The veto will preserve local governments' bond ratings and enable our cities to help with developments that bring jobs to our communities and new tax revenue to local government and schools, city leaders said.

"I'm pleased that the governor has faith in local elected officials," said Mayor Mike Miller of West Bend, Alliance president. "Now it's up to us to ensure that his faith was well placed."

The property tax freeze was a political strategy devised by Republicans with the help of the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

"A tax freeze is a sound bite," said Mayor Ray Glowacki of  Cudahy. "But how can you capture the ramifications in a sound bite?"

Those ramifications include city job openings going unfilled and — at worst — layoffs of city workers. Mayor Miller said jobs going unfilled and positions eliminated will be a widespread phenomenon, but he urged local leaders to bite the bullet.

"I strongly encourage all of our member cities to hold the line on taxes," Mayor Miller said.

Iceport project in Cudahy

Iceport, a $50 million recreational ice-skating complex proposed in Cudahy, is just one of the projects that was threatened by the proposed property tax freeze in the state budget bill.

The freeze would have seriously reduced cash flow to pay off bonds needed to get the project underway, Ehlers & Associates Inc. told Gov. Jim Doyle in a letter.

Mayor Wehrle

County Exec. Falk

Mayor Jerry Wehrle of  Lancaster joked that if state legislators are so intent on managing local government, they should be mailed copies of meeting agendas.

"We don't believe we have to be instructed by Madison to actually take care of our finances," he said.

"A tax freeze on top of (shared revenue cuts) means no citizen in my county has any choice to decide whether to continue the level of services that they want and that they are willing to pay for," Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said.

Legislators “are trying to tell us they are doing this for the people, and yet as far as townspeople are concerned, they are taking their rights away from them,” town of Kaukauna Chairman Marvin Fox said.

The elected officials spoke at news conferences in Wausau, Appleton, West Allis and Madison. In all, more than 300 county and local officials signed a letter to the governor asking him to veto the property tax freeze.

The Census Bureau’s figures show that local governments in Wisconsin did increase their spending by 51% between 1991-92 and 1999-2000. During the same period, the data indicate that state government increased its spending by 68%.

Adjusted for inflation, the state's spending increase was 38%, while local governments' was  22% over the period.

Wisconsin Property Taxpayers Inc.
analyzes what caused state budget crisis

Mayor Cieslewicz

Under the proposal, developers would have to include low-cost/affordable housing in their developments in order to get a project approved.

Speaking at a 60-unit, mixed-income apartment complex, Mayor Cieslewisz said Madison faces  an "affordable housing crisis."

"Obviously, there'll be stiff resistance from the development community," he said. "We need to respond with facts, good arguments and grass-roots organizing."

In Maryland, Montgomery County became one of the nation's more racially and economically integrated communities as a result of inclusionary zoning.  Ensuring housing for a diversified labor force also was key to successfully diversifying the county's employment base. See more on Montgomery County's experience here.

Rich Eggleston of the Alliance staff returned recently from Churchill, Manitoba, where he interviewed a momma polar bear about her views of a property tax freeze. The results were surprisingly similar to what the Wisconsin Realtors Association found in a poll. "I'm in favor of any kind of a freeze," the bear replied. "But I think it would be fairer if the state froze its own tax revenue before it froze another level of government." To see Rich's vacation pictures, look here.

Bear is pro-Freeze
photo © Rich Eggleston