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.

The Faces Of AB 85

As our young friend atop the soapbox shared his take on the event, today was the Assembly public hearing for AB 85, the bill that is aimed to destroy Milwaukee County Government.


Despite an overwhelming amount of statements from people from all over the state - many of them Republicans - the Republicans in the legislature are apt to continue their wont of listening to the money being handed to them by the fistfuls rather than the people.

The anti-Plutocracy Power Grab people listed a laundry list of reasons why this was a bad idea ranging from the fact that it's simply not needed to the fact that any reform should be done locally to the fact that they tried something like it in Fond du Lac County and it failed miserably to the destruction of representative government. The list is rather lengthy.

However, the people speaking for it generally broke down into three groups:

• Anti-government kooks,
• The people that wrote the bill (Greater Milwaukee Committee), and,
• The people paid by the people who wrote the bill.

I won't bother with the first group.  We've heard them all before.  We could hear them again at the next week's Tea Party Tax Day Rally - oops, wait, no we won't because there won't be one.  Now it's just a loosely wound group of loosely wound people.

Then there is the plutocrats of the GMC crowd.

Of course, Chris Abele was there because he's already created so many jobs - never mind that that unemployment rate in Milwaukee County is 8.4% and climbing. He's also already resolved the long term funding issue for the transit and parks systems, found appropriate and safe places for all the people he's kicking out of the mental health complex.

Anyway, Abele's sole argument for wanting to be given complete control of the county is simply because he didn't get his way when he wanted to bust the unions even more.

Side note: What really burns my beans is that many of the people who is supporting Abele in his hostile takeover were screaming when Walker tried it. Bloody hypocrites.

Another GMC member who was there to testify was it's Grand Poobah, Julia the worst thing in the world that Lee Holloway fired Tim Russell.  Yes, that Tim Russell.
Taylor. Yes, the Julia Taylor who thought it was

Tayler's rationale for wanting the County Board incapacitated was the same as Abele's - they didn't do what GMC told them to do.

And sitting right next to Taylor in the Rogues' Gallery - because they didn't want to mingle with the commoners, was right wing stud muffin, Orville Seymer. Seymer is one of the two people that make up the totally inappropriately named group, Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG).

Seymer, and his cohort in crime, Chris Kleisment, are neither exactly upstanding citizens nor very responsible themselves.  Where they think they have a right to preach to anyone about anything is unfathomable.

Seymer's reasoning for supporting the power grab was, well, watch it for yourself and see if you can figure it out, because I sure as hell can't:



(Video courtesy of Rebecca Kemble of The Progressive)

I've watched it several times and I still don't know what he was trying to say.  One would think that with all their money, GMC could have hired a better script writer who didn't use so many big words that made Seymer stumble so much.

In short, if this bill is passed, it's only because Abele, Taylor and the other plutocrats were able to buy the votes and not because of its nonexistent merits.  And it's surely not based on the merits of the people pushing it, for those are just as nonexistent.

Julia Taylor: Shut Up And Give Us Your Money

In Sunday's edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (motto: All the corporate propaganda fit to print) is an editorial by Julia Taylor of the Greater Milwaukee Committee in which she argues that the best way to create jobs is more corporate welfare.

But this time, so the argument goes, is just give the money to start up companies that are on the "cutting edge."  Sort of like the companies that they claim will want to come to the decimated county grounds, which is being "developed" by fellow GMC members.

To remind the gentle reader who Taylor is, she is also one of the people pushing the hardest to remove representative government from Milwaukee County and put all the power in the hands of fellow GMC member Chris Abele.

In other words, Julia Taylor is telling the taxpayers, especially those in Milwaukee, to shut up and hand over their money, because, y'know, they know so much more than the average citizen.

Is it any wonder that Taylor was an outspoken supporter of Tim Russell?

Yes, that Tim Russell.

The arrogance and elitism is simply breathtaking.

Who's Behind The Milwaukee County Power Grab

Last week, I reported about the move by the Greater Milwaukee Committee (GMC) who had their pet county executive, Chris Abele, team up with State Representative Joe Sanfelippo (R-Teabagistan) to push a legislative bill that GMC had crafted that would all but eliminate the County Board.

Joe Sanfelippo

At the time, I pointed out how GMC would contract the Public Policy Forum to do a "report" on very specific questions, such as "what's the best way to break up Milwaukee County" instead of simply asking if it would be a good idea to break up Milwaukee County.

In a way, it's not very different from when MacIver Institute or WPRI come up with a "study" that just so happens to match one of Scott Walker's recent talking points.

I also told you how Sanfelippo's great claim to fame was sitting on the county board which he now wants to destroy, voting to raise to the rates the county paid his cab company instead of representing his constituents.

Sanfelippo's other claim to fame is supporting Tom Nardelli, a name that would be familiar to those following Walkergate.

When Sanfelippo had a press conference last Friday, he announced that he was dropping the bigger cost portion of his referendum, showing that this whole thing has nothing to do with saving money for the taxpayers, but rather was a blatant power grab.

Julia Taylor

Joining Sanfelippo at his press conference was Julia Taylor, president of the GMC, who said that one of the reasons the GMC had crafted this bill and was pushing for its passage was that the Milwaukee County Board didn't go along with the further cuts that Abele wanted to impose on county workers. Considering that there are already county workers eligible for income maintenance benefits like food stamps, there is no rationale reason for wanting further cuts.

But then again, Taylor is the person who went and testified for a comptroller (read Emergency Fiscal Manager - like the kind they had in Michigan). During her testimony, at about the one hour twenty minute mark, Taylor criticized former Chairman of the Board Lee Holloway for firing Tim Russell. Yes, the same Tim Russell who just pled guilty for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars and was intricate in Scott Walker's illegal campaigning out of the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

Man, these plutocrats and teahadists love their corrupt lackeys, don't they?

And speaking of corruption, I should point out that the dissolution of the Milwaukee County government is nothing new. Abele didn't start it; he's simply one of the tools being used to help end it.

If you want to know where it started from, I would suggest looking to ALEC, or at least one of their best sockpuppets:



Again, the goal is not to save the taxpayers money and it's definitely not to make the county government more representative. It's to allow the plutocrats and oligarchs easier access to the county's access, much like Walker and his cohorts are doing on the state level.