Milwaukee County

Bo Black’s daughter has big breasts.

How do we know? The Journal Sentinel’s Jim Stingl wrote a whole column about her, just so the paper could run her photo with them hanging out.  Bo, who people used to call Milwaukee’s only celebrity, is still trying to maintain the title long-distance from Arizona. Stingl, interviewed on WTMJ-TV news (!) about it, said the story was pitched to him (and a lot of others) via email by Bo herself. Get a life, everybody.

So much for the secret ballot.

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

"Hey, do you think Fred skipped Communion because he's committing adultery with his secretary, or because he voted for Obama?"

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Six civic, civil rights and environmental organizations have submitted together formal comments to the federal reviewers who are required to assess the performance of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission every four years.

It's an excellent analysis - - linked here.

Similar analyses have been forwarded into the process by many individuals, and also by both the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County - - the latter being highly-significant because it pays the largest share of the SEWRPC operating budget annually (about half from city taxpayers), so any statement about equity in the agency's structure, management or work product has got to get the attention of the reviewers.

Four years ago, the federal reviewers, hearing similar public complaints, worked out with SEWRPC the creation of an Environmental Justice Task Force to serve as a bridge to low-income and minority communities excluded from SEWRPC activities.

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One more thing about SEWRPC, and how it is managed when it comes to deciding which issues to tackle, and on whose behalf.

This has been on mind, as I was out of town twice in the last month, without the documents - - and wanted to interject one matter into the ongoing debate about how that agency performs.

Now it's one thing for SEWRPC to throw up its hands helplessly when critics allege institutional passivity or benign neglect by the agency and say, "no one is accepting our recommendations; there's little we can do."

This is the argument that SEWRPC and some of its defenders have offered when explaining away the agency's lack of a major regional housing study since 1975.

And while it is true that municipalities in the region did not pick up the housing ball and run with its recommendations for more affordable housing after the 1975 report, some of the responsibility for that lack of reaction actually returns full circle to SEWRPC.

And not because SEWRPC does not believe in advocacy, though that is a very subjective term, as we shall see.

SEWRPC should bear some of the responsibility because it did not follow through on the recommendations it made to itself in the 1975 housing study report.

Not a county board or city council or town manager, mind you:

SEWRPC itself.

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Regaining control of the State Assembly is a real achievement for the state's Democrats and independently-minded progressives.

It offers hope and raises expectations that some needed services, like transit, can finally get more attention, and I expect to see initiatives from an Obama administration and a Democratic Congress to upgrade and stabilize Amtrak, launch high-speed rail in the Midwest, and substantially improve bus and local rail options in Wisconsin.

The local sales tax shift referendum that was approved yesterday in Milwaukee County could provide funding to save Milwaukee County Transit, though there has to be commitment in the County Executive's office to see the value of expanded transit - - including rail - - to create a viable and coordinated system.

That may require a new County Executive, because the backward-looking ideologue sitting there inert, except to salivate about running for Governor, is weakening county government, losing out on transit-related economic development and undermining the transit system every day he's in office.

So the state and nation are nack on the right track...we are on the road to coherence in state and federal policy-making on behalf of everyday people, but Milwaukee County still needs a people's champion and friend to the City at the helm.

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board backs some reforms of, and further debate about, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

This follows a 12-0 vote last week by the Milwaukee Common council that called for Milwaukee County to remove itself from SEWRPC if the state legislature did not rewrite the statutes creating SEWRPC to make the agency's board representatio by population - - right now, each of SEWRPC's seven-counties get three votes on the commission board, though Milwaukee County contains almost half the seven-county region's population and ponies up 36% of the agency's annual operating budget.

As I, among others, have argued for years, Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are inequitably represented at SEWRPC, and over-taxed there for its operations, with the agency's suburban policy biases reflect that imbalance.

The Journal Sentinel editorial board does support Milwaukee County's withdrawal from SEWRPC. But it does agree that the City of Milwaukee should have a representative on the agency board, and that the budget and taxing imbalance needs addressing. The editorial is here.

A few observations:

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