I love you. You love me. We’re a great big family…

Those may be lyrics to the pre-school favorite purple dinosaur’s television song but you could barely notice a difference when hearing the two republican candidates for Governor square off. Rather than a true debate and candidates taking each other and their ideas to task, the debates are more like a hug-fest with Barney and a Tickle me Elmo doll.

And no, there’s no purple and red fur flying.

Debates usually have the benefit of bringing out differences between the candidates in a race. Candidates Scott Walker and Mark Neuman appear to be saying the same thing. What’s even stranger is that Walker appears to have the blessing of the Republican establishment despite his less than stellar record. If this were a democratic primary, you could be assured that liberals across the state would be fuming if they were watching a debate as lackluster and boring as the ones that republicans are putting on.

What’s just as crazy is that one of the candidates, Scott Walker, is criticizing the only Democrat for the general election for not attending a Republican primary debate.

Psst… someone might want to whisper in Walker’s ear that the race he needs to have his eye on right now is the primary.

Words cannot fully describe the tragedy that occurred several months ago when a patient at the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division (BHD) was put in a situation that allowed another mentally ill patient to rape her. Co-mingling opposite gender patients in the same area is just bad policy but with budget cuts, administrators were forced to find ways to cut costs.

Todays political rhetoric would have called separate facilities for different gender patients “wasteful spending” but now we see what the true impact of what cutting taxes can have when it fails to take into account a human need as basic as safety.

As we all read the stories that are coming out, we need to consider the context of the debate. First, we are in a one newspaper town. If a story runs in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and it is not correct, there is not another news outlet that will call them out on it. This leads to less responsible journalism and reporters taking liberties that they would otherwise be unable to take.

Here at Watchdog Milwaukee we have written about the one of those reporters, Steve Schulze in the past. Schulze is one of the reporters covering the BHD rape case and he is essentially accusing BHD administrators of being evasive. He is right that they are being evasive but they are legally required to be. If they answered all of his questions they would be violating HIPA, the patient confidentiality law that protects patients from having their personal information released. By not telling the whole story, Schulze has effectively demonized administrators who are simply following the law. Are these administrators perfect? Of course not, but by avoiding the context that they are legally unable to answer some of Schulze’s questions for legal reasons makes for hard hitting sound bites, but gives the public little understanding of the issue.

None of this excuses the events that took place at BHD. Framing the discussion as administrators being cagey without understanding the context is something that the Journal-Sentinel has failed at with this issue. Whether they have deliberately chosen to do this because a story of that sort is less than sexy, or whether they are simply on a witch hunt isn’t something this citizen journalist is prepared to address, but the fact remains that they have omitted key facts that provide context of this entire discussion.

One of the County Supervisors, Lynne DeBruin, has chosen to come out and publicly lambaste BHD administrators. Again, context is important. Like many other politicians, DeBruin is a media hound. She is not the first politician to make sweeping allegations and present herself as the savior of the people and the protector of the unfortunate and she will not be the last.

But DeBruin is not Jesus Christ.

She is just a politician who is seeking to put herself in the public spotlight in a level of government that is often ignored by the media. Her willingness to violate the spirit of the law and run to the media with confidential information she learned in a closed meeting do not show herself to be a watchdog and protector of the weak, they show her to be someone who lacked the basic responsible discretion to work to fix problems in-house because she wanted to put her own political needs ahead of the needs of the patients in the BHD. Her actions put the County and therefore the taxpayer at risk for a lawsuit without doing anything to fix the problem. In the end, this may result in a lawsuit and the very people who elected her will have to contribute to a settlement should this become a legal matter.

Bellyaching. Whining. Constant political attacks.

Really now, wouldn’t you think that everyone would have something better to do than complain about MMSD? I mean, I get it — there is sewage dumping that happens a few times a year in order to reduce the possibility of sewage backups into peoples basements. That dumping goes into Lake Michigan and it’s understandable that people are upset, but rather than complain all the time, what solutions do they bring to the table?

None.

While the MMSD board has greatly reduced dumping to levels even lower than its neighboring Chicago, even folks from Chicago have pointed to MMSD and threatened lawsuits due to the dumping. What has Chicago done to solve their problem? They divert their waste into the Mississippi River rather than dumping into Lake Michigan. Let’s face it — neither is a good solution but with the massive reduction of incidents, why the continued gripe without solutions.

