But let’s say you are interested — fascinated even with what is going through the mind of the man who is running our state. You can find out what he’s eating, where he travels and about his pastors sermons.

Here are just a few of his tweets that the DWD is spending our money advertising:
GovWalker Had some really good meat loaf for a late dinner. 9 hours ago · reply · retweet · favorite
GovWalker Ran over to Walgreen’s to get a prescription filled. What a beautiful day! yesterday · reply · retweet · favorite
Governor Walker @GovWalker Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Our pastor spoke on Beatitudes @ church. Very interesting.

How this relates to promoting employment in our state is lost on this writer. Walker also tweets about businesses he has visited and plants he has toured. Again, not a benefit to taxpayers and not a way to create jobs which begs the question as to why one of Walker’s Department heads is using public funds to promote a political candidate.

Unfortunately what is happening in Wisconsin under Walker is the opposite of workforce development since the state is losing jobs. And while Walker’s twitter account has a banner that says “Wisconsin is open for business”, the numbers don’t seem to support Walker’s claim or for that matter his promise to add jobs. Simply cutting business taxes has not drawn businesses to Wisconsin.

The old saying “Nero fiddled as Rome burned” may reflect a different culture, but todays modern day equivalent could easily be “Walker tweeted as Wisconsin suffered”.

Irony abounds in this race. Walker was the Milwaukee County Executive who won not just one but three elections in Milwaukee County before leaving the county post for the Governors mansion. But Walker’s was a classic case of over-reaching by thinking that voters gave him carte blanc to pursue the radical agenda he wasted no time in passing. Stone made the mistake of thinking that talk radio would deliver him the votes he needed to win the seat. After all, it worked for Walker, it should work for Stone, right?

Wrong.

Voters across the state had one of the most contentious Supreme Court races to choose from than they have ever had on their plate. Incumbent, and former Republican Speaker of the State Assembly, David Prosser was defending his seat against Assistant Attorney General Joann Kloppenburg. Prosser is part of the 4-3 Republican sympathizer majority on the court and if he has the chance, he will certainly uphold the Walker legislation stripping workers of their collective bargaining rights.

The Supreme Court race has been dominated by outside interest ads including those from billionaire David Koch‘s Americans for Prosperity PAC. Koch used his ads to smear Kloppenburg.

One of the advertised criticisms of Kloppenburg has been that she has never been a judge. This is true. However, David Prosser was never a judge before he became a Justice on the Supreme Court either. Kloppenburg and her allies failed to point this out in her ads and even as this is being written, the results of that race are within 1000 votes and it is too close to call. (It astounds the mind that a state Supreme Court race would come down to less than 1000 votes.)

State Representative Jeff Stone

Stone took the unusual approach of touting his education and degrees which are impressive. He contrasted himself to Abele who has not completed a college. But this is Milwaukee County. Our blue collar roots run deep. Voters have already made it quite clear in the past 3 County Executive races that a degree does not matter. After all, Walker had been criticized for dropping out of college but it never affected his winning his Exec races. It was a poorly thought out calculation to claim he was more experienced based on a college degree that voters don’t care about.

This race was more than about whether Chris Abele or Jeff Stone were good guys. This race was also a referendum on Scott Walker. Never in the time that Walker was in office in Milwaukee County did he ever try anything as radical as killing the unions. He underfunded departmental budgets. He created a yearly fiscal crisis by understating expenses and overstating revenues. He borrowed heavily to continue to fund programs and infrastructure the local public holds dear. He even kicked privatization up a notch above and beyond the privatizing that his predecessor, Tom Ament, had already done.

But as County Executive, Walker never had the ability to attack all nearly all unions at the same time. When he did that, under an all too transparent guise of balancing the budget, the pendulum swung back to hit him. When Walker went on television and said that the protesters were dominated by out of state union representatives, anyone of the hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites who had traveled to Madison to protest were outraged. They felt belittled. They were correct in thinking that their voices were being ignored. Walker sent a very clear message to Wisconsinites who disagreed with him — they did not matter.

And then Jeff Stone voted with Scott Walker.

The public was enraged. Walker continued his policy of dividing people against their neighbors. Everyone has an opinion about this issue. Firefighters, who were hailed as selfless heroes in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attack on the world trade center are maligned as overpaid and selfish. Teachers who dedicate their days to teaching children and their nights and weekends to grading papers are being portrayed by the Walker allies as being greedy and out of touch. Every public employee throughout the state has at some time in the last few months had Walker fanatics tease them or mock them for their pension or benefits package that is part of their negotiated compensation.

Walker made these public servants feel unappreciated and a target for malice and envy.

And then Jeff Stone voted with Scott Walker.

Walker’s use of class warfare has been effective in the past but many union members have still voted for him. This has emboldened the GOP and their funders to dial up the class warfare fight. They have made it clear that they want to tie public servants to greed. Even in the Supreme Court race, Joann Kloppenburg was called a “government lawyer”. In the past, being a prosecuting attorney or an assistant Attorney General would have great on a political resume. Since that would not serve the Prosser campaign, the Prosser allies attempted to tie Kloppenburg to those greedy government workers.

Clearly allying himself to Walker was not a wise move for Jeff Stone. He should have smelled his own blood in the water when two committees to recall republican senators turned in enough votes to force an election to toss out Walker’s rubber stamp allies. It is a monumental task to gather nearly 20,000 signatures to force a recall election and anti-Walker activists are close to filing against a third Republican Senator.

Abele, who ran a great campaign, was certainly a beneficiary of Stone’s alliance with Walker. This wasn’t just a small slap on the wrist for Walker. It was an uppercut that will daze the GOP and will likely force them to change their strategy going into the 2012 elections.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has instituted his policy of stripping public workers of their rights to bargain collectively. The republican controlled legislature has rubber stamped all of Walker’s policies. State Rep. Jeff Stone, who is running for Milwaukee County Executive, voted for the plan but then said he would not have proposed such a plan. Maine Governor Paul LePage has ordered removal of a labor mural on a building housing his states Department of Labor, because it appears to be pro-labor. The Maine legislature is poised to pass a bill to lower the minimum wage to $5.25 an hour and allow businesses to keep 16 and 17 year old students at work until 11pm on a school night. New statistics have come out showing that private schools under perform public schools even as Governor Walker wants to lift the cap on choice schools which take money away from public schools and give it to these under performing private schools.

How did we get here? Are Americans really that stupid that they would knowingly vote for people who would screw the middle class?

The answer is that the media perverts the facts in ways that benefit their advertisers. Our laws allow slander and misinformation in political commercials. Americans believe that if it’s on the news, or if it comes over the radio, it must be true. Even good people have been convinced that it is their taxes that will go up if candidates who would actually benefit them, were to be elected. The corporately controlled news media has it in their best interest to support large business tax breaks because their advertisers will stay with them if their bias is with them.

Republican candidates who endorse the corporate policies made to redistribute wealth from the poor and middle class, receive generous support from their corporate bosses. This Nottingham-esqe approach is the opposite of the Robin Hood approach of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. In the new Republican world order, it is the filthy middle class that wants to ruin everything for their hard working corporate bosses.

You would think from the news media that pensions greatly inflate costs to taxpayers. That is not true. In fact, if invested right, they don’t have to cost taxpayers anything. What better deal could government get? Rather than paying the larger salaries of the private sector, government could use its larger collective investment abilities to pay for the pensions entirely.

So picture this — a large pool of money, which has grown from taxpayer money, could be used so that taxpayers never have to contribute again? Sounds perfect right?

Well, not so perfect when you add politicians to the mix.

First you need to understand that pension funds are segregated funds. A local or state government cannot simply draw off of these funds to pay for ongoing expenses. Yes, if you get a whole bunch of politicians in a room and they’re talking about a fund that has done well, they’ll say it’s been under their watch and they should have access to those funds. However, and this was wise legislation that was once passed at the federal level, it is illegal to tap into those funds for anything but pensions.

So schemes have been developed to tap into those funds to lower the tax burden. Essentially these are schemes to work around existing law but still allow the government to tap funds that should not be theirs to tap.

One such scheme that backfired helped to bring Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to power. In Milwaukee County workers agreed to take lower pay in exchange for fatter pensions. The County had the actuarial firm Mercer & Associates look at their fund and Mercer testified to their County Board that increasing the pensions for all county employees would be cost neutral. In other words, it would cost taxpayers nothing.

Now you have to understand that it sounds like candy to a politician when they hear they can solve a problem and it won’t cost anything. You can then run back to your district at election time and tell them you didn’t raise taxes. It frees them up to work on other quality of life projects.

