Abele Cannot Even Announce New Parks Director Without Flubbing The Job

Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris Walker Romney Abele has Abele announced his new Parks Director, John Dargle.  The announcement comes more than nine months after fired the award-winning and very popular Sue Black.  Abele has yet to offer a rationale for the sudden dismissal of Black.

But true to the nature of Abele's reign, this move is surrounded by questions and controversy.

Dargle is supposed to come with quite the resume, including winning the "Gold Medal" for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management.  It should be noted that Black won the same honor in 2009.  It should also be noted that the award was  awarded based on a video and an essay written by one of then County Executive Scott Walker's aides.

At the time of her firing, Abele's administration was dismissive of Black's achievement.  It is more than a bit ironic that this is now one of their bragging points for the incoming nominee.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out another article which reports that Dargle suddenly departed his old job two months ago "to pursue other personal interests."  It would be nice to know what those interests were, since just two months later, he is taking the job in Milwaukee.  The taxpayers have a right to know that their money is being invested in someone who will be on the job for more than a few months - like most of Abele's staffers.

And speaking of pay, there has been no mention in Abele's press release or any of the news articles on what Dargle's salary will be.  This is important as well to make sure that he is being fair in his pay scales.  We can't afford any more lawsuits due to Abele's discriminatory practices.

(I have sent an open records request regarding Dargle's salary to Abele's office, but have yet to receive even an acknowledgement of it's receipt.  What are they doing? I get better response from my county supervisor, that's for sure.)

The formal announcement is being held at Kosciuszko Park, which is in Supervisor Peggy Romo West's district, but  Abele didn't bother to invite her, despite all of the time and hard work she has dedicated to the park.  It is not known if the snub is due to his disrespect for the Board or his misogyny.

I also wonder if Dargle is aware that Abele is planning on spinning off the parks into its own quasi-public/private district.  That might not mean long for Dargle's career with Milwaukee County.

Also interesting is that Abele apologist Dan Cody was involved in the choosing of Dargle, at least per Cody's bragging.  Odd thing is, Cody did not mention this in his press release as president of the Park People.  This raises the question of whether Cody was involved as a representative of the Park People or on some other level.

Nor has this been the first time that Abele and Cody have blurred their lines.  It has been reported that Cody was lobbying for the Usurpation Bill, but Cody is not listed as a lobbyist per the state records.  On who's behalf was he lobbying?

With the upcoming shifting of power into the county executive's hands, it would be nice to have one that can do the job with transparency and efficiency.  Abele is failing horribly in both of those areas.

Holy Gish Gallops, Batman! Team GMC Is Getting Desperate!

In the ongoing battle for the future of Milwaukee County, Team GMC, the people in support of the plutocratic takeover of Milwaukee County have started taken a surreal and desperate angle to try to convince people that there way is the best
way.

In their efforts to do so, they have gone into complete Gish Gallop mode, throwing everything and anything against the wall, hoping something will stick.

In one example, Tia Tohorst, who until recently worked for Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, wrote a short essay on how terrible she thinks the county board is.  Most of the essay is filled with vague accusations without any examples or proof.

Ed Heinzelman, who ironically writes at the same site that the essay appeared on succinctly points out that one of her major complaints would not even be addressed by AB 85.  

I would argue that the bill would actually make things worse.  If the bill would be passed, the supervisors would be working part time, so there would be no time to prepare before a committee meeting.  This means that proposals and reports would have to be analyzed in the meeting, lengthening the time.

Furthermore, the department heads would have to work long days on the days when they needed to appear before the committee.  Good thing Abele gave them such generous pay hikes already.

Tohorst also claims that she helped with two budgets.  She also complains that the Board refused to listen to "staff's expert analysis."  I wonder if she is referring to when the Board shot down Abele's proposal to illegally give out a half million dollars in bonuses to his expert staff.

Even more bizarre than Tohorst's essay is an opinion piece by Dan Cody.

The first part of Cody's piece is describing how he and his wife are so successful. I don't know if he feels that this makes his opinion more important than anyone else's, such as a waitress' or a grocery store bagger's.

He then expresses some vague complaints, like Tohorst did.  But at least Cody did offer two examples he felt proved his point.  However, they didn't really.

His first complaint was that the Board did not go with Abele's proposal to shift the burden of patrolling the parks from the County to the municipalities  He claimed that this would make the parks safer and save taxpayers money.  He also stated that it showed "regional cooperation."

The truth is that it was an abdication of duties by Abele, dumping off county responsibilities on the municipalities. Abele's proposal also called for giving the municipalities money in an amount insufficient to compensate them for their added costs.  Since the lion's share of this money reallocation would go to the City of Milwaukee, it would mean that suburban taxpayers' money would go to support the city, even as their municipal taxes went up.  The unfairness of this proposal is why it didn't pass muster.

