Going the Distance

Washington County Gets a New District Attorney

Yep.

A longtime West Bend prosecutor has been named district attorney for Washington County by Gov. Jim Doyle.

Mark Bensen has worked in the Washington County office since 2001 and was named deputy district attorney last year by District Attorney Todd Martens. Martens was named to the circuit court bench this year by Doyle, creating the opening for a successor.

Bensen will take office immediately for a term lasting until 2013.

Shifting taxation

My column for the Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Shifting taxation.”  Here’s a snippet:

Now we get to this year. The clear message is that the Washington County sales tax is no longer a temporary measure to meet immediate concerns. Instead, it’s a permanent fixture of our tax structure to be used by the Washington County Board for whatever purpose they deem expedient at the time.

  What’s the lesson? A tax levied for whatever purpose will continue in perpetuity irrespective of the original justification for the levy.

UPDATE: The following is the West Bend School District Response:

Dear Owen,

I read your article regarding the penny solution.  In your article you do not
mention a specific school district advocating for the penny solution.

I did want to clarify that in the West Bend School District legislative platform the
penny solution is not being recommended.

The Board too understands that the penny solution does not solve the fundamental
issues that cause the issues with binding arbitration for salaries, benefits and
mandated retirement requirements.  The platform basis is to change the laws that
create the issues and not layer funding sources that continue the current
requirements.

Sincerely,

Pat Herdrich

Rabbits… YUM

Indeed.

No More Throwing Away Electronics

You know what this means...

Beginning Wednesday, a long list of electronic equipment is banned from Wisconsin landfills and incinerators, under a new state electronics recycling law.

Devices on the banned list include televisions, cell phones, computers and monitors, keyboards, printers, scanners and fax machines, as well as DVD players, VCRs and DVRs.

The coming months will see all sorts of electronic equipment dumped on roadsides.  Human nature is human nature. 

Phantom Voters

This kind of stuff undermines confidence in the integrity of our elections.

State officials spent the last 16 months trying to clean up information for 777,500 people who registered to vote between January 2006 and August 2008. They have verified information for most of those people, but data still does not match for about 66,500 voters.

There are only about 6 million people in Wisconsin.  That’s a helluva a lot of “voters” who we can’t verify exist.

Obama Seeks Scape Goat

Yep.

President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the economy continues to struggle and too many Americans are still struggling to find jobs.

He also took Republicans to task for what he said was partisan politics that are standing in the way of passing a bill aimed at helping small businesses.

The bill “has been held up by a partisan minority that won’t even allow it to go for a vote,” Obama said in brief remarks on the economy from the White House Rose Garden. Obama spoke shortly after meeting with his economic advisers.

Let’s see… Obama and his fellow Democrats control the presidency and the entire Congress by large majorities.  They took over GM and Chrysler.  They passed a massive stimulus bill and spent it according to their will.  They passed banking regulations.  On and on and on… and the reason that the economy isn’t recovering is because the Republicans oppose this one bill?  Even though the Democrats still hold large majorities and could pass it in a heartbeat? 

Obama’s excuses for his failed leadership would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so dire for so many unemployed Americans. 

New “Diversity” Regulations Coming

This is “financial” reform?

The recently enacted financial reform legislation tries in numerous ways to change how Wall Street companies and their federal regulators act, but a little-noticed provision aims for something potentially more difficult and controversial — altering how they look.

To promote diversity in the largely white, male world, the new law requires each of the 30 federal financial agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and all 12 Federal Reserve banks, to establish an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

Those offices will work with vaguely defined powers to boost diversity at their agencies and the companies they regulate, and to increase federal contracting opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses. Banks and other financial firms determined to have failed to make “a good-faith effort to include minorities and women in their workforce” could lose their government contracts.

And once again, the uncertainty is killing businesses.

If the legislation is interpreted broadly, the diversity requirements could reach down to subcontractors who provide food or janitorial services — something not required under current rules, said Jon Geier, an employment law expert at the Paul Hastings law firm.

“My clients are wondering what more will they have to do?” he said. “I can’t tell them yet. It could be substantial. It could be a paper tiger.”

Uncertainty

This pretty much sums it up.

“We’ve been operating for the last year and a half in conditions of perfect uncertainty,” said David J. Ward, president of Madison-based consulting firm NorthStar Economics Inc., adding that he has never before seen such economic doubt in his 45 years as an economist.

“Do you know what the estate tax rate is going to be next year?” he asks. “Do you know what the corporate income tax rate is going to be? Do we know what the personal income tax rate is going to be? Do we know any of a number of other issues? The answer is we don’t. And until we resolve that, the economy’s going nowhere.”

