Scott Walker

So the County Board turns down Scott Walker's privatization agenda goes down in flames, including his plan to bail out the transit system by leasing the airport.

Are we surprised?

Sure - - Midway Airport is being leased, and so are toll roads around the country, but people figure that the lease-holders want to make a profit, so all the fees and costs will go up - - parking, landing charges, store leases - - and in the end, county residents will still pay and pay and pay.

Walker's tenure as County Exec has been marked by years phony budgeting - - bogus revenue estimates filling service lines with dollars that were never going to arrive, forcing the inevitable call for more service cuts and budget wailing by Walker, year in and year out.

It's so tiresome.

Can we get a real executive as County Executive, please?

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There's word Monday that the County is moving faster towards selling land at the County grounds to UW-M for its new Engineering campus.

Of course the county is a willing seller: A land deal means revenue to the county from a willing buyer, UW-M, which wants to set its new Engineering and Research campus on bucolic, brochure-friendly acreage.

But what about the students? Is separating them from the main campus on the East side in their interest?

Is this how students get a well-rounded education?

And how will they get back and forth to the main canpus, their dorms, their apartments and the rest of their lives?

Will all their social science, liberal arts and elective course teachers also be shuttling back and forth from Wauwatosa and their East side offices? I talked to a faculty department chairman the other day and this official was not happy at all with this prospect.

Will Milwaukee County be running shuttle buses cross-town every ten minutes? Every hour? Daily?

Will Scott Walker, the champion of the Wauwatosa campus, start campaigning for a light rail line there, too?

Let's be be honest: a lot of kids are going to have to buy cars to get an Engineering degree from UW-M.

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Good point raised by the Cognitive Dissidence blog.

You tell me: is this a legitimate County web presence, or a tool wielded by an imcumbent in the middle of a referendum fight on the November ballot?

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BusStop. Report from Michael Cudahy upon meeting with Barrett and Walker.

At the October 14 meeting of the UEDA Coalition for Advancing Transit Meeting, Michael Cudahy, philanthropist and lover of Milwaukee, presented his Streetcar Backbone proposal to rejuvenate Milwaukee public transportation. He described the meeting he had with the two leaders of Milwaukee: Mayor Tom Barrett and County Executive Scott Walker. Mr. Cudahy summarized this meeting in a memo, which BusStop proudly reprints.  It was Mr. Cudahy's explicit wish that we feel free to circulate this wherever we wished.

To: Scott Walker, Tom Barrett,
Copies to: Tim Sheehy, Julia Taylor, Mark Kaminski
From: Michael J. Cudahy
Subject: Public Transportation
Date; August 8th, 2008

Recently, I asked Mayor Tom Barrett and County Executive Scott Walker to meet with me and see if I could "broker a deal" relative to the long standing dispute they've had about public transportation in this community.Yesterday, on August 7th, 2008, these gentlemen and I meet privately and, perhaps, made some progress in this regard.

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The County Board is deep-sixing plans by Executive Scott Walker to consider leasing Mitchell Airport.

The Board is obviously tired of Walker's annual budget fakery and now they and some department heads will get down to the tough choices in real budget crafting.

Seems this is the silly season for Republican pols - - everyday a new scheme to throw money at something. McCain has a new bailout plan a day - - yesterday to buy bad home mortgages for full price; today, have the government make some people's IRA plans more whole.

What will these goofs think of next?

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