It's Time To Really Reform Milwaukee County Government

For decades, Milwaukee County government has been in disarray.

The mess started over 50 years ago when the state introduced the idea of elected county executives.  When the first Milwaukee County Executive was first sworn in 1960, it's been downhill since then, due to a series of mismanagement blunders, unethical actions and scandals, and an ongoing power struggle between the county executive and county board.

In recent history, one of the most glaring examples was then county executive Tom Ament and his pension scandal, in which he and his cronies devised a scheme that would pad their pensions by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The people took the only recourse open to them and started a recall against Ament, which led to his resignation.

Unfortunately, Ament's scandal opened the door to Scott Walker becoming county executive.  This led to a whole slew of unimaginable horrors. Walker willfully failed to maintain county facilities, leading to the death of a teenage boy.  He neglected our most vulnerable citizens, allowing them to be physically beaten, raped and sometimes die from the poor care stemming from insufficient staffing levels.  There was also that thing called Walkergate, where Walker was using the Milwaukee County Courthouse as his campaign headquarters.

After Chris Abele was elected to be county executive, he decided to "fix" the Milwaukee County government.  And by fix, he meant that he was going to hamstring the county board and consolidate all of the usurped power into his hands.

But Abele has proven to be a failure as well.  Since becoming Emperor, he has completely abandoned the mentally ill, neglected maintenance and repairs to the point that there was a $17 million fire in the courthouse, used his staff as political hit men, attacked our representative government and has treated the unions so poorly that he makes Walker look like an unionista.

Abele's most recent stunt was to try to rob county retirees, taking back years of pension payments and cutting future ones.  Hey, grandma doesn't need her house anymore anyway, right?  (Look for more on this next Friday, when the retirees get to finally speak their piece at a meeting of a county board committee. Abele refused to meet with them and has gone out of his way to avoid them.)

As I have repeatedly pointed out, if we are serious about fixing - really fixing - Milwaukee County government, we need to eliminate the county executive's position.

The problem with that is that when the state introduced the county executive position fifty plus years ago, the powers that be at the time made it mandatory for Milwaukee County.  Only Milwaukee County has to have one. The other 71 counties can have a county executive, a  type of county administrator or just have a county board, depending on what the people of that county want.

In other words, it would require a change in state statutes for Milwaukee County to have the same self-determination of what their county government should look like.

Fortunately, there are many people who agree with me.

There is a resolution in the works that might be introduced as soon as this week, which will call for a referendum calling on the state to change the statutes so that Milwaukee County could have the same rights as the other counties and have real government reform as opposed to Abele's plutocratic power grab.  A draft of the  resolution reads:

"Should Wisconsin Statutes be amended to allow Milwaukee County to transition its management and administrative functions from an elected County Executive to a professional County Administrator?"

This is an idea long in coming and cannot get here soon enough.

There is a lot of positives if Milwaukee County were to move to a county administrator model of government.  It would eliminate so much time, energy and money being wasted on power struggles.  And if the administrator turns out to be as incompetent and/or corrupt as Walker and Abele, there can be immediate action taken, as was done a couple of years ago in Door County, when there was an ethics probe done on their county administrator.

Many of our neighboring counties use the county administrator position, including Dodge County and Washington County, who recently transitioned to this style of government.  If a county administrator style of government can work in those counties, it can work anywhere.

A couple of months ago, Milwaukee Magazine ran an article written by Larry Sandler, which gave a very good history of the struggles Milwaukee County has gone through since a county executive was forced upon us.  In Sandler's article, he touched on the subject of eliminating the county executive position:

Eliminating the executive: During his 2002 campaign, Walker won Assembly approval of a bill to let the county abolish the executive office, but it died in the Senate. When Lee Holloway, then the County Board chairman, brought up the idea again seven years later, Walker belittled it and the board shelved it.

