May 3, 2006 e-newsletter

Alliance members gather in Manitowoc May 18-19

Alliance welcomes new city leaders

Health Partnership Plan unveiled

News Briefs

Upcoming events

No, not a parade with floats and bands. A parade of informative presentations on issues ranging from broadband franchising to putting video from your city meetings on the Internet. The gathering of the clan is in Manitowoc May 18-19, and includes a golf outing Thursday morning. Members will receive materials via e-mail next week. Members should RSVP and make hotel reservations now. For that information, click here.

Alliance welcomes new city leaders

In Ashland, Ed Monroe is that city’s new mayor. He bested Dave Sorenson by a 2-1 margin last month. And Ashland voters preferred to stick with a part-time mayor, full-time administrator position, KUWS, 91.3 in Superior, reported. That referendum for a full-time mayor was defeated 1242 to 835.

Eugene Rosin is the new mayor of Kaukauna. Mayor John Lambie did  not seek re-election.  "A couple of years ago, I didn't even know what a 'lame duck' was.  Now, next to the definition in the dictionary is a picture of me," Mayor Lambie told Alliance members shortly before his retirement.

Bob Harbick was sworn in as Marinette's new mayor, defeating Doug Oitzinger.

In Monroe, write-in candidate Ron Marsh won the mayor's job by an almost 2-1 margin after one of the candidates in the general election dropped out of the race.

Larry Nelson is the new mayor of Waukesha. Nelson, 51, defeated state Rep. Ann Nischke (R-Waukesha), 55, in the April 4 general election by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin. The two clashed most notably over TABOR (story here), which Nischke sponsored and Nelson opposes. Nelson and Nischke,  advanced to the general election by beating five other candidates in the Feb. 21 primary.

Wisconsin Rapids elected its first woman mayor. Mary Jo Carson unseated  Jerry Bach. to win the job.

The Alliance also has a brace of new city administrators.   They include Mark Vahlsing in Monroe, Tony Chladek in Merrill and Patrick DeGrave in Oak Creek.

Alliance Supports Health Partnership Plan

"Economically it will help Wisconsin get a leg up on the rest of the Midwest," Sen. Decker said. And it will help medical people practice medicine rather than shuffle paperwork, he added.

Stating the obvious, Newby began his remarks by saying the health care system in the United States isn't working.

"Americans pay much more for health care than people anywhere else in the world, yet the health of our people is poorer than that of the citizens of 23 other countries. We don't live as long as people in other industrialized countries, more babies die within a year after birth — by almost any measure, we don't do well," he said.

And the purported solutions being discussed so far don't work either, Rep. Musser said.

"We're trying to put a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage," he said. "It just doesn't work."

Story from The Capital Times here. For a five-page summary of the plan, click here.  Alliance members have supported the plan since 2003. Background here.

Legislative Cooks Write New Stew Recipe
Eleventh-Hour Work on TABOR — Again

By Rich Eggleston

A new version of the so-called Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, or Taxpayer's Protection Amendment, that would limit state general-fund spending, was narrowly passed by the Assembly at 4:30 a.m. on April 28.  The vote was 50-48.

Ever stayed up until 4:30 a.m. and had a splitting headache the next day?  Well, when the Assembly stays up until 4:30 a.m. we all have a splitting headache the next day.

"What they were concerned about (Friday) is 50 votes,"  Ed Huck, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "This is a '4:30 a.m. gotta get it done' proposal."

The action came after the Assembly soundly defeated a more inclusive version of TABOR sponsored by Rep Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue), on a 66-32 vote.

A Senate committee on Friday scheduled a public hearing for Monday on Sen. Glenn Grothman and Rep. Jeff Wood's original TABOR proposal, SJR 63.   (See that here.) It also entertained testimony on the Assembly-passed version. The Assembly-passed version would have cut state spending by about 2% if it had been law since 1978, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said in a report quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in a story here.