Here’s where the personal part comes in. I was serving on the County Board at the time. The Executive sent a proposal to us to approve union contracts with lower salaries but higher pensions. He based his decision to submit this proposal based on numbers from Mercer & Associates. He then sent his people to the county board and they presented it to board members as a responsible program that would not be extremely lucrative but would be fair and could cost taxpayers nothing. He also sent his people to give presentations to the unions and they presented it as a program that would enrich county workers when it mattered the most — in their senior years.

It was two stories and the county board was never the wiser. It was a ruse on the County board but he was unaware that the big ruse was on him — Mercer never did their homework and they were telling him what he wanted to hear.

Fast forward through the drama of the next 6 months and Scott Walker rose from being an obscure State Representative known for putting out weekly press releases on everything under the sun (Opposing the Million Man March) to being the County Executive of Wisconsin’s most populated county.

Anti-teacher bills like this do not have a temporary impact. The impact is long lasting. If you cut a teachers pay, then you increase the cost of their benefits and reduce their pensions the profession of teaching sounds much less appealing. Yes, people get into teaching because of their love of children and because they want to make a positive impact on the world. But they do so at a cost. Public workers do not make the same as private sector workers do. This is not conjecture, it is fact. The Wisconsin Policy Institute did a study of Wisconsin public workers versus private sector workers in the same type of field and they found that public workers make less.

But how will this have a long term effect? As we watch the Walker fiasco unwind in Madison, young people in college are studying to go into their preferred fields. To be a teacher requires specialized training including in-classroom experience. These teachers in training have hands on requirements which are unpaid but contribute to well run classrooms. Think about what these young people are grappling with as they hear that todays teachers are finding their pay and benefits slashed because some politician gave away a massive tax break to his buddies who supported him in the last election, is paying or that tax break by cutting teacher compensation.

Why would anyone go into teacher knowing that they will be treated like that?

You’re made the punching bag of many dirty politicians. Rather than being seen as someone who has dedicated your life to children, you’ll be seen as the enemy.

Now let’s say that you get your masters degree. If you’re in the private sector and you have your specialized degree for your field you can expect to make a sweet $100,000 per year if you include your pay and benefits. As a teacher, you can make up to about $70,000 after many years on the job.

That’s a 30% discrepancy.

First, yes that is a lot of money. I will not dispute that either of those salaries are very good salaries. The difference is that the public employee, who has spent the same amount of time getting their career specific degree, is compensated at a lower rate because they are a public employee.

Starting salaries for teachers tend to be in the mid to high $20,000 range. As you hone your skills and earn your raises those amounts can go up but are limited by how far you went with your degree. Teachers with bachelors degrees obviously earn less since they have less college training — the same way the private sector works.

The problem right now is that states are having problems balancing their budgets as healthcare costs continue to explode. This problem is not going away. Healthcare costs are expected to continue to rise as Congress failed to enact sufficient healthcare reform in the last session and in this session there are tea party activists who have been elected who have vowed to try to reverse what was passed. Rather than see healthcare for the comprehensive issue that it is, they choose to stick to the simplistic idea that the private sector does everything better and that insurance is the way to go. Now that insurance costs have exploded and deductibles soared, the public is experiencing record high costs.

Healthcare costs will continue to rise whether you strip teachers of their benefits or not.

But if you strip teachers of their benefits, you will have fewer young people who take classes in teaching. They will simply switch their majors to pursue careers in the private sector where they will not be vilified and their salaries and benefits will not be scrutinized by uneducated, ill informed, low paid private sector workers who see only the dollar signs and discount all of the work, commitment and years of study that teachers have put in all for the right to teach their children.

I have no horse in this race. As a business owner I have to deal with high costs too but I understand the benefits of a highly educated workforce. My wife is a former teacher who left the profession because of the long hours coupled with low pay. As a family we made a decision that it made little sense for her to continue to dedicate up to 18 hours per day plus many Saturdays working to educate the children of other people while being compensated the same as an administrative assistant with no college what so ever. Having the summers off is little compensation for the amount of time that we lost her during the school year.

But to those who do have that commitment and have chosen to stick with it, hat off to them. Most work long hours. Some work in hostile school environments. It is easy to get jaded. And when those same teachers are told that they are the problem and the way to fix it is to take away that which they went to college to earn, the best will leave the profession and the education of our children, who are our future workforce, will suffer.

There’s nothing in the handbook they give you when you give up your private sector job to go work for the state that says you could receive up to a 15% cut in pay but as your bonus they’ll give you 15% of your time back in the form of furloughs. With the 7-8% in furloughs that former Governor Jim Doyle gave state workers, and with Walker promising to balance the budget with even more furlough days, that 15% could quickly become a very real number.

Here’s a little news for the folks that think the recession makes it so the workers have no where to go. The national unemployment rate for white folks, and if you go to any Wisconsin Departmental office you won’t see much diversity, stands at 8%. Folks with Bachelors degrees are only at about 4-5%. Most of the folks manning those offices have a degree.

I spoke with a Kelly Services executive last week and he said that he placed twice as many people in 2010 than he did in 2009. I know we’re not at the point we were in 2002 when the economy was still amazing and employers had no where to turn to find those educated workers, but this policy will make state government shed their best of the best.

The low productivity workers will stay through massive cuts. Many of them aren’t exactly what you would call highly marketable. It will be the most productive, and most effective civil servants who will leave to pursue more lucrative private sector opportunities.

In the end, Walker’s quick fix cuts may balance the budget, but the level of service for nearly every area that State workers perform, will be eroded.

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.

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.

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.

With the economy sinking further on the news of drastically increasing unemployment, Scott Walker chose a particularly bad time to preach from the book of fiscal conservatism.  After initially indicating he wouldn’t accept any of the potential $800 billion in Federal stimulus funds because of his belief that only tax cuts are an appropriate way to rescue the national economy, Walker backpedaled after his quote appeared in the Journal Sentinel and public outcry questioned his commitment to county residents over his political aspirations.

Walker’s anti deficit-spending sentiment is all well and good in more prosperous times, but during an economic crisis such as the one we’re in, where private businesses are conserving cash due to the uncertainty of the situation, it’s more important for government to stimulate the economy in order to make up for reduced private investment.  For an immediate example of this, look no further than banks.    Even after receiving billions of dollars in TARP loans, most are hoarding that cash rather than making new loans because of the high certainty that their future losses on commercial and residential loans already made will require further write downs to their balance sheet.  In this situation, like it or not, the only remaining entity that can spend enough to attempt to keep the economy from spiraling down further is the government.

Walker backtracked on his comments later in the week in a letter to Charlie Sykes:

How many people would take a gift of $1,000 and go out and buy a $60,000 sports car? While the gift is nice, it will not make the monthly car payments that are too large for the average budget. The same is true with the (so-called) stimulus package.

Federal money nearly always comes with strings attached. In fact, most federal transportation grants require a 20% (or greater) local match. “Free money” sounds nice but what happens when state and local governments cannot afford the match? If Milwaukee County receives $50 million for infrastructure projects under this formula, taxpayers in the county would have to come up with an extra $10 million. Does anyone think we have an extra $10 million in this budget climate?

The first thing to note is that it has yet to be determined if stimulus funds will require the 20% local match.  Assuming for Walker’s sake that it will, his analogy to receiving $1,000 and spending it on a $60,000 car is wrong – it’s more like paying $10,000 for a $60,000 sports car.   More importantly, Walker’s argument insinuates that the county has no immediate infrastructure projects planned for 2009.   This is false.   From the recommended 2009 Capital Improvements Budget [PDF]:

Major Transportation and Public Works projects include WA094 – Runway Safety Area – NEPA Compliance ($13,221,000), WH086 – West Good Hope Road Rehabilitation ($8,305,400), WH083 – West Silver Spring Drive ($5,912,400) and WA044 – GMAI – In-line Baggage Screening Phase I ($2,815,000).

You can add the I-94 reconstruction and KRM commuter rail proposals to this list and get a better sense of the projects that stimulus money could fund in our area.  Or just ask anyone driving in the city of Milwaukee if we need to fix potholes or rebuild bridges and you’ll realize why refusing this money is a big mistake.

To most people, the seriousness of our county’s situation leaves no room for political posturing.  Walker’s spineless qualifying of his initial declaration only serves to undercut arguments made in his defense and show how transparent his stance was in the first place.

Walker wanted to borrow pension obligation bonds to invest in the stock market. He claimed that it the difference between the amount that would have to be borrowed plus interest, and the amount that could be gained from investing in stocks, would make it so he would not have to raise taxes and be able to provide services.

How lucky can one guy get?

