Outrage Grows Over Abele's Secret Placement Of Sex Offenders

Several weeks ago, I reported that Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele's plan to secretly place sex offenders in a south side home was blowing up in his face.  His hand-chosen appointees on the farcical Mental Health Board rubber stamped his plan without public input.  In fact, when one person, Dennis Hughes, did tried to speak out about it, Abele's people had him arrested.

What makes Abele's actions even more disconcerting is that he is still placed these offenders even though they were telling staff that they had plans to reoffend at the first chance they get.

On Friday, the community again expressed their outrage at Abele secretly placing the offenders in their neighborhood without even the courtesy of a notification.

"Our employees that are telling us that the sex offenders are being placed that when they were in the long-term care facility were openly talking about the fact that intended on assaulting children specifically a 12-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy," said Hughes.

Residents also feel they've been kept in the dark about who is moving in.

"The concern here is we don't know where these mentally ill people have been placed in the community. There are group homes throughout Milwaukee County and we don't know where they are or who is housed in them," said Hughes.

"If we have sex offenders that are entering our neighborhood without our knowledge, the threat for our children has increased tremendously," said Lewis.

One of the neighbors, Karrie Jones, made the reasonable request that their be better notification and public hearings when sex offenders were being placed in neighborhoods.

The Abele administration flat out denied that request, claiming that they "will not hold public hearings ever to let a community know that we're transitioning clients into their neighborhood."

That must be a recent policy change.  I used to help people transition out of the long term care units at the mental health complex.  When a new group home was opening, it was standard practice to hold open houses with the neighbors to inform them about the group home, the type of clients that would be housed there and what precautions and safety plans would be in place.

Then again, we used to also not move the clients until a team of professionals determined that the person was ready to be reintegrated into the community, that an appropriate placement had been identified, that proper service and safety plans were in place and that the client had a chance to visit on numerous occasions to help make the transition smoother.

Those things stopped happening too.

Abele, his imperial self, finally deigned to issue a statement, which as you might have expected, simultaneously dismissed the concerns of the neighbors and blamed the county board for the unpopularity of his plan:
County Executive Chris Abele's office issued a statement to WISN 12 news saying today's committee hearing "is nothing but the board's latest attempt to stop the positive progress we have been making, which unfortunately also perpetuates damaging stigmas about mental illness."
Ah, so in Abele's elitist and arrogant mind, listening to the citizens is simply a political stunt.  Doesn't that say more about Abele than the citizens or the clients?

But there's more.  With all things Abele, there is always more.

Another new concern has arisen.

A year ago, WISN-TV reported how the state found a way around the City of Milwaukee's law regarding placement of sex offenders.  The state simply kept shuffling the sex offenders every three days to new homes so that they were technically not in violation of the law.

Could Abele be doing the same thing?  With Abele's secrecy and disdain for public safety, it's entirely possible.

One place we know that the offenders won't be placed, however, is in the Moderne, the high rise condo building where Abele lives.

Could Scott Walker Keep America Safe?

Scott Walker has been traveling the country desperately trying to convince voters that he is best suited to protect the United States from the evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin and ISIS terrorists because, y'know, he ran away from those 100,000 protesters.

Ironically, Walker has stopped calling the issue national security and has oversimplified it to one word - safety.

I say it's ironic because Walker's record on safety has not been very good.

As Milwaukee County Executive, Walker mismanaged the county's House of Correction so badly that it was slammed in a federal audit. Another audit, done by the county itself, found that the problem was Walker's false austerity:

The county audit shows that HOC was originally supposed to have been authorized for 349 guards in Walker's 2007 budget. He then remembered his one trick pony act, and decided to cut $1.5 million dollars from their budget. HOC ended up with only 318 correction officers. Due to this deficit in the work force, officers were forced to work up to 800+ hours of overtime, each, that year. A full 75% of that was forced overtime.

The cost for all that overtime was $4.2 million. That means for every dollar that Walker tried to save the tax payer, that same taxpayer ended up paying three times as much. How is that being fiscally responsible?

The audit goes on to recommend that the County hire on an additional 23 officers. This would cost $1.3 million, but would have more than half off set by the savings in overtime benefits.

Walker's response is not to hire all of the staff needed. Gotta save that money, you know. Well, not really. He is considering giving them a pay raise. (On a side note, while this is a good thing, odds are that Milwaukee County Corrections Officers pay will be still be way behind that of other counties across the state.)

These shortages created unsafe conditions for both inmates and guards. At this time, there were a streak of escapes from the facility, further endangering the unwary public.

Well, as they say, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And Walker is as poor of a student as anyone could find.

As governor, Walker has endangered public safety by mismanaging the Department of Corrections the same way he did as county executive. The results were predictable:

Columbia Correctional Institution, about 45 miles north of Madison, opened in 1986 on 110 acres of land on the outskirts of Portage. As a maximum-security facility, it houses some of the state’s most violent offenders. Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who was beaten to death in 1994 by a fellow inmate, was held there. CCI’s official operating capacity is 541, but overcrowding has been a perennial issue. The facility housed 839 inmates in 2014, according to its annual report for that year. In all, the prison employs 342 people, including guards, administration and civilian staff.

According to the 2014 annual report, CCI should have 233 sergeants and officers on staff. But the Department of Corrections reported that last May, CCI was 53 positions short, compared with 15 vacancies a year earlier.

All three guards interviewed for this report maintained that the number of open positions at the institution has at times exceeded 70. While the staffing shortage is most acute at CCI, other institutions are feeling the pinch as well.

Fox 11 News in Green Bay recently obtained records that show a dramatic increase in guard staff vacancies statewide since Act 10 became law in 2011. In 2010, Fox 11 reported, there were 88 full-time guard openings in the state’s correctional facilities. This past spring there were 403.

