, Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Daniel Duchniak, and two lobbyists from Martin Schreiber & Associates, a lobbying and PR firm under a $10,000+ monthly contract to the Waukesha Water Utility: Schreiber firm partner Bill McClenahan, and former Milwaukee Ald. Michael D'Amato.

Meetings were set up initially as early as Nov. 4th with Milwaukee Alds. Robert Donovan, Council Pres. Willie Hines, James Witkowiak, Willie Wade, and more followed.

Ald. Joe Dudzik was scheduled for Nov. 10th, with Ald. Ashanti Hamilton and Comptroller Wally Morics on Nov. 20th, though some times and appointments changed, as the records show.

One later email indicates that Morics, and Alds. Hamilton, Hines, and Robert Bauman were scheduled or rescheduled on Nov. 20th, along with Ald. Terry Witkowski "at the South Shore Yacht Club for lunch."

Ald. Tony Zielinski was set for a meeting at Alterra Coffee on 1st and Pittsburgh on Nov. 23rd, and Alds. Dudzik and James Bohl on Nov. 25th.

McClenahan asked D'Amato by email on October 28th, at 1:33 p.m. what sort of materials would be best prepared for the Milwaukee officials.

D'Amato replied later that afternoon:

"3 things as an intro

"One, the need for water in 2 bullets. Radium, stipulation

"Two, who needs water. Service area map including % of developed land. Who is city of Waukesha? Income, housing value, wrking class, growing diversity. Do not use latino # alone. Roll into growing "people of color." [the abbreviations were D'Amato's]

"Three, what are options and what's in it for Milwaukee. Indicate all 4 options, unique circumstance that makes diversion possible (map). Discuss approx amount of $ that will go to city for next 20 yrs. Use modest escalator to boost amount.

"That should do it for most people," the email concludes.

Another interesting document that shows Waukesha's attention to detail is a proposed work plan drafted by McClenahan for discussion among the Waukesha contingent at a Milwaukee Athletic Club lunch on November 4th.

This is the text, records show, with bold-facing in the original:

"Additional needed meetings with Mayor Nelson (or for Mike solo): [Mayor] Barrett, [Alds] Murphy, Bauman, Puente, all other council members

"Additional other meetings: Wauwatosa, West Allis, New Berlin? Racine? Oak Creek? Governor Doyle? Local Legislators?

"Discuss public meeting and hearing schedules and locations

"Other action items:

"Respond to enviro letters

"Consult with DNR on process

"Finalize application by for [sic] Dec. 8 release

"Op eds, letters to editor (Journal Sentinel, Business Journal, Freeman, Daily Reporter)

"MMAC, other business meetings

"Union supporters - how best can they help? Also contact additional unions

"Revise or prepare additional handouts."

My bottom-line analysis:

Waukesha has an array of lobbyists, staffers, elected officials, lawyers and consultants who are focused on obtaining the Lake Michigan diversion, which Waukesha has said it would prefer to purchase through the City of Milwaukee.

The Waukesha approach is multi-layered, with experts brought on board as needed.

In a recent posting, and by contrast, I quoted another document from Waukesha expressing satisfaction with the City of Milwaukee's decision against hiring an expert adviser to help calculate the true value of water.

Not because the Milwaukee expert would have been too expensive. Money had already been earmarked for the contracting. Milwaukee said it could handle these possible water sale valuations on a case-by-case basis.

So, I'd say: advantage Waukesha. It knows how to play the game.

UWM Engineering Campus In Tosa To Have Housing

I missed this Business Journal story when I was out of town and want to post a link to it because it shows how the proposed UWM engineering campus on the Milwaukee County Grounds has evolved.

Key point: five historic buildings on the site will be converted to graduate school housing.

My first reaction is that it indicates just how misplaced is this site, and why more than ever the new school should have gone downtown.

Is UWM trying to generate some revenue from the site at the expense of students who will be isolated on the County Grounds?

And will the housing now absolve UWM and the County of the responsibility for providing first-class transit to and from the site?

I am not convinced this site will ever be developed along the lines that UWM envisions, and that as long-term Zoo Interchange construction gets under way, the site's weaknesses will come into sharper view.

Is it too late for UWM to partner with Marquette's new Engineering school now taking shape?

Chicago Resists Strong Anti-Carp Response

Chicago is in full denial mode - - check out this Tribune editorial - - as most Great Lakes states now seek the closing of the locks on a canal through which the destructive Asian carp could enter Lake Michigan.

McIlheran Misses The Point: Not A News Flash

The Journal Sentinel's in-house conservative blogger and resident rail naysayer, quoting a known railophobe, laughs off high-speed trains, assuming that every short-to-medium range trip can be accomplished by airplane at 600 mph.

The reality?

Many small US cities have little or no air service, and high-speed rail would offer all travelers an alternative.