A majority of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors rejected his plan. Those liberal, irresponsible Supervisors, as Walker would call them, didn’t let him get his way.

It’s a good thing.

Fast forward one year and the stock market is in a nose dive. People who were heavily invested in the stock market a few years ago and were thinking they would be able to retire soon are thinking they’ll have to work a few more years.

Walker isn’t the only Republican that benefited from not getting his way. George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress wanted us all to invest Social Security in the stock market.

It doesn’t seem so smart anymore does it?

Several unions held together to reject corporate proposals to turn their pension plans into 401K plans which would invest in stocks. It turns out, the unions had a pretty good idea there.

Listening to Channel 12 reporter Nick Bohr “report” on Scott Walker you would think it was a paid television ad. Bohr not only let Walker get away with deceiving news watchers about the fiscal health of Milwaukee County, but he failed to call Walker to the carpet for the destruction of the infrastructure and overall health of the county. Bohr then proceeded to let Walker take ridiculous and deceptive pot shots at challenger and State Senator Lena Taylor.

Bohr contacted Taylor to get her response while the State Senate was in session. Effectively, if she wanted to answer Bohr’s questions on his schedule, she would have had to leave the floor of the Senate during debates (in other words, not do the job she was elected to do) and work around a reporters schedule.

You’re probably wondering, is Bohr an idiot? Clearly the answer is yes.

As a citizen journalist, I know that politicians are always going to be self serving and that’s ok — journalists should expect politicians to defend their positions and advocate their agendas. After all, that is what they were elected to do. The problem with some journalists, and yesterday Bohr was a shimmering example of this, is that they take what the politician says and report it as fact without ever doing any research.

But what ever happened to looking at all of the facts?

Without doing any in depth research, we know a few things about Milwaukee County that are in the recent new which Bohr should have pressed Walker on had he been doing journalistic due diligence.

Here are just a few questions that Bohr, or any other reporter, could have expanded on and I’ll premise this by saying, “Executive Walker, you said that there is a surplus in this years budget yet”…
1) The bus system which used to be the top rated bus system in the nation for farebox recovery has suffered from large fare hikes and route cuts and consequently now has one of the lowest ridership rates in the country despite historically high gas prices.
2) Milwaukee County Parks, once known as a crown jewel of the county, has been allowed to decay as staff that has historically maintained the parks have been cut. Infrastructure continues to fair. How do you reconcile the neglect of the parks with your claims of strong and responsible management of the county?
3) Half of the staff has left the Medical Examiners office whose budget and consequently the salaries of the employees, which you have cut. Autopsies and crime lab backups are a major problem in your County which have resulted in jail overcrowding which in turn leads to increased overtime costs at the jail and House of Corrections. Now after half of the staff is already gone, you’re suggesting increasing the salaries in the Medical Examiners office to make them competitive so the County can keep its needed employees. Isn’t it a bit too late for that?
4) Forced overtime at the House of Corrections is out of control. Employee morale is at an all time low, yet you continue to resist hiring additional correctional officers despite overtime costs which could have paid for additional officers. While it is an election year and it is understandable that a politician is prone to bragging about their accomplishments, how does it make fiscal sense to understaff the HOC especially in light of the young man who recently died of a methadone overdose as an inmate where he clearly got his drugs when he was incarcerated?

Any of these questions could have been posed to Walker. Instead, reporter Nick Bohr and WISN 12 chose to run an ad for Walker, disguised as a report. This clearly calls into question both Bohr and WISN 12′s journalistic integrity.

Unfortunately Walker is in charge of funding for transportation and he’s deciding which routes are worthy of funding for a few more years and which ones are falling victim to his budget hacksaw. It’s been pretty difficult to get people to ride the bus if you’re eliminating the stops near their house or near their destination. If you want to make it tougher, and clearly Walker does, go ahead and raise fares to among the highest in the country.

You would think that there wouldn’t be much in the way of consequences when gas is at an all time high, right?

Wrong.

Bus ridership in Milwaukee has dropped to the lowest it has been in 33 years and there are further cuts in store for the ailing transit system which is the only mass transit option for County residents.

So what is the solution? The City of Milwaukee should take over mass transit. If voters in the suburbs want to continue to return Walker to the County Executive position, and it seems increasingly clear that they do, they have sent a message that they do not value mass transit. Why then, should City residents suffer under the clearly incompetant hands of Walker.

For all the naysaying that Walker’s allies on Republican run talk radio stations like WISN and WTMJ say, mass transit is viable in Milwaukee County. Just a few years ago, when democrats used to still run the county, Milwaukee County won awards for having the highest farebox recovery in the entire nation.

The entire nation.

But now, under Walker, whenever costs rise due to inflation he looks to make cuts to the core responsibilities of Milwaukee County — transit, parks, social services and criminal justice.

As transit routes are cut and fares are increased by Walker, ridership will continue to plunge. Walker’s answer? More cuts. Higher fares.

Simple economics eludes the man.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published a sugar-coated story on their website. The story reads:

Milwaukee County officials mistakenly released numerous confidential court records for a citizens group’s Web site that detail payments for tests and other costs linked to mental competency, paternity and guardianship cases, officials acknowledged.

The records obtained by Citizens for Responsible Government Network were part of a county database of 188,000 purchasing invoices for 2006 and 2007. The group put the information on its Web site Tuesday morning.

Those test have names associated with them and many if not most of those names are from people who committed no crime. They are the mentally infirm, children whose paternity is in question and other children who are in need of guardians or guardians who are trying to do the right thing.

Zeal.

That’s the only thing that can explain CRG’s desire to get all of the information they could get their overly partisan hands on out into the public arena. But this time it wasn’t just democrats their actions were meant to hurt. When you go out into a crowd swinging a pick axe you should expect someone to get hurt and this time it was the mentally challenged, vulnerable children and those that are trying to care for those children.

This is an issue that speaks to ethics.

What kind of group would do this? Who is behind such a decision? who would be a part of such a group? We know some of the names.

It’s time to name them.

Chris Kleismet, the longtime spokesperson and mastermind behind the internet strategy of CRG. After helping get Scott Walker elected as Milwaukee County Executive, Kleismet attempted to get the favor returned in an attempt to get the county to buy into a program he’s a part of. There’s nothing like the hopes of a big fat county contract to motivate a person to help out their pal.

Orville Seymer, part of CRG from the onset and . Proud to boast he is a landlord and former head of the Apartment Association, Seymer has multiple cases against him on the State’s Circuit court web page including a judgment for money from the DePaul Rehabilitation Hospital which he finally paid. His recent claim to fame was a frivolous lawsuit threat where he was going to soak taxpayers for a million dollars because he wasn’t allowed to speak at a meeting at the county board. Apparently to Seymer, if the county doesn’t give him a microphone to spread his hate, taxpayers should be forced to pay.

Don Uebelacker, one of the founders of CRG who was rewarded by Walker with a nomination to the County Ethics Committee. The County Board shot down the nomination after it was learned that Uebelacker intentionally lied to the board about his continuing political activities. Uebelacker continues to reign as Vice-President for the Brown Deer Senior Citizens Club — a group dominated by Republican activists.

Joe Klucarich, one of the founders of CRG and current President of the Brown Deer Senior Citizens Club allows Republicans to speak to the group when they want to make attacks and accusations but when Democrats come to speak he has been known to deny them the use of the microphone so they can defend themselves.

These are the types of people that are running that organization.

Interestingly enough, CRG also attacks those that are critical of them. They have threatened a lawsuit when we published a screen capture of their website connecting CRG to the Republican party. They claimed in their threatening letter from the law firm of Foley and Lardner, that the image we posted was doctored. Clearly the person who spoke to the Foley attorney lied and Foley did not do their homework. Our response was to republish the image and point out that we were being threatened with the lawsuit. We weren’t about to bow to thuggery.

So what’s the lesson here? If you’re mentally infirm, if you’re a child whose paternity is in question, if you’re a child who is in need of a guardian, if you are a guardian who is trying to do the right thing, or if you expose CRG for being the types of people they are, don’t be shocked if CRG comes after you.

Now consider the fact that County Supervisors cannot vote themselves a raise. That’s right. It’s illegal.

What County leaders can do is make it so that the next board will have a raise above what this board earns. If they want the newly proposed salary they must win re-election. If their constituents do not believe their values are amply represented, they can send a message by voting out their incumbent Supervisor.

Despite this fact, the less bright elements of our society think it’s a scandalous shock that Supervisors have voted to raise the pay of the next board a meager 4 percent.

So who, in their right mind would oppose even this small change which doesn’t even cover the cost of living increases over the last 8 years? Who would oppose this modest change?