On top of that, Walker has decided to stop manning guard towers at night. What could possibly go wrong?

The staffing shortage has gotten so bad that the state is now offering extra overtime, mileage reimbursements and lodging to get guards to stay on the job and to attract new guards.

All of this raises the question that if Walker can't even maintain public safety in his own state, how are we to believe he could keep the whole country safe from external threats?

Cross posted from Crooks and Liars

Gun Violence Begets Gun Violence

From Seattle PI:

People hospitalized with a gunshot wound are 30 times more likely to come back to the hospital with another firearm injury than those hospitalized for another medical reason, according to a new study from the University of Washington.

Gunshot victims also are twice as likely to be arrested for future violent or firearm-related crime, according to a study by the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington.

Although the main conclusion of the study commissioned last year by the Seattle City Council is a correlation between gunshot wounds and future gun violence, the study also shows that mental illness does not have as strong a correlation with gun violence as previous firearm-related hospitalizations.

Gee, so a proliferation of guns really doesn't make us safer. If anything, it perpetuates and increases the problem. Whodathunkit? Besides every rational person, that is.

Abele Begins His 2015 County Budget Doom And Gloom Tour

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has started his annual Doom and Gloom Tour in preparation for the 2015 budget.  Abele started his campaign by putting up a lot of nifty graphics and infographics on the county's webpage for the ironically named Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget.  Abele is also sending out his budgeteers to give presentations at various county sites, such as the one I attended on Monday.  If the gentle reader has the 2010 or newer version of Microsoft Office, they can see the power point presentation for themselves.

The objective of these presentations are apparently to try to convince people - especially workers - why austerity is good for us and warn us where he plans to wield his Budgetary Axe of Austerity.  From the emphasis that his team was putting on certain areas, the places he is planning on attacking are county assets, public safety, county retirees and county workers.

Public Assets

Josh Fudge, Abele's top budgeteer, explained that the county owns over 1,000 buildings.  Because it has so many buildings, the county is not able to keep up with the needed repairs and maintenance. The argument is that the county needs to sell it's old, dilapidated buildings and centralize county services.

However, it turns out that most of the 1,000 buildings are things like park pavilions, park bathrooms, sheds and other similar structures that allow workers to be more efficient.

There are some buildings that the county might be better off getting rid of, such as the City Campus, but any liquidation of these assets should be tempered with prudence.  Last year, when Abele's neglect caused a $17 million fire in the courthouse, the importance of having other buildings to utilize was made very clear.  If the majority of county services were centralized in the courthouse complex when the fire happened, the entire county would have been shut down for weeks.

This also raises the question on whether Abele wants to do this to save money or to free up county land for his land developer friends can make a fortune off of county assets, like they are doing at the old county grounds or at the lakefront.

Public Safety

Abele and his budgeteers are also putting a lot of emphasis on the cost of public safety.  The Sheriff's Office and the House of Correction are two of the biggest drains on the tax levy.  Abele has made it no secret that he would love to abdicate the county's responsibility for public safety - especially in the parks - and dump it off on the local municipality police departments.

With crime on the upswing again, it just doesn't make sense to have less law enforcement officers when the current numbers are clearly not able to keep up with the amount of crime that is occurring.  It would also shift the tax burden on the municipalities, especially the City of Milwaukee.  There is no justification that City of Milwaukee taxpayers should have to shoulder higher costs for the people from the suburbs who come to enjoy places like Bradford Beach and McKinley Marina or the many other parks near the lake.

Is it really worth saving a buck or two on one's property taxes when you're putting a higher burden on them through other taxes, not to mention the risk to public and personal safety?

County Retirees

Abele is so worked up about county retirees getting benefits that they had earned over the course of decades, he even made up his own title for it - "Legacy Fringe."  In their power point presentation, they go through great lengths to show that the retirees just cost too much.  They even go to point out that the cost of Milwaukee County retirees are much higher than those in Pima, Arizona!

Never mind that the retirees had worked for decades taking salaries lower than they would have made at comparable jobs in the private sector as a trade off for these benefits.  Never mind that acolytes of austerity like Scott Walker or Abele have willfully failed to plan ahead for these costs.

It's obvious to Abele that the good faith bargaining done by the retirees means nothing compared to the money that could be diverted to plutocrats like himself or his pals at the Greater Milwaukee Committee.

I would expect Abele to try to ignore the promises that the county had made to the retirees - or the law - and attack the retirees to make the pay for the things that they paid for in their decades of service.  And that's on top of the retirees he wants to punish for his own incompetence and failure.

County Workers

As he has done every year he has been in office, Abele is planning to go after the current county worker already making county workers pay more for their benefits than any other governmental body int he country and more than most private sector companies.  Nor do they want to talk about how Abele's cuts to workers' pay contributed $5 million to his $24 million surplus, showing that the cuts weren't even necessary.
again in this budget.  Not only is he trying to put in some daft performance based agenda which no one - not even his own people - can make sense of, but he is also complaining that the benefits current workers are receiving cost too much.  They didn't want to discuss the fact that Abele is

The gentle reader should keep in mind, that just like we're seeing on a statewide basis with Act 10, cutting money out of circulation helps no one.  No one except the already rich plutocrats like Abele and the other members of the millionaire's club known as the Greater Milwaukee Committee.

Summary

It should be noted that Abele's projected deficits are much greater than those of the comptroller's or the county board's.  It appears that this gloom and doom are some more Fudged numbers and should be treated skeptically.

It is also reminiscent of when Walker was county executive and did his own gloom and doom routine, claiming that there was a $15 million deficit, when in reality, there was either no deficit or one so small as to be negligible.