Choice is the conservatives' mantra - - unless a reflexive, anti-train hired gun says otherwise, and ideology again trumps common sense.

Potential New Water User In New Berlin In Limbo

A hotel, conference center and water park slated for the very portion of New Berlin to be served by the diversion of Lake Michigan water that began last year has stalled, according to a report in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online publication.

The lesson? Projections of water need, and future demand, along with population estimates are all a piece of an inexact 'science,' at best.

New York Times Has Great Lakes/Asian Carp Sunday Story

The New York Times continues to follow the politics surrounding the Asian carp menace to the Great Lakes and the State of Illinois' reluctance to aggressively help keep the destructive fish away from Lake Michigan.

$200 Million Withheld From County Parks: The Walker Legacy Grows

Milwaukee County's park system suffers from deferred maintenance in the $200 million range.

Somehow this will not be Scott Walker's fault.

Illinois' Supreme Court-Approved Great Lakes Diversion Is Called Theft

That's how Mike Nichols sees it.

Dave Dempsey Call For Great Lakes Unity Of Purpose

Well said.

New York On Board Against Carp Migration

New York is state #6 working in the courts to force Illinois to close off a shipping canal through which destructive Asian carp could enter Lake Michigan.

Blog Postings This Week Focus On Water, Open Records

I will use the blog this week to reference documents from several Open Records requests, or commentary based on records or their requests.

Here is the first: an account of the close-and-easy relationship between the general managers of the water utilities in Milwaukee and Waukesha.

Now I know it makes sense that these officials exchange information, as the fraternity of water utility managers in Wisconsin is small.

And in this case, Waukesha's Dan Duchniak and Milwaukee's Carrie Lewis sit on the regional planning commission's water study advisory committee, where they both voted to approve a preliminary (hint: read as 'soon to-be-qpproved.') recommendation approving a sale of Lake Michigan water by Milwaukee to Waukesha.

You can read a lengthy description of the study's conclusion, here: Work you way to p. 57, fyi.

But is Dan Duchniak the best source of legal information for Carrie Lewis if she has a technical legal question about how diversion negotiations as spelled out in the Great Lakes Compact and in Wisconsin statutes?

Anyway: more later this week, including details of Waukesha's full court lobbying press in Milwaukee City Hall orchestrated by former Milwaukee Ald. Michael D'Amato, now a registered lobbyist working for Duchniak's Waukesha Water Utility through former Gov. Martin Schreiber's public relations and lobbying firm.

To Help Price Water, Milwaukee Decides Against Consultants - - Delighting Waukesha's Consultants

When Milwaukee decided about a year ago to sell Lake Michigan water out of the Great Lakes basin to New Berlin, the big city's Common Council also advertised for a consultant to help it determine the true value of water.

It did so because it had no economic basis upon which to evaluate a modest, so-called regional cooperation fee it eventually accepted from New Berlin - - $75,000 annually - - as compensation for the agreement above and beyond the per-gallon charges set by the State Public Service Commission.

The plan was a good one: have an expert's study in hand as an aide negotiating a far bigger sale with Waukesha. (A brace of consultants is helping Waukesha with various legal, environmental, media and strategic matters as it prepares to formally apply for a Great Lakes diversion, and how much it will pay is sure to be a key issue when it comes to picking a seller.)

But Milwaukee didn't like the water pricing consultant proposals it received in response to a solicitation, and along with what I have been told was not-so-subtle resistance from the Milwaukee Water Works - - where there is in-house balking at anything from outsiders that might block sales from its under-utilized capacity - - Milwaukee has decided against getting independent opinion and expertise.

In an email exchange obtained in records provided by the Waukesha Water Utility, then-Milwaukee sustainability director Ann Beier told Waukesha officials that future sales would be addressed as they are now, on a "case by case basis without a formal analysis," according to an August 18, 2009 email to Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak.

Who, in turn, let others know, eliciting this response from Bill McClenahan, a Waukesha contract lobbyist and PR specialist:

"This is good news from Milwaukee that they have given up on the value of water study, apparently concluding there is no magic formula (or perhaps that the formula would have resulted in a lower number than they had hoped for)," he said by email back to Duchniak and other Waukesha water consultants.

"In any case, it eliminates a potential source of delay."

Note that Milwaukee has chosen not to hire a consultant - - to the delight of Waukesha's consultants.

And the Milwaukee Water Works seems comfortable getting legal/informational questions answered about the Great Lakes Compact water selling provisions answered by Waukesha officials, other records show.

And as one well-informed person observed to me privately, illustrating the need for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to have been the leader in the issue from the outset, which it has not as it continues to abdicate decision-making and parameter-setting to Waukesha,

So if you are keeping score, these early rounds are going to Waukesha - - not by strategic superiority, but by default.

Will School Districts That Gambled And Lost Seek Bailouts?

