A little time has passed since Milwaukee County Supervisor Lynne DeBruin decided to run to the media with discussions that happened in a closed door meeting down at the County Board. In that time, some of her colleagues have decided to put together a resolution to censure her. Whether it passes or not will matter little — County taxpayers will still be on the hook should the parties who DeBruin decided to use for her own media attention sue Milwaukee County, and the effect on DeBruin will be nothing as a censure has no impact other than to say that a majority of the board wants to go on record as saying, “naughty-naughty”.

There is a reason for closed meetings. Those reasons include keeping from the public things that would otherwise get the County sued. Who pays for these lawsuits if the county loses or ends up settling for a monetary loss? The taxpayers.

DeBruin failed in her fiscal responsibility to both the County as well as her constituents. They are among those who will pay should the County have to shell out cash for DeBruin’s desire to grab headlines.

Several Supervisors choose to short change their constituents by working part-time while drawing a full-time salary. DeBruin is one of them. The way that they can be perceived as working hard for their constituents is to toss out a press release from time to time and make sure they get media attention and over the years. That way it looks like they are doing work when they’re busy gardening or watching their favorite reruns of Oprah. It’s not exactly the best use of taxpayer dollars but the main people who are hurt are their constituents who have less representation in the crafting of ordinances and resolutions. DeBruin has mastered this pricey ruse.

The Supervisor claims that she spilled the beans in order to keep vulnerable patients safe but there are other ways to accomplish her goals in appropriate ways that do not put the taxpayer at risk. But they require something that DeBruin has, for years, been unwilling to do.

Work.

By pulling her colleagues together and calling for the proper audits and holding department heads accountable, DeBruin could have accomplished the same thing without risking taxpayer dollars and without violating HIPPA, the federal law that is supposed to protect the privacy of patients.

But all that work would not have resulted in DeBruin grabbing headlines. She wouldn’t have been the darling of talk radio. She wouldn’t have had the attention focus on her and her narcissistic appetite for attention would not have been fed.

Over this past week, liberal blogger, county employee and critic of County Executive Scott Walker, Chris Liebenthal has been dealing with accusations from the right-wing hate group inappropriately named Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG).

Hats off to the liberal blogosphere for quickly debunking CRG’s lies and innuendo about Liebenthal, known to his readers as simply “Capper”. It turns out that the blogs that CRG alledged that Capper wrote while punched in on the county clock, were written on his days off. They point to specific dates that Capper wrote those blog entries but didn’t do a simple internet search to discover that the dates they alledged he was writing on included holidays, vacation days and involuntary furlough days. Even more ridiculous, the dates that they cite include times of late night entries and even some after most folks would be in bed.

Yes it’s ridiculous and clearly a bogus attempt for CRG to get some cheap media attention.

I wonder if the blogosphere was as prolific and important in 2002 as it is today, what would have happened?

Think about it. 2002 was the year that a fairly obscure State Representative who represented a nearly all white constituency rose to power. Prior to tossing around his accusations he was mocked by some of the local media elite for his press release “Walker opposes Million Man March”. Really, who cared. Walker was a Republican and had managed to get into the good graces of then-Governor Tommy Thompson. Back then Walker supported and even authored bills that specifically were anti-Milwaukee which wasn’t a huge deal for him back then since he didn’t represent any part of the Cream City.

And then there was the pension scandal.

Walker claimed that then County Executive Tom Ament was trying to line his own pockets. Morning talk show host Charlie Sykes spent day after day ranting about how horrible Ament and the County Board were. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel was the only major newspaper in town. Ament started out by refusing to talk about it. When he did respond to an accusatory question, he responded with an inaccurate quote that the JS didn’t bother to fact check. It made Ament look really bad. The only source taxpayers had to go to in order to get information was Journal Communications who owned both the only major newspaper in town, and the radio station that Republican activist Charlie Sykes used for his non stop rants against all things liberal. With Ament and several County Supervisors being card carrying members of the Democratic party despite their non-partisan offices they held, Republicans smelled blood in the water.

It was a perfect storm.

Walker, and his supporters from CRG were happy as pigs in slop. Liberals were made to look bad and all they had to do was continue to accuse. No one stood up to fact check any of them.

Fast forward and Ament retired and 7 then-County Supervisors (including yours truly) were removed from office by a recall system in Wisconsin which requires no proof, no facts, and no charges — in short, innuendo.

But what would have happened had the liberal blogosphere been alive and well in 2002 as it is now? Would they have come to the aid of liberal Supervisors?