It's kind of funny how Abele can't find ways to afford to keep public safety intact, hold true to contracts and promises or respect the workers, but he has no problem finding the money to pay his cronies lavish amounts of money, move freeway ramps and help out his rich friends get even richer.

Is it any surprise why so many people refer to Abele as Walker Lite?

Petty Politics Imperil Public Safety, Taxpayers

It's not a deep, dark secret that Chris Abele and David Clarke don't like each other very much.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff has repeatedly proven himself to be a disgrace to the badge.  He has promoted people that shouldn't have been promoted (read Fran McLaughlin of Walkergate fame); squandered taxpayer money on things like a personal gym; and has basically admitted he can not and/or will not do his job as Sheriff.

He has also attacked Abele with some of the most inane, boorish and infantile comments made by an elected official, including accusing Abele of being on drugs and having "penis envy."

Abele, the Mitt Romney of Milwaukee County, has been far from an innocent victim in this.  He has also launched a series of attacks on the Sheriff.  Abele has also gone so far as to abuse his office by trying to illegally dictate how Clarke administers - or more often, misadministers - his office.  An example of this comes from last fall, when Abele tried to dictate who should be laid off from Clarke's office, including a number of deputies and administrative staff.

Even though the county board restored some of the funding that Abele would have cut from the Sheriff's Office, they did not restore all the funding.

Despite the partial relief, the arrogant Sheriff showed that public safety and responsibility to the taxpayers came in second and third place to his pride and posturing.  Instead of working with the budget he was given, he still practiced cronyism and poor planning by promoting people that should have been terminated, like Fran McLaughlin.

Now Clarke's budgetary chickens are coming home to roost.  A report from the county's comptroller's office (tell me again how this wasn't a political move by Abele) shows that the Sheriff's Office is on pace to have a $4.6 million deficit by the end of the year:

"In addition, apparently they do not fully grasp the difference in staffing needs between a Monday through Friday, one-shift operation and the needs of a 24-7 law enforcement agency," the letter said.

Clarke kept all five deputy inspectors in place, even though the budget cut funding for three of them.

Clarke also kept 12 captains though funding for eight disappeared. And 18 sergeants remain in the department, though funding was cut for six of them.

In addition, Clarke kept his two inspectors — Richard Schmidt and Edward Bailey — on the job, even though the budget included funding for only one of them.

[...]

Clarke's projected deficit also included $520,000 in overtime costs beyond what was budgeted and a shortfall of $1.1 million in revenue from fewer federal prisoners being held at the county jail.

Despite a request, the sheriff's office didn't provide any suggestions for ways to fix the projected shortfall.

Something tells me that despite the budgetary shortfall and projected deficit, Clarke will still find the money to allow him to rent a horse so he can be in parades this summer, using taxpayer money to help him campaign, as he has always done in the past.

There is no doubt that Clarke is the worst sheriff this county has ever seen and he needs to go, which is why I am glad to support Chris Moews for Sheriff.

That said, I would be remiss to point out the biggest piece of hypocrisy that comes from this news report, which comes from Abele:

Abele has said the cuts were made because the sheriff's office was top-heavy with managers.

This is a pretty bold statement coming from a person who created positions for his cronies and is going as far as threatening lawsuits so that they can collect up to $170,000 in just salaries, not including benefits.

It takes a lot of gall - and shows a complete disconnect - from a man who is laying off hundreds of workers and slashing the take home pay of the other workers, more than any other government in the nation.

We need to get rid of both of these clowns before Milwaukee County even has a chance of getting better for the people who live, work and visit here.

The Abele/Clarke Feud - The Public Safety Edition

It is no secret that there has been an ongoing feud between Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele and the Sheriff of Nutty Ham David Clarke.  It could stem that they are very similar to each other. Both are tyrannical bullies that excessively reward their yes men and punish anyone who dares to stand up to them.  Maybe they're fussing at each other simply because they are fighting over the attention of their mutual BFF, Scott Walker.

Whatever the cause, their childish antics have continued this week in a social media fire fight.

It started when Clarke took to Twitter and posted this tweet and picture:

The funny thing about this picture is that there is one horse head but two horses' asses.

Clarke really doesn't have much to say about public safety though.  He would rather squander his severely slashed budget on horses like the one pictured than on something like highway patrols.  Furthermore, Clarke isn't very good at doing patrols himself, since he wouldn't know a drunk driver when he's helping one out of a snowbank.

And let's not forget when Clarke admitted the sheriffing is hard work:

Abele responded to this attack on Facebook when he turned it into a plug for Chris Moews, a candidate for Milwaukee County Sheriff:

Yesterday, Sheriff David Clarke posed an interesting question on his Twitter account: “Who would you trust with public safety decisions in Milwaukee County?” While it’s nice to hear from the Sheriff in a medium other than a press release, I think this is an important question. My response is simple: Public safety decisions for our county are not a game. We deserve those decisions to be made with discipline, by leaders who care more about outcomes over politics and personalities – leaders like Lieutenant Chris Moews for Milwaukee County Sheriff

This is again the flip side of the same coin.

Abele has no business speaking about public safety when he is just as bad, if not worse than, Clarke in that area.

Abele, for the second year running, is trying to foist park patrols on the City of Milwaukee's already overburdened police department, not to mention sticking the citizens of the city with the bill for his abdication of duty.

Abele is also evicting the patients at the mental health complex, even though there are not sufficient supports for them in the community.  We've already seen that this immoral, reckless stunt is actually endangering people.

Another alarming sign of how clueless Abele is when it comes to public safety is that his 2014 proposed budget has Emergency Preparedness being transferred from the Sheriff's Office to his office.  When the Finance and Personnel Committee asked about this part of Abele's budget, Abele's staff admitted that they didn't really have a plan on how to transfer these extremely important responsibilities, much less what it would look like or how much it would cost.

