Breaking! Chris Abele Wants To Tax Lakefront Again

When Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive, he introduced the idea of putting parking meters up and down the lakefront.  The County Board properly shut it down.  As then Supervisor Gerry Broderick stated at the time:

“The installation of parking meters would severely restrict public access to this beautiful natural resource,” said Supervisor Broderick, Chairman of the Parks, Energy & Environment Committee. “I encourage all County residents to contact their County Supervisor and the County Executive. Tell them to oppose the installation of parking meters on Lincoln Memorial Drive and Veterans Park.”

Being a slow learner, Chris Abele has again floated the idea of taxing the lakefront, only to fail time and time again.

Even though Abele hasn't had the required public hearing for the 2018 budget requests yet, if one looks hard enough, one can find the budget requests posted on the county website. And sure enough, Abele is proving is a very, very slow learner by trying to tax the lakefront yet again:

Increase revenue by $1,662,000 by implementing pay-to-park along Lincoln Memorial Drive, McKinley Park parking lot, Lagoon Drive and easternmost lot in Veterans Park, North Point parking lot, Bradford Beach parking lot, and easternmost Lake Park parking lot.

Not only does Abele want to make sure every square inch of the lakefront has a fee attached to it, he wants to add additional park rangers to enforce these ordinances and increase revenue.

Abele says that the reason for the need to tax the lakefront is due to a tax levy reduction, which is what he wanted in the first place.  So with less money coming in and Abele going on a gifting spree, giving away hundreds of millions of dollars of county assets to his rich friends and business associates, his budget is almost as screwed up as the state's.

I'm sure Abele sees it as an added bonus that this might keep some of the common riff raff, like normal citizens, away from his plutocratic playground so that he and his friends can enjoy the lakefront as it was meant to be and by only those most worthy - the filthy rich.

The only question is does he really believe that he's screwed up the county's finances bad enough that the board will feel that they have no choice but to go along?