Petty, small-minded people.

But what is even more interesting is who is leading the charge. That person is Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. As a state legislator, Walker made just over $49,000 but he also received a per diem allowance. After he became the county executive he said he would reject the pay increase.

That was just a play on words.

Instead of making $120,000 which is what the Exec was to make, Walker said he turned back the raise. That meant that Walker only made about $100,000 per year.

Fuzzy math? Yep.

Walker spoke about how he was the pinnacle of self sacrifice but really happened to his salary?

It doubled. No, he enjoyed not the 4 percent which he implies is scandalous, but a 100 percent increase.

Recently Walker moved out of his old house and into a newer, bigger house. And why not, he’s cashing in and pulling back a cool six figures.

So knowing that he’s making double what he made off of the taxpayers you would think he wouldn’t have any problem with Supervisors earning at least a cost of living adjustment right?

Wrong.

Walker is leading the charge against Supervisor pay by announcing his veto against the pay in the front yard of one of his disciples, Kathleen Ashebrock, a south side resident who clearly doesn’t grasp the concept that a 100 percent increase in pay is more than a 4 percent increase in pay.

There are many County Supervisors who work very hard and they should be compensated for their sacrifice. This is not to say that everyone on the board is a work horse, but then neither is Walker. Walker is responsible for putting together a massive budget that is both balanced and responsible. Every year he has been in office he has had departments run deficits because he structures their budgets to not be attainable and he proposes budgets he knows full well will have to be changed by the County Board unless they want to see Constitutionally guaranteed services such as Courts go underfunded.

Considering all of these things together, the Board had a real opportunity here and they missed it. Had they wanted real reform, they should have changed the compensation of the next elected County Executive to be the same as County Supervisors make. And if Walker was genuinely concerned that the cost of elected representative salaries could really break the bank of the county, he should have proposed the cut himself.

It’s easy to play the blame game but let’s not forget what our County Executive, Scott Walker, did to Baldwin just a few years ago.

Walker ordered Baldwin to close the pools in the middle of the summer to save money. She did it and he fired her but before he did that he called all of the TV stations and put out a press release. He arrived at the Parks building, media in tow, and blindsided Baldwin and her deputy directors with the firing.

Is that guts? Is that courage? That’s our County Executive.

Let’s stop putting up with the lies that place Baldwin as the bad guy here. Blame belongs with Walker who has made a science out of scapegoating and playing the blame game.

Walker’s actions as the Chief Executive Officer in charge of the County have led to financial meltdown and large scale diminishment of the county’s commitment to the park system — once called Milwaukee County’s “emerald necklace”, a reference to the green space set aside by past political leaders.

The race was a bitter one with her opponent, Chris Kujawa, having access to the Walker deception machine as well as the benefit of AM talk radio show hosts including Republican shill and WTMJ host Charlie Sykes. By a margin of 54%, voters rejected the rhetoric of the Walker machine and looked at the record of Walker while expressing deep concerns over Kujawa’s assertion that he would be a key Walker ally on the County Board.

This from Progressive Majority, the same organization which I credited for the Democratic takeover of the State Senate:

Jursik campaigned on Walker’s culpability in the new pension scandal and on his dismantling of the Milwaukee County Parks system, and directly criticized Kujawa for being a likely rubber stamp on the board for Walker. She entered the race because the recent budget cuts were harming Sheridan Park, located across the street from her house. Apparently she isn’t the only one in the 8th District upset with Walker.

An interesting element here is that the Walker machine is crumbling. Walker rose to power by playing the blame game and swiftboating his political adversaries. He has continued to use his talk radio mouthpiece, Charlie Sykes, as his most valuable asset yet Sykes was unsuccessful in his efforts to swiftboat Jursik.

What also is important to note here is that the district is not considered to be a liberal one. Encompassing Cudahy, South Milwaukee and St. Francis, the district embraces conservative working class values. Clearly the working class people of the 8th district aren’t happy with Walker’s borrow and spend tactics but neither can they be pleased with the disintegration of the parks since Walker has taken the reigns. The 8th district is considered to be “park rich” in that it follows the shore of Lake Michigan with its bike paths and walking trails.

Milwaukee County stands to lose $50 MILLION because of Walker’s recently exposed screw up.

Under Walker, full time employees who previously worked for the county as part time employees yet opted out of the pension system back then, are being allowed to buy back the time (note years) that they worked for the county. This meas that someone who is working as an administrator who is pulling back a respectable salary, could bump up their pension by another 2% or so for every year they served as a lifeguard or grass cutter in their youth.

So who is responsible? Well Walker of course. Only the County Executive, who hires all department heads, has access to pretty much any information he wants in the county. Why wouldn’t he have caught this?

Those are the questions that Journal Communications was asking when they, or at least an arm of them, was asking when they called for the recall of Ament and Supervisors. Should Walker who wanted the recall for Ament, not have to face one now that he has clearly been asleep at the wheel?

I’ve never been one to be very political. Opinionated yes, but I don’t attribute myself to either major party.

I’ve been a Milwaukee County employee for some time now and read about the first pension scandal and thought to myself ” jeez, that was nice, why can’t I get that?” But the fact is that most county employees do not qualify for the big back drop.

Around that same time I found out I missed the Rule of 75 by some time also, Boy, there’s a novel idea, when your length of time worked plus your age equals 75 you get to retire. I’d retire EARLY — earlier than most that is for sure. Again, I didn’t qualify for that benefit.

Now I read about buybacks!? What? How long does one have to work for the county to get a subscription to the “Counties Hidden Perks” newsletter? Although, yet again, I wouldn’t qualify for a Buy Back but I’D SURE LIKE TO KNOW WHICH FUTURE SCANDAL I DO QUALIFY FOR.

Oh, I understand the pension thing is going to cost a bundle and it’s going to be a thorn for a long time. There will be lawsuits and debate over how to correct the problem, one which the board SHOULD have known about and STOPPED. Emphasis on STOPPED!! But, in a politics as usual, the finger pointing and the blame game has already begun.

Tis a sad day in Milwaukee County government, makes me wonder if ANYONE cares about ethics?

###
Publishers Note: I don’t agree with several things in this post but respect the right of this deputy to say his piece. For starters, the rule of 75, now 85 as I understand it, allows employees to retire early if they meet the criteria AND they will receive reduced benefits unless the stay with the county for 40 years.

The flippant comment about “hidden perks” should be followed up by an expertise in additional areas. Clearly DeputyInsider is an expert in law enforcement but not personnel. In fact, County Government has many departments because it serves many needs. For any one person, elected or otherwise, to fully comprehend all areas would be impossible. The only person who would have access to all of the information he wants about any given part of County government is the County Executive and that would be Scott Walker.

It is also worth mentioning that deputies do not qualify to receive the backdrop because they shot down the original offer from the county because it wasn’t lucrative enough for their liking but neither they, nor the board, understood the ramifications of the plan when it was passed. Deputies can blame their former union President, Geoff Bilda, for killing their chance at that benefit. They ousted him in their next election.

Remember, it was Walker who put together a budget that was reliant on the State to allow him to use Milwaukee County’s 0.5% sales tax for operating expenses. At the time, it wasn’t even legal to do so but Walker counted on these revenues and made his proposed budget contingent on the State allowing the change that would allow him to raid those funds.

The Sales Tax dollars were supposed to be used for capital and capital improvement (infrastructure) related expenses.

Now Walker is saying that the money would be used for things other than property tax relief. Apparently he says this because he has first hand experience robbing Peter to pay Paul. The sales tax was not enacted to pay for day to day operating expenses and Walker knows it.

For those who are saying that Walker is standing up against the likelihood that some politician will steal the money away, you need only to look at Walker.

###
coming tomorrow: If Walker were a Democrat, CRG would be shouting “recall” for his newest pension debacle

According to the paper’s editorial board, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker “must agree to give on rail.” Well, as long as we’re wishing, I’d like a peaceful solution to the Israeli/Palestinian mess. And a pony.

Remember how the Knights Who Say “Ni!” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail reacted to the word “it”? Well, that’s how Walker reacts to the word “rail.” Stick the word “light” in front of it, and he’ll act like Dracula confronted with a crucifix.

Walker will never, never, never compromise on rail. Any proposed transit solution that depends on his doing so might as well be the new Harry Potter book, because it’s just as much of a fantasy.

When you go on a nature walk, and that’s what the stroll down the hill toward the beach at Doctors Park has always seemed like to me, you expect to enjoy the plants, smell the forest smells and maybe see a little wildlife. One of my favorite things is sharing that walk with a family member so this week I took my 11 year old son. We both had fun and even saw a buck with velvety antlers grazing along the ridge above us but there were a couple things that detracted from our walk.