About the only thing Abele got right in the area of public safety is that Moews would be a far better sheriff than Clarke.

Although, if I were Moews, that is one endorsement I wouldn't be bragging about.

Walker's "Work Release" Program - What Could Go Wrong, Besides Everything?

So, Scott Walker thought it was a grand idea to start using prison inmates for work.  It's cheap labor for the employer and it's tax-subsidized to boot!

Then to save even more money, he applies his austerity agenda to the Department of Correction and the prison system.  Never mind that it would leave prisons short-staffed, force workers to work more overtime and to get more burned out.  One simply cannot compare the importance of giving a tax break to a wealthy campaign donor versus something as irrelevant as worker rights or public safety.

What could go wrong?

Well, this:

A convicted murderer is missing after he walked away from a work site on Tuesday in Vilas County.

The Oneida County Sheriff says 54-year-old Todd Brecht is an inmate at the Camp McNaughton State Prison. He was at a work site located at 9041 Highway 70 in Vilas Co. when he walked away about noon.

Brecht is described as 5'6" weighing 160 lbs. He has brown hair and hazel eyes.

According to a press release, Brecht is currently serving a life sentence for a 1986 murder in Buffalo Co. He was convicted of shooting his brother-in-law in the back during an argument with a .22 caliber rifle on 10/17/85.

If you have any information, you are asked to call your local law enforcement.

The Oneida Co. Sheriff's Office, Vilas CO. Sheriff's Office, and the Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections are investigating the case.

So let's see, in one fell swoop, Walker's austerity agenda has taken jobs from hard working Wisconsinites and gave them to prisoners who get paid cents to the dollar. He has also endangered public safety by improperly staffing prisons and crushing the morale of the correction officers that are there, allowing a situation where a convicted murderer can just walk away.

It's mind-boggling that anyone could think that Walker deserves another crack at governor, much less can call him a presidential candidate while maintaining a straight face.

But Bus Drivers Are Paid Too Much

Yet another report of a bus driver viciously assaulted while doing their job, this time in Madison:

According to the Madison Police Department, they received a report of a battery on the 1100 block of East Washington Avenue about 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. The suspect, 53-year-old Tommy Crawford from Madison, boarded a Metro bus on State Street and created a disturbance on the bus.

The bus driver stopped near the Metro headquarters on East Washington Avenue to get Crawford off the bus. Police say Crawford punched the employee in the face and then ran away.

He was found at the North Transfer Point. When the investigating officer informed him he was under arrest, Crawford kneed the officer. He was taken into custody and is booked in the Dane County Jail on tentative charges of substantial battery, battery to a police officer and disorderly conduct.

The Madison Metro employee has a fractured nose and was taken to a local hospital. The officer sustained a minor injury.

Every time I see a story like this, I think of the usual suspects - like Charlie Sykes, Brian Sikma, Mark Belling, Scott Walker, Chris Abele - who are always bad mouthing public sector workers.

Funny thing is if the pay is so high, why are there not more people applying for these jobs?

I also wonder how much any of these blowhards - who've never done a day of hard work in their lives - would want to be paid if they knew they could be physically assaulted like that. Then I bet the pay would be nowhere near high enough.

Silent No More

Last Wednesday, the Milwaukee County Board's Health and Human Needs Committee held a meeting. It was already going to be a lengthier meeting with ten items to take up. Furthering to the length, a few of the items were rather controversial and needed a lot of discussion.

One of the lengthier topics was the closing of one of the county's two crisis respite centers. The executive director of Community Advocates, Joe Volk, had some choice words to say about it. His agency is the one that had been running the center:

The director of a now-closed Crisis Resource Center on Milwaukee's north side blasted county officials Wednesday for ending the agency's contract for a program meant to divert patients from the Mental Health Complex.

Joe Volk, executive director of Community Advocates, said his program had succeeded in caring for its clients but failed to accomplish all the bureaucratic requirements.

Based on the county's action to terminate the Community Advocates' $850,000 contract, "you'd think we had sexual assaults and patients with broken necks," Volk said. "And that we might even have people beating each other up many, many times."

The remark was a sarcastic reference to problems that have been noted by state and federal inspectors at the county's inpatient programs at the complex.

"The reality is we had none of that," Volk said at a meeting of the County Board's Health and Human Needs Committee. He said county officials wanted the Crisis Resource Center to be operated like a miniature version of the Mental Health Complex. Community Advocates instead offered "cutting edge service" that was praised by clients, Volk said.

The skinny on this is that Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele kept changing the conditions of the contract in order to have a reason to fire Community Advocates and give the contract to the Milwaukee Center for Independence, who has been getting an inordinately large percentage of the county's business. It's been reported that this one issue took up almost two hours as Volk got into a give and take with Abele's staffers.

The saddest part is that, due to Act 14 - the Plutocracy Law, there wasn't anything the Board could do. But at least it's now on record that Abele's power grab wasn't about efficiency or best practice, but on favoritism and cronyism.

The other big topic was the closure of the mental health complex.

Emperor Abele is in a hurry to close the mental health complex so that he can sell the land that the complex sits on to his land developer friends in the Greater Milwaukee Commission before the value of the land climbs any higher.

In order to force the moving of the patients of the complex out into the community, Abele is promising that there will be a ton of community services to help them, even though he knows better.  As mentioned above, he is forcing a respite crisis home to close.  He's also cut services for a whole group of people getting help at the ACCESS Clinic.

Furthermore, there are not facilities that have sufficient resources to keep the patients of the complex or other safe.  And if there is a facility that would be able to keep everyone safe, the cost of such services is much more than Family Care is willing to pay.

