Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker wants to sell our airport. He says the county could get anywhere from $500 million to $1.5 billion from a private buyer. The sheer gap between those figures raises the suspicion we’re being spun, and we’re getting more spin and counter-spin from the left (against the idea) and right (in favor).
Airport privatization has long been championed by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Heartland Institute, and my favorite, the Reason Foundation, with its slogan “Free Minds and Free Markets” (but no free lunch, I’m guessing). A Reason Foundation researcher did two reports (in 1994 and 2006) for the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and found (surprise!) that privatization would be a fine idea.
On other side, Democrats like state Sen. Tim Carpenter (surprise!) loathe the idea.
Carpenter notes that the privately owned Detroit airport has 46 executives making more than $100,000 per year and 53 who get perks of vehicles or vehicle allowances. This was reported by the Detroit Free Press, which found that six years after privatization, the number of executives making more than $100,000 more than doubled, while wages for garage attendants fell from $14 to $9 an hour. (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has yet to report these details.)
But a Heartland Institute study referenced an Atlanta Journal Constitution story from 2002, which found corruption in how the publicly-run airport awarded most contracts. Perhaps, but Mitchell has never had a hint of scandal.
Interestingly, it has been Chicago – led by a Democrat, Mayor Richard Daley – that’s led the way nationally in privatizing operations. The city leased its Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion and now hopes to get $3 billion for a long-term lease of Midway Airport. If Midway went that high, Mitchell (with 41 percent of the annual traffic of Midway) might get as much as $1.2 billion. But in 2006, the Reason Foundation researcher predicted a top price of $520 million for Mitchell.
Given that Walker is always running for governor, it’s reasonable to suspect that he’s not worrying about the long-term needs of the county. It’s also reasonable to assume a private operator will make some cuts in the number of employees, wages and benefits; otherwise it couldn’t afford the price of the lease.
On the other hand, the county is so strapped as a result of the pension giveaways, it may need to take drastic action. The county board is floating the idea of referendums on whether to impose two separate, half-cent sales tax increases to rescue the bus and parks systems. But Walker will presumably veto both of these. Even if he’s overridden, will voters approve these?
Given the support of the business community for a half-cent tax to pay for the bus system and other transportation, that might have a chance of passing. But business leaders, along with talk radio, would oppose a second sales tax increase. Ultimately, it may be worth leasing the airport to save the parks – or the bus system, if both sales tax proposals die. Both systems are only going to get worse, and what other solution is on the horizon?
Goodbye Gil Boese
For decades, Gil Boese and the Milwaukee County Zoo were inextricably linked. As director of the zoo from 1980 to 1989, then president of the zoo’s private support group, the Zoological Society, from 1989 to 2006, and continuing as emeritus president since then, Gil Boese’s fundraising prowess was considerable. Indeed, it often seemed you couldn’t have a party of fashionable donors in Milwaukee without the presence of Gil or his wife, Lillian Boese, who served at various times as a fundraiser for the Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee Ballet and other organizations.
But on Oct. 31, Gil Boese, now 71, will finally retire. The Boeses will still have some contact with Wisconsin, as Lillian is a consultant for UW-Waukesha, but they are likely to move from the state.
The Boeses raised millions of dollars and Gil made the zoo an outstanding example of a public/private partnership. While zoo director, he helped build the number of supporters who paid an annual membership to attend and support the zoo, increasing it to 18,000 by 1989, and then to 52,000 while working as Zoological Society president. Meanwhile, he has raised money for capital projects, most recently working on a drive to raise $3 million for various zoo improvements.
Boese had his hand slapped for violating county ethics in the late 1980s. With the support of county officials, he was getting a salary supplement from the Zoological Society of $6,700 per year, and also transferred some money between the public zoo account and the private Zoological Foundation. In retrospect, after the multimillion dollar scandals at the Public Museum and the high-handed greed of the pension scandal, the Boese affair looks almost quaint.
Boese earned just $193,749 in his last full year (2005) as Zoological Society President, relatively modest pay nowadays for a fundraiser at a major organization. He also worked for gratis as head of the Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, which studied and promoted bird migrations between Belize and Wisconsin.
Most of the zoo’s users actually come from beyond Milwaukee County, yet only Milwaukee provides tax support. Short of some regional tax (which has sometimes been proposed but has never gotten off the ground), the private dollars raised by Boese and others has been the only way to get any regional support for the zoo.
Boese remains a firm believer in private-public/partnerships. “I think it’s made some magic really happen,” he says. “It’s very hard to go out there for a capital (money-raising) project with zero dollars. You’re getting this match (of dollars from the county) and it really excites people about giving.”
And Boese helped stoke a lot of that excitement.
The Buzz
-A long list of prominent folks is supporting the Seed Foundation’s idea of creating a public boarding school for at-risk students in Milwaukee. Former Alderman Mike D’Amato is Wisconsin director of the Seed Foundation, and he hired veteran educator Jeannette Mitchell to create a coalition of supporters.
While a boarding school could certainly turn some lives around, it’s also a very expensive way to intervene in the problem. Is it the most cost-effective way to use scarce dollars for such problems? Has the question even been asked? Perhaps it should.
-In letters, you’ll find a correction from Chinatown promoter Wenbin Yuan, who radically revises his estimate last week of the number of Hmong people in China: It’s not 18 million, but two million.
And should Prince Fielder be traded? The Sports Nut considers.