However, Ozaukee County Administrator Tom Meaux says, “I question the need for a county executive in any county.” Meaux, a former Milwaukee County supervisor and treasurer, was appointed by the Ozaukee County Board, a structure used in most Wisconsin counties. Since most county duties are set by the state, Meaux says the legislative branch and the administration “need to be aligned,” and that’s often not possible if the chief executive is separately elected.

And in a recent panel hosted by Marquette University and moderated by Mike Gousha, even Abele said he would not stand in the way of this happening (although he did not sound all too sincere about it). (The comments about this come near the end of the discussion, at about the 4:30:00 mark.)

I would imagine that this idea would receive a lot of support from both sides of the political spectrum.  The right will like it because it will actually save money instead of the Walker/Abele pretending of being fiscally conservative.  The left will like it because it will minimize the problems that have been plaguing Milwaukee County for decades and allow services to actually be provided to those who need them.

Can you even imagine it?

Instead of the Walker/Abele type of reform - which ends up being nothing more than driving us more into a corporate run government - we could end up with real reform for a truly more efficient government that actually provides the services it is supposed to provide.

Now who could argue with that?

Abele Vetoes Reforming Milwaukee County Government

Over the past few months, the Milwaukee County Board has been listening to the citizens in a series of townhall meetings aimed at hearing what reforms, if any, the people wanted to see in county government.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris "Little Walker" Abele held no such meetings.  Instead, he went on squawk radio to tell people what they should want.

Despite derisive statements that the Board would never follow through with it, the Board proved them all liars - again - and crafted the reform measures the majority of the people wanted.

Starting to show their desperation, Abele and his minions stated that they would never pass it.  Abele also tried to throw up a distraction by leaking propaganda to his ghost writer that the Board was negotiating with the unions (even though that would be perfectly legal and appropriate to do.)

But don't you mind one minute that his fingerprints were all over the alleged contracts.

Despite these stunts and shenanigans, the Board stayed their course and passed the referendum with a veto-proof majority.  Furthermore, they forced Abele's hands by giving him the minimum amount of time to sign or veto the bill.

As I pointed out at the time, Abele's actions would be telling:

If Abele is really all about reforming the government, he will need to sign this resolution.  It gives him the pay and staffing cuts.  It gives him more power.  And it's much more comprehensive than the GMC bill. 

If Abele vetoes it or just doesn't sign it, it shows that he wasn't interested in reform and that this was nothing but a power grab all along so that he and his plutocratic pals at GMC can divvy up the county's assets for themselves.

Unsurprisingly, Abele chose to veto it.  Just as unsurprisingly, he gave some mealy-mouthed lame excuses for his veto.

Abele offered three specific complaints on the reform package:

1. It required Board members to get training.
2. It moved economic development to the auspices of the county comptroller.
3. It didn't save enough money.

All three of these are crocks of [redacted].  

Abele said it was illegal to require elected officials to take training.  If his is even true, Abele has the power of line item vetoes, so he could've simply removed that clause himself.  The fact that he didn't do so, but rather vetoed the entire resolution shows that he wasn't serious about this.

Abele also complained that moving the economic development department to the comptroller could cost the county $34 million.  The truth is more likely that he wants to hold onto that power so he can sell valuable county assets, like some of the parks, to his plutocratic pals for a song.  That way they could maximize their profit taking by developing the land.  They probably already have designs drawn up for high rise apartments at Lake Park and South Shore.

And as with the training complaint, Abele could have simply done a line item veto.  And just like the training issue, the fact that Abele didn't shows he's not really serious either.

The complaint about the money is laughable on its face.  Abele's bill, which is running through the state legislature, wouldn't save money either.  It would shift that money for Abele to hire more people at exorbitant salaries, just like he's done with his current cast of cronies.

The truth of the matter is Abele vetoed this resolution for only two reasons:

• It didn't shift enough power to him so that he could sell off county assets and finish busting the unions by privatizing all that he can, regardless of the cost to the taxpayers.
• It also called for an audit of the county executive's office.  We already know that he's getting very defensive and trying to make it impossible for the public to know what is exactly going on in his office.  Who knows how many unethical and possibly illegal things are going on there?