The park was a mess.

Litter, strewn about and not picked up out of the woods is one of the things that springs to mind. The George Tietjen memorial pavilion was closed and the beach needed someone to pick up the trash. (I wonder what his family would think of that? Why even have a memorial?) The parking lot is quickly deteriorating into rubble and the asphalt that once was, is merely gravel in many places. Garlic mustard, an invasive species, was left uncontrolled and has spread everywhere. Even the beach was littered.

Unfortunately this neglect is common in Milwaukee County Parks these days ever since Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker decided to start slashing the parks budget.

But is this not what intelligent people should have seen coming when they elected Walker? Does the majority of the public truly not care about the shameful shape that our parks have deteriorated into? Was this what they wanted when they voted him into office?

It always takes more money to rebuild infrastructure than it takes to maintain it. Milwaukee County Parks are now at a crossroads. In another year, voters will decide if they want more of the same or if they want a change. They should choose carefully because their actions will decide whether this jewel we call the parks should have the smudges wiped from them or whether they will be crushed under the boot of an neglectful caretaker.

Milwaukee County Supervisor Paul Cesarz rode in on a wave of the CRG inspired recall-mania in 2002 but has since mistakenly credited his win to a taxpayer revolt. Also believing he won due to a taxpayer revolt was Republican County Executive Scott Walker who chose to close Hales Corners pool this coming summer rather than pay to keep it open. Cesarz, who is is known to vote for everything that Walker wants, did not submit a budget amendment to save Hales Corners pool from closing its doors despite other Supervisors telling him that they support summer time public pool recreation and would support him if he wanted the pool to stay open. However, they would not submit the budget amendment under their name since it is Cesarz who represents Hales Corners.

But it gets worse for Cesarz’s district.

In the last budget, Walker tried to give the 300 acres of Bender Park to Oak Creek. Bender Park is in Cesarz district but it was other County Supervisors who removed the land giveaway since most of the board members continue to be in support of not selling off parkland and opening it up to developers.

Where was Cesarz? Once again, he was AWOL. Oak Creek wants to develop this land for condos. Real estate developers who have dumped money into Walker’s campaign want to trade 300 acres of old industrial areas for the mostly pristine Bender Park. “Imagine what that property is worth — 300 acres next to Lake Michigan that is free of contamination. It is easily a couple hundred million worth of development if you wanted it. It’s the slimiest real estate deal Walker has proposed lately” said County Supervisor John Weishan.

But where is Cesarz when it comes to his own district?

It should have been Cesarz who was looking after the needs of his district has been mostly AWOL when it comes to representation.

Cesarz’s district is under siege by Walker. In this past budget, County Board members put together a budget amendment for $300,000 to dredge the Bender Park boat launch. This isn’t just a cheap place for boaters to launch their boats — the Bender Park boat launch is designated by the Coast Guard as a safe harbor for boaters who are in distress due to dangerous weather conditions. This was to maintain the $10 million plus project. Once again, Cesarz was no where to be seen when it came to addressing this issue in his district.

It may be a year away, but voters in Franklin, Oak Creek and Hales Corners need to start paying attention to what their elected Supervisor is not only saying, but to what he’s not doing.

But what of transit? We already know he opposes using the sales tax to pay for transit. What does he propose — continuing to raise fares and cut bus lines until it’s obvious to even the most oblivious that transit is in a death spiral? And for that matter, where is his leadership on the KRM?

###

Link: Mobile’s Take: Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker’s Lack of Leadership on the KRM Bewildering

My guess is the answer is yes.

But the question now is where will he raise funds? Rumor has it that the business community is turning on him, recognizing that you can only use the anti-tax rhetoric so long before you start destroying the community and valued services. If the business community has turned or is starting to turn on him, where will he raise all the campaign cash he’s known for scarfing up?

It’s safe to say the answer to that question is Waukesha County. Where else can you find a large population which is more affluent than Milwaukee County that looks down their noses at Milwaukee County? Walker’s entire political career has been spent dividing urban and suburban, rich against poor, influential against disenfranchised.

But where else can Scott Walker go and have nearly a million people under his watch? What other job can this college dropout go to that would allow him, a man with no marketable skills and no real private sector experience, to make 6 figures? What other job would allow Walker the ability to go to national Republican events and tell all his Republican cronies that he runs a traditionally Democratic county?

No where. There is no other job that’s open. He ran for Governor and got smoked in the run up to the primary only to bail out last minute. What’s the guy to do?

Where else but in the Milwaukee County courthouse, can he say he has as much power as he currently does? No where.

But then there’s the question of the job. Oh yeah, the job.

The Milwaukee County Executive has traditionally put together budgets that were actually balanced to a certain extent. Yes, there have been execs in the past that have used phantom revenues, but Walker has set the bar for underfunded budgets. If Walker were a baseball player he would be batting about .100 which even in baseball would mean he would be sent down to the minors.

Take the transit system for instance. Walker says he opposes light rail but why? Republican talk radio tells him to oppose light rail. Therefore he does. Who elected him? Well it would be accurate to say that talk radio, the same crew which loves George W. Bush despite his horrible poll numbers, played a major role in getting Walker elected. Without them he would still be a fairly irrelevant State Assemblyman from Wauwatosa who was known for sending out a press release daily and having an opinion on everything regardless of whether he had any purview over it or not. After all, did anyone really care that a white republican suburbanite named Scott Walker opposed the million man march? Back then he was the laughing stock of newsrooms. Who’s laughing now?

With Walker, image is everything and to him, any event is fair game to try to build his empire. Take the case of the wake of Mattibelle Woods. Mattibelle was over 100 when she died. A civil rights leader, and active member of the Democratic Party, Woods opposed everything that Walker was doing in politics. Walker knew she was popular within the African American community so he used her death to attempt to make inroads with people of color. After he shook the hands of the relatives of Mattibelle, he parked himself at the end of the receiving line as though he was family. He proceeded to attempt to shake every persons hand who walked by. That’s how shameless this man is.

When it comes to policy matters, Walker has been strong on rhetoric but weak on substance. ‘Cut, cut, cut’ has been his mantra and unfortunately it shows. Deferred maintenance and underfunded operating budgets have meant that Milwaukee County is starting to fall apart. It’s really quite pitiful. Even the halls of that gorgeous building — the courthouse owned by the people, not the politicians, has been left to collect dirt and dust.

Walker has come under criticism as of late and has laid low for the most part — sensing that right-wing republicans like himself are not Mr. Popularity these days. As the public sees services slashed and their parks neglected, they’re reminded that they very well may have made a terrible mistake.

Clearly she's still smarting from her husband, Paul Bucher, getting smoked in the Republican primary against JB Van Hollen.  Her sour grapes are clearly ripe.  Van Hollen went on to win the general and McBride admits to voting for him in the general, more out of Republican loyalty it seems than because she liked him.

She goes on to attack Van Hollen for saying he probably won't be able to fix the crime backlog in the next 20 months.  Truth be told, Van Hollen does deserve criticism since he attacked former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for the same backlog he's no saying that he can't get a handle on.  But McBride takes it a step further noting that:

When Tommy Thompson faced a "monstrously" destructive welfare system, he didn't run to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and whine that it probably couldn't be fixed, so don't blame him in 20 months if nothing changed. He came up with an innovative plan to fix it.

It looks like McBride didn't do her homework.  Welfare reform in Wisconsin was actually authored by former State Assembly Representative Shirley Krug (D-Milwaukee).  Krug called it "Wisconsin Works".  Former Governor Thompson just took Krug's idea, stripped out all of the social safety nets and called it "W-2".  (Note the clever way he made Wisconsin Works into W-2 and called it his own.)

When Scott Walker assumed the office of Milwaukee County Executive, and found a "monstrous" budget deficit and pension system facing him, and realized it was even worse than was previously known, he didn't run to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and whine that it probably couldn't be fixed … He came up with innovative solutions to deal with it (like restructuring the courts).

Once again, McBride didn't do her homework.  Walker did slash funding in the courts, but did so in such a way that would deny County residents their constitutional rights of due process.  It was the County Board who fixed that hole in Walker's budget.  Also, Walker balanced the budget at the expense of the parks, the disabled, those needing public transportation, and even public safety.  Since Van Hollen essentially just has purview over items in his department, it means that if he slashes his budget the public will be less safe because essential services will not be handled.

