The Innovative Bait And Switch

Once upon a time in a place called Milwaukee County, there was an area known as the County Grounds.  It was a magical place where one could gaze at historical structures knows as the Eschweiler Buildings.  Then one could move just a few paces and stand in wonder in front of a national treasure, The Monarch Trail, one of the few places in the world where Monarch butterflies would naturally congregate by the thousands during their annual migration.

One day, the evil county executive, Scott Walker, had broken his promise to preserve the County Grounds and sold it for a song to a group of wealthy land developers, some of whom belonged to another group inappropriately named as the Greater Milwaukee Committee.

The citizens weren't happy about this and tried to fight it.  But the wealthy developers had promised a big fancy university which would spur high-tech businesses to pop up and grow.  The developers told tales about how the region would be flooded in high paying jobs.  It would be a virtual land of milk and honey - or so the developers had promised.

But once the sale went through and the developers bamboozled the part-time, inept Wauwatosa City Council into letting them do what they wanted, things changed, and not for the better.

Where they had promised to preserve the Eschweiler Buildings, the now wanted to tear them down.

Where they had promised to preserve the delicate habitat of the Monarch Trail, they were now planning on doing construction within feet of it, all but guaranteeing that the area would be forever ruined for the Monarchs butterflies.

And where they had promised a fancy university and lots of well-paying, high tech jobs, they were now talking about building a fancy hotel that would create maybe a few dozen janitorial/housekeeping jobs.

But to build this hotel instead of some high tech business with all the promised high paying jobs, they needed permission of the County Board.

So the County Board met and granted the developers' request, but with the contingency that the hotel would pay the janitors and other employees would make no less than 125% of the poverty level, which comes out to be between $11 to $12 per hour.  Ironically, that's about the same about of money that County Board members will make if the plutocrats are able to complete their retaliation against them.

Then all heck broke loose!

Judging by the way that the even more evil County Emperor Chris Abele, his minions and the wealthy developers were acting, one might have thought that the Board had asked them to sacrifice their eldest born child.

Abele was very upset and, via his court jester, threatened to pull rank via the Plutocracy Law:

Brendan Conway, spokesman for County Executive Chris Abele, agreed, saying it sends a message that the county is negotiating in bad faith. He also questioned whether the board has the authority to amend the deal after the enactment of a state law limiting the board to a simple up or down vote on real estate deals. 

“We’ll need some legal clarity on that,” he said. “If this development goes away, it’s a significant amount of temporary construction jobs and it’s a decent amount of full-time jobs.”

Never mind that it would take two or three of those "full-time jobs" to support a family.

One of Abele's wholly owned subsidiaries, Supervisor Deanna Alexander (or maybe it was Conway again) echoed their shock and horror that the Board would expect the workers to be treated with the minimum of respect:

Even the Illinois-based developer that was going to come to Milwaukee to profiteer off of the land and the workers said that paying the workers two extra dollars made the whole deal - worth hundreds of millions of dollars - not worth it.  Apparently, he really, really, really needs those few thousands of dollars.  He needed to buy a round at the University Club to toast Abele, Julia Taylor and the other GMC members who made it all possible for him.

The thing to remember throughout this all too true tale is that the focus shouldn't be on the County Board who took the unpopular but righteous position of standing up for the workers.

The focus should be on Abele, his sockpuppets and the profiteers who are crying the blues of having to pay people at the rate of 125% the poverty level.  They aren't happy with not delivering on their promises, they are actually wanting to gouge Milwaukee workers and taxpayers even more.

I wish I could tell the gentle reader that this was a Grimm fairy tale, but sadly it is the grim reality that we face.

RIP County Grounds. Cause of Death: Greed

For years, I've been giving the warning regarding the endangerment of the county grounds and the treasures it contains, the Eschweiler Buildings and the Monarch Trail.

In a nut shell, then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker sold the county grounds for a song, breaking his promise to never let the land be developed.  Then the Wauwatosa Common Council willfully ignored the experts and their own constituents, selling them out to the wealthy land developers, by ramming through approval for them to destroy the natural habitats contained on the county ground so that they could build really important things like a school no one wanted there, a hotel, more apartments, a restaurant and a strip mall.

At the beginning of the year, we caught a horrifying glimpse of things to come when the developers hired an out of state company to come up and destroy scores of century trees which weren't even near the proposed construction site.

Earlier today, I had the "opportunity" to pop in at the county grounds.  What I saw broke my heart.  The following are some before and after photos.

