Keith Pirlot in ad

Tim Sheehy

Don Kettl

Jim Burgess

"Economic growth is just a fundamental to working our way out of this situation," said Milwaukee business leader Tim Sheehy, who headed the Task Force on State and Local Government.

"Anything that we do has to be done in the context of economic growth,"  said UW Prof. Don Kettl, who headed  the Governor's Blue-Ribbon Commission on State-Local Partnership for the 21st Century. "The real problem we have in Wisconsin is an economic growth problem."

While Kettl and Sheehy spoke for governmental action to ease economic woes, former Wisconsin State Journal publisher Jim Burgess was just as skeptical of government's ability to jump-start the economy as he was of the chances for achieving structural reform.

We have a "system of government that is dysfunctional," yet too often people turn to government for the solutions to economic and other problems, said Burgess, chairman of the Commission for the Study of Administrative Value and Efficiency (SAVE Commission), which handed in its report in 1995.

"Building the New Wisconsin Economy," a public awareness campaign to better inform citizens about the complex issues of economic development and what it means to them, their families and the state may be coming soon to your community.

It's a "civic journalism" project spearheaded by Wood Communications Group, Madison, along the lines of the "We the People Wisconsin" effort that explored such issues as energy, education and land use, and sponsored candidate forums in statewide races.

We the People, which boasts that it is the oldest civic journalism project in the country, forged some novel partnerships: between print and broadcast media and between public and commercial broadcasters. Each issue it tackled was the subject of public forums that sought to bring the public into the discussion, and provide answers to the questions that ordinary people raise.

A public opinion poll a few weeks ago indicates that people are concerned about economic development, and consider it an important issue, said Jim Wood, president of Wood Communications. But he said the public knows far less about the details of economic development than the fact that it's important. Citizens want businesses, the state, local governments — just about everyone — to be involved, he said.

Wood is seeking to create a series of alliances to coordinate public forums and news coverage of the issue. At an initial meeting sponsored by Wood Communications, Gail Sumi talked up regional economic development to the business alliance in one of her last official acts on behalf of the Alliance of Cities. (Sumi left the Alliance April 14. She becomes the Wisconsin advocacy representative for AARP April 21.)

There also was a lot on which the media folks didn't agree. The notion of coordinated coverage of an issue like economic development  seemed more acceptable to some media participants than others.

State Budget Hearings
Beloit has Final Budget Word

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee heard from many hundreds of citizens during more than three weeks of budget hearings across the state, but Beloit Finance Director Bruce Hutchins literally got in the last word.

"Beloit recognizes the financial difficulties faced by the state and agrees with the need for all governmental entities  to contribute to regaining financial stability," Hutchins said. "We only ask that you take a community's ability to pay into account."

That could be accomplished by distributing cuts so the effect on property taxes would be identical statewide if every municipality in the state simply passed the reduction on to property taxpayers. If communities chose to absorb the cuts, the impact on services would be identical too.  Hutchins said the mill effect in the latter case would be 29 cents per $1,000 of equalized value.

The members had no questions. The committee adjourned.

Surrounded
by the Reds:
towns over
2,500 population
around La Crosse

The bill also would allow towns to veto city and village use of public rights of way in charter towns — even state-owned right of way — for city sewer and water lines. In addition, the bill would provide for town veto over city or village wells in charter towns. Those provisions concern the Public Service Commission and the Department of Natural Resources as well as the Alliance.

There are 135 towns with a population over 2,500 that could qualify as charter towns if they meet minimal standards contained in the bill.

ex-Mayor Jadin

Mayor Cieslewicz

Quoting from the ancient Athenians, Cieslewicz promised to leave Madison "'greater and more beautiful than it was left to us.' Let's begin." See the Wisconsin State Journal story here.