Quietly and cleverly, a new project is being created on the west bank of the
Milwaukee River. Lots of strings were pulled to make this happen, involving at
least six different government entities. Yet there have been no public bids and
little public scrutiny of the development, even as companies that donated to
Gov. Jim Doyle were chosen to build it. The whole thing doesn’t pass the
smell test. The new project is a six-story dormitory for University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee students at North Avenue and the west bank of the river. To
oversee the $23 million development, UWM has created a new real estate
foundation, a private nonprofit that in turn operates as an arm of another
private nonprofit, the UWM Foundation. That makes the new dorm project twice
removed from UWM.
Why go to all of this trouble? “It eliminates cumbersome and costly state
processes,” notes Sherwood Wilson, UWM vice chancellor of administrative
affairs. Translation: no need for a public bidding process or any other
procedures that regulate our tax dollars. Thus, a project created for a
government entity, UWM, in cooperation with the state Department of
Administration (UWM credits several DOA officials) will be done as though it’s a
private-sector development.
In a UW System news release, Regent Gerard Randall, no fan of Doyle,
was quoted raising concerns about the integrity of the UWM Foundation and the
transparency of contractor selection. “It’s critical that the chancellor is
ultimately held accountable,” Randall said.
The transparency of contractor selection, you may recall, was an issue for
UWM’s Kenilworth building project. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did
stories showing that KBS Construction, which was chosen to build the
building through a complicated public bidding process, had donated some $43,000
to the Doyle campaign.
Sure enough, KBS Construction was chosen for this new dorm project, too. Also
chosen to help build it was the engineering firm Graef Anhalt Schloemer &
Associates, which has donated some $19,500 to Doyle in recent years, and
Eppstein Uhen Architects, which has donated a mere $3,600 to Doyle. It’s
worth noting that all of these companies also donated to Republicans, too; it’s
how the insider game is played. But this is precisely what a public bidding
process is supposed to prevent.
Meanwhile, even as the project is treated like a private development, with no
bidding process, it will get every possible public-sector advantage. For
instance, the City of Milwaukee will issue some $30 million in bonds for the
project to UWM’s real estate foundation. The foundation will pay back the bonds
but pays no state or federal taxes by virtue of the city’s bonding authority.
Nor are these the only governmental authorities being asked to roll over for
the project. The river frontage in question was purchased by the city in the
1980s using federal conservation money, with the understanding that the land
would remain parkland in perpetuity. The city, in turn, gave the land to
Milwaukee County, as an extension of Gordon Park. But there is an obscure
provision of federal law that allows a swap of this land for other green space
of equal market value, which opens the door to building the dormitory. UWM has
asked the county to swap this land for a section of river frontage further
north, stretching from Meinecke Street to Wright Street. The county agreed to
the swap.
A group of Riverwest residents oppose the high-rise dormitory. They argue
that the land swap is bogus because the lot along North Avenue is zoned to allow
high-rise development, which makes it more valuable than the swapped land. This
brings in the state Department of Natural Resources, which, as local authority
for the National Park Service, must determine that the two land parcels are in
fact of equal value. The DNR will make a recommendation to the federal park
service, which must approve the swap.
But UWM hasn’t waited for this decision. No indeed – it has already cleared
the land and constructed the foundation for the dormitory building. By law, if
the federal government nixes the proposal, UWM would have to tear down the
construction. Off-hand, this looks like a high-handed move by the university in
the spirit of the old New York civic power broker, Robert Moses: Once the
building is up, he figured, they’ll never make me tear it down.
Tom Blotz, who handles this issue for the DNR, says he warned UWM that
without the needed approval, the building might have to be torn down. “That was
the risk they took,” he notes. Just how unusual is it for a government entity in
Wisconsin to start construction before getting legal approval? Blotz says he’s
never encountered it before. He also says that the DNR is still reviewing the
project to determine if indeed the land swap involves parcels of equal market
value. But David Gilbert, executive director of the UWM Foundation, isn’t
worried about having to tear down the building. “Both the DNR and the county
testified in favor of the project before the County Board,” he claims.
Huh? So the DNR, which is supposed to review the proposal’s legality,
actually testified in favor of the proposal before finishing its analysis?
Either the DNR has usurped its responsibility or UWM is so certain of its own
power that it’s barely paying attention to the approval process. The closer you
look at this project, the more audacious and off-the-books it looks.
Catholics at the Crossroads
From the time Timothy Dolan was
chosen as archbishop of Milwaukee, there was speculation that this might be a
stepping stone for him and he would soon ascend to a position as cardinal of the
Chicago archdiocese. Last week, a Journal Sentinel story suggested that
Dolan was in the running for the top job in New York.
The November issue of Milwaukee Magazine offers an in-depth look at
the archdiocese, written by Senior Editor Mary Van de Kamp Nohl, which
suggests that Dolan is weak as an administrator but strong at salesmanship. If
that perception is widely shared in Catholic circles, it might make him a weaker
choice to handle financial colossuses like the archdioceses of New York or
Chicago.
In the meantime, our feature story offers a revealing look at an archdiocese
in crisis, facing big declines in Mass attendance, marriages and donations. The
story suggests that Dolan’s warmth and outreach skills are badly needed by the
Milwaukee archdiocese.
More on UWM’s Research Czar
Last week, I wrote about the salary
for former UWM research czar Abbas Ourmazd. It turns out that the salary
figures given to me by UWM officials were too high. The explanation from UWM
Vice Chancellor Tom Luljak as to how this occurred was quite convoluted,
so let’s cut to the chase: I was wrong to suggest that Ourmazd was given a raise
after he went to the press to complain about the university’s lack of commitment
to increasing research funding.
Instead, Ourmazd benefited from a statewide 2% salary increase for university
employees. As a result, he will collect $244,809 for the 2006-’07 year and will
thereafter collect $195,847 per year, plus future statewide salary increases, in
his new position as a physics professor Since he has tenure, he is guaranteed
this fine salary.
This is far more than UWM’s highest paid physics professor (who gets just
over $115,000) and nearly three times more than the average salary for a physics
professor ($74,500). What is Ourmazd doing for this money? He is teaching no
course this semester and will teach a yet-to-be-determined course next semester,
university officials now say. Ourmazd will also do research that officials
promise will be very high level. Perhaps, but he got this elevated salary to do
an administrative job No professor would be paid like this.
The situation still dramatizes the problem with fall-back university jobs,
where once valuable administrators don’t get fired but handed vague, cushy jobs
without any pay cut.
