Since County Executive Scott Walker doesn't want to be seen as being anti-parks and anti-greenspace but still wants to maintain his anti-tax pledge he made to CRG (the fringe GOP shill group), he is proposing a plan to spin off the parks from Milwaukee County.

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.