While the fact that Abele rejected something that would actually reform Milwaukee County government is not surprising, what is shocking is the level of hypocrisy that he took in his statement:

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele on Thursday vetoed the reform plan approved by the County Board a week ago, calling parts of it illegal and other parts "impractical, unclear and misleading to the voters.

"Precisely because reforming the county governance structure is so important, it deserves a process that reflects its importance to our community," Abele said in his veto message.

"Exactly how seriously can anybody take this as reform?" Abele said in an interview. "What level of legal transgression do they think is acceptable?"

This is coming from a guy who had started working on the bill in exclusive meetings with Julia Taylor and the other plutocrats at the Greater Milwaukee Committee.  That's not exactly a reflection of what is important to our community.

Abele also misses the mark on trying to be moral on anything when he is the one manipulating things in the background, pushing the line on ethical and legal grounds.  

Furthermore, buying legislatures to ramrod this bill through without even holding one hearing in Milwaukee or consulting with any local officials (excluding the times that he and his staff went to lobby for the bill on the taxpayers' dime) is neither ethical or reflective of what the people want.

Which brings us to the real problem with Abele and his overreaching power grab. He forgets that Julia Taylor or anyone else at GMC is not his boss.  The people are.

And we won't be any better off until this bill and/or Abele are gone and long forgotten.

We're Reforming What Now Why?

In 2002, it was learned that then Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament and his staff crafted a plan that would greatly enrich their own pensions, which would cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.   As a result, Ament was forced out of office and on of his aides, Gary Dobbert, was convicted and sentenced to jail.

Ament was succeeded by Scott Walker as Milwaukee County Executive.  It was

learned that during his tenure in that office, Walker was running a caucus-styled operation out of the the county executive's suite.

This scandal launched a three year John Doe investigation, commonly referred to as Walkergate.  Stemming from Walkergate were a number of arrests and convictions.

Walker's Director of Constituent Affairs, Darlene Wink, was convicted of illegal politicking during work hours and using county equipment.

One of Walker's Deputy Chief of Staffs, Kelly Rindfleisch, was also found guilty of illegal politicking from the county executive's office.

Tim Russell, a long time special friend of Walker's who served in numerous positions in Walker's administration, was found guilty of stealing from a veterans fund which wasn't even supposed to be under the control of Walker's office.  It was noted that Russell had also committed numerous crimes of illegal politicking, ranging from installing a secret router to directing Wink's fundraising work to doing campaign work during work hours and using county property.

Walker himself, although never charged, was found to be intrinsically involved with the caucus-styled operations, as evidenced by numerous emails.

After Walker left Milwaukee to corrupt the entire state government, Chris Abele was elected into office.  In the two short years of Abele's reign, there already have been questionable activities.

One such scandal was Abele using his Director of Administration, Patrick Farley, to try to frame then County Supervisor Johnny Thomas.  Abele has also tried to use taxpayer money to illegally reward his cronies.

Sadly, despite over a decade of corruption and fraud coming out of the county executives' office, the plutocrats and oligarchs have been able to convince too many people that the County Board of Supervisors is to blame for all our problems.

No real reform will happen unless we start by cleaning up the county executive's office.

I wonder who they are going to blame when things keep getting worse.

Scott Walker's Five Priorities

As I wrote about once already, Scott Walker sat down for an interview with the editorial board and some of the few remaining reporters at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the largest outlet for corporate media in the state.

Something I hadn't mentioned in that article is that Walker was giving us his "five priorities" for the upcoming budget.  At least the official version of what his top five priorities are, if not necessarily the real ones:

• Job creation
• Workforce Development
• Education reform
• Government reform
• Infrastructure improvement

The biggest problem is it became increasingly and painfully obvious that he doesn't even know what any of those words and phrases mean.  

