This week’s primary election for Milwaukee County clerk is a complete farce. The job is an anachronism that should have been eliminated decades ago. Its duties are few, yet the position pays $84,000.
The county has several of these offices that were established under the state constitution and have long been unnecessary; this would include register of deeds and county treasurer. Dorothy Dean, now retired from the position of treasurer, once conceded to me that the three offices could be combined into one. In fact, the County Board is on record supporting the elimination of all three positions, but the state legislature has never approved this, since other counties want to retain their constitutional officers and fear the precedent of Milwaukee eliminating them. (This is the same legislature that has been known to complain about Milwaukee County spending too much money.)
Meanwhile, guess who is running for County Clerk? County Supervisor Jim “Luigi” Schmitt. In fact, he might well be the favorite in the race. Schmitt has a long list of endorsements from liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. But he was also among the gang of county supervisors who voted for the infamous pension plan that has nearly destroyed the finances of Milwaukee County. (Incredibly, his vote wasn’t mentioned in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story on the county clerk race. Remember, guys, check the clips.)
Back when I broke the pension scandal, Schmitt complained about the dictatorial power of then-County Executive F. Thomas Ament. He also complained that the media badly under-covered the courthouse. Of course, those would be two reasons why you’d want to look closely at anything proposed by the Ament administration – since no one else was. But Schmitt – like most of the supervisors – didn’t.
After the pension scandal erupted in 2002, Schmitt was one of the first county supervisors targeted for a recall election, but his opponents didn’t collect enough signatures. Why? Maybe because Schmitt seems like a very nice guy and has attracted a lot of friends in politics. Chris Kliesmet of the Citizens for Responsible Government points to the fact that there was no viable opponent for Schmitt.
Whatever the reason, Schmitt escaped the taxpayers’ wrath. So here he is just six years later asking for a big fat raise, to a princely salary of $84,000, after having failed to do his job as county supervisor. Talk about chutzpah.
The fact that Schmitt could even consider running, and that 12 other current and former county officials would endorse his candidacy, suggests how out of touch with citizen concerns many in county government remain, and dramatizes the fact that cronyism at the courthouse still hasn’t been stamped out. Not by a long shot.
Why Not Tear Down the Hoan Bridge?
It was the Business Journal that broke the story that the state Department of Transportation was considering tearing down the Hoan Bridge. Since the Journal Sentinel was scooped, it fell back on the strategy of the second-day lead story: It reversed the spin and found people to dump on the idea. The mayors of Cudahy and St. Francis “harshly criticized” this foolish notion and state Rep. Christine Sinicki all but declared war: “Anybody who talks about tearing down the Hoan Bridge is out of their mind. That’s the lifeline between my district and Downtown.”
“Tearing down the bridge should be an option of last resort,” a JS editorial announced. JS conservative columnist Patrick McIleran smelled a dirty conspiracy (“There’s a swath of Milwaukee that’s never seen a freeway it wouldn’t rather see gone”) and declared that any other option “would be a lot slower.”
Cheez. Have any of these people ever used the city grid instead of the Hoan Bridge? I lived in Bay View for years and at various times took either the city streets (good old Kinnickinnic Avenue) or the Hoan Bridge to work. Both took about the same amount of time.
We’re talking about the Bridge to Nowhere. The nickname was attached precisely because it only transported people about two miles, from Downtown to the north edge of Bay View. True, it now connects to the Lake Parkway, but without the Hoan Bridge, drivers could simply use the city grid to connect from Downtown to the parkway.
Remember all the hue and cry about taking down the Park East Freeway and all the time motorists would lose? Complete nonsense. The freeway now connects to a reconfigured and quite convenient McKinley Avenue. Motorists may spend one minute more getting to their destination, time they could easily regain by not reading a McIlheran column.
As for McIlheran’s suspicion that some transit-loving Greenie could be behind the idea of tearing down the Hoan, it was proposed by the state Department of Transportation, which loves building highways, highways, highways, and specifically by Secretary Frank Busalacchi, a former union leader (and unions have always loved highways and the jobs they provide). Busalacchi wasn’t proposing replacing the Hoan with mass transit, but with a less-elevated roadway of some kind. Why? Because lower could be cheaper. (McIlheran, allegedly a fiscal conservative, doesn’t seem concerned about this because, after all, we can simply use more gas taxes to pay for it.)
There are only three reasons I can think of not to scrap the Hoan: (1) It won’t save money, something we won’t know till the boys with blueprints run the numbers; (2) It may not be so easy to accommodate commercial and recreational vessels going up or down the rivers (but how did Milwaukee manage this before the Hoan was built?); (3) It’s too beautiful to eliminate.
Yes, the Hoan Bridge is one the most beautiful forms in Milwaukee. (Not for nothing did onmilwaukee.com grab that image as its logo.) It looks stunning from the land and from the water, the view for drivers on it is gorgeous, and its soaring golden arches announce to tourists that this city does things with a serious sense of grandeur.
But as the Sixth Street Viaduct has proven, it’s possible for a bridge to be much closer to the ground and still be a lovely, urban and urbane form. With the right designer, taxpayers could perhaps save money and still connect Downtown and Bay View with a convenient but beautiful roadway that replaces the Hoan Bridge. It’s a discussion we can’t afford to not have.
The Buzz
-The Journal Sentinel continues to plead the case of Peter Tubic, with a front-page top-of-the-fold story last week about how he might lose his home for failing to pay a fine and then ignoring five years of repeated notices and penalty payments. Buried in the story was the fact that Tubic was a legislative aide for six years. Specifically, he worked as an aide to a Milwaukee County Board member. Yet he didn’t know how to deal with the city bureaucracy? Strains credibility.
-Why did the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, which normally opposes new taxes, not scream about the Common Council passing a proposal for a $95 wheel tax? Probably because the tax will actually eliminate special assessments for street improvements, which can cost businesses (and residents as well) thousands of dollars.
-The UW-Milwaukee Employment & Training Institute study on the high percentage of voters likely to be rejected by a photo ID requirement continues to get cited nationally, most recently by Andrew Hacker in a New York Review of Books essay offering a very dour view of Barack Obama’s chances of winning in November.
And the Sports Nut predicts a memorable run for the Packers. Sort of.