Waukesha and four others stand to lose big, but will they look for handouts?

Ex-Wash Post Ombudsman Dies: Former Local Editor Quoted

Deborah Howell, a trail-breaking woman in American journalism, died suddenly in a freak accident; A Washington Post story quotes former Milwaukee Journal staffer Linda Fibich, who had followed Howell into a job at Newhouse when Howell left for the Post.

Celebrating Alcohol, And Mourning Its Abuse: A Media And Cultural Contradiction

The Journal Sentinel carried Sunday page one frivolity with photos about the annual Polar Bear Plunge, noting that the "pro" it located for an interview fuels up with Jack Daniels each year before 'braving' Lake Michigan cold waters.

OK, don't be a scold about cold-weather fun, you say.

But you read farther into the paper and find stories about 55 drunken driving arrests over New Year's in Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties that included four crashes, two injuries and one not-so-funny plunge into Lake Michigan by a drunk driver and her passenger - - in their car.

I had driven (sober) past the area of the accident not five minutes earier. The paper says that deputies, closing off the scene, made several more OWI arrests on the spot.

So I count my lucky stars that I didn't meet one of these irresponsible drivers out on the roads - - not to mention that as I was turning off I-794 to go north on Lincoln Memorial Drive, a deputy was pulling over the motorist directly behind me...

Then the paper carried this story about a fatal snowmobile crash - - alcohol and speed believed to be factors - - and you wonder: Anyone connecting the dots?

The Journal Sentinel has been pounding away about our state's penchant for drunken driving, and has editorially criticized the State Legislature's recent weak effort at amending Wisconsin OWI statutes.

It's interesting that both the conservative blogger/talker Jeff Wagner and I both have taken similar positions.

But my point is that the paper undercuts its news and editorial campaign against excessive drinking on the roads by glorifying the drinking that underlies some of the Polar Plunge participation.

Do we think that those people fortified by alcohol before the plunge had designated drivers?

The story finds one group of plungers who then headed off to a tavern.

Surprised?

Wolf Killer Gets Off Pretty Easy

Much of the punishment aimed at a Wisconsin man who shot a wolf in Michigan is his two-year ban - - on hunting.

Slap on the wrist.

The New York Times Is Following The Asian Carp Story

Sunday's New York Times will carry a major piece about the politics surrounding efforts to unite the Great Lakes states and keep destructive Asian carp out of Lake Michigan.

If legal actions fail, or stall, or if Illinois needs need a nudge to agree to close locks or waterway access to the Great Lakes for these predatory fish as they migrate north from the Mississippi River, don't rule out boycotts.

Milwaukee Water Official Asks Waukesha Water Official For Great Lakes Legal Information

Two months ago, as Milwaukee's Common Council was debating whether to approve a letter of intent to sell water to Waukesha - - thus beginning the negotiation process between the two cities once Waukesha actually applies for Lake Michigan water - - the Milwaukee Water Works manager Carrie Lewis had a question:

"What exactly does the state statute require? Willingness to negotiate only, or "support for and willingness to negotiate" as stated in the Waukesha resolution," asked Lewis in a Thursday, November 5th email to Waukesha Water utility manager Dan Duchniak.

The email exchange is part of an open records release provided to me by Waukesha. (I will post more items this week, so stay tuned.)

Duchniak had earlier that day sent Lewis some materials, including Waukesha's city resolution asking various cities to submit letters about possible water sales negotiations.

"Please let me know if you need anything else from me," said Duchniak by email at 2:19 p.m.

Lewis' question is a good one, but wouldn't the better party to ask be Milwaukee's City Attorney, and not the potential water buyer?

Thirteen minutes later, Duchniak replied, sending Lewis a citation for a state atatute and "relevant section," by page.

I'm not saying the information is right or wrong, or that Duchniak wouldn't or didn't know.

My question is: shouldn't these questions raised by Milwaukee officiala be answered within Milwaukee City Hall?

I worked for both Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, and for Madison's Paul Soglin, and I cannot imagine those offices or other depaartments getting a key legal question answered by the other side in what would be a multi-million dollar, long-term and precdent-setting national and international discussion and contract.

More questions:

* Does the Milwaukee Common Council have a greater willingness to exert control over contacts in these preliminary discussions?

* Does it even know how key information for its use is being obtained?

* What will happen when preliminary discussions lead to formal negotiations, and perhaps contract drafts and final agreements? Will email chatting between the parties' technical staffers continue, or will Milwaukee officials take greater control over who is communicating with whom?

It's 2010, But One-Notes Still Blame Tom Ament

Where would Scott Walker be without Tom Ament?

Indiana Becomes 5th Great Lakes State Joining Carp Legal Action

Five states now are asking the US Supreme Court to force Illinois to take strong measures to block the Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan through the Chicago shipping and sewerage canal.

Indiana is the latest to join.