But McBride's blunder doesn't stop there.  The innovations that have happened in County government have come from the county board.  The irony here is that Walker advocated a dramatic downsizing of the county board.  If Walker truly opposed waste in county government he would advocate for the elimination of his own job as most Wisconsin counties get along just fine without the expense of a county executive and all of the staff that have to be hired to support the position.  But don't expect that since Walker has never held a private sector position in his life unless you count his brief stint working for the Red Cross — a job he is rumored to have gotten as a political patronage job back when Libby Dole (now a Senator and wife to former Presidential candidate Bob Dole) was running the agency.  It would be tough for Walker, a college drop out, to find a job in the private sector when most business leaders neither trust him, nor have confidence in him.

The board asked labor to give up enhanced pension benefits for new hires and negotiated in good faith to make sure this happened.  This should have been happening from the office of Walker but Walker didn't hire a labor negotiator for 2 years. 

As Walker dragged his feet an additional 500 employees were hired by Milwaukee County and all of them are eligible for the enhanced pension benefits that Walker decried.  Here's the kicker — the cost of those benefits for people hired over the past few years is over $300,000 per month.

Had Walker not dragged his feet, the county would have saved nearly $8,000,000.

Fortunately, Walker has finally hired a new Director of Labor Relations.  Although he has not yet been confirmed, Greg Gracz will soon take over that post. 

So why would Walker drag his feet?  It was because he was running for Governor.  Walker didn't want to approve an agreement that would give labor anything and if the county wouldn't give at least a modest wage increase, the unions weren't going to give up anything.

County Supervisor John Weishan, one of the few democrats left on the County Board, is frosted over the whole mess. "It just goes to show what a charade his veto was.  We acted responsibly in the budget and we put together a process to save the taxpayers money and it all worked out" said Weishan.

Rewind a few months ago and Walker was bashing the board for approving the budget he himself put together but that the board added amendments to.  Those amendments did things like preserving parks, providing transit service for the most severely disabled and preserving public safety.  When taken alone, Walker didn't want to veto any of those items so he vetoed his own budget in its entirely.

Weishan adds, "Walker said we were all crazy and we would never get labor agreement.  Waa-laa, two weeks later we have a labor agreement that covers 2006, 2007 and 2008." 

But facts have never been Walker's strong point so let's de-construct the letter he sent to leaders in the State Senate and the State Assembly.  What he actually wrote is in italics.  What I interpret he meant is in bold:

Walker Proposes "Agenda for Wisconsin 2007" (Just because I didn't even win my parties nomination won't stop me from putting forward an agenda I have absolutely no power to further.)

"Republican Leader Provides Agenda for State (I know no one deemed me a Republican leader so I'll canonize myself.)

Wauwatosa,WI (Because I forgot that I represent the whole County but this is what I put on letters when in the Assembly so…)

…County Executive Scott Walker announced today his Agenda for Wisconsin 2007. He sent the document to Republican leaders in the State Assembly and State Senate and called for them to push an agenda focused on stimulating the economy in Wisconsin.

(I've failed to stimulate growth in Milwaukee County.  Those areas that have succeeded such as the expansion of GE Healthcare in the research park were done despite my roadblocks.  I guess that's why the CEO snubbed me at the grand opening but hey — my opinions on stimulating count!) 

"Voters want a strong economy in Wisconsin," said Walker. "We need an agenda that fuels a strong economy and helps the private sector create more jobs." Walker's Agenda for Wisconsin 2007 focuses on six key areas:   

*      Lowering our tax burden

(Despite my utter failure to lower tax burdens with fiscally responsible measures in Milwaukee County.)

   *      Spending less on government

(By cutting frivolous things like custodial services & major maintenance to the public infrastructure.  But hey, do what I did and borrow so much money that future generations will have to pay for it.  Don't worry about the bills.  I supported massive borrowing when I was in the Assembly and I've put together massive borrowing plans for County taxpayers.)

    *      Tackling health care costs 

Like when I cut services to the mentally ill and when I considered eliminating GAMP (Milwaukee County's health care safety net for the poorest of the poor) so that low income and indigent people wouldn't have any health care. 

   *      Easing the burden of regulations and lawsuits

Because big businesses like pharmaceutical companies never do get a break now do they? 

    *      Preparing the workforce

There are plenty of jobs for the poor and the United States military has room for all.  I know I never served but…March 'em all off to war! 

    *      Building a strong infrastructure

Now remember — do as I say, not as I do. 

Walker hopes that his former Legislative colleagues will use the Agenda for Wisconsin as part of their agenda for the next legislative session which begins this week. As a key leader in the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Walker will work to enact this agenda that strengthens the economy. As a candidate for Governor last year, Walker introduced a 100-day agenda in January of 2006." Smaller government, lower taxes and controlling the costs of doing busines

Yeah, I know I didn't even win my own parties nomination but hey, I'm a leader! 

###

Hat tip: Dan Cody 

Walker claimed that the actions of the county board which funded the employee positions for only the first three months of 2007 would create a budgetary deficit.  Therefore, Walker opined, he needed to cut the jobs now.

Walker claimed that the unions failure to waive lucrative pension benefits as well as their refusal to chip in for their own health care costs forced his hand and that's why he's making the cuts.  Mark this day down on your calendars because I may never say it again.

Walker may be, at least partially, right on this specific issue.

AFSCME union boss Rich Abelson claimed he knew the lucrative pension benefits would hurt the county and yet he kept his insight away from County Supervisors and from the County Executive at the time the package was passed.  If Abelson knew these would cause problems then they were ill-gotten gains and they need to be rescinded.  The only way to rescind them is for the union to sign off on their elimination, at least for all future employees.

The problem is not with the union rank and file — the problem is specifically Abelson.  Most employees as well as most unions understand that you do not bite the hand that feeds you but Abelson will keep his job even as over 100 employees will eventually hit the bricks.

Some employees are doing the smart thing by retiring if they are eligible but most are not eligible to retire.

Walker is not blameless for the county woes.  He has pursued a policy of virtually freezing taxes for the last 4 years.  This has resulted in failing infrastructure and structural deficits for nearly every budget he has crafted.  Pursuing a Grover Norquist "starve the beast" approach to governing, Walker has effectively destroyed much of the infrastructure in Milwaukee County.  Redeveloping it will cost much more than it would have cost to maintain it.

In his attempt to deflect blame, Walker read this statement:

"It is my responsibility as the county executive to administer a balanced budget for the county. In response to that duty, my administration took action to ensure that the 2007 budget is balanced. That action hit a snag today that will cost the county an additional $250,000 in 2007. In the end, I am confident that the county will prevail, but regardless, we will meet our duty to balance the budget."

It's about time that Walker realizes he has a responsibility to balance the budget but why hasn't he done it before?

But Walker's statement may have some truth — the county will prevail and those workers will lose their jobs.  Why won't Abelson come to the table and show a willingness to give up ill-gotten gains in exchange for being able to save as many jobs as he can?  It's too bad that Abelson's own salary isn't reflected in the smaller amount of employees that will have their union jobs.

So when I received County Supervisor Joe Rice's "Rice Report" which included a survey that asked:

Milwaukee County should balance its budget by

___ Increasing Taxes

___ Reducing Spending

___ Other

I asked myself: "Self, what exactly would other mean?"

Fairy dust?  Underfunding key areas?  Overestimating revenues?

Yes, I already know that Rice has supported the latter two but the simplicity of Rice's question is quite possibly the weakest, most impotent query I've heard of in a County-funded newsletter.

What are people going to answer?  Increasing taxes?  I don't want my taxes to go up.  Who would say yes to that?  Reducing spending?  Well there's one that we all would like but where are the specifics?  If Rice gets back his surveys and the 1-2% of the responders say "reducing spending," does it mean Rice will feel justified in cutting services for the disabled?  (…The poor?  The tired?  The huddled masses yearning to be free? …)  Will he support a greater cut to the Department on Veterans Affairs?

After all, Rice voted to sustain a veto by County Executive Scott Walker cutting veteran services.  He voted to sustain a veto cutting services to the most disabled in our community.  He voted to sustain a veto that increased paratransit fares on the poorest in our community.  He voted to sustain a veto cutting funding for public safety and the courts.

Rice complicates the matter by telling us in his newsletter that "most would agree that our tax burden is already too high and that the answer cannot lie in increasing taxes."  If that's the case, why did Rice even ask the question in his survey? 

Rice also asks: "Should Milwaukee County actively market and sell property it owns that is determined to be surplus and not currently needed?"

Exactly which park is Rice suggesting we sell?  Who will deem land surplus?  Shouldn't something like that go to a referendum?