Cody's other complaint is that the Park East corridor is still underdeveloped.  Cody blames this on there being 18 or 19 "county executives," each with their own agenda.

The reality of it is that former county executive Scott Walker kept filling the economic development positions with unqualified cronies and campaign workers, including Tim Russell.  Yes, that would be the same Tim Russell who was recently convicted and sentenced to jail for embezzling from a veterans fund and who was integral in the illegal campaigning by Walker.  And that was before Walker abolished the position altogether.

So he's blaming the board for the failure of the county executive, but then wants to give more power to the same office that has been a repeated source of failure for the county.

Like I said, they're getting desperate.

"Alternative Reporting" Offers Alternative To The Truth

As popular opinion keeps turning against the power grab being pulled off by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, his fellow plutocrats at the Greater Milwaukee Committee and State Representative Joe "Cab King" Sanfelippo, the supporters of this ill-advised and misbegotten stunt are getting more desperate in trying to defend it.

Sadly, I'm not referring to just the hired trolls either.

Bruce Murphy, who is now writing at the blog Urban Milwaukee, has been pushing credibility in an effort to persuade people to support this unsupportable move to usurp control of Milwaukee County and place in the hands of one man - Chris Abele.

Most recently, he has taken umbrage with an article written by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Steve Schultze, which takes a closer look at the power grab bill which was finally revealed by Sanfelippo after many false starts.

Murphy sniped that Schultze was misleading his readers by inaccurately reporting what is really in the bill, all but accusing Schultze of making it up out of whole cloth:

Schultze, for instance, claims the bill gives the executive “the authority to hire as many staff as he wishes for the county executive’s office.” Nonsense. The executive’s budget would have to be approved, as before, by the county board. “The most powerful control the board has is the power of the purse strings,” Sanfelippo notes. “What Schultze wrote is completely misleading.”

Schultze also wrote that the county exec “would gain power through authority for all contracts.” Also misleading. The exec can now approve any contract worth less than $50,000. The legislation would increase that to $100,000. For any contract worth $100,000 to $300,000, if just one board member objected, a full vote of the board would then be required to approve it. And for any contract of more than $300,000, board approval is automatically required.

Schultze writes that the board “also would lose its power to change terms of any proposed sale or lease of county property.” True, the board would not be able to renegotiate deals, but it would retain the power to set the parameters and policies for any sale or lease agreement, and the executive would have to follow those. Once a deal is negotiated within those parameters, the board would have the choice of approving the deal or not. “This forces the executive to work more closely with the board to make sure the deal gets approved,” Sanfelippo notes.

Dan Cody applauded Murphy's hit piece and offered a few kicks of his own:

For the record, I completely agree that the JS reporter in question suffers from the same problem most in his profession do: he can't burn his sources. It's true in sports reporting and political reporting and has been rearing it's head in local political reporting for years before this issue. That said, I find Steve to be a nice guy who works hard and have nothing against him.

What's become interesting to me about this whole issue is just how willing some third party groups are willing to make this their Waterloo.

The real problem here is that it is not Schultze who is doing the misleading. It is Murphy and Cody that are incorrect with their facts.

As I had pointed out in my coverage of the power grab bill, the bill was accompanied by a memorandum written by Anna Henning, a staff attorney with the Wisconsin Legislative Council. The lines that Murphy and Cody accuse Schultze of fabricating, or at least conflating, come directly from this memorandum.

To address the three issues that are in the above-cited section of Murphy's diatribe, let's look at the memo.

On the bottom of page 5 of the memo, Attorney Henning has this bullet point under "Additional Authorities of the Milwaukee County Executive":

Hire and supervise the number of employees that the County Executive reasonably believes are necessary to carry out the duties of the County Executive’s office.

So Schultze is right on the money with that one.

Right below this bullet point is footnote number 5 which reads:

The bill specifies that no contract with Milwaukee County is valid unless it is signed or countersigned by the Milwaukee County Executive.

Again, Schultze is true to the memo, Murphy's complaint is not.

As for the third issue that Murphy brings up, well, Abele is currently supposed to be following the policy set forth by the County Board, but just like his predecessor Scott Walker, Abele has simply refused to do so.

Abele refused to have his staff live in Milwaukee County, which is a requirement per county policy. Abele had proposed to give half a million taxpayer dollars away as bonuses, again in violation of county policy. Abele is trying to shut down the mental health complex on his own, which is against county policy.  The list could go on for a bit more too.

So while Murphy admits that Schultze is accurate on this account, he then makes a false statement himself regarding the county executive's need to "work with the board."

As the gentle reader can plainly see, Schultze is true to the memo, which was written by an independent lawyer, not a Teapublican politician with an ax to grind.

