Keep Walker County Executive

It is essential that Scott Walker completes his four-year term as Milwaukee County Executive. Not because he is doing a great job (actually county facilities and services have declined on his watch), but because the alternative is far worse.

If the office of County Executive becomes vacant, the Chairman of the County Board, now Lee Holloway, would become acting Executive for 30 days, then he would appoint an interim Executive until a special election would be held, probably in April. If the incumbent runs in this election, he would enjoy a substantial advantage. Here are three reasons why Holloway should not have this office, even for a short time:

1. In 1988, Lee Holloway lost the primary for Mayor of Milwaukee to Martin Schreiber and John Norquist. He then convened a "Black Political Caucus" to endorse one of the nominees for Mayor. Participants were required to pay an admission charge to Holloway's political committee. The rules of the Caucus assured that Holloway would make the final choice himself. (Only Schreiber asked for the endorsement, got it, and then lost to Norquist).

2. Lee Holloway was charged with 39 building code violations on his apartment house at 2041 W Atkinson Avenue plus additional violations for property on 7th Street in March of 2009.
Previously, he accepted $165,000 from the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) for rent for a property at 2100 W Atkinson, which OIC never used. Meanwhile, Holloway voted for $1.8 million of county funding for OIC. He paid a fine of $3,000 for filing false ethics statements with the County from 1998 through 2003, on which he failed to note that he still owned this property.

3. Holloway supported a notorious redistricting gerrymander in 2004 that included some absurdly-contrived districts to virtually guarantee the re-election of some incumbent supervisors, including his ally Michael Mayo in the weirdly-configured seventh district (1).

I will not even mention the vote-fraud cases from his 2003 recall election (2). OK, I could not resist mentioning them. In my view, Lee Holloway gives "political sleaze" a bad name.

Barring a revolution on the County Board, Holloway will be chairman through 2012. So the only way to keep him from becoming the next Milwaukee County Executive will be to keep Scott Walker in that job for the rest of his term.

There are two ways to do that:
1. The Republicans could nominate Mark Neumann for Governor on September 14. Neumann is just as strong a candidate for Governor in the general election, and would make just a good a Governor, so why not?
2. If Walker is nominated, Wisconsin could elect the Democratic nominee (presumably Tom Barrett, although there is another candidate in the Democratic primary) Governor in November.

Would Scott Walker abandon his ambition to become Governor of Wisconsin just to save this county from Lee Holloway? NO WAY. But we can do that for him.
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(1) The 7th District is U-shaped: it extends from 24th and Congress on the NE to 78th and Silver Spring on the NW, but does not include most of the land in between, which is assigned to the 2nd district.

(2) Holloway was never charged in these cases, and there is no proof he was involved in any election fraud.

Exposing A Lie About Milwaukee

Mr Charles Sykes
WTMJ-TV
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Dear Mr Sykes:

Enclosed please find a clipping from the June 30, 2010, issue of the Milwaukee Community Journal entitled "Signifyin': The New Racism" by your Sunday Insight panelist Mikel Holt. I draw your attention to the last page of this piece, in which Mr Holt discusses his participation in open-housing marches in Milwaukee, which occurred in 1967 and early 1968. The section I have enclosed in red ink reads as follows:

"At the time it was illegal for Black Milwaukeeans to live in certain areas of the city-----north of Keefe Avenue, or south of downtown."

You know, as I do, that this statement is demonstrably false. There was never a law on the books of the City of Milwaukee or the State of Wisconsin barring Blacks (per Holt's capitalization) or anyone else from living anywhere in the city. Since Mr Holt had ample time before publishing this statement to check the city law books of that time, it is either a deliberate lie or, at best, a statement made with reckless disregard of its truth. Either way, tens of thousands of readers of the Milwaukee Community Journal will never look up the city ordinances in effect in 1968, and will come away from reading this column believing that Milwaukee had racist laws on its books some 42 years ago.

Lies like this fan the fires of racial animosity in this city, especially when they are not confronted with the truth. If the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or another "mainstream media outlet" had printed this pernicious lie, I am confident that you (along with others) would call them on it and demand a retraction. But are you willing to confront your own panelist on your show with this quote and demand either proof that it is true or a public retraction in the Community Journal?