"It does not freeze government spending or prevent tax increases, but it would actually all but guarantee that local governments would be forced to raise taxes to unprecedented levels,” Rep. Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) said in a press release.

"This version caps only part of the state’s spending and would reduce state aid to local governments," she said. "That means municipalities and school districts would have to make up the difference by hiking taxes—a far cry from the original intent of this proposal."

Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) voted against the Albers-Wood proposal, calling it "horribly weak" and "bumper sticker politics."

Rep. Terri McCormick (R-Appleton) decried the amendment's failure to address the needs of nursing home residents and funding for police, fire and anti-terrorism activities. She also faulted the Assembly for rejecting one of her amendments, to require the state to use GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) accounting. And she called the Lasee plan "sound bite politics."

"Think about the idea of a constitutional convention to review how local governments deal with the state," Rep. McCormick urged.

Who are those other guys, anyway?
We're all Americans for prosperity

By Rich Eggleston

High taxes are a problem in Wisconsin, but a group dedicated to passing a constitutional amendment to restrict state and local revenues has a decidedly un-Wisconsin (as opposed to On Wisconsin) flavor.

Americans for Prosperity claims to be a "grass-roots, free-market organization."  At least that's what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said in printing an Op-Ed piece from AFP's state director, Mark Block.  This came after the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities described the group to members of the newspaper's editorial page staff and provided Patrick McIlheran, editorial page columnist for the newspaper, with copies of the Internal Revenue Service's 990 forms that Washington, D.C.-based AFP most recently filed.

The documents reveal that  AFP is about as much of a grass-roots group as the CIA. It is run from Washington by a group of the heaviest of the country's ultra-conservative heavy hitters. It was formed by billionaire David Koch, co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held corporation in America.  These are the folks who bought Georgia-Pacific Corp. And they dispensesmoney in states where they think TABOR is likely to pass.

According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Block masterminded the late-1990s scheme to illegally funnel money into the reelection campaign of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox. The Democracy Campaign says the case produced the largest fine ever handed down by the state Elections Board.

Yep, definitely a grass-roots kind of guy.

                                                                  Assembly Republican Caucus photo
Then-Speaker Scott Jensen and staff before the caucus scandal broke

Appleton voters upheld that city's comprehensive smoking ban by a 57% margin in the April 4 election. Story here. But bar owners still don't like the ban, even though after the first six months of Appleton's workplace smoking ban on the books, the city saw a five-year low in the number of bar closings.

Mayor Gary Becker wants to make Racine "a vibrant city that offers opportunities to us all."  In his state of the city speech, Mayor Becker said Racine will work with other communities in the area to strengthen regional cooperation. "We must make the connections in order for our companies to grow," the mayor said. "Racine will have high value-added manufacturing; this is not as labor intensive as our old smokestack industries, but the quality of the jobs can be better." Story  here.

"With the support of Mayor Tom Barrett, city officials and local businesses, Milwaukee is embarking on a cutting-edge project that it is hoped will create more educational, social and economic opportunities and resources," reports Vital Source magazine. " Milwaukee is positioned to become the first major metropolitan city to go completely wireless." Story  here.

Women held one out of five elected local offices in Wisconsin last year, according to the Wisconsin Women's Council. And female representation in elected local offices has improved since, at least in Brown County, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reports. In  2005, Green Bay was one of an estimated 31 cities without a woman on its council and was specifically cited in the Women's Council study. That changed when the voters in April elected Celestine Jeffreys, who among five women candidates in the spring elections was the only to reach office, the newspaper said. Story  here.

"The weather has warmed up and county police in Wisconsin have speed traps set up and just waiting for you," the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday. Horror stories related by the newspaper: the mayor of a Chicago suburb was told "shut up" when asked why he was stopped in Racine County; a woman was arrested for speeding up 10 feet before a 35-mph speed limit gave way to 55 mph near Lake Geneva; and a woman received a warning ticket for "failure to yield" when she pulled over to make room for an emergency vehicle. Is this news? Story  here.