About ten days ago, there was a "
Scott Walker Appreciation" rally in Wauwatosa's Hart Park. The event was attended by
thousands hundreds dozens of people. As near as I can tell, the number of people that were there were pretty evenly divided by politicians, event organizers, police,
moles and actual attendees.
Perhaps their attendance would have been higher if they picked
the right day. But even if you give the event organizers the benefit of the doubt and agree that they had "thousands" of people there, it's still a pale comparison to any given anti-Walker rally. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they had as high or even higher turnout at the recall signing petition they had in that same neighborhood weeks before.
At the time, I did a satirical piece saying the recall organizers
broke the law by defacing a recall sign (it was just an example of the right wing's lack of originality).
As it turns out, the rally might have been illegal after all.
The City of Wauwatosa has a pretty messed up and
convoluted policy towards political events in Hart Park. Organizers can have a political event in one part of the park, but not in other parts, unless they get special permission to do so.
In the case of this rally, it was both in the legal part of the park as well as the illegal part. But they did have that special permission to go into that other part. However, in the article, the city attorney said that he wasn't consulted on this, but would have advised the authorities to deny the special permission. Another city official described the granting of the special permission as a mistake.
See? Like I said, it's a mess.
So I thought I'd try to see what I could come up with.
I contacted another city official who said that the Patch article hit it pretty much on the head. The official said that once they became aware of what was going on, they had more questions than there were answers.
The same official said that this mess was a leftover from the overly partisan former mayor, Jill Didier, who had resigned from her position to become economic development director for Milwaukee County.*
But another interesting fact was brought to my attention.
One of the main organizers, Paris Procopis, wa
s a failed candidate for the State Assembly. He had run against incumbent David Cullen, but failed to make it on the ballot when he didn't collect enough valid signatures. (Procopis got bounced off the ticket by
Attorney Michael Maistelman who went through and challenged the signatures. He worked at Cullen's expense. This is something Scott Walker couldn't and/or wouldn't do and has now
saddled the tax payers for his political expenses.)
It would not be a very dangerous leap of logic that Procopis was seeking an appointment of sorts, or maybe and endorsement for Cullen's old seat, by Walker in return to putting this rally on. And there's enough evidence that Walker does that sort of thing, whether the appointee is qualified or not.
In summary, the rally was technically legal, although it shouldn't have been allowed according to city ordinances.
But the bigger problem is the screwed up rules the city has, which they need to change immediately. They should either allow all political events or none at all. If they wanted my input, I would side with free speech every time, no matter how pathetic and repulsive one might find it. The way it is now, it gives the appearance of favoritism and political manipulation.
*Apparently, there is a little known county ordinance that states the county executive cannot hire someone who is actually qualified to be the economic development director.
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