As a reader of two of your books and viewer of Sunday Insight, I respect your commitment to honest dialogue. I hope you will not disappoint me by ignoring this blatant lie.


Gerald S Glazer
2944 N 50th Street
Milwaukee, WI 5321
GSGlazer@sbcglobal.net

New School Rules

"Milwaukee's mayor would have the power to ...appoint the superintendent (of schools)...and set its annual tax levy under a legislative proposal Gov. Jim Doyle detailed Tuesday (Oct. 27)......it would also move authority over budget...curriculum, facility decisions and collective bargaining from the School Board to the superintendent."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 28, 2009

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) are clearly in trouble. Only about half of all ninth-grade students ever graduate from high school. Massive fights break out at several high schools. Standard test scores are low.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Doyle and State Superintendent Tony Evers have concluded that transferring power from the elected Board of School Directors to the mayor would bring improvement in this situation. But, why?

The teachers at MPS have the same credentials as those teaching at suburban schools, the facilities are comparable, and the method of governance is the same (an elected board hires the superintendent and staff.) If so, then why are the suburban schools doing so much better?

The answer, which no one wants to face, is that the real difference between city and suburban schools is the demographics of the student body. Suburban students are overwhelmingly white and come from functional two-parent homes where education is valued. Most MPS students are black, another large group is Hispanic, and most come from poor homes. To make matters even worse, large numbers of MPS students transfer from one school to another several times in a single school year, often from or to other states.

There is no political pay-off for elected officials to confront these facts; in fact, to mention them out-loud would probably cost votes. The problems of dysfunctional families cannot be readily addressed by changes in law or administrative practices. The state could merge all school districts in Milwaukee County into a single district, which would lead to integration of the schools (economically as well as racially), but this idea would be anathema to suburbanites.

It is hard to see how the power-shift proposed by the Governor would do any good at all. There is no reason to believe that the mayor would pick a better superintendent than the School Board. Giving the superintendent more power, as proposed, would have little or no effect on teaching or student achievement. I conclude that advocating some change, even irrelevant change, is simply a way to show the public that the officials backing the change are concerned enough about the problems to do something about them.

If Tom Barrett really wants to have some say in school governance, he should junk his plan to run for Governor of Wisconsin, and instead run for the Milwaukee School Board!

Re-Elect Langley et al.

Of all the Milwaukee citywide officials seeking re-election on Tuesday, April 1, only City Attorney Grant Langley faces serious opposition.

Langley, who was elected in 1984 and re-elected every four years since then, is opposed by State Representative Pedro Colon, who represents the near South Side of the City of Milwaukee. Colon intended to run for Mayor in 2004, but quit the race when he realized he could not beat Tom Barrett.

Colon says that the City Attorney should take a pro-active role in solving City problems, while Langley maintains that the proper role for the official is to provide legal advice and services to City departments. I agree with the incumbent on this; once the City Attorney becomes involved in setting policy, his legal judgment may be clouded by his advocacy of a particular idea or program. The Mayor and Common Council should determine policy, and the City Attorney should provide legal counsel as needed. Grant Langley has over 36 years of experience in municipal law, and Colon has none. Langley should be retained for another term.

Tom Barrett beat nine other candidates to become Mayor in 2004, and faces only Attorney Andrew Shaw this time. The fact that no elected official, present or former, is running against him is a sign that he has kept the political powers of this City rather happy these past four years. Barrett played a major role in persuading Manpower (1) to move back into the City, and his administration has been instrumental in the boom in condo and commercial construction near Downtown. Unfortunately, crime remains a major problem, but I do not believe than anyone else could have done more to solve it. Barrett will win easily, and he deserves another term.

City Treasurer Wayne F Whittow has done his job of collecting the City's property taxes since 1972 without any major problems or scandals, so he might as well keep doing it. His opponent, Rick Kissel, would introduce a left-wing political agenda into the Treasurer's office, which we do not need.

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(1) Manpower, the world-class temporary placement firm, was founded in downtown Milwaukee in 1948, but moved to Glendale about 1967.