My vote for the most amusing story of last week was by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Don Behm, who reported that “the most efficient size of the Ozaukee County Board is 22 supervisors, perhaps 26 or 27 … or maybe even the current 31,” according to an analysis by the board’s special reorganization committee. Thanks so much for that definitive conclusion, Ozaukee County.
If that sounds wishy-washy, consider Washington County, which rejected a plan to cut its size from 30 members to 15 back in 2007, but is now considering a proposal to drop to 23 members. No need to rush to a decision.
As I noted in a column back in 2006, there is no state with more county supervisors than Wisconsin. At that time, nearly 10 percent of all county board members in the United States could be found in Wisconsin, according to figures from the National Association of Counties (NACo). Even massive states like California, New York and Texas had fewer board members than Wisconsin.
Not much has changed since then. John Reinemann, legislative director of the Wisconsin Counties Association, recently told the press that Wisconsin’s county boards now average 25 members, compared to 6.23 nationally.
I would argue that Milwaukee County has too many supervisors, with 19, but the average board member here serves some 50,000 people. In far less populated Washington County, each board member serves fewer than 4,400 people; in Ozaukee County, each board member serves fewer than 2,800 people.
But Chippewa County, with 29 board members, has them all beat: Each supervisor serves fewer than 2,100 people. Granted, Washington, Ozaukee and Chippewa board members only get part-time pay, whereas Milwaukee board members are full-time, but is there anyone, other than the board members themselves, who believe these counties need that many representatives?
In Chippewa County, former board member Don Sperber has been circulating a petition to cut the board back to 15 members. Sperber told the Chippewa Herald that since the county got an appointed administrator three years earlier, “I’ve overheard one or two county board people say, ‘Now, we don’t have anything to do anymore.’”
Then there’s Marathon County, which has the state’s largest county board, with an incredible 38 members. The board has begun to consider whether to reduce its size. But with the potential of 38 different opinions on the matter, it could be hard to come to any conclusion.
In Milwaukee, the average county supervisor probably gets about five calls per week from constituents, and they serve 50,000 people. In Ozaukee County, I wonder if they get five a month.
Where’s that GMC Study?
It was back on Oct. 9 that a story by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Dan Bice told us that civic leaders on the Greater Milwaukee Committee had held a “super secret report” that showed Milwaukee County was nearly bankrupt. Supporters of Mayor Tom Barrett, then running for governor, argued the report should be released, but GMC officials – including those aligned with both Democrats and Republicans – declined, saying they didn’t want the report to become a “political football” during the election campaign.
In response, the Milwaukee Common Council’s president, Ald. Willie Hines, wrote an Oct. 19 letter to the GMC essentially asking if such a report actually existed. “There appears to be public confusion about whether or not a new report on the fiscal condition of Milwaukee County exists,” Hines wrote. “I believe it is appropriate for the GMC to clarify the reality of any such report.” Hines has yet to hear back from the GMC, according to his staff assistant, Alex Runner.
On Sunday, a month after Bice’s column, the JS did a “Politifact” analysis as to whether GMC chair Michael Grebe, who is serving on Republican Gov.-elect Scott Walker’s transition team, had killed the release of this report, as some Democrats were claiming. The answer – drumroll, please – was no, as anyone who had read Bice’s original story would have known.
In essence, the JS had taken a cheap shot by the Democrats that no one in the media had bothered to report and elevated it into a big issue that needed to be clarified for readers. Meanwhile, the far more important issue of what had happened to that GMC report has yet to be revealed. In passing, Sunday’s Politifact let drop the fact that the report was “actually just a set of not-yet-released recommendations.” That’s quite a change from how Bice described it, yet it barely gets addressed.
I checked with GMC and its spokesperson, Eric Paulsen, who says that the only “study” is the report that was released way back in January 2010 and done in conjunction with the Public Policy Forum. The GMC plans to release some recommendations based on the study and is “still crunching the numbers,” Paulsen says. He expects the recommendations to be released in December.
The JS could have let its readers know all this, but that would have made its Politifact analysis look rather irrelevant – and the paper does seem excited by this new feature. But sometimes, it’s better just to cover the facts, rather than the politifacts.
The Buzz
-Few states, if any, saw such a sweeping victory for Republicans in state and federal offices as Wisconsin. That could explain why State Republican Chair Reince Priebus could be under consideration for national party leader.
–Tom Ament is back! Well, at least for a moment, telling the JS he’d consider an appointment as interim county executive. Thanks, Tom. The story noted that Ament would have been eligible for a backdrop of $1 million or more. As the reporter who broke this story, let me be precise: If he had served until 2004, he would have earned a backdrop of $1.2 million, plus an annual pension of $92,040 for life. If he had served till 2008, as had been his intention, he could have claimed a lump-sum payment of $2.04 million, plus a $98,200 annual pension for life. But after the controversy hit the papers, Ament signed a waiver of the pension sweeteners, and now gets a mere $95,000 a year.
-Longtime WUWM reporter Jane Hampden, now a contributor for Milwaukee Magazine, has done a fascinating story on the wealthy – and conservative – River Hills couple who chose to end their own lives before Alzheimer’s disease consumed them. In a moving audio interview, she talks with Mary Gute Witte, daughter of Daniel and Kitty Gute, who asphyxiated themselves – together – in July. The controversial case is drawing national attention to the right-to-die movement.
-Pressroom Buzz eyes hyper-local Patch.com’s new hubs in Southeastern Wisconsin.
-And the Sports Nut reveals that Marquette coach Buzz Williams will be much more patient (not!) this season.
