Walker Goes Further Over The Deep End

by capper

The morning's paper shows that Walker is going further along with his folly of privatization. Even though his buddy, Chris Kujawa, who has been a beneficiary of Walker's previous privatization of parts of the park system, lost big in his election bid last year, and even though everyone of the candidates that he backed in this year's primary didn't survive to see the general election, Walker steams ahead like a mindless puppet.

Walker's solution, when he is not trying to foist the blame for his errors on other people, is to hack and slash the County and to sell off the parts to the highest campaign contributor bidder. This even includes the privatization of Mitchell Airport, a move that even some of his out of county fans (he apparently has very few in the county) find to be questionable at best.

I have written time and time again about Walker's inane policy decisions. This time, I will just refer to Erich Roden, a community advisor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who wrote this earlier this month:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker got a lesson in budgetary forensics last week with the resignation of half of his pathologists in the medical examiners office. Although his attempts to hold the line on unsustainable entitlements should be lauded, his perpetual devaluation of county employees should not. When it comes to vital governmental services, you actually get what you pay for. Let's hope he finally realizes this and leaves his budgetary philosophy where it belongs - the morgue.

Let's not forget that Walker's bid to privatize everything he can comes after his pledge not to privatize.

I say, I do believe it is Walker, not Senator Taylor, who appears to be utterly lost and confused.

The Morgan Stanley Starbucks Verizon Wireless Miller General Billy Mitchell International Airport

by capper

Scott Walker must be looking for more publicity in the face of the upcoming election.

Today's MSJ has a story about how Walker, County Board Supervisor Paul Cesarz, and County Board Patricia Jursik met with with representatives from Morgan Stanley, who were pitching the idea of privatizing the airport. If you remember, Walker did tried to do a back door deal to do this a ways back, and it blew up in his face.

The story makes the proposition look rosy, saying that the county could see anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion dollars. That is a very tempting offer to a county that has been strapped for cash since the pension scandal, the second pension scandal, and Walker's repeated ham-handed attempts at creating a budget, which inevitably blows up.

But there are many unanswered questions in this story. For example, how long would the lease be for? If it is only a year, even I would urge Walker to take it. If it over 99 years, well then it's not such a great deal after all.

And what are the chances of it even happening? The article reports that Chicago has already put in a bid, and the feds are saying only one midsize to large airport could be privatized at this time.
Not only that, but come April, there might be a whole new slate of faces running the county government, besides Lena Taylor being the new County Executive. Even Walker himself said that nothing would be done on this until after the elections.

And the same questions arise, that were brought up from the last time Walker tried to privatize the airport. There are no answers yet about how it may affect airport operations, how it may affect people living in close vicinity to the airport, and what would happen if the private agency would fail.

I'll spare you the rehashing of the local endeavors of privatization of public entities that have flopped. Things like the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, the Public Museum and MMSD. And I won't go into a big, long spiel about how many time Walker has lied to the people of Milwaukee County about these wonderful things he does.

All I will say is: It may or may not be a good idea, and it might or might not happen, but why is this being reported without these answers, unless it is just Walker trying to get some attention. So much for the liberal media.

UPDATE: Even Ed Garvey and Owen Robinson agree with me. Will wonders never cease?

This whole thing just makes me angry

I should have waited until morning to read this article about the proposed new unelected Mitchell airport authority:

More than three years before the public knew about it, business lobbyists were drafting a bill to create a regional airport authority that would take control of Mitchell International Airport away from Milwaukee County government.

And a key priority in those behind-the-scenes talks was ensuring that neither the County Board nor county voters would have a say in the handover.

It gets mostly worse from there, so I'll probably be grinding my teeth all night.

However, I want to send major props to my County Boardsman, Richard Nyklewicz, who is doing the people's business here and fighting to keep the airport in the hands of the public, where it belongs.

For more background, see this previous post.

More on the Airport Mutiny

Mutiny, piracy, whatever you want to call it: No one--seriously, I have yet to read a defense of the idea, if anyone has one you want to shoot my way--is happy with the idea of turning Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport over to a private board. Here's some more on the issue from Bay Viewan Bill Sell:

The airport is well managed by Milwaukee County. There have been no reports of poor management--on the contrary, airport director C. Barry Bateman is given high marks for managing this largest airport in the state, without using property tax money to do so.

Why should this change? Why privatize our airport? The Airport District bill solves no problem, and cuts out the public by putting the power of eminent domain in the hands of a seven person management politically insulated from the public.

Thankfully the Milwaukee County Board and the Mayor’s office are resisting this misguided proposal. The County Executive, however, is supportive of the change, which increases his personal power over the airport. Scott Walker’s appointive power under this law would grace his campaign for governor at a time when he is spending money to explain to out-state Wisconsin who he is.

What The Airport District Bill Does
Plale’s bill defines Wisconsin’s public airports into two new categories: (a) large (only GMIA!)—”in excess of 2 million scheduled passenger enplanements” per year [229.861 (1) (a)]; and (b) all the other airports [229.861 (1) (b)]. GMIA has about 3.5 million passenger enplanements per year; Dane County about 1 million. (“Enplanements” are passengers departing.) [. . .]

The bill takes the assets of Mitchell Field away from Milwaukee County “without financial consideration other than the assumption of liabilities and obligations.” [229.865 (1) (a) emphasis added] There is no provision in this bill for Milwaukee County consent. [. . .] While taking Mitchell Field from the County, the bill allows all other counties or municipalities to sell their airports. The transfer of jurisdiction “may take the form of a sale, lease, or other conveyance and may be with or without financial consideration.” [. . .] GMIA assets would be turned over free of charge to an unelected district board. The bill requires no consent of the Milwaukee County Board. The drafting of the bill was, apparently, a surprise to local officials.

For out-state airports this bill is an opportunity for cash. This cash-out opportunity is tactical, lining up other airport managements in favor a bill to wrest control of GMIA--a kind of legislative mobbing, or ganging up. Anti-Milwaukee strategy is not new, either, but when Senator Plale--who represents a hunk of Milwaukee--rides currents of anti-Milwaukee fever (as he has at other times, too), a Milwaukee voter must wonder what--or whether--is he thinking?

As I said, no one is presenting justifications for this bill, this taking of the airport from the people of Milwaukee County and putting it in the hands of an unelected board with no compensation.

It wasn't that long ago that the buzz was about demanding that tech college boards start being elected instead of appointed; why on earth would anyone think that turning over an operation the size of Mitchell International to an appointed board is a good idea?

They are uniters, not dividers

They being Republican state rep. Jeff Stone and Democratic state sen. Jeff Plale, who are trying to wrest control of Milwaukee County's Mitchell International Airport out of the hands of the people and place it in the hands of a private body.

They have managed to upset bloggers on both the left and the right. I also am against the idea, seeing no need to change the way things are working. Having been through Mitchell more times in the past year than ever before, I remain convinced that the place is running pretty smoothly. The place is not in debt; renovations are proceeding apace. Even the TSA lines are reasonable at peak hours. I really have no idea what kind of benefit Stone and Plale think they're going to get out of this.