So as the political parties snipe at one another with midterm elections approaching, the nation’s gross domestic product is stumbling along at a 1.6% annual growth rate, according to figures released Friday. And the national unemployment rate is holding well above 9%.

“They’re not going to hire a lot of new people until they have a better sense of the direction the economy is going,” Ward said.

Good business people can find a way to earn money in any market, but they have to know the rules of the game.  We’re in a place now where things have been changing so fast and so arbitrarily that nobody knows what the rules will look like in 3 months, 6 months, 2 years, etc. 

Marc Bolan and T-Rex—Teenage Dream

Flashback to…....... 1974.  Now THAT was a good year. 

Race to the Top Finalists Announced

Hmmmmmmmm...

The Obama administration announced 10 winners today in the second round of the “Race To The Top” stimulus grant competition for education reform: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

It may all be on the up and up, but there does seem to be a very heavy bias to the eastern seaboard except for Ohio (battleground state) and Hawaii (Obama’s home state).

Are the schools in states in the deep South and west of the Mississippi just that good or are they that resistant to reform?

Milwaukee County Looks To New Psychiatric Hospital

There are a couple of things about this story that caught my attention. 

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and 12 supervisors pledged Friday to build a new psychiatric hospital on the County Grounds, aiming to address issues of violence and care at the county’s 31-year-old building.

The first thing was this:

The issue has been dormant since early 2009, when the board voted down a Walker plan to move the complex to a remodeled St. Michael Hospital on Milwaukee’s north side.

So Walker identified the problem and proposed a solution that the County Board shot down.  Now they all seem to agree with Walker that there is a problem and want to provide a more expensive solution.  Nice.

Then this:

On Friday, 12 supervisors announced their support for a new building on the County Grounds. Walker said later in the day he supports that effort. Neither side discussed cost Friday, but estimates for a new facility prepared in 2008 put the cost of a new hospital at some $400 million.

Nurses and other staff say the physical layout of the building lends itself to problems. Hallways are long and difficult to monitor, and nursing stations are set far from patient rooms.

Keep in mind that this isn’t an ancient building.  It’s not as old as a large portion of the housing stock in Milwaukee County.  Would it really take $400 MILLION to find a solution?  Seriously?  I find that hard to believe when the cases being cited are like this:

A similar declaration came in January after inspectors found medical staff failed to protect 11 of 17 patients on Ward 43-D - where Atkins was a patient - from inappropriate sexual contact.

and…

In 2006, one of Strelnick’s patients, Cindy Anczak, died of complications of starvation at the complex.

Sorry, but these are cases of gross neglect and incompetence - not because the nurses’ stations are a ways down the hall.  I’m not convinced that a $400 million new facility would do any more to fix the problem than a through revamp of the staff and a $20,000 camera system in the rooms and hallways.  While the treatments of the mentally ill may have changed drastically over the last 30 years, the process of basic supervision has not. 

Public Service Announcement

The blog will be down for a short period tomorrow while I upgrade the software.  Do not be alarmed.  If you need some methadone to make it through, see Wendy.

Driving Test

Today the whole fam damily went down to the Milwaukee Mile so I could drive a NASCAR car with the DriveTech Racing School.  I won a gift certificate a while back at a conference and finally got around to using it.  I signed up for the 12 lap “shootout.” 

First off, I have to say that all of the people there were absolutely fantastic.  They were friendly, fun, and great interacting with our kids.  We checked in and then I headed off to class. 

The first thing they do is drive the whole group (there were 12 of us) around the track in a van while the driver tells us how to drive the track.  They put tape on the corners to show the best approach into the turns and cones on the barriers to show where to let off the gas and brake.  After that we headed into a classroom where they went through the safety tips and some driving tips. 

I decided to sign up for a ride-along before I drove to get a feel for what it feels like.  My driver was super nice.  We did a few laps at his speed and then came back in.  By that time, my wife had signed up our two oldest daughters for a ride-along!  They both loved it and smiled ear to ear when done. 

Then it was my turn.  We raced in groups of six.  The rules are that you’re not allowed to pass on your own, but the instructors radio you to tell you to get low on the track and slow down (left and lift) after a turn to let other people pass if you were too slow.  After four laps behind the pace car, we went under the green flag and had a blast.  It was a blast.  I passed two cars.  I had a bit of confusion on my last lap where I thought they were telling me to pit, so I started to only to hear them over the radio yelling “75 car, GO! GO! GO!”  I punched it and got out there for one more lap.  Turns out they were calling the 5 car in - not the 75 car. 

It was a total blast.  We got the DVD and professional pics of the kids and me, so we came out of there for a few extra Benjamins than we planned to spend, but it was completely worth it.  I recommend the experience for anyone.  I’ll have some more pics at some point… maybe. 

Guess What I Did Today?

Here’s me driving the yellow 75 car.