This all came to light during the meeting. The following is a prepared report which was presented to the committee by Dave Eisner of AFSCME District Council 48, which represents many of the staff at the mental health complex:

The proposed 2014 Departmental Budget of BHD has now been released. Plans are to place 24 clients from Rehab Center-Central into community-based settings by July 1, 2014. The Center for Independence and Development (formerly Hilltop) is expected to close in 2014 by placing all of its 48 residents in community based settings by November 1, 2014.

As of June 12, 2013, the Center for Independence and Development (formerly Hilltop) has placed 8 clients into community based settings. 2 of these clients have returned to BHD, 1 back to CIDS and 1 to Acute Care. The 2013 Adopted Budget called for 12 clients to be placed into the community by April 1, 2013 and an additional 12 clients to be placed by July 1, 2013 from the Center for Independence and Development. So out of the goal of 24 client placements by July 1, 2013, six (6) have been placed.

It has been observed and reported that Rehab Central patients who have been placed into the community are returning to BHD through the Psych Emergency (PCS) and are ending up in Acute Care. That raises the question as to how those placements are then counted?

The apparent lack of success in placements into community settings and the limited amount of placements does not bode well for BHD's optimistic plans in their 2014 Budget request.

It has been reported to us that there is a severe shortage of proper group homes and appropriate facilities to send residents to, in the community, contrary to what Administration has been reporting. Many of the residents are scared. The majority of them have no family support.

We are hearing that Long-Term placements where clients have been inpatients at BHD for decades are having problems. There are supposed to be visits and transition done over a period of time to be able to acclimate the clients to a community setting and to community staff. This is not occurring and clients are just being placed. This uncertainty has heightened some of the clients behaviors and is causing them much anxiety.

We are hearing that Guardians are upset also. Because this is being approached as a closure and not a downsizing, the Guardians have no choice in the placement of their wards.

All of this information has been reported to us by staff who work at BHD.

While it is recognized that reforms are needed at BHD, we strongly urge you as policymakers for Milwaukee County to thoughtfully review all aspects of this plan, and to proceed with an approach that provides high quality care, treatment, and safety for all patients, includes Guardians and front-line staff at BHD in the discussion, and that whatever is ultimately decided should be done in a cautious manner with achievable results.

It should be noted that the only issue that Abele's people argued out of all of these statements was the number of patients returning to BHD or being shuffled around. Supervisor Peggy Romo West, Chairwoman of the Committee, quickly shut that down, stating that she had received independent emails from different people saying similar things. She said that it's not clear what it was yet, but something negative was happening at the complex.

There was no denial that patients were being placed recklessly or that there was a severe shortage of available facilities and resources to meet the needs of these vulnerable adults.

Yet this is what Abele wants to do to these poor people.

The reason these facts are significant is that in his lust for austerity, Abele is cutting the number of staff for BHD in his 2014 budget, working on the false presumption that enough people will be safely placed in the community so he can go about laying off workers.  But he's as close to his goal of people out as his hero Scott Walker is at creating jobs.  And without enough workers to care for the people who have not moved out or have returned, there will be an increase in mandated overtime, which is already mind-boggling huge.  And as it  has been repeatedly shown throughout the years, this increase in mandatory overtime can cause all sorts of problems, including an increase in attacks by patients, an increase in people being hurt and mistakes being made which can have grave consequences.

One of the main reasons for this happening is that as Abele made his grandiose plans to shut down the complex, the group commissioned to plan and implement this closure consisted mostly of Abele's administration and the profiteers who just wanted to feed on a new trough of cash.  One of the groups most noticeable by their absence were the workers, the front line people that do this work day in and day out and knows what will work and what won't, regardless of the results of all of the studies Abele and GMC commission the Public Policy Forum to do to get their desired results.

In response to this neglectful omission, the leadership of Local 170, which represents the caregivers at the complex, had gathered 116 signatures - and not just from their local, but others as well, including nurses and non-union members - in just a few days, asking the Board to come to BHD and see how things really are for themselves and to listen to the workers.

The following is a prepared statement from the officers of Local 170:

Local 170 represents over 200 front-line caregivers who provide care for our community's most vulnerable citizens.

Working conditions at BHD are difficult. State and Federal Surveyors are constantly in the buildings and BHD is attempting to become accredited. The former Administrator [Kathleen Eilers - who had just been rejected by the County Board for her poor performance] put out a memo last month threatening to discipline staff as a result of State findings. The same Administrator at Town Hall Meetings advised staff that the closure was a done deal and if they didn't like it to find other jobs. Many staff took her up on it and left. This has resulted in staff shortages and mandatory overtime/double shifts. A private concern has been hired to provide a Nursing Pool for Rehab Central. There are 19 vacant part-time CNA positions that are not being filled that could offer some relief. Morale is low.

Quality care is a challenge under these conditions created by Administration. Closure and placing our patients into community care is being planned by the County Executive and he has brought many people into the process, but the front-line caregivers have been left out. Too much is at stake in our community. The workers have decided that they will be silent no more.

Many wanted to be here today, but because of staff shortages and Mandatory overtime were unable to attend. We are submitting a petition signed by 116 of our co-workers requesting this Committee schedule listening sessions at BHD to hear the employees concerns. Thank you.

It is my understanding that Supervisors Russell Stamper and David Bowen have tentatively agreed to hold these meetings to find out what is really going on at BHD instead of relying on the dishonest Abele for their information.  The only thing Abele wants from the workers is their signature on a pink slip.