I’d really like to hear what their solutions are because all that’s coming out of the inappropriately named conservatives these days is venomous rhetoric and no solutions.

For years, Republicans have asked why government doesn’t run like a business. I’ve always wondered why they always focus on costs rather than customer service. Why, you have to wonder, doesn’t Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, a Republican, run Milwaukee like a business?

Think about it. Customers are already paying for the services in the form of taxes. They deserve good customer service right? That’s how business would run.

As a successful business owner I’m left asking myself what would happen if I ran my business like Walker runs his county. If I followed the Walker model, I would take my customers money, and provide substandard services and products to my customers. Rather than focus on the good, I would blame others including my suppliers, my employees and even my customers for poor service.

But rather than focus on the end result — a high level of service, Walker is pursuing a policy of following the party line. The Republican party line includes privatizing everything possible. This sometimes saves money but at other times is costly as private contractors often offer low wages to their employees and get low productivity back. If the county has low levels of productivity from its contractors, the people who will suffer are those in the public who need the services.

Part of running a business also means taking care of your infrastructure before it breaks down and certainly before anyone gets hurt. This is just simple business practices that save money and make for a happier customer. Whether it is tools, buildings or vehicles, any business owner will tell you that it’s easier and makes more sense to pay for the ongoing maintenance rather than bearing the high cost of full replacement. Walker should start to follow this model. To date, he has ignored it as is evident from the fatal accident at a Milwaukee County parking garage recently when concrete fell on a teen.

In the construction industry there are laws and standards that govern safety and safe work practices. A smart business owner will assure that there is adequate staff to assure that a lift by a crane of a heavy object can be done without endangering others and while maintaining safety. In the end, it is both cheaper and more responsible to not put a smaller amount of workers in danger in order to save a few dollars. Walker should follow this model also. Had he, the lady who suffered from mental illness at the County’s Behavioral Health division would not have been raped by a dangerous high-risk mentally ill inpatient man who was unsupervised at the time of the crime.

Running a successful business is difficult. But while it is difficult, it also can be rewarding when you can see the difference that you can make in peoples lives.

The far-right side of the blogosphere is up in arms over my assertion that the ailing O’Donnell Park parking garage which has been having problems since the get-go has finally led to a fatality due to negligence by County Executive Scott Walker.

Disgusting, politicizing, all words to describe my guilt for connecting the obvious dots. I wonder why no one says these things when it is Walker who does things like cutting funding for adequate oversight at the mental health division. You put dangerous mentally disturbed individuals in the same areas as vulnerable mentally disturbed individuals, and what do you suppose happens? Oh yeah, a rape. Oh, but that’s not Walker’s fault. No. It must be some mystical cause which Walker and his lackeys will blame when they’re busy carrying water for him.

Here’s the thing — having dealt with these folks from the right they’ll of course deflect and say that Walker had nothing to do with it. And yes, it was the fault of the rapist but it was also the fault of Walker who chose to underfund an area of the county that should have assured adequate safety and security for the victim.

But back to the parking garage — it is not a stretch to say that the parking garage and other areas in the County have undergone severe neglect over the past few years. One of the only mentions of the O’Donnell parking garage comes in the 2007 capital improvements budget which funded a new parking gate and the systems to make it work. A internet search all the way back to the 2005 budget, the last budget online on MilwaukeeCounty.org, shows Walker hasn’t spent any money on the garage which for years prior was always a concern and a hot topic in County Board committee meetings, several of which I attended in the early part of the last decade. For an area which was of such great concern for so many pre-Walker years, you would think that Walker would have spent some time and effort making sure that problems didn’t persist.

So when I assert that neglect from Walker caused the problem, oh good gracious, hell scorn upon me. Who am I to analyze the situation and connect the obvious dots — well there is that whole business about being there for 6 county budgets and then there’s that whole business about having served on the Parks committee, the same committee that would discuss the ailing O’Donnell parking structure and recommend fixes for it. Of course after Walker succeeded in getting his cronnies in to rubber stamp whatever he said and to help brush under the table anything that he might not want the county to see — well things, uh, changed.