So, I guess, in a way, one could say that the pro-plutocratic power grab bloc is upset with Schultze's accuracy in his article.

But not because it is misleading.  Rather, they are upset because it accurately shows that this is nothing but an unjustified and unjustifiable power grab.

Welcome to the world, Cotlon Henry!

And congratulations to the Cody Family.

The Park People Of Milwaukee County

This video was made by the incomparable Dan Cody.

Congratulations To Dan Cody

Well, belated congratulations anyway.

Dan was elected as the President of the Park People of Milwaukee County.

Dan is a good man for the job, especially with the challenges that the parks face and the harder challenges coming in the next year.

Good luck, Dan. We are behind you all the way.

Is Walker A Compulsive Liar?

Last week, when the Milwaukee County Board overwhelmingly overrode Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's veto of the Board's resolution to aggressively seek stimulus dollars, Walker brushed it off as being inconsequential:

Meanwhile, Walker said his defeat on the issue would have little practical effect. He challenged supervisors to come up with a single example where his caution on the federal aid resulted in the county losing out.

"In the end, I think you will see very little impact," Walker said. He'll have county staff review all potential opportunities and apply for funds according to the County Board policy, Walker said.

I don't know how Walker does his math, but it is obviously not in the manner that most people would consider to be rational. In a press conference, and subsequent press release, County Supervisor Theodore Lipscomb pointed out that Walker did in fact miss quite a bit. To the tune of more than $6 million dollars. Some of the places this money will be going to include improving runway safety areas at the airport, energy efficiency and conservation in all of the 600 some buildings the County owns, new sheriff squad cars, more community prosecutors, and improvements in the parks.

Lipscomb sums it up with this:

“These projects, benefiting Milwaukee County, somehow failed to make it on to the County Executive’s list. This highlights why the County Board has taken such an active interest in the pursuit of economic stimulus funds. We are worried that Milwaukee County will miss some valuable opportunities if we don’t remain vigilant, active, and vocal on this issue."

There is also this handy little chart to highlight the benefits that Lipscomb was talking about.

I find it truly outrageous that not only did Walker lie about the amount of benefits that he was willing to short change the taxpayers on, but that he did it knowing damn well that, due to his short-sighted, incompetent administration of the County, it was now, only barely a quarter into the fiscal year, already facing a $14 million dollar budget shortfall.

And despite giving his cronies excessive raises without anyone being notified and still planning on his taxpayer-funded campaign cruise around the state in June, he is asking for each department to cut spending by 3% in order to cover his butt during his run for the governor's office. Of course, I shouldn't have to mention that it was this kind of management from Walker's administration that led to the state having to come in and take over the Income Maintenance Program.

And don't even get me going on this piece of tripe he managed to get printed in last weekend's newspaper. That would be worthy of a post in itself. Something like what Dan Cody already did.

But it is not only the general population that Walker is lying to. He is also lying to his base support group.

Walker has long made a grandstand showing of his stance against stimulus dollars, or later, what he defined as "irresponsible" stimulus dollars. But at today's meeting of the County Board's Stimulus Task Force, Walker's people handed out a list of of what could best be described as his stimulus wish list.

With the help of my friend, Gretchen Schuldt, author of Milwaukee Rising and CASH, I am able to provide you with a copy of Walker's Stimulus Application Summary (pdf) (which I am sure was quickly updated by Walker's staff after Supervisor Lipscomb's press conference earlier that day). I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised by some of the things Walker wishes for. I never would have expected Walker to apply for that many green projects from boosting energy efficiency and conservation to alternative fueled vehicles or for things like the youth mentoring program.

I'm just not too sure on how Walker's willingness to go after that sort of stimulus money, or that large amount of stimulus money, is going to play with his extreme right-wing support base. I also can't find one of the listed items that meets his three criteria regarding stimulus dollars. How convenient for him that he doesn't have to follow his own rules.

I only wish that the County Board had worked up the gumption and the backbone to pin Walker's ears back long ago. It might have helped to avoid a lot of the mess that Walker has gotten us into already.

A Business Leader Who Sees What's Important

Robert Mariano is the CEO of Roundy's Supermarkets (which also include the Pick'N'Saves and the Copp's stores). He recognizes the importance of a solid mass transit program, including KRM. Dan Cody has the story.

I just wonder how long it will take squawk radio hosts and some local politicians to come to realize these facts.

Two Wise Men and Walker

A big old sinkhole closes the Locust St. Bridge this afternoon.

James Rowen, a wise man, notes its meaning, and the need for stimulus dollars to shore up the infrastructure.

Dan Cody, another wise man, also notes it.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker's take: We don't need any stimulus dollars.

Don't you just hate it when reality gets in the way of empty and irresponsible campaign rhetoric?

