Friday, June 21, 2013

Crooked Corp Counsel Canned

As had been reported, the Milwaukee County Board fired Kimberly Walker, the head of corp counsel.  Among the reasons was that she was overreaching her authority and for advising Milwaukee County Emperor Abele on how to violate Freedom of Information Act laws:
"Please see the following below... my two-cents worth.  FYI - trying to play this forward in my mind. With the exception of my email, this email string will not be exempt from open records requests. Should you wish to preclude its disclosure, please send additional comments, revisions etc., only to me with the names of others who should see it, and I can forward. Just a thought."
Instead of apologizing for not running a clean administration in the first place, Abele stays true to form by having another temper tantrum:
The public is the loser, if Walker or Eilers winds up losing her post, Abele said.

"This is not something that's going to hurt me personally," Abele said after the board votes.

Abele strongly denounced Walker's firing and said he'll veto it. It takes a two-thirds vote of the board to override a veto, and the firing vote exceeded that.
It is striking how Abele is becoming to sound more and more like Scott Walker.
Only Walker or Abele would even have the gall to say that the public would lose by having more transparency in government instead of cover ups and avoidance of open record requests.

Even more disappointing are the allegations of racism. As Supervisors Stamper, Bowen and Rainey point out, race had nothing to do with Walker's firing. From their joint press release:
Three Milwaukee County Supervisors said today that they voted for the dismissal of Corporation Counsel because the Board has lost confidence in her ability to perform neutrally and serve Milwaukee County with appropriate and independent legal counsel.

Supervisors David F. Bowen, Russell Stamper II and Khalif Rainey said the Board could no longer trust Corporation Counsel’s ability to remain neutral. They issued the following statement:

“This is not about personalities, this is not about race, this is not about the Board’s relationship with the County Executive, this is about our confidence in the Corporation Counsel’s ability to represent Milwaukee County. We believe Corporation Counsel cannot perform neutrally.

“She abdicated her responsibility on an issue that affects the very heart of the Board’s ability to govern. The fact that she herself said there might be a perception of a conflict of interest in interpreting Act 14 – several times on the record – indicates that she does not believe the Board trusts her to represent them. We don’t.”
It must also be pointed out that Abele sent out a press release in which he pointed to the opposition from the NAACP and other groups. Funny thing is, Abele didn't give a hoot about what they had to say when they expressed their vehement opposition to Act 14, aka the Plutocracy Bill.

But I have to say the greatest disappointment is the fact that some people who condemned Scott Walker and his minions like Tim Russell for doing this sort of thing are just fine with Abele showing the same behavior.  In fact, some go as far as actively trying to defend the poor behavior by the corrupt corp council chief and the county executive.

If it's wrong for Scott Walker and Tim Russell to conspire to keep things from the public, it's just as wrong for Chris Abele and Kimberly Walker to do it.

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