Taxes became an even dirtier word than they had been and anything that required tax dollars took a back seat. So when I say that Walker is responsible, I mean he’s responsible. Yes, he saved the money that could have gone to structural oversight of the ailing garage. Yes he saved the money that could have gone to testing of bolts, brackets and other elements that are holding the facade of the structure on. And yes, he saved the money that would have had to have been expended had he dedicated staff to occasionally checking on the site.

But no, he didn’t.

And tonight the guilt for Walker’s neglect is compounded. Yes, both the rape of the inpatient woman in the County’s Behavioral Heath Division and the teen killed when part of the County parking garage fell on him are tragedies, but they were both preventable if the County had an Executive who would have dedicated the resources to those areas instead of focusing his energies on running for Governor to satiate his craven lust for power.

UPDATE: The Recess Supervisor from Playground Politics points out that the Republicans don’t like Democrats to make conclusions despite their highly politicized attack on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett where they accused the local Milwaukee Mayor for creating a problem on the problem on the federal Interstate. Calling it the “Barrett Bypass” in a knee jerk billboard ad, they are taking umbrage with the fact that I’m crediting County Executive Scott Walker for the County parking garage problem which led to the death of a 15 year boy.

Note: I’m crediting the County Executive for a County infrastructure problem.
They credit a City Mayor for a Federal Interstate Highway maintained and run by the State.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has built his entire career on the simple slogan “cut taxes”. Part of the way he has achieved this reputation is by allowing Milwaukee County’s infrastructure to erode to the point where yesterday, a 15 year old boy lost his life.

Yesterday a 30 foot wide concrete wall fell from the County parking garage near Summerfest, fatally injuring a 15 year old boy and injuring two others. This was a case where a death could have been avoided had Walker paid more attention to governing, and less attention to politicking.

The parking garage under O’Donnell park has had structural problems for years — almost since the day it was built. Past County Executives have dedicated sufficient funds to maintain the structure and assure safety for the public. Sadly, O’Donnell Park was named after former County Executive Bill O’Donnell who did pay attention to County infrastructure and yes, he did raise taxes to pay for County needs and ensure public safety. It has always struck me as being an unfitting memorial to name an ailing parking garage after a former giant in County politics.

Walker has chosen to neglect the garage infrastructure to save money so he can position himself as champion of the taxpayer for his run for Governor. Of course Walker had to use this tragedy as an opportunity to grab a little media attention for himself. In an interview near the O’Donnell parking garage Walker said, “For me, personally, obviously it rips my heart out”… For a man who has built his career on doing as little as possible to keep government providing services and infrastructure, his claim that it “rips my heart out” rings hollow. With chunks of concrete falling from other County buildings and with neglected maintenance needs, this tragedy was entirely predictable.

Tonight there are two parents who have lost a son because Walker has decided that politics is more important than safety.

This isn’t the first time that County infrastructure has caused problems. A few months ago, chunks of the Milwaukee County Courthouse fell off, endangering the public. Maintenance could have avoided those problems, but Walker doesn’t want to fund maintenance. Funding maintenance of infrastructure isn’t a sexy campaign issue.

Then again, neither is killing off constituents to satisfy a craven lust for power.

Walker criticizes Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett at every opportunity for the same reasons he neglected maintaining County infrastructure; to further his own political aspirations. Walker is vying for the Republican nomination for Governor and to many, he is the Republican golden child who is considered a shoe-in for the nomination. Barrett is the only Democrat running. Former Congressman Mark Neumann is running against Walker for the nomination and Team Walker is doing their best to undermine and belittle Neumann.

Neumann should strike back hard.

Imagine the commercial — a piece of concrete falls and shatters. A newspaper headline shows County Courthouse crumbling. Another piece of concrete falls. A newspaper headline shows the Journal-Sentinel headline “1 Dead, 2 injured in downtown Concrete collapse”. Voice over: If Walker can’t even take care of his own County, how can we trust him to run the entire State?

If Neumann fails to hit Walker for this dangerous neglect, Neumann will lose to Walker in the primary and fade into permanent political obscurity. Neumann may not have been a great Congressman, but at least no one died due to his neglect or on his watch.

Should Neumann choose not to pursue this issue, he will leave it up to Barrett who would certainly have to use this issue in his campaign.