Midwest Airlines Exec Carol Skornicka and CEO Tim Hoeksema are coming under a touch of fire for not registering as lobbyists after lobbying State Representative Jeff Stone (R-Greenfield) to snatch the airport away from Milwaukee County and give it to an unelected board.

Sniff. Sniff. What’s that smell? It smells like Midwest Airlines execs were buying legislation.

Let’s connect some of the dots.

Skornicka and Hoeksema managed to get Senator Jeff Plale and Representative Jeff Stone to push a scheme to strip County government of oversight.

What do you suppose that would cost? I guess it’s time to look at the numbers.

County Exec Scott Walker raked in $500 from Hoeksema. (Now we know the cost of his silence early on.)
Representative Stone’s campaign got $250 from Hoeksema.
Skornicka gave Stone $450 bringing his Midwest Airlines total snatch to $700.
The only Democrat in the anti-Milwaukee County bunch, Senator Jeff Plale rolled for just $200 in Hoeksema cash.

…and the clouds part, and the skies open up to display the chuckling Gods of Irony looking down upon the scorched plains of Wisconsin politics…

Now County Board Chairman Lee Holloway is questioning the ethics of Midwest execs. Supervisor and Lobbyist Joe Rice, a big financial donor to now-convicted Republican Assemblyman Scott Jensen, is taking umbrage at Holloway’s sentiments.

As a side note, it was Skornicka who, behind the scenes, pushed for the blue shirt at the airport and then criticized the County Board for not going along with the plan she advocated for. It was Skornicka and Hoeksema whose poor decisions drove Midwest Airlines stock down from an all time high of $40 per share down to less than $2 a share. The biggest tumble was in 2002 (when MEH was trading at about $20 per share) which corresponds with when they made major cuts at MEH starting with cutting their quality and process improvement company.