It is limited because they have the grounds so befouled you can no longer enter them, much less get to the Monarch Trail or the Eschweiler Buildings.  Lord only knows what they are doing to those areas.  Based on these pictures,  I shudder to think about it.

But they do have a sign to tell you what is going on:

Of course, none of the things the developers had promised during the charades they did with the Tosa Common Council has anything to do with what's on that sign.  And nothing on that sign has to do with what they are actually doing.

And who is to blame for this crime against nature and against the public trust?  Well, as stated earlier, there is Scott Walker and the Wauwatosa Common Council.  But even they are puppets for the real criminals, who were bold enough to pose in celebration of their evil:

How many members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee can you count in that picture?  There is at least three that I could spot in a minute: Sheldon Lubar, Chris Abele and Michael Cudahy.

And with Abele newly enthroned as Milwaukee County Emperor, how do you think that other county parks and assets are going to fare?  And don't think for a minute that these plutocrats and oligarchs are going to be using union companies or paying decent wages or even minority companies.  They were very specific about giving Abele full control of those things when they handed him his tiara.

The only question I have is how long will it take before people hit the tipping point and we can start working on these problems before they get any worse?

Behold What "Innovation" Brings!

For years, I have written about the county grounds located in Wauwatosa.  It was the last area in Milwaukee County that was still pristine in its naturalness.  It was also the home of the historic Eschweiler Buildings and the unique gem of the Monarch Trail, one of the few naturally occurring gathering points for the migrating Monarch butterflies.

Even though Scott Walker promised to never allow this land to be developed, he betrayed the people of Milwaukee County when he sold the land for a song, so that some private land developers could come in and build an engineering school that no one - neither students, professors nor citizens - wanted there.

What they also wanted to do is build other things, like factories, a hotel, a restaurant and other profit making ventures which they ironically called Innovation Park.

Unsurprisingly, some of the members of this group of wealthy land developers including Walker's friends among the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the same group that now wants to take control of Milwaukee County so that they can shut down the government and make it a true plutocracy.

After Walker gave away this precious land, the battle to preserve it moved to Wauwatosa's City Hall.  The Wauwatosa Common Council heard arguments from the developers "experts," trained salesmen whose soul job was to push and pull whatever strings and make whatever promises needed to get the Council to go along with this plan.  The Council also heard from the citizens who criticized the plan, the environmentalists who pleaded for the land and others who pointed out what a bad decision this would be, including experts from UW-Milwaukee.

In the end, then Mayor Jill Didier and the false promise of wealth won the day and Wauwatosa not only gave the developers everything they wanted, they also threw away $12 million of taxpayer money in the form of a TIF to support the developers, who barely had enough money to buy the land, and that was only after many delays.

Current Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele eventually rewarded Didier for helping out his buddies with a cushy job in the county, for which she was not qualified.  Sound familiar?

For more than a year, the grounds sat while the developers pushed for more of the land and more of the taxpayers' money.

The developers sold off the Eschweiler Buildings to yet more developers on the pretense that they would restore the buildings to their former grandeur.  Instead, they came out saying that they want to raze all but one of the buildings and want the taxpayers to pay for their profit taking too.

And despite the developers' promises of all sorts of jobs being created, it has created none.  There was a moment of hope when ABB Inc. said that they wanted to build on the land and create 350 jobs.  But as it turns out, they will only be moving jobs from one of their other sites and to do this - you guessed it - they wanted a share of the taxpayers money as well.

And the battle to preserve the few acres the developers had magnanimously granted for the natural habitat is still waging.

Recently, the developers had tried to make a move to eliminate all public input from any further proceedings.  It was only because of the pressure put on by the presence of many angry citizens and the courage of one councilman, Jason Wilke, that the habitat was preserved.

Or so we hope.

It was brought to my attention that this past weekend, the work started in earnest at the county grounds.  But instead of building anything, they started by cutting down century old trees which weren't anywhere near the proposed construction site, as shown in these before and after pictures a friend sent me:

Eddee Daniel has more photos of the senseless devastation along with a very moving account as he witnessed this horror as it happened.

I cried when I saw these pictures and Daniel's article.

I cried for Izzy and her mother who had sought refuge at the grounds from the stress of her illness.

I cried for my friends Barb, Lulu and Eddee who have put so much of themselves in the effort to preserve the land.

I cried for the senseless destruction of nature and the more destruction yet to come.

Most of all, though, I cried because I knew this is what will become of the rest of the county as a result of consolidating power in the hands of one person who doesn't listen to the people but only to the same wealthy people that caused this to happen.