Job Creation

Walker hard at work on his
next budget.

Even from the first time he was campaigning to be governor, Walker has been talking out of both sides of his mouth regarding job creation.  On one side, he promised to created 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term.  On the other side of his mouth, he was saying government doesn't create jobs, it destroys him.

Judging from his record on job creation, it appears that the latter stance was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Even if you want to use the overly generous total of jobs created that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came up with, he barely created 1,000 jobs a month.  The more realistic numbers would the number closer to zero, if not below it.  His record is even worse when compared to the rest of the nation or to his predecessor, Governor Jim Doyle.

It is no accident or fluke that Forbes said that Wisconsin is the state with the second worst outlook for job growth for years to come.  

Long time readers will know that Walker's history of failing to create jobs stems from his days as Milwaukee County Executive, when his job creation record was so poor that the state had to take away the Private Industry Council, which was designed to do nothing but help create jobs and get people into them.

Workforce Development

This is another one of Walker's greater hypocrisies.  First he cuts hundreds of millions of dollars from the state's technical schools, and then he complains that there aren't enough workers who are properly trained or educated.  

The issue with this is that while Walker should make sure the resources are there to retrain all of the people he caused to lose jobs, he wants to do it at the expense of other career options.

While there is a need for welders, nurses and tech jobs, not everyone wants to be one of those, much less are cut out to do those jobs.  It takes some brass to tell people what careers they have to choose.  Furthermore, our universities, colleges and tech schools should not become the private training programs for the corporate special interests.  Walker has already given them enough corporate welfare.  His focus should be on the people.

Education Reform

This was another one of his previous priorities.  We saw how well that worked out.  

Walker slashed education funding by nearly a billion dollars and thousands of teachers were laid off, educational programs were cut and schools were closed.  

He's already said at his private "Talk with Walker" sessions that he is planning on expanding the privatization and profiteering of schools, even though repeated studies have shown them to be no better and often worse than public schools.

I gotta side with Ed Heinzelman that there should be a moratorium on this exploitation of our children, until they are brought up to the same standards that the public schools are at.

Government Reform

Yet again, we've heard this from Walker before as well.

Walker's idea of government form thus far is to get rid of civil service positions, with all of those pesky demands for qualified and responsible personnel and replace them with political appointees, whether they are qualified or not, and then to give them big raises.  And he sure has a lot of campaign contributors and cronies that need to be taken care of.

By putting these lackeys into key positions has made it easier for Walker to make sure the corporate special interests are will taken care of.  After all, what good is it to buy a government if they don't cater to your every whim, am I right?

And what could possibly go wrong by getting corporate special interests involved with the government?  It's not like they lose track of $12 million worth of loans to companies, some of who have gone kaput by the time Walker's people figured out they even had a problem.

Yeah, I can't wait to see how much more of our government he sells to the corporate interests.

Infrastructure Improvement

This area really leaves Walker baffled.  It's also the area that one might give him at least partial credit.

During the interview, he actually said that things like the mine that they want to dig up up north was part of the state's infrastructure.  No, really. He really did.

The part of this that is true is that Walker will surely be having massive concrete highways crisscrossing the state.  However, the reason for this is not because he wants to improve the state's infrastructure.  It is solely because he owes the road builders so much for all of the donations they've made to him.

Sadly, in order to get more money to give to his corporate masters, Walker is cutting things like transit systems which tens of thousand of people require to go to work and to the market.  Let's see how this will pull his job creation numbers even lower.

Keep in mind that these are Walker's public and "official" top priorities.  If past practice is any indication, his real agenda probably includes these things:

• Right To Woe legislation
• Raiding the pension system
• Further restriction of women's rights
• Further restrictions of voters' rights
• Running for 2014 and 2016
• Raising money for his legal defense fund through strong arming and pay for play tactics.

Or in other words, his first budget was bad for Wisconsin.  His second budget will be the same, only worse.