No Runny Eggs

I have to thank Fred of RealDebateWisconsin for bringing still unreal into the Cheddarsphere with Reality Check. It’s a shiny new blog, so go there and encourage him to get some more posts up.

Somehow, I missed Dean over at Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative welcoming me into the blogosphere. Welcome those of you who came here from there.

Using a loophole in the Miller Park lease that forces us suckers, er, taxpayers to pay for anything related to the stadium the Brewers ask for if at least 75% of the other stadiums has, the stadium district finance board approved by a 4-1 vote spending $3.25 million to put up ribbon video boards on the club-level facade and replace the left-field out-of-town scoreboard with a video board. This $3.25 million comes from the $5 million set aside in a reserve fund (funded 65% by taxpayers) to replace the scoreboard in 2008 (which, in itself, is an outrage; that scoreboard is less than 6 years old). The primary purpose of these ribbon video boards is for advertising, with the proceeds apparently going solely to the Brewers.

The 4 who want to stick it to us are the district board of directors chair Jay Williams (Doyle appointee), David Spano (Doyle appointee), Perfecto Rivera (Walker appointee who appeared to have defied Walker) and Karen Makoutz (Washington County rep). To his credit, finance board chair Doug Stansil (Racine County appointee) listened to Racine County Executive William McReynolds and voted against this. While the Doyle appointees have limits to their terms, the county appointees serve at the pleasure of the county leaders. Scott, it’s time to send Rivera packing.

Mark Belling has a cynical view of this tapping of the reserve fund; it is designed to drain the fund so that the 0.1% sales tax we are saddled with here down in southeast Wisconsin will never end. Can’t say I disagree with him.

Revisions/extensions – WISN-AM is now reporting that Walker is asking for a reopening of the lease agreement. That’s a great long-term solution, but what about Rivera?

The Capital Times story I linked to just below has another detail –

In addition the sides will recommend at a future sentencing date that Chvala be put on two years’ probation and the prosecutors will argue he be sent to jail for six months as a condition of that probation. Defense attorneys James Olson and Bruce Davey are free to argue for less, or no time in jail.

Yep, that’s right, the jail time isn’t agreed to.

Anyway, I somehow forgot to comment on the significance of all this in the earlier post. Chvala was hit with the laundry list after former State Sen. Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee) was hit with a laundry list indictment of his own, which derailed his 2002 bid for the soon-to-be-vacated Attorney General seat. With Burke’s plea-bargain deal, the pressure came off Milwaukee County DA E. Michael McCann’s office to push the Chvala prosecution, and he reverted to type, tossing out essentially the entire case, even though it was easily the strongest and furthest-reaching one from the entire Caucus scandal.

That one of the two guilty pleas was the use of state workers for campaigns on state time is no accident. That’s the sole basis of the remaining charges against various current and former Assembly Pubbies. That the corruption charges were tossed under the witch-hunt bus is disturbing, but to be expected from the office of McCan’t; he has a long history of minimizing corruption by ‘Rats.

Under a plea deal reached between former state Senator Chuck Chvala (D-Madison) and Assistant Milwaukee County DA David Feiss, Chvala pleaded guilty to 2 of an original 20 felony charges (one was dismissed back in February) – charges of having a state worker campaign on state time and funneling illegal amounts of cash into the election fund of a fellow Democrat in 2000. Dismissed fully were 11 other charges, including two extortion charges on cash-for-floor-votes, while 6 additional counts of campaign finance violations and having state workers campaign on state time were also dismissed but can be considered when sentencing happens.

Feiss recommended a Huber Law jail sentence of up to 6 months and a fine of no more than $5,500. Judge David Flanagan said that he was not bound to honor that, pointing out that those charges added up to a maximum of 5 years in prision and a $10,000 fine. However, he delayed sentencing until December to allow Chvala and his lawyers time to come up with a proposal for community service in lieu of jail, and extended an offer to let Chvala to withdraw the guilty pleas if he is sentenced to prison.

Extensions/revisions – here is was the original complaint against Chvala courtesy JSOnline.com, only the latest victim of my reaction to the racist Jentinel.

Further extensions/revisions – The racist Jentinel strikes again.

From the Journal Sentinel racist Jentinel…

The bad news – The State Senate is expected to pass a statewide smoking ban in restaurants that seat more than 50 (it would, however, supercede more-stringent local bands and allow smoking in those restaurants that have separate rooms with different ventilation systems, bars, small restaurants and bowling alleys). Unbelievably, the next headline will likely be, “Blind Doyle finds nut, vetoes smoking ban”.

The good news – The Assembly is taking up malpractice caps. Dunno how they’re going to get around the Doyle Supreme Court’s open invitation to tort lawyers though.

Revisions/extensions – (H/T – Boots and Sabers) The Senate has shelved the statewide large-restaurant smoking ban and did the first passage of an amendment to keep governors from creating new sentences in budgets by combining other parts of the budget.

Further revisions/extensions – changed the name of the source to the racist Jentinel, removed the link

Despite a pledge to voluntarily hold their tax levy increase to 2% (sewerage districts are exempt from the sublimating Dyole tax “freeze”), and despte the fact that only one member of the board supported the higher tax increase in August, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District – the crappy water people – passed a 4% tax levy increase 8-3 (it required a 2/3rds vote, and after it initially failed 7-4 and the board lawyer reminded everybody they needed 2/3rds, Jeanette Bell changed her vote). Owen and Kevin already have many of the thoughts I do, but I feel it necessary to add an inside-the-district perspective. As Charlie Sykes and Owen point out, “Who elected these people?” Let’s find out –

According to the MMSD site, these 11 tax-and-spenders are never up for election. 7 are appointed by the mayor of Milwaukee, and the other 4 are appointed by an outfit called the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County (comprised of the leaders of the other 18 municipalities in Milwaukee County – that’s right, you in the FLOW communities have no voice). So, let’s take a look at the Effluent Eleven, starting with the 8 who thought that jacking up the taxes was a good idea:

• Jeannette Bell – commission chair – mayor of West Allis, who flip-flopped (I’m surprised at the flip half; she sublimated the Craps freeze back in West Allis to the tune of 2.75% plus a fresh $30 recycling “fee”)
• Dennis M. Grzezinski – commission vice chair – runs his own law firm
• Preston Cole – City of Milwaukee Superintendent of Environmental Services
• Theresa Estmess – mayor of Wauwatosa (gee, what a surprise, she’s proposing a 4.0% levy increase back in Wauwatosa)
• Ashanti Hamilton – 1st district alderman in Milwaukee
• Candice Owley – president, Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5001
• Dale Richards – former mayor of Oak Creek (victim of the 2003 tax revolt)
• Wallace White – principal, W2Excel,LLC

The other 3 members of the Effluent Eleven, who can look forward to a replacement:

• Robert Brunner – River Hills village president
• Pedro Colon (D-Milwaukee) – state representative
• David Cullen (D-Milwukee) – state representative

However, don’t confuse these three for tax-freezers or responsible spenders, they simply wanted to borrow more.

Homer nod – had the wrong story linked, is now fixed.

Extensions/revisions – removed links to the racist Jentinel