Shame on Milwaukee County.  Shame on Scott Walker and Chris Abele.  Shame on the Wauwatosa Common Council.

This should never have been.

I see no innovation here.  I only see the same old profiteering and exploitation that has been plaguing our county and our state for way too long.

Important Meeting In Wauwatosa

From the inbox:

RE: Limiting public involvement in the development of the County Grounds.

Issue: The City of Wauwatosa is looking to pass a Development Agreement with the UWM Real Estate Foundation. Pg 125-134 http://wauwatosa.net/archives/105/BF010813revised.pdf

Concern: This Agreement implies limiting provisions for public input on buildings, parking structures, restoration, etc. which is contrary to the Milwaukee County Resolution. We need people to come to this meeting to ensure there is a sincere commitment (via the public process) to the success of the environmental corridor by including the community throughout this development project. We are hoping to encourage the Council to amend the document to include this important provision.

When: Tuesday January 15^th, 7:30pm

Where: Wauwatosa City Hall

7725 W North Ave

Wauwatosa, 53213

Help Save The Eschweiler Buildings!

This past Friday, the Friends of the Monarch Trail hosted a Blue Moon Event on the county grounds in Wauwatosa.  The event was a smashing success:

When all the parking spaces at the Milwaukee County Parks building were full up, people started parking on the peripheries. And when they filled up, they started parking along the drive, until it was full, too.

So, you'd have to call it a capacity crowd Friday night for the Friends of the Monarch Trail's Blue Moon Party.

[...]

As the tour groups reached the Eschweilers, they learned the principal reason for Agnew's efforts in the face of all that development.

Flanking the Eschweiler Buildings on east and west are two groves, where each fall flotillas of monarchs stop to roost in clusters on the trees. It's only one of only four such annual roosting sites known in eastern Wisconsin, according to scientists at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Protecting that phenomenon of nature has become a passion and an obsession for Agnew and others who have joined her cause.

The article also mentions the Eschweiler buildings and how the Mandel Group, a private land developer, wants to raze most, if not all of the buildings and put up 192 apartments.  This would be a tragedy on many levels.  Not only would it add to the desecration of the only remaining pristine land in Milwaukee County, it would greatly endanger the Monarch Trail and the butterfly habitat.  It could also put Milwaukee County taxpayers in harm's way since the buildings have been designated as historical landmarks.

Fortunately, just as the Friends of the Monarch Trail are striving to save the butterfly's habitat, there is a movement to save the Eschweiler Buildings.  They are part of the County Grounds Coalition and have set up a website as well as a Facebook page to inform people of the peril of the buildings and the importance of saving them.

They have also started an online petition to show support for the preservation of these historic and priceless buildings. and are encouraging people to attend the next meeting of the Wauwatosa Common Council at which they are expected to discuss and vote on the future of the buildings and the Monarch habitat.  Please show your support and tell the Wauwatosa Common Council that there are things more important than pandering to wealthy land developers.

Blue Moon Event at the Monarch Trail

My dear friends Barb and Lulu at Friends of the Monarch Trail have sent me a special invitation which I in turn want to share with you, gentle reader:

The county grounds is a beautiful area and the only place that you can see the sunset and the moon rise at the same time.  It might also be the last time we can do this since they are poised to ruin the land, despite their false promises to preserve the trail and the Eschweiler Buildings.

I'll be there. Please join us.

Was Walker Land Deal Illegal?

Originally posted at Milwaukee County First:

The Monarch Trail has been used as an
educational tool for children in
 Milwaukee County for years.

A few weeks ago, Milwaukee County First alerted the public to the sad waste that could be in store for two of Milwaukee County's finest and most understated treasures, the Monarch Trail and the Eschweiler Buildings which rest on the county grounds.

Despite his promises to preserve the land and turn it into a state park, then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker manipulated events in order to sell this priceless land for a song to wealthy land developers in a no-bid contract.

It was only after the sale had been ramrodded through the Milwaukee County Board and the Wauwatosa Common Council did the true peril for these wonderful sites became known:

Oh, the powers that be, from Walker to the Board to the Common Council to the developers themselves, promised that the Monarch Trail would be preserved and that the Eschweiler Buildings would be restored and converted into apartments.

But those also proved to be lies.

The developers have already encroached upon the Monarch Trail, invading space that is supposed to be protected areas. There have been reports of large swatches of milkweed plants being mowed down.