What really brings this all home is the fact that Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel just came out with a four-part article regarding the struggles one family is having with the inadequate community-based support system that Abele is trying to tell people is all we need. Adding to the irony of the timing is the fact that the case manager in the story is from Milwaukee Center for Independence, the same agency that Abele is contracting with for the majority of services.

The end game of all of this is that if Abele continues on his amoral, irresponsible course, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the community receiving inadequate services, and presenting a danger to themselves or to others. After several contacts with police and various psychiatric service agencies, many of these people will end up in jail, in prison, in state institutions or, worst of all, dead.  These are prices in both the human and the fiscal sense that we should not have to take on, especially when it is all for the money grubbing of some of Abele's closest cronies.

Send Rep. Josh Zepnick A Special Holiday Message

As the gentle reader knows, Milwaukee County has and is still going through a contentious time.

Chris Abele, who is the plutocrat's plutocrat, is besides himself in rage and self-pity that the County Board aren't falling all over themselves to bow down to his delusions of superiority. He's besides himself that the Board stood up for the taxpayers, the vulnerable citizens and the county workers and didn't just rubber stamp his austerity budget, even if it was illegal and immoral.

Abele attacked the workers in ways Scott Walker only dreams of, doubling down on Act 10. Despite his claims otherwise, Abele has single-handedly caused the highest rate of staff turnover the County has seen in decades. Staffing is so low that Abele has hired dozens of county retirees back as contract workers - paying them twice what they made as county workers, and that's on top of their backdrops, pensions and free healthcare - to fill the gaps he has created.

No group of county workers has been attacked as much as the sheriff's deputies. Not only do they get gouged as other workers, but Abele has moved to lay off over a hundred deputies in the past two years.

Amazingly, despite laying off so many deputies, Abele still has the brass to say he is concerned about public safety.

So, it was rather shocking when State Representative Josh Zepnick (DINO - Milwaukee) came out with a most disingenuous and insulting press release thanking Abele for attacking the deputies and misleading the taxpayers:

Why any County Supervisor would defend David Clarke is mind-boggling and hints that at least some on the Board see this all as some kind of game. Clarke has systematically and routinely thwarted the Board’s instructions and played partisan political games with them. Now that the Abele-Barrett Proposal is on the table, Supervisors chime in with comments like “I was not consulted about this in advance” or “We’re not going to decimate the Sheriff Department”.

Really?! Shifting a few dozen deputies out of several hundred is “decimating” an agency? How are we supposed to treat this body seriously when people make these over the top comments and give taxpayers a tab of over $1 million? The web page for the Sheriff has a quote at the very top from “Reinventing Government” authors David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, stating “there is nothing so foolish as to do more efficiently something that should no longer be done.” Maybe we could actually put those words into action and have the Board and County Executive revisit this proposal and develop some compromise.

Zepnick totally disregards the fact that the Board took away the House of Corrections from Sheriff David Clarke due to the incompetence and corruption in his administration. Not exactly a move that I would call defending the sheriff.

Furthermore,the cavalier and dismissive way that Zepnick dismissed the laying off of dozens of deputies made me wonder how I missed his switching sides to the Republicans.

It was then that I remembered a tip left by a commenter on a post four months ago. Said commenter made note that Zepnick was part of a group called "Democrats for Education Reform."

And indeed Zepnick is involved with the group and their agenda to sell our children's future to the highest bidder.

Hmmm, apparently having seen his fellow school choice proponents - like Elizabeth Coggs, Jason Fields, Jarett Fields and Tracy Dent - get routed in the last elections failed to teach Zepnick that his sort of attitude is a losing one in Milwaukee.

So here is what I am asking you to do:

Call and or email Rep. Zepnick and politely tell him that you don't appreciate his disrespectful attitude to the brave men and women of the Sheriff's Office who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.

Also tell him to be thankful this Thanksgiving Day that he somehow escaped our notice during this past elections season. And remind him that he might not be so lucky next time, especially if he keeps taking the wrong side in the war against our children and against workers.

His Madison numbers are (608) 266-1707 and 1-888-534-0009. His Milwaukee district number is (414) 727-0841.

His email address is Rep.Zepnick@legis.wi.gov. or you can use his page's contact form to get your message to him.

The elections are over and now our job is to hold the elected ones' feet to the fire, whether they are friend or foe. And I can't think of a better place to start than with Zepnick's duplicity.

Of Tax Breaks And TB Outbreaks

The State of Florida is learning, the really hard and dangerous way, that tax breaks and spending cuts don't come cheap:

The CDC officer had a serious warning for Florida health officials in April: A tuberculosis outbreak in Jacksonville was one of the worst his group had investigated in 20 years. Linked to 13 deaths and 99 illnesses, including six children, it would require concerted action to stop.

That report had been penned on April 5, exactly nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill that shrank the Department of Health and required the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital in Lantana, where tough tuberculosis cases have been treated for more than 60 years.

As health officials in Tallahassee turned their focus to restructuring, Dr. Robert Luo’s 25-page report describing Jacksonville’s outbreak — and the measures needed to contain it – went unseen by key decision makers around the state. At the health agency, an order went out that the TB hospital must be closed six months ahead of schedule.

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami.

The article goes on to discuss how a man with TB had been transferred to hospitals, group homes, prison and other facilities without being treated for eight months.

If that means nothing to you, think about how many people you've been in contact with in the past eight months. The list would, of course, include your family, coworkers and neighbors. But it would also be the cashier at the grocery store, the gas station and anywhere else you went shopping. It would include your friends. It would include the bartender at your favorite bar - and everyone else that was in the pub while you were there, each time you were there. You've got quite a long list there, don't you? Now imagine all the people those people have been in contact with since they were exposed to TB by you.

See how quickly things can get out of control? This was made even worse by the secrecy and keeping the reports away from not only the public, but from other government officials.