I can’t help but think that most of them would have. Back then everyone had questions and those questions deserved to be answered, but there was no way for anyone but right-wing zealots to get any real media attention. The focus of the media, which now included television media, was to generate profit and reputations be damned. It seemed that no one really wanted to know what really happened. It was Milwaukee’s modern day red scare.

Would things have been different? I can’t help but think the answer is yes.

Republicans in the blogosphere are all excited about their newest accusation. But like most of them, it’s just another opportunity to get someone to pay attention to them. Apparently the louder they howl, the more attention they think they’ll get.

Their target this time is liberal blogger Chris Liebenthal. Liebenthal, known as “Capper” in the blogosphere is a County employee who has earned the hate and fury of the right for daring to expose some of the dirty little secrets of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker. Walker is making his second attempt at a run for Governor but has a primary. As the darling of the right, Walker has built his career on innuendo and false accusations with the help of the right wing hate group, Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG). CRG claims to be looking out for the taxpayer but they are comfortable exploiting the system to waste tax dollars if it furthers their agenda.

One of CRG’s big attack dogs is Orville Seeymer who makes it a point to get his face on television with the occasional ridiculous stunt or accusation. Seeymer is claiming that Liebenthal was blogging during county work hours and earning a county salary while criticizing Walker. This comes on the heels of an investigation that showed that Darlene Wink, County Executive Scott Walker’s Constituent Services Coordinator in his Milwaukee County office was posting pro-Walker commentary on the internet to boost Walker’s gubernatorial hopes, all at the time that she was drawing a $40,000 salary courtesy of Milwaukee County taxpayers.

Wink, by the way, is the Vice Chair of the Milwaukee County Republican party.

Yes it is wrong to hire a staff member who uses Milwaukee County taxpayer money to help you run for governor. And yes, if someone else was using county computers while they were on the clock and the taxpayers were paying them, it would be wrong also if someone was using those resources to criticize Walker.

But that didn’t happen.

Seeymer is hoping to capitalize on this and yes he’s almost certainly going to get some ink for his accusation because that’s what our local media does, but just because a CRG henchman says something, doesn’t make it true.

It is true that Capper posted a blog entry on the internet on what would otherwise have been a work day. The problem with the accusation is that Capper wasn’t on the clock. He was on furlough. One of the things that Walker did was furlough County workers because Walker failed to budget for a proper staffing level. Therefore, certain county workers will have an occasional involuntary day off.

That’s where Capper was — on his involuntary furlough day.

Now Seeymer is making a big deal out of the fact that the District Attorney’s office is looking into the matter. Of course it is. That’s what happens when there’s an accusation like this. The DA’s office always looks into the matter. It’s not that there’s something that happened that was nefarious, it’s just that proper procedure is being followed. That doesn’t mean that the DA will do anything with the accusation beyond looking at it. If it is found to be another CRG stunt and fishing expedition, as it certainly will be, it will die and CRG, like a misbehaving child who screams to get attention, will have succeeded in having someone look at them.

Now the big question is, how much media attention will this really get?

If you are excited about the proposed face lift of the Kinnickinnic River on Milwaukee’s south side, you are not alone. MMSD is working on plans to eliminate the concrete channel and change it back to a more natural river which could accommodate higher volumes of water and slow the speed at which water races toward downstream neighborhoods.

Good for them.

It’s about time this project was looked at. For years, the Kinnickinnic (KK) river has acted as a dangerous water cannon rocketing water through the south side without regards to flooding or safety. The river has claimed many children’s lives who have ventured toward its concrete banks to marvel at the speed of the water. One errant slip, as has happened many fateful times, has been all it has taken to claim the lives of children of our community.

Kudos to MMSD for showing vision and daring to advocate for change from a dangerous and poorly designed water hazard.

Yes, there was a time when the Irish were targeted by anti-immigration activists. They were beaten, scorned, characterized mocked and excluded from an opportunity to achieve the American dream. Today it is the Mexicans who are criticized and mocked because they seek the American dream.

Many Mexican nationals come to this country to improve their lot in life, just as Irish nationals did. But what’s different? The border for one. It’s massive. We do not share a border with Ireland. Had we shared a border with them, Ireland would have surely been depopulated during Black 47 — the year of the Irish potato famine, or at least the year it began.

Now I get it, people here are angry. They think the Mexicans are going to take our jobs, but really folks, they aren’t here to eat our babies or impregnate our teenage daughters. They’re not casting spells to hurt our health or ferreting in demons and goblins or any other imaginary monsters. They’re just here to do better for themselves and most are here in the hopes that they will achieve the American dream and become Americans.

