Republican Dan Vrakas won the office of Waukesha county executive on a platform of freezing taxes. But he thawed out his views pretty quickly.
Last week, Vrakas suggested that the state allow counties like Waukesha to spend some of the sales tax revenue raised in their county. “It’s only right, it’s only fair,” Vrakas proclaimed, while stressing that he did not advocate a tax increase. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorialized in favor of considering the idea, with the headline: “It’s time to share the wealth.”
For starters, as any taxpayer would tell you, this is not wealth but our taxes. And any sales tax money that’s taken away from the state and given to counties will force the state to either raise taxes or cut spending. In short, Vrakas is proposing what amounts to a tax increase while posing for holy pictures as a tax freezer.
For years, Democratic county executives have complained about unfunded mandates for programs the counties locally administer for the state, such as the courts, jails and juvenile justice. The response from Republican legislators to such complaints was chilly at best. But now that a former Republican legislator like Vrakas makes the same complaint and suggests a raid on sales taxes, what is the response from Republican Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz of Richland Center? Schultz would be happy to hear from his former GOP legislative colleague on this important topic.
In the past, talk radio conservative Mark Belling has accused Democratic county executives of whining about unfunded state mandates. Where is his outrage now?
This is the same Vrakas who promised a tax freeze and then passed a budget with a 1.3% increase in the levy. Now he wants to grab even more tax money. Why aren’t conservatives alarmed?
And this is the same Vrakas who pushed for a reduction in the size of the Waukesha County Board to save money (the board will go from 35 to 25 members in 2008) but saw no problem with collecting a salary of about $93,000, which was scheduled to increase to more than $103,000 over the next four years. Only after board members proposed a reduction in their pay raise did Vrakas propose a similar scale-down in his own salary hike. Even so, he will collect far more than Scott Walker does in Milwaukee County: Walker voluntarily takes $60,000 less than his statutory $132,000 salary. Even compared to the $132,000 figure, it’s worth questioning whether the salary Vrakas gladly accepted is too high, given that he runs a county less than half the size of Milwaukee.
All of which is not to say the issue of unfunded county mandates shouldn’t get consideration from legislators. It’s been a problem for decades and definitely deserves discussion. But had a Democrat proposed the same kind of tax shift as Vrakas, every talk radio host would be piling on the ridicule and, of course, bravely standing up for the taxpayers.
Waukesha’s Secret Plot to Grab Lake Michigan Water
The best scoop of last week appeared not in the Journal Sentinel’s news section but in the Sunday Crossroads section. James Rowen, a former JS reporter who became an aide to ex-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, did an open-records request of the Waukesha Water Utility and discovered that Waukesha is engaged in a back-door play to get Lake Michigan water.
Because Waukesha is located on the west side of the subcontinentaldivide and is legally considered part of the Mississippi River watershed rather than Lake Michigan’s, Waukesha would need permission from eight states and two Canadian provinces abutting the Great Lakes before it could get water from these lakes. But in March, Waukesha’s city attorneys sent a request to Gov. Jim Doyle asking that Waukesha be legally grandfathered as a community that’s already part of the Great Lakes Basin, meaning no permission from the Great Lakes states and provinces would be needed.
This is front-page news, but it was on the second page of the Sunday Crossroads section, which is supposed to be for Op-Ed columns. Since Rowen is seen as an advocate for Milwaukee interests, the JS may have felt that the piece belonged in the opinion section. But at what point will the news in this story make it to the front page, where it belongs?
The JS did report last June that New Berlin, also outside of the Great Lakes Basin, had asked the state Department of Natural Resources for an exception to the ban on Lake Michigan water. But Rowen added to this story, too: Checking e-mail records, he found that the DNR got this request in April and never disclosed this publicly, even as it sent New Berlin’s request to other Great Lakes states for their approval. Shouldn’t Wisconsin’s citizens first be informed of and consulted on such issues by its own state agency? Or is this just more evidence that the DNR is being politicized, an issue that JS reporter Lee Bergquist explored in a recent and disturbing article?
Meanwhile, you have to be impressed with the job O. Ricardo Pimentel is doing with the Sunday Crossroads section. Besides Rowen’s article, there were pieces by Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson, Waukesha Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Michael Jevach, three professors with the Great Lakes WATER Institute and Rep. Scott Newcomer (R-Hartland). Every possible view of the controversy was examined, including the view from western Waukesha, which worries that a rejection of a plea for Lake Michigan water will put inland lakes like Pine, Beaver and Nagawicka at risk.
Charlie Sykeshas attacked Pimentel as a “clueless” liberal. But whatever his views, Pimentel takes seriously the issue of playing fair and getting a wide range of opinions on the Op-Ed page. Opening the door to community columnists has been part of that effort. The Sunday Crossroads is wonky as all get-out but bespeaks a real belief in serving democracy by serving readers.
Short Takes
• Once again, U.S. Attorney Stephen M. Biskupic has scored a victory, this time with plea agreements by two Milwaukee cops involved in the horrific beating of Frank Jude Jr. Yesterday’s Journal Sentinel story compared this to the failure of Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann and noted Biskupic’s advantages, including more provable federal charges and the leverage of stiff mandatory federal sentences.
Doubtless true. But McCann’s record on prosecuting bad cops over the decades was a disgrace. And the combined record of McCann and Biskupic’s predecessor, former U.S. Attorney Tom Schneider, was non-existent when it came to prosecuting corruption by local politicians. (Milwaukee Magazine did a provocative feature in March 1999 that revealed the ineffective and ethically challenged leadership of Schneider.) Biskupic, by contrast, has been a one-man wrecking crew, successfully prosecuting several Milwaukee Common Council members, former state Sen. Gary George and others.
• This month’s Pressroom column in Milwaukee Magazine looks at the shrinking size of the Journal Sentinel’s Metro section and the decline in coverage of the City of Milwaukee. How is the newspaper changing? Send me a copy. Contact Milwaukee Magazine Editor Bruce Murphy with a tip.