The report also says that the average cost of treating one person with TB is $275,000. That's per person. Now think again about all the people that have been in contact with you or someone you've been in contact with someone who was in contact with you?

Not only did almost a score of people die already, I bet that Governor Scott, like our governor, isn't really saving anyone any money for the taxpayers.

No wonder they are afraid of getting exposed.

Donovan: Exit Stage Right

Milwaukee's volatile and labile alderman Bob Donovan has finally been ousted from his position as Chairman of the Common Council's Public Safety Committee.  True to his nature, he has to have a tantrum about it, blaming others and trying to play the victim:

Donovan accused Hines of retaliating against him for taking controversial stands -- an accusation that Hines denied. 

"Over the years, I have spoken out on a variety of issues, and I've probably stepped on some toes," Donovan said. "Some people may perceive this, as I do, as payback. It's a sad day in Milwaukee when an elected official can't stand up and voice his gut feelings and represent his constituents and call 'em like he sees 'em without suffering retribution."

Yeah, that's it! It's retribution!  It had nothing to do with his being a complete joke and failing to live up to his responsibilities as the chairman of this important committee.

Sadly, this won't mean that Donovan will be any less the clown than he has been.

I'm sure he'll still complain about problems that don't exist; advocate for turning Milwaukee into a police state and locking up the kids, even the innocent ones; and issuing racist statements.

Walker's Failed Policies Leave More Corrections Officers Seriously Injured

I have previously written about the way Scott Walker's insane ideology had caused mayhem at the Milwaukee County House of Corrections.  He left he facility dangerously understaffed, opening the door for more injuries and ran up budget-busting overtime costs.

As governor, Walker did the same thing to the state correctional system. But not only did his policies make the prisons dangerously understaffed, but he actually made things worse.  When he repealed Act 28, which allowed inmates to earn an earlier release, he also took away their reason to behave.  This made an already dangerous situation untenable.

This was evidenced by the assault of four corrections officers at the Dodge Correctional Institute.

But instead of fixing the problem, Walker instead chose to try to clamp down on the news from the prison system.  Thus, the unions are in the process of holding informative rallies and pickets at various institutions around the state.

Sadly, Walker is too busy traveling around the country, asking wealth campaign donors for bail money, to address the problems he's created.

So, it's saddening and maddening, but not at all surprising that two more corrections were seriously injured.

But while the mainstream news media will not put forth the effort to break through Walker's news block, I am not willing to accept this.

The officer, a female sergeant whose name I will not disclose, received a black eye and had several teeth knocked loose as she was repeatedly struck in the head by inmate Paul Golden.  Another officer which was working with the sergeant was also assaulted and was bleeding from their ears.

Before this assault, another inmate at the Stanley Correctional Institute had cut himself pretty badly, which only traumatized the COs and inmates even more.

The only workable solution is for the state to immediately start bringing staffing up to safe levels.  And if that means some of Walker's campaign contributors don't get their lavish tax breaks or grants. I can live with that.

More importantly, the corrections officers will be able to stay alive with that as well.

Help Support Our Correction Officers

At the end of last year, I told you of the plight of the state correction officers.

Just as he did in Milwaukee County, Scott Walker has driven many of the experienced correction officers out with his draconian and maleficent cuts.  He then willfully left this gap unfilled and the same things that happened in Milwaukee County are now happening statewide.

To make matters worse, the repeal of Act 28, which allowed early release under supervision, has taken away one of the few effective tools in keeping control of the inmates.

The results are predictable.  Because they feel they have nothing left to lose, inmate fights and assaults on officers are spiking.  Injuries are increasing because there's simply not enough officers to safely do that already dangerous job.  Another thing which was to be expected is more escapes, which endanger public safety and use up precious local resources as the local police and sheriff departments capture the escapees.

Not only is it dangerous, but the state is now racking up overtime costs like crazy.  I've heard that Joint Finance Committee just looked authorizing millions of dollars to cover these escalating costs.

And to literally add insult to injury, Walker's hand-chosen regent, Secretary of Corrections Gary Hamblin, has turned DOC into his own little fiefdom, not giving a damn about anything but his own inflated ego and power tripping.

This petty tyrant has done just about everything he could to further dampen all morale and is such a base man that he has ordered things like letters of gratitude from local Boys and Girls Clubs, thanking the Locals for their support, be taken down and removed from the building.

The union, still keeping to the high road, sent a letter to Hamblin asking to speak to him about these concerns, especially officer safety.  Hamblin ignored them.

They again reached out to Hamblin, asking to speak to him about their concerns regarding having to sign acknowledgement of receiving his draconian handbook with only being able to add "under duress" by their signatures.  He again refused to reply, but apparently that restriction has since been lifted and officers are able to express their concerns fully and have them in their personnel file.  This is important in case of any future injuries or wrongful firings.

In response to Hamblin turning a deaf ear to them, the union issued a press release regarding their unacceptable and unsafe working conditions (proof positive why unions are still necessary!), which reads in part:

“By trying to make state workers into public enemies, Scott Walker flushed a lot good officers and experience out of the system,” said Dan Meehan, a 30-year veteran of the department who works at Waupun Correctional Institution. 

“Walker’s administration hasn’t come close to filling the void they’ve created. As a result, it’s become a lot harder and a lot more dangerous to deal with the people who really are public enemies. This not only puts officers at risk, it threatens the safety of our communities,” said Meehan, who serves as president of Wisconsin State Employees Union Local 18. 

In addition to causing an exodus of experienced staff without any serious effort to replace the talent that’s been lost, the administration has put a torch to work rules and local agreements once covered by negotiated contracts. This means established procedures are replaced by arbitrary and inconsistent pronouncements from above, often from bureaucrats far removed from the day-to-day realities inside the institutions. 