Adding to these atrocities is the design of the “Innovation Park,” as they call it, is that the design of the layout of buildings and parking lots will drive all the natural wildlife out of the area into the neighborhoods and roads surrounding the area. There will be literally hundreds of animals killed by the loss of their habitat.

And even if the Monarch Trail remains untouched, which seems unlikely, the stopping point of the butterflies might be lost due to the disturbances and the change of the landscape which is what draws the butterflies there in the first place.

It has also recently been reported that, due to the years of neglect, the promise of preserving the Eschweiler Buildings probably will not be kept. The land developers turned around and immediately tried to sell the buildings to another private firm which would convert the buildings. This firm is now claiming that it’s too expensive to save all the buildings...

It turns out that their plan for the Eschweiler Buildings and the Monarch Trail is much worse than previously disclosed.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported that Mandel Group, Inc., the second developer which is looking at buying the buildings and the eight acres they rest on, said that they don't want to forsake a building or two.  They want to tear down all but one of the buildings and build 192 higher-end (read higher profit) apartments.  Their rationale is that it would be too expensive to rehab the buildings and cheaper to build new ones.

Will history be history?

To add insult to injury, the Mandel Group wants the City of Wauwatosa taxpayers to pony up another $2 million to $2.5 million to fund their razing of the buildings.  This is on top of a $12 million TIF that the city approved two years ago to put in sewers and other infrastructure to support the engineering school they are purportedly building.

As a side note, the developers said that the school had to be built on the county grounds so that it could be close to the Medical College and other facilities.  Ironically, there was enough acreage immediately next to the Medical College that they could have used which was already set with infrastructure and would have not cost anything extra to the taxpayers.  This causes wonder if the school was ever the original intent of this scheme.

It won't be just the buildings that are lost either.  The buildings sit just a few yards to the west of the great sycamore tree which is the heart of the Monarch Trail.  There is no way that they will be able to raze these buildings and build 192 apartments without doing irreparable harm to this rare roosting spot of the the migrating Monarch butterflies.

The damage to the Monarch Trail will only be compounded by the fact that the profiteering developers want to build a road running  immediately to the east of this habitat.  The wildlife that lives on this previously pristine land will literally be caught between this construction and will surely perish.  Likewise, the particular landscape and environment which has attracted the Monarchs for all these years will be forever lost.

Talk about paving over paradise to build a parking lot.

But now there is a most peculiar Walkeresque twist to the story.  It turns out that the original sale of the grounds, including the Eschweiler Buildings and the Monarch Trail, might have been illegally done.  However, not for it being a no-bid sale.

When Walker rammed through the sale, Walker had already abolished the economic development division.  Because there was no one, much less anyone qualified, to oversee the sale of the land, and things were done improperly, including notifying the Historical Society or imposing a conservation easement to protect the property.  Because of this, the deal should be immediately stopped and could possibly be negated altogether:

"I don't think it has any bearing on what we do," City Attorney Alan Kesner said. "There is nothing formal in front of us right now. (Mandel) has made an informational presentation so far. There is no action that we are prepared to take at this time."

Mandel did, however, announce in Thursday's session that he would need to raze the four of buildings if he were to proceed with his plans for residential redevelopment of the tract as apartments, including 192 new-built units surrounding the remaining Eschweiler building.

He did not just suggest but asserted that he would have to withdraw from the project if he were forced to retain all the buildings and restore them to historic preservation standards, at a cost he estimated at $11 million.

That would throw the buildings and the land immediately surrounding them back to the Real Estate Foundation and force it to put out another request for proposals to redevelop the historic district.

And, if the state Historical Society should insist and prevail, it could mean that RFP would have to go out with a strict proviso that all the buildings must be preserved.

The Administration Building, the only one
developers would save.

Unsurprisingly, the profiteering developers that Walker sold the county grounds too would not respond to the reporter's attempts at contacting them.

If the sale of the land is negated, it could mean that the county would have to reimburse the developers for $15 million, something which they could not afford, considering the massive debt that Walker left the county in, not to mention how he has slashed shared revenue and limited the county's ability to raise revenue.

In summary, we see what is a continued pattern wherever Walker is in charge of something.  He arbitrarily decides that he wants something done, usually to the benefit of wealthy friends and campaign contributors, regardless of public opinion or whether it is in the public's best interest.  He then manipulates the situation - even if it means either ignoring the law or changing it - to meet his desired outcome.  Then, as it inevitably must because of the questionable legality of his moves, the deal blows up.  And it is the taxpayers and the citizens that are left holding the bag and having to clean up the mess, usually at great expense.

