One morning David Fantle woke up and decided it would be a good idea to have a statue of the Fonz in Downtown Milwaukee. Fantle is the vice president of public relations for VISIT Milwaukee, but he is also a celebrity groupie who co-wrote the book, Reel to Real, 25 Years of Celebrity Interviews from Vaudeville to Movies to TV. With not one, but two Forewords, by both Cyd Charisse and Shirley Jones, this is a book that revels in star power.
Fantle was also inspired by TV Land, a cable network that donated six sculptures to other cities, including a Ralph Kramden for New York City and a Mary Richards for Minneapolis. Those cities got their statues for free. We have to pay for ours. Another slap at a small market, I guess.
Not to worry. Henry Winkler thinks the whole thing is a great idea. “I am so OK with it,” he told the press. So OK? With luck, the statue will remain popular longer than this phrase.
Naturally, some are not bullish about the bronzing. Is the Fonz passé or retro-cool? Old Milwaukee or new? Would Laverne and Shirley or some other TV image be more appropriate?
May I suggest there’s no need for sleepless nights about this issue? In reality, “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” had nothing to do with Milwaukee, any more than “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” had anything to do with Minneapolis. “The Honeymooners,” at least, was shot on a sound stage in Manhattan, and couldn’t help evoking something New York-like. “Happy Days” was all about Hollywood, not Milwaukee.
The purist response to the statue might be summarized this way: It’s pure kitsch, schmaltzy pop imagery that will probably be meaningless 50 years from now. Great cities put up statues and works of art that express something significant about the city; this clearly fails that test. The image of the city is now personified by the VISIT Milwaukee Web site, which has the Calatrava’s wings as a logo. Would anyone want to add the Fonz’s face?
But I’m finding it hard to climb on board with the naysayers. The reality is that this city has put up lots of bad public art. Check out the horrible sculpture in Gordon Park, at Humboldt and Locust. This and many other bad works have gone up with no criticism from self-appointed art critics Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling. Meanwhile, they helped kill the installation of a potentially great artwork by a blue-chip artist, Dennis Oppenheim – The Blue Shirt.
In the context of what images have been erected in Milwaukee, a statue of the Fonz is quite inoffensive. It won’t cost taxpayers anything: Fantle has already raised more than half the $85,000 needed to create this statue from private donors. And it adds a little pop culture for the tourist bureau to play off the high art offered by our art museums, theaters or symphony orchestra. The Fonz may be fake Milwaukee, but it’s fun. And that’s a commodity always in short supply.
The Taxpayers Alliance Strikes Out
The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance advertises itself as a nonpartisan organization, which it is. But as the group’s name suggests, it has an agenda – to dramatize the level of taxes. At times, this has resulted in studies that are anything but balanced.
A case in point is its recent study declaring that state/local government employee benefits exceed those of private sector workers by a whopping 50 percent. The study also suggested government workers in Wisconsin earn higher salaries than private sector workers. This naturally provoked outrage and thereby helped publicize the WTA’s findings.
But it’s a bad study. Oh, the facts might all be accurate, but the study is woefully lacking in context.
For instance, consider the compensation of Todd Berry, executive director of the Taxpayers Alliance. In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics were available, he earned $124,641, in addition to $10,624 contributed to an employee pension plan. Since the organization is a tax exempt nonprofit, the public (which helps subsidize it) has a right to know his compensation. And what we see is that Todd earns about three times more than the average reporter and about four times more than the average private sector employee earns in Wisconsin.
Of course, this comparison is absurd. Berry makes far more than average employees, because he is a highly skilled executive. Similarly, average public sector workers earn more because they are more likely to be white-collar and college-educated, while the private sector has many low-paying jobs in retail and fast food establishments.
Attempts to compare total compensation of public and private sector employees always run into the problem of what is a comparable job. Few studies have ever attempted to do this. A 2001 study by the state of Washington looked at a range of 100 state jobs and found public sector workers earned 16 percent less in salaries and benefits, on average, than comparable workers in the private sector. A 1997 Congressional Budget Office study found that federal employees earned higher benefits but lower salaries and lower total compensation than their private sector counterparts.
Given the rapidly rising cost of health insurance, both those studies might find somewhat different results today.
The Taxpayers Alliance offers just one statistic attempting to make this comparison: In the first quarter of 2007, it says, the average salary of public employees in a “management, professional or related occupation” was slightly higher than private sector employees in this category. But this is the crudest of measurements, a very broad category that tells us nothing about how people in strictly comparable jobs were paid.
Similarly, the Alliance offers an arresting statistic showing a bigger gap between public and private sector benefits in Wisconsin than in most states. But that may mostly reflect a different mix of private sector jobs here compared to other states.
Indeed, the Alliance study shows the value of government benefits in Wisconsin was just five percent higher than the national average. Government workers here earn an average of $12,171 in benefits, compared to averages ranging from $8,970 in lowest-ranked Wyoming to a whopping $23,354 in Oregon. Wisconsin is well below the median in average benefits.
That doesn’t mean the issue doesn’t deserve scrutiny. More research is welcome, but not scary and misleading studies.
The Buzz
-Last week’s breakdown of transit talks provoked a statement from Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce head Tim Sheehy saying business leaders won’t be happy with a deteriorating public transit system, which will make it harder for workers to get to jobs. That would suggest a division between business and Republican Scott Walker, which could have an impact on his re-election effort.
-A Sunday New York Times story on state lotteries found they have raised less government revenue than some expected. Sales per capita have ranged from $35 in thrifty North Dakota to $699 in liberal Massachusetts. Wisconsin ranked toward the bottom at $92 per capita. States are increasing prize money and lowering profit margins in an attempt to keep us all gambling. Somehow this doesn’t seem to fit government’s constitutional injunction to promote the general welfare.
-And County Supervisor Roger Quindel offers a blistering attack on Scott Walker while defending his opponent Lena Taylor. Let the campaign begin.
And don’t miss our new column, The Sports Nut.