“They’ve replaced labor-management collaboration and cooperation with top down ideology. If given the choice between using a handshake or a hammer, they are going to use the hammer. It’s a bad way to treat people and it’s killing morale. Our jobs are hard enough without being treated like dirt by everybody. We expect it from the inmates, but it shouldn’t also be raining down from above,” Meehan said.

Unsurprisingly, the corporate media in the state have not covered this important story, especially as Walker's recall looms.

So the unions again are taking matters in their own hands and are holding a series of informational pickets and rallies around the state:

The rallies will be as follows:

On March 27, from 12:30 - 4:30 pm, at the Waupun Correctional Institution

On April 9, from 12:30 - 3 pm, at the Jackson Correctional Institution

On April 30, from 12:30 - 3 pm, at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution

While the entire state has suffered under Walker's tyrannical regime, regardless whether we are public or private sector workers or unemployed, regardless whether we belong to a union or not.  We have all suffered to some degree.

But our corrections officers have not only felt the same economic pains we all have, but they're putting their safety and yes, their lives, on the lines for all of us.  And now it is even more dangerous for them.

For all they've done to keep us safe, it's the least we can do to stand with them when they need us.

Another Staff Assaulted At Dodge Correctional Institution

Fresh in my inbox:

On Sunday, January 8th at approximately 1245hrs CNA [name redacted] was assaulted by an inmate on Unit 25. Security staff quickly intervened and brought the inmate under control. CNA [name redacted] was taken to WMH via state vehicle and was released from the hospital after receiving medical care.

Now that Walker has put his usual inept management style in place, where even correctional facilities are grossly understaffed and demoralized, these types of things sadly become the norm.

The man simply has to go before everyone is endangered.

And The Predictable Result Of CCW Happens

You just knew something like this was going to happen when Scott Walker and the Republicans rammed through the unwanted concealed carry law:

After a Kia Rio cut off a semitrailer truck Tuesday traveling north on Interstate 94 near College Ave., the truck driver flashed his brights at the Kia, whose driver then pointed a handgun back at the truck. The truck driver and his passenger then called 911 to report the incident, and gave the Kia's plate number.

Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies pulled Manning over near I-43 and Brown Deer Road and found two loaded handguns in the car, a .45 and a 9mm. When told he was under arrest, Manning told a deputy he was acting in self-defense because the other driver was using the truck as a weapon.

The complaint states that Manning had a concealed carry permits from Indiana and Arizona, either of which makes it legal for him to carry weapons in Wisconsin.

While being booked at the jail, Manning -- who was still wearing a holster -- told other inmates that he was being tailgated by a semi, and that if the trucker hadn't backed off, "I would have put four rounds right in the engine block."

This has nothing to do with self-protection. It's all about intimidation and bullying, the only things left in the Republican repertoire.

I'm just waiting for Owen Robinson to tell us that this is "awesome".

Hot Lead and Cold Irony

It has been recently reported that Waukesha County, deep in Republican red, has expanded its ban on concealed carry to other county buildings besides the courthouse and the administration building.

What was not reported is that it is also possible that when a person or group rent one of their facilities, like the expo center or a park, they can ask that the facility be marked as do not carry and that the county will honor that request.

The only reason that I even bring this up is that I've heard that at least one group, renting the Waukesha County Expo Center, has availed themselves of this new rule.

Ironically, if my information is correct, that group is none other than the Bob and Rocco Gun Show.  My source indicated that it wasn't Bob Pucci that wanted this, but the national franchise.  They said that there's been too many accidental shootings by people bringing in their concealed weapons and, either through clumsiness or ineptness, have had the gone accidentally go off shooting the vendors.

Doesn't that make you feel better knowing that Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature has now made it possible for any fool to walk around armed without even taking  an inadequate four hour training course?

And they wonder why we are recalling them....

Guns Will Keep Us Safer

Unless, of course, you decide to go to work or get a hair cut or any number of normal routine everyday activities:

An Ohio barber says he got more than a tip from one longtime customer, whose gun accidentally discharged and left a bullet in the hair cutter’s backside.

Barber Kurt Voelkel in the Cleveland suburb of Parma says the man was adjusting his clothing and sitting down on Sept. 29 when a 9 mm handgun fell from his holster, struck the ground and went off.

WJW-TV reports a bullet passed through the chair where Voelkel was sitting and also went through his wallet before coming to rest deep in his buttocks. He spent more than two hours being treated at a hospital, where doctors decided to leave the slug where it is, for now.

Voelkel decided not to file charges against the customer, who’s covering his medical needs.

At the very least, the clown of a customer should be charged with reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.

And just think, in less than a month, Wisconsinites will be exposed to this kind of danger every single day, thanks to Scott Walker and his Republican allies that again refused to listen to the people and have declared November 1 to be Conservative Overcompensation Day.

And if anyone really things that having horde's of insecure lunatics running around armed is a good thing, it only shows that you're too stupid to be allowed to have a gun in the first place.

Walker Springs Double October Surprise On Himself

In election years, especially the bigger ones, there is usually an event they call the "October Surprise," which is when some piece of devastating news is released about one candidate or another.

Examples would include things like Gary Hart's or John Edward's affairs.

Scott Walker sprung two of the today. But with usual Walker finesse, he managed to spring them on himself.

First, it turns out that Walker really has been very neglectful in inspecting, maintaining and repairing county buildings.

Secondly, not only are things going to hell in a hand basket at the mental health complex, but now he is going to get the County sued in federal court for refusing to cooperate with the agency he welcomed to do an investigation of the complex.

I wonder how his Maalox supply is holding up...