The Symbol Of Scott Walker's Legacy

Long time readers of Cognitive Dissidence know that one of the greatest atrocities committed by Scott Walker as Milwaukee County Executive was when he reneged on his promise to preserve the county grounds and sold them for a song to wealthy land developers, some of whom just happened to be supporters of his.

Despite repeated cries of outrage and warning, the County Board and the City of Wauwatosa blindly allowed this to happen.

As we had feared, the worst is coming true.

The Monarch Trail is being threatened by developers and may not survive as one of the rare roosting spots for the migrating Monarch butterflies.

Adding to the travesty is that now the historic Eschweiler Buildings are in danger of being razed, because Walker's years of neglect has made them too costly to restore.

There is no better symbol of the type of "leader" Walker is than the sad tale of the county grounds.

On Valentine's Day, Walker Promises To Give Away Wisconsin In Sweetheart Deals

In Milwaukee County, there is was a piece of land known locally simply as the "county grounds."  It was an unique section of the county, as it was the last undeveloped and ungroomed piece of land where nature ruled.  It was also unique for the historic Eschweiller Buildings.  But the most amazing factor to this ground was the Monarch Trail, one of the rare areas where migrating Monarch butterflies found a completely natural stopping point in their annual migration.

Some days, I think the thing that Scott Walker likes best about being in a position of authority is how he can use the public's money and property to forward his political career, or as in recent days, desperately cling to the position he currently has.

When Walker took office as Milwaukee County Executive, he promised that he would continue the long standing tradition to let no development happen on the grounds and that the only thing he might do is have it made into a state park.

That promise didn't last long and in a few short years, he was working on back door deals to get the land sold to a group of wealthy land developers that had been, shall we say, very supportive of him.   Not only did he renege on his promise not to let the land be developed, but he sold the land at a fraction of its worth, threw in the building that the Parks Department is housed in (with an agreement to keep the department there and pay rent and a specialized bus line.  As I wrote at the time, he gave them everything but a vac with the deal:

So, let me get this straight. We are selling the county grounds at an absurdly low price, in a no bid deal, only to turn around and pay them rent for a building that we had owned and paid a lot of money to fix up. Then we are going to take some of the money from the sale, and more money that we got from the feds, and using it to buy them a special bus route? 

That would be the equivalent of you fixing up your house and then selling it at about a third of its value. Then you take the proceeds from the sale and rent the house from the people you just sold it to. You also take some of the money (if there's any left after paying the rent on the house you just owned until recently) and a large inheritance from your Uncle Sam, and buy them a chauffeured limo. Meanwhile, you have a patch of land (like the Park East corridor) that is only good for building an engineering campus on, but you won't even try to sell that.

The Friends of the Monarch Trail are still fighting to protect the natural domain for the butterflies, made all the harder because "the authorities" refused to include legal language to protect the trail.

That pattern of giving away sweetheart deals to political supporters is riddled throughout his lifelong political career.

The most recent is the Penokee iron mine that Walker is trying to get rammed through the legislature.  To get this done, Walker is willing to offend Native American tribes, federal laws honoring tribal sovereignty, ruin the environment and pollute the pristine waters of northern Wisconsin.  The bill is so foul and evil that no one will even admit ownership of it (also because it was written by the mining company that wants to rape the land).

On Tuesday, February 14, St. Valentine's Day, Walker is going to take all of the worst of these behaviors to announce his latest gimmick to give away sweetheart land deals to his donors to promote job growth in Wisconsin.

It's a stunt that his handlers are calling "Ready, Set, Build." ( 6 page pdf on scribd format)

In a secret email sent from Walker staffer Andrew Davis, they laid out the talking points for this (Note - The email was altered to present it in a less jumbled format.  All spelling and grammatical errors are his):

From: "Davis, Andrew - GOV"
Date: February 13, 2012 6:09:39 PM CST
To: "Davis, Andrew - GOV"
Subject: Ready, Set, Build!

Tomorrow afternoon the Governor will be publicly announcing his “Ready, Set, Build!”  Please contact me directly if there are any questions or concerns.  Please embargo any press releases or supportive statements until 2pm tomorrow.

Ready, Set, Build!

