May
2009
Journal-Sentinel Twists Pension Story Again
I would like to think the best of people and I would like to believe that journalists don’t lie. I would like to think that the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was moving in a direction where they would step away from their McCarthyism style distortions of the past and report the story of the pension scandal honestly. I would like to say they refuse to embrace tabloid style yellow journalism.
After reading one of the more recent Steve Schulze columns, I’m not going to be holding my breath.
Get this — one of their recent story headlines is “Ordinans’ account shifts on knowledge of backdrop costs”. One would think from that headline that former County Board Chairman Karen Ordinans knew of the oncoming train wreck and decided to intentionally keep the problems of the costly and now-infamous backdrop pension benefit from her colleagues.
A little context is in order here.
While the JS reports Ordinans “learned from Dobbert that the backdrop was supposed to cost $718,000″ and, Schulze alleges Ordinans didn’t tell other Supervisors “because the $718,000 was such a very minimal number I wasn’t even thinking of it as a cost.”
Why do I say “alleges”? Because Schulze has a tough time grasping more than one simple issue at a time. Always looking for the worst in people, he’s not beyond making up his facts to get a story. So even his assertion that Ordinans said what he alleges she said has to be called into question.
And even if Ordinans did say that (which I question), why would she have? Could it be that it’s because the County has a billion dollar budget and $718,000 represented less than 1% of that budget? Could it be because training and hiring costs for the large amount of county employees would have exceeded that $718,000 versus the whole reason the pension plan was approved in the first place (to encourage veteran employees from retiring at a time of economic prosperity when it was difficult to fill positions with quality candidates)?
It’s difficult to wrap our minds, in today’s recession with high unemployment rates, that economic prosperity was once so strong and unemployment so low that the county couldn’t find enough quality employees. But that was the case and that perspective was never shared.
Sadly, very little of the real story was ever told in the Journal-Sentinel.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
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Why don’t you enlighten us as to your own diligent and thorough review of the Pension Scam, um, backdrop you voted on?
Whatever misteakes the JS make in their coverage pale in comparison to those of you and your colleagueson the County Board. BTW, do you ever get invited to Sue and Lev’s Mansion?
Guess what Phil, I don’t have to enlighten you on anything. Since you’re the one making the ill informed accusation, why don’t you enlighten me on the lines you read, that you believe should have been reviewed. And no, I’m not talking about broad accusations — I want the specific lines from the documents that were provided to County Supervisors that you believe should have been read to lead them to a different decision. I mean, if you’re making these accusations you put in an open records request to get the same information I did right? Because if you can’t, then you’re just another bloviating ignorant partisan who is happy to throw gasoline on a smoldering fire.
If you would have seen what I’ve seen and had the facts that I had (albeit facts were withheld) you would have voted for it too.
So tell me what the sentences were Phil. It’s your turn.