Yes it is true that some are happy to fly the Mexican flag while enjoying American rights and freedoms and somehow find fault that many of us, who would have to fight to defend this country, aren’t too happy that we’re extending rights to those who have no responsibility as Americans nor it seems a willingness to stand with us or fly our flag. I get that too.

But I can’t help but believe that most of the people who have come here as immigrants, whatever their ethnic background, want to embrace the entire package.

Yes it’s frustrating, but imagine how they must feel. They’ve come to a country, wanting all that country has to offer but not truly understanding the responsibilities, and before they’ve come to love this country they’re told to get out and threatened to be hunted at the border by groups like the Minutemen. If that’s their first introduction to people who seem to be authorities in this country, one can understand why they may not feel the same love that others do.

The reality is that the people working hard to exclude Mexican immigrants are those in the Republican party. They’re folks that call themselves “conservatives” and some even are part of the Tea Party movement. They complain that the Mexicans aren’t paying taxes. Now, if you were to apply a little logic here, isn’t the entire mantra of these folks that we pay too much in taxes? Isn’t their American dream to not pay taxes? Are they upset that the Mexicans are achieving the American dream but they are not?

If that’s the case, they need to be realistic — Mexican immigrants do pay taxes in the form of sales taxes. Some even pay income taxes knowing they will never get the benefit of social security which many pay into.

As a citizen journalist I run into some pretty amazing stuff. Sometimes people quickly deny what a tipster may have let me know about and sometimes they exaggerate. Sometimes they’re simply misinformed and other times they’re simply ignorant that there was ever a problem. Sometimes there was nothing done wrong in the first place — the problem was with the tipster.

It is difficult to try to figure out the real truth but you just have to keep asking.

That was the case this morning. Last night I published a column on how Lowe’s installation crews were violating the lead safe renovation requirements. Those are simple facts. On my quiet little street in Brown Deer there were no cautionary safety ropes keeping people away from a lead containment zone. There was no plastic tacked down to deal with debris on the outside of the house. I do not know whether or not furniture of bedding in the rooms Lowe’s is installing new windows in has been covered with plastic. I can only assume that since lead safe practices are not being used on the outside of the home, they are being ignored on the inside.

So I did what any responsible journalist would do — I followed up with the management team at the Brown Deer store. The store manager, I was told, was not in today but the gentleman who is in charge of window installation, a man named Justin, took my call.

Justin indicated that a lead safe test is done on all windows as required by the EPA. I explained to Justin that there is a requirement in Wisconsin that homes with lead levels above .06% must have lead safe renovating practices applied and that there was no plastic or containment fields at his job site. Further, there is no commercially available test that is on the market today that will test for levels that low and that if they used a test, it would have tested for the national levels of .5% which is less stringent than the state requirement. This puts their installers, who by the way are finishing up their job without lead safe practices today, in violation of State law which took effect April 22nd.

Justin’s response, “the windows were sold prior to April 22nd so the law doesn’t apply to this job”. Incorrect, I told Justin. All jobs installed on April 22nd or after must adhere to the requirements. Justin didn’t feel our conversation was going anywhere and that’s when he hung up.

But the story of Justin and his reaction are not typical of the service I have gotten from Lowe’s. For home improvement needs, I still believe they are the best choice for service. For the most part, they seem to know their stuff.

As a Lead Safe Renovator I realize that I know more about this stuff than Justin and I don’t fault him, I fault Lowe’s corporate. Lowe’s corporate has a responsibility to stay on top of the laws and to educate their workforce accordingly. In mid-2009 I asked a Lowe’s associate if their windows qualify for the federal tax credit. He responded that all of their windows that say “energy star” do qualify. He was wrong. The Obama stimulus package requires a u-factor of .30 or less and a SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) of .30 or less. Many windows that carry the energy star logo do not, in fact, meet those requirements. Again, this is not Justin’s fault. For all I know he was not a Lowe’s employee at the time. This is the fault of Lowe’s corporate for failing to educate their workforce.

Like everyone else, Lowe’s needs to be profitable. But like other general contractors, Lowe’s uses subcontractors for their installations. If they are going to sell an installed product, which is clearly not their area of expertise, they, like all other legitimate contractors, should start adhering to the law.

At the same time, there appears to be no government oversight nor funding to oversee problems. If the government is going to require registrations and certifications for businesses to use lead safe practices, they should do the oversight rather than simply stripping struggling businesses of the additional fees to feed additional red tape.

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Jim McGuigan is a Lead Safe Renovator who has passed coursework required by the EPA and State of Wisconsin.