Doyle's Republican Moment

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting that Governor Doyle wants to lift the cost analysis of state contracts. This is not a good thing, as that it opens the door for more gouges like the one that Dan Cody had discovered regarding the CFIS website.

Not only that, but contracted work (read privatization) often is more expensive than when the work is done by public sector workers. From the MJS article:

Doyle signed the contracting law three years ago, after the Journal Sentinel identified problem-plagued contracts.

In one case, the Department of Transportation tripled its costs when it handed over the management of its road sign inventory to HNTB Corp. The department canceled that $165,000 contract in 2004 amid public criticism.

In another case, state auditors discovered officials never independently analyzed a claim by Crowe Chizek & Co. that consolidating computer servers would save $15.6 million. The state hired Crowe in 2004 but fired the company in 2007 when it found none of the savings would be realized.

I've also often pointed out that since Tommy Thompson, with the help of Alberta Darling and Scott Walker, privatized child welfare in Milwaukee County, the price has increased by tens of millions of dollars.

We also go through this every year during the County budget battles when County Executive Scott Walker wants to privatize everything in sight, regardless of how much more expensive it would be. That call center is a prime example, and look how well that turned out for us.

For some reason, I don't expect the unionophobes to be lining up to apologize for their inane comments though.

Tips of the crown to Dan Cody and to Owen Robinson (who I think totally misunderstood the article).

Minneapolis, Wisconsin

JSOnline has a fluffy piece about another bureaucratic flub, in which the state's new website for campaign finance information has the Capitol building superimposed on the skyline of Minneapolis.

But it turns out to be much, much more of an outrage. From Dan Cody:

For all the recent negative publicity that MPS has received because they SPENT $20,000 ON IPODS!! you’d think a million dollars for a web site with slightly more functionality than my weblog would raise a few eyebrows. Maybe the media couldn’t think of a catchy enough headline for that story. Who knows.

Secondly, if we’re going to be spending that kind of money on a information portal to serve the people of Wisconsin, why the heck isn’t the contract going to one of the many many qualified companies here in Wisconsin to do the work? Off the top of my head I can name at least five companies here in Milwaukee alone who could do the work faster, better and you better believe it: cheaper.

Instead, we’re paying some obscure company from Connecticut a million dollars to develop a mediocre web site that they’re apparently so dedicated to they don’t even bother to use the right stock images for something as simple as the header graphic. Hardly the kind of behavior that instills confidence in the final product or justifies the mammoth price tag, isn’t it?

Read the rest here. It is the height of being cognitive and dissedent, and explains why he has a gagillion readers, and I have 6.4.

Can I Have A Witness?

Things aren't looking to good for Scott Walker and Milwaukee County's chances to recoup any money regarding the pension scandal.

Scott Walker has dedicated county staff and money to a lawsuit against the Mercer Human Resource Consulting Inc. to try to get some money back from the pension scandal. (I should specify that this is the first pension scandal, with the large backdrops, etc. The second pension scandal, involving buybacks of time, is still on the shelf to the best of my knowledge.) The premise is that Mercer failed to adequately notify the County that the pension enhancements were going to cost a lot of money.

Even though the hearing isn't scheduled until January, there have been lots of action going on, and none of it looks good for the County.

Gretchen Schuldt, at Milwaukee Rising, has been doing a wonderful job of keeping us informed of issues surrounding the case. She has pointed out that Stuart Piltch, who was supposed to be a key witness for the County, has made some apparently untrue claims that he was secretly trained by the CIA, even though he was not supposed to tell anyone about this supposed training.

Now that it came out that the CIA has denied having anything to do with Piltch, he has suddenly succumbed to "health concerns" and has removed himself from the list of witnesses for the County.

To make things even worse, Ms. Schuldt reports that Mercer has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The rationale for the motion is based on a number of key depositions that contradict previous statements made by the witnesses. Those who are having their testimony challenged include County Board Supervisors Borkowski and DeBruin, as well as members of the Pension Study Committee.

This weekend, the County has yet another new problem. The untimely death of Gary J. Dobbert, who had been accused of being the master mind behind the whole pension debacle.

Now, I am no lawyer, nor do I play one on TV or in the blogs, but it would seem to me that if there is any discrepancies in any of the testimony that Dobbert gave during various depositions and interviews, this would open the door for Mercer's lawyers to jump all over it, and discredit the whole case.

Obviously, no one is to blame for the unfortunate passing of Dobbert. But one must wonder who thought that it would be a good idea to hire a person to be your star witness without vetting the person first.

And for my 2.3 readers, who are already aware that I am by no means a fan of Scott Walker, I am not blaming him for this. At least not directly.

He gave the order for the lawsuit to be approved, but I doubt that he is trying to micromanage the case. After all, as Mike Mathias and Dan Cody point out, he's been a real busy fellow.