Program Highlights:

• Up to 10 different site locations (minimum site size=50 acres) throughout Wisconsin will be identified annually for each of the 3 subsequent years as shovel-ready for economic development
  a) Includes comprehensive information on available sites, buildings, and demographic data
• These identified sites will be reviewed and approved for pre-certification by the certifying agency (if site meets criteria)
• Once a site is identified and pre-certified, the site location will be certified-ready for job creators looking to build or relocate in Wisconsin

Key Messages:

This action is another example of how Governor Walker’s Administration and the WEDC, through its Economic and Community Development Division, is pro-actively providing the economic development tools Wisconsin needs to accelerate business start-ups and growth.

•  One of the keys in encouraging existing Wisconsin businesses to choose Wisconsin as the site for significant expansion, or in attracting new businesses to locate in Wisconsin, is the ready availability of developable properties that have also been pre-certified by regulators.
• The “Ready, Set, Build!” program will make it easier for entrepreneurs to start a business and for existing businesses to expand by allowing job creators in Wisconsin and around the world to find the perfect pre-certified site location for expansion knowing they can begin building immediately.
• No time wasted.  No money lost.  It is a win for our economy, a win for our families and a win for our environment.
• Certified site selection, “Ready, Set, Build!”, (to be implemented in spring) will eliminate critical stumbling blocks for industries – particularly manufacturers – that are looking to expand or locate in Wisconsin.
• o The site certification program will eliminate many of the delays associated with environmental and other state and local permitting processes.

Andrew Davis | Office of Governor Scott Walker
Director of External Communications
(o) 608-267.3839 | (e) andrew.davis@wisconsin.gov

What this really means is that the state will take up prime real estate, and Walker will use his concentrated administrative authorities given to him in his power grab last year to override any environmental, fiscal or other considerations that have been used to protect Wisconsin and its citizens for decades.

I bet one of the first areas that will be targeted will be Janesville, where you have job-starved people that would be willing to take unsafe, low-paying jobs they wouldn't normally if they weren't in such dire straits and has easy access to railroad service by Watco Transportation Services, the company that caters to the Koch Brothers and wants to buy out Southern & Wisconsin Railroad, the company that was headed by Walkergate figure and convict William E. Gardner.

And don't let them kid you, just like with the mines, Walker doesn't give two hoots about creating jobs for Wisconsinites.  He is only interested in appeasing the big moneyed special interests that would benefit from his sweetheart gifts.  While most Wisconsinites will be less than thrilled to hear about this plan of Walker's, I bet that the commercial realtors are really going to love this plan.

Izzy And The County Grounds Revisited

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to join a large group of people to enjoy the county grounds and the Monarch Trail for what could be its last year.  It really was a tale of two county grounds, as I wrote about over at Milwaukee County First.

But here's a little history.  I first got involved with the fight to save the grounds a couple years ago.  Along with my dear, dear friends Barb and Lulu, one of the people that helped bring me into the fray was Izzy.  Izzy and her mom often visit the grounds and the trail to help deal with the stress of Izzy's health concerns.

Here's a picture of Izzy and her mom a couple of years ago by the Sycamore, the big old tree that draws the Monarchs during their migration:

And a picture of Izzy at the same tree yesterday:

The comical shot of the day:

Um, what road?

And my three favorite shots I got from the event:

The elected officials at both the county and in Wauwatosa should maybe take a look around the state and see how people are reacting to the elected officials who raise their taxes to benefit the rich and ignore the will of the people. Then they should update their resumes. I hear Dunkin Donuts is hiring.

Again, more pictures and details of the event at Milwaukee County First.

Events At The Monarch Trail

The fall migration of the Monarchs is rapidly coming.  In light of that, there will be a number of events at the county grounds.

Details are at MCF.

You should go. It may be the last chance we get.

Lady Of The Monarchs Now A Cover Girl

My dear friend, Barb Agnew, head of the Monarch Trail and wise in all things buggy, has made it to the big time.

She is this month's cover girl for the magazine Country Woman, and there is a nice article about her work to preserve what she could of the Monarch Trail in the face of ruthless land developers.

I am proud to know so many heroes and it does my heart good to see them get the recognition they deserve.

Congratulations to Barb!

Save A Butterfly: Let The Bad Deal Die

It looks like the land developers that want to ruin the county grounds are unable to meet their obligations.

It's time to let that deal die an indignant death and move on to a much more responsible and fiscally sane plan for the grounds.

Teasel Pull At The County Grounds

The good folks at Johnson Nursery have kindly offered their expertise in taking care of some invasive teasel which is encroaching at the Monarch Trail on the County Grounds and will be hosting a teasel pull on Wednesday, November 17 (rain date on the next day). Here is a flier announcing their event:


For further information, I would refer the gentle reader to Urban Wilderness.