In the interest of full disclosure, I ran against Rice in 2004 in an unsuccessful effort to regain the seat I lost in 2002.  Back then, Rice used negative suppression calls and mailings to deceive voters into thinking I was the anti-Christ. 

Rice's approach to his legislative responsibilities has been very part-time, mostly just showing up for meetings which take about 9 hours a month. For this he's raked in a comfy $30,000 a year ($277 an hour) at taxpayer expense.  As a taxpayer I wouldn't mind paying him more if he actually did the work the job requires (40+ hours/week), but showing up for photo shoots and agreeing with everything that Scott Walker tells him to do is not leadership — it is government waste.

Bragging is something I won't fault politicos for as long as there's some sort of substance.  But Rice is bragging that he saved almost $13,000 from his office account.  What did he not spend it on?  Not getting a county issued cell phone was on his brag list, but there's a reason — he doesn't want his cell phone records used against him in a campaign. Newsletters were another item.  The newsletter I received was the first in nearly 3 years in office that Rice has sent out.  Sadly, it is completely devoid of substance. 

I feel poorer for having wasted the time to read what would have been more aptly titled "Fluffy Rice."

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If Rice wants to write a response to this column, we'll publish it. 

Every single budget that Walker has touched he has managed to mangle through deficit spending and phantom revenues.  Just last summer there was once again talk of closing pools.  Uncut grass, poorly maintained parks and failing infrastructures have become the symbols of the Walker years at the helm and because of a 3% increase (yes, inflationary) in the tax levy put in by the county board, Walker is having a political tantrum.

If Walker truly believed in the rhetoric he is spouting he would have simply vetoed the budget amendments put forward by the county board.  If sustained, those vetoes would have brought the budget back to what Walker had wanted.

But these amendments by supervisors were for items which are valued by our community.  Consider the cuts that Walker put in the budget — a cut to veteran services (unheard of during war time), a cut to para-transit which is needed by the disabled to get from place to place and sustain a minimal quality of life, a massive cut to parks and a massive cut to public safety.

None of these amendments were designed to squander tax dollars yet Walker has portrayed them as waste.

"He's got a 66% failure rate on balancing his own budgets" Supervisor Lynne DeBruin, normally a Walker ally, was quoted in the Journal-Sentinel as saying.  It will be interesting to see if more Walker allies begin to falter over this next year.  Now that they've been labeled 'tax and spenders' by the exec and his talk radio cronies, there's hope that the board may actually do the right thing and realize that Walker is most comfortable politically when he is criticizing others.  Those others, being the county board, have a responsibility to speak out against Walker's horrible policies.  If the do not, they may well be replaced just as many members of the do-nothing congressional Republican majority were this fall.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has proposed a budget that relies on a massive borrowing plan to pay for unfunded pension liability that puts costs out 30 years.  That's not even legal for counties to do which means that Walker uses bogus revenues. 

We'll know more later as the budget is analyzed but for now it means Walker has turned his back on his responsibility and has left all of the heavy lifting to the County Board.  If Supervisors want to pass a balanced budget they'll have to make a ton of hard decisions.

The public should ask the question — why, Scott Walker, would you not do the job you were hired by the voters to do?  Why would you not submit a balanced budget to the County Board?  

The following paragraph was partially lost on the cutting room floor which changed the context a bit but not the overall nature of the column. 

Last week, community columnist and Walker apologist Rick Esenberg of Mequon blamed former Milwaukee County leaders for todays problems.  Esenberg went so far as to suggest that bus routes that Walker has cut should be renamed the "Jim McGuigan Trail of Tears", an allusion to the genocidal massacre of native Americans.  Esenberg's racially insensitive remark was over the top and I was shocked that it came from a Marquette University Professor.

I'll simply follow up by saying that it's painful to see the County fall apart as it has under the hatchet of Walker.  There is a better way to do things.  To take the approach that everything that's happened is someone else's fault so todays problems need not be fixed is irresponsible. 

Professionally, Walker has come a long way from his days as a Wauwatosa Assemblyman who sent out a press release condemning the Million Man March but his simplistic ideas back then are no different than those now.  The only thing that has changed is his rise to power and his ability to enact the ideas which he championed as a member of the Assembly.

But just look at the result.  Fiscal chaos.  Failing infrastructure.  Land sales revenues budgeted just to meet operating expenses.

There is a better way. 

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Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Stop county blame game 

County Executive Scott Walker bears responsibility here.  Just from 2004 through 2006, the County's budget for the Behavioral Health Division has been cut more than $1.8 Million.  If you adjust for inflation (estimated at 5%) the true impact is a $6.8 Million cut.  It's just not possible to maintain the same services with less funding.

Sadly, the squalor that many mental health patients must live with is not measurable in the county budget.  Patients will continue to suffer despite all the good intentions of some of the administrators who struggle to find creative ways to save the limited resources that Walker has given them.

Walker has been very successful at deflecting blame for the County's woes and unfortunately the Journal-Sentinel has been complacent in letting him get away with it.  Failing infrastructure, declining parks and even a filty and littered courthouse have become the new paradigm for Milwaukee County under Walker but the connection has not been made by our local media.  Instead, they have focused on the department heads in these troubled departments. 

When parks started showing their problems, the media focused on Parks Director Sue Black.  Now that mental health has shown problems, the focus is on has been on the Director of Behavioral Health, Jim Hill.  It is neither Black nor Hill that made the decision to cut funding for their departments.  Both received direct orders from Walker that their departments must come in with lower budgets than the previous year or at least show a flat tax levy request.  This has caused problems.  These problems do not occur in a vaccum.  There is a reason these things happen and that reason is inadequate resources to get the job done.  One person, and one person alone, bears that responsibility — County Executive Scott Walker.

Walker is more than happy to take the credit for not raising taxes.  If the media wants to give him that credit, as they have for years, they have a jouralistic responsibility to lay the problems on his doorstep also. 

It's proposed under the guise that it will create a healthier park system but in the end it would just be another board that would have to raise taxes.  The reality is that Walker is finally realizing that his own theory that government should never raise taxes is full of holes.  He's feigning shock that costs have increased from a variety of issues.  In reality, privatization and union busting are really the priority.

But what voters should really ask themselves is who would run for this board?  Consider the costs of campaigns.  It's safe to say that a run for this seat would cost about the same as a run for a County Supervisor seat or an Aldermanic seat.  For those seats, candidates who emerge victorious tend to spend about 40 cents per constituent.  (Approx County population is 900,000)  That means a countywide seat would run about $360,000 — more than most State Senators have to raise.  If, instead of countywide seats, if these seats were separated by districts, the cost would be about $128,000 for candidates.

Who would be able to afford to run for a seat like this?  The only honest answer is that the very rich and the very well connected.

The bogus argument is that the new district would not be burdened by employee pensions or employee fringe benefits.  The reality is that the problem with the County budget is exacerbated by multiple problems including the high cost of Walker's own borrowing plans which are going to start to come due within the next year or two as well as soaring energy costs.  Parks pavilions will still need to be heated and cooled and the parks fleet would still need to run on gasoline.

So who would be served by this scheme?  Truly nobody.

What Walker is really proposing is more government, not less.  A separate parks board would have to have separate insurance for thier employees (perhaps Walker hopes they would not insure parks workers?) as well as a separate human resources department.  It would have to maintain its own fleet so it would need a separate maintenance department …. well you get the picture — it's not all rosy as Walker proposes.

But what would happen to the rest of County government if the parks department would be spun off?  The parks win nearly unanimous support from the public but what of mass transit which has a huge positive impact on the city but many suburban voters see as an unfair subsidy?  Suburban residents tend to vote against mass transit because they tend to have their own cars which they rely on.  At the same time, city residents can't be terribly thrilled that they're paying for County trunk highways which have a disproportionately higher pavement to person ratio than do county trunk highways in the city.  So yes, suburban voters tend to subsidize mass transit in the city but city residents subsidize county trunk highways in the suburbs.

This idea of separating out services from county government is divisive and doesn't respect our shared community values.  Instead, Walker is pursuing a policy of Seperate and Divide.

It's perhaps prophetic, but with this being the 4th of July, I prefer United We Stand. 

Hopefully American values will prevail. 

Milwaukee County parks have been described as a jewel, a beautiful part of what makes Milwaukee special and unique.  But Walker's plan to close park pools is being met with a chilly reception and now he's hoping to pawn this hot potato off on another board, one which the County Exec or the County Board clearly have no say over. Now mind you, this is the county that once had leaders that helped develop this "emerald necklace" of county green space and now Walker wants to turn it over to another board?

If the public isn't happy with what this board does, too bad.

If the public wants to have a real say in what happens in the county parks, too bad.

Nope, Walker has decided it's much easier to spin off parts of County Government than to actually raise taxes a little to make sure that a park has its grass cut on a regular cycle.

Supervisor John Weishan nailed it though when he pointed out that if Walker believes the parks need a 3% hike, then Walker needs to include that amount in his budget. 

Abandonment of the parks by County leaders is not the answer.

If Walker doesn't want to raise taxes, he needs to make the cuts he thinks need to be made in the parks.  If he doesn't make the tough calls, then he's just blowing more GOP hot air. 

Meanwhile, Governor Jim Doyle has a plan to analyze Milwaukee County finances to see why the county is in such bad shape.  Do you think that 4 years of skyrocketing energy costs, rising salaries, failing infrastructure (which could have been done earlier and cheaper if not for Walker's policy of deferred maintenance) and rising inflation all while at the same time as Walker froze taxes could have something to do with it?

Now, County Supervisors apparently need to put the same question on the ballot because Walker wants to revive his old plan despite overwhelming public opposition. They shouldn’t stop there.

Supervisors, if they move quickly, have an opportunity to put other advisory referrendums on the September or November ballots.

It is true that this falls ballot will already have more than a few referrendums on it. Wisconsin voters will decide how much they hate gays via the constitutional gay marriage ban and they will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not to reinstitute state sponsored murder via an advisory referrendum on reviving the death penalty.

Supervisors should ask a few pointed questions. For instance:

Should County Executive Scott Walker be allowed to approve borrowing additional funds, up to a maximum of $59 million, to pay for existing pension obligations?

Should 90% of pools be closed in 2007 to help balance the County budget?

Should the County sell land or parks to pay for the 2007 budget?

Should the County continue to pursue the $100 million lawsuit against the Mercer actuaries whose paid consultants misled the County leaders into believing approval of the year 2000 pension plan would be cost neutral?

Democrats have accused Republicans of using referrendums for political purposes. The problem is that most democrats have been too naive to realize that these referrendums can work both ways. Instead, they have been content to sit back and watch their own numbers get decimated election after election. Pointed questions which help to expose the GOP borrow and spend policies would go a long way to evening out the playing field.
For the past 4 years, Supervisors have found that Walker has taken his partisan experience in the state legislature and worked to crush Supervisor sponsored legislation and budgeting. Supervisors have consistently given in to Walker and have found little success in the appeasment strategy. If Supervisors do not move quickly on the referrendums, they will be giving carte blanche to Walker for the budget this fall.

But it wasn’t Walker who promised fiscal restraint and it wasn’t Walker who promised to only use the sales tax for infrastructure. Therefore, he didn’t feel compelled to adhere to the promise.

I’m hardly an apologist for Walker and you won’t see me showing up at any fundraising events for Lil’ Scooter, but the fact is that he pulled one over on the public and he got ya good.

Yep, you’ve been punked.

You can’t say we didn’t warn you but now there’s more important things to consider, like the proposal to increase the sales tax again.

Whatever the promise that comes along with it, the terms of that promise can change — just look at what happened with the 1/2 cent. Maybe next time it won’t be Walker who is snatching away the revenues for a full cent addition to the sales tax. Regardless of who it is, the additional funds could be siphoned off just as easily as these were.

But Walker didn’t work alone. Let’s just be honest and spread the blame out where it belongs — with the State Legislature and with Governor Jim Doyle. Now the legislature is a place you would expect to butter up to Walker. After all, many of his partisan pals in the Republican controlled legislature thought their golden boy may have been the next governor and they would want him to be able to reduce taxes in the County he runs before an election (even if it was just done with borrowed funds), but why would Doyle not pull out his veto pen? Why would he have given Walker an easy way out? We don’t know.

One thing is definate — the promise to use an additional sales tax for cultural or quality of life spending could easily be changed just like the last promise for a 1/2 cent sales tax for infrastructure and capital improvements was changed to allow Walker to use those funds at his discretion.

In short, it’s just bad policy. This doesn’t even begin to touch upon the problems that the sales tax in and of itself is a regressive tax and snatches away a disproportionately higher percentage of income from the poor than does the income tax — a tax Counties don’t even have the ability to levy.

If anything, before we give more money to the County who has been resistant to raising the one tax it does have control over, we should eliminate counties all together. Duties of the counties could be divided between cities/towns and the state. Many European countries haven’t had counties for hundreds of years and they’re doing just fine. But if you’re going to keep counties, reduce the politics and power plays that go on by eliminating the position of County Exec. Most of Wisconsin’s 72 counties don’t have one so why are they necessary? Even Milwaukee County’s neighbor to the north, Ozaukee County just has a County Board and a hired County Administrator.

Counties first came into play when towns and cities were weak and communication was poor. Now we’ve got telephones, cell phones, pagers and fax machines. The borders of counties were drawn so that any County Supervisor could make it to the County Board meetings with just a one day ride by horse. With paved roads and the superhighways we have now in Wisconsin, one could easily make it from Kenosha to Superior in less than a day. So why do we need counties again?

This is not to say that there is not a current role for counties. If they are going to be part of our political landscape in Wisconsin they should be run and funded appropriately. Removing the County Exec position is just the beginning to de-politicizing Counties. As now-generations of County officials have been saying for years, it’s time to eliminate state madates and for the state to take over the court system.

But let’s not pretend that the bandaid approach to governing (via more sales tax) is going to solve an overly politicized fiscal crisis. The financial wounds that Milwaukee County has suffered from 4 years of Scott Walker are deeper than anything a once cent sales tax Band-Aid will fix. The answers we as the public have a right to know about the fiscal health of Wisconsin’s most populous county may not be known until they put together their budget for this year, and possibly the year after.

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By the way, if we had an Air America affiliate in Milwaukee with a host who was educated on how our local governments run here, the public would be better informed.

The problem is clear for anyone who understands how a good mass transit system can thrive. Buses must run on time and be frequent enough so that people do not wait for long periods before a connecting bus comes to take them to their destination. If that does not happen, people will look to other forms of transportation to meet their needs.

If the cost rises too much, people look to other methods to meet the same needs. This is the case with the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). MPS officials have now said that if bus fares increase, MPS will be forced to look at more cost effective ways to meet their need of transporting students to schools. Now, MPS spends over $6 million which MTS (Milwaukee Transit Services, the company that runs the bus system for the county) uses to keep the buses running. MPS argues that they have a responsibility to keep their costs low also otherwise they would have to raise taxes and in a sense, subsidize the County bus system with city dollars. That’s not going to happen according to MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos.

According to MPS Budget Analyst Gretchen Schuldt, they’re already switching some students over to a private bus system next year because the county fares are too high to make them competative.
When the full $6 million from dries up, where will Walker go to fill that hole? There’s only one place that fits his ideology — bus fares. He will do what he has done year after year of his reign and that is cut services and raise fares.

The question is, what price will consumers say enough is enough and pay a little bit more for the convenience of a private shuttle service similar to Airport Connection or even a taxi cab?

It’s like a reverse limbo competition where Walker is testing the waters to just see how high bus riders will be willing to go.

The problem is that once MPS leaves and the remaining bus riders have to pick up the tab, will many of them bolt also, giving Walker one alternative — raise fares more and cut service more.

How far can you cut?

How many lines can you savage before people just aren’t willing to walk that far to the next bus stop?

These are the questions have hang over the County bus system and with a County Executive who has the Mary Antoinette approach (let them eat cake) to the poor, how will businesses who rely on low wage workers continue to keep their doors open?

When will business leaders like Tim Sheehy from the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce wise up and condemn Walker for making moves that will decimate the business community and commerce in general in our community? When will those same business leaders take off their partisan blinders and reject Walker’s approach to devastating the transportation infrastructure of our community?

If Walker is successful in decimating bus service in our community through one more budget cycle, it may just be the straw that breaks the transportation camels back. Let’s hope the County Board shows some cohones and rejects Walker’s proposals.

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JSOnline: County, MPS in bus spat: Superintendent says budget may force district out

You’ve seen how bad our parks have been maintained — now you’ll know why. I’ll explore some of the problems with our parks and name names. I also touch on mass transit and how Governor Jim Doyle gave County Executive Scott Walker additional funds for transportation only to have Walker use it for other purposes — resulting in more fare increases and service cuts. Click here to listen.

Special thanks to Jason Haas at Dyskeptic Radio for technical assistance.

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NOTE: Since this podcast was originally published, requests have come in for a smaller version. We have taken your requests to heart and the file was reduced from over 20mb to just 3mb.  We think the quality is still pretty decent but if you have any questions or concerns, please let us know.