Charlie beat me to this by bringing up the special election of the 21st Assembly District back in 2003, but since he’s stuck in the technological hell that’s the State Fair Fish Bowl, I’ve got the ability to fisk the idiotorial of the day endorsing free-spending and tax-hiking advocate Patricia Jursik in the special election on Tuesday, August 7 to fill the County Board seat vacated by Ryan McCue –
Holding an election in the dog days of summer is not the best way to choose elected representatives for reasons so obvious we don’t need to list them here.
I’m sure they would rather have Lee “Thug” Holloway appoint free-spenders to fill vacancies created by those leaving office, or alternatively, have some schmoe like McCue double-dip into the trough. Unfortunately for them, Lee and Ryan, that’s not how things work.
But voters in Milwaukee County’s 8th Supervisory District don’t have a choice. The special election is Tuesday to fill the County Board vacancy prompted by the spring election of Ryan McCue as Cudahy mayor. The district includes Cudahy, South Milwaukee, St. Francis and part of Oak Creek.
ATTENTION! YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE! This includes those of you in Oak Creek east of Quincy Avenue between Rawson and Drexel, or north of Carrolton/Maderia between 15th Ave and Chicago. The election is on Tuesday, August 7, 2007 between 7 am and 8 pm.
Patricia Jursik, an attorney in Cudahy in private practice, gets our strong recommendation.
And hopefully the Journtinel idiotorial board kiss of death.
Her opponent, Chris Kujawa of South Milwaukee, clearly has business skills and experience to offer; he is vice president of his family’s landscape business, Kujawa Enterprises Inc. But Jursik is the better bet for a variety of reasons, including her past experience on numerous public boards and commissions, her sense of independence and her deeply felt belief that the county cannot continue to cut spending and stubbornly hold the line on taxes without sacrificing such things as parks, transit and services to the elderly that people in her district care so much about.
The irony here is that the elderly in the district won’t be able to afford the higher taxes that the Journtinel wants so desperately, so they won’t be around to use said services.
She is much more open than Kujawa to new sources of county revenue, including tapping into existing sales taxes, to relieve the burden on the property tax.
Charlie said it best in this week’s CNI column – “We’ve been here before. In 1991, the last time we had a big county tax increase, county pols promised that the windfall would go for property tax relief, parks and transit. In the next decade property taxes went up, support for the parks dropped, and transit is still a mess.
“Instead, the pols spent the money and stole the rest.”
Say, wasn’t 1991 the year that the floodgates really opened up on the pension grab that just came to light this week?
Jursik says Kujawa is County Executive Scott Walker’s hand-picked candidate. That’s overstating it. But we know what she’s getting at. Walker endorsed Kujawa even before the six-person primary, and, in turn, Kujawa says he philosophically agrees with Walker most of the time.
Here we go again. Can we question the 5th Column’s claims to fairness now? For the record, Kujawa was the only candidate that recognizes that taxes are too damn high.
There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but as Jursik points out, electing a supervisor with a more independent voice is the best way to assure checks and balances.
Allow me to ReWrite™ that to reflect the actual thinking (such as it is) – “There’s nothing everything wrong with that per se, but as Jursik points out, electing a supervisor with a more independent liberal, free-spending, tax-hiking voice is the best way to assure checks and balances a 2/3rds majority ready, willing and able to jack up taxes and spending to levels not seen outside of the Soviet Union in its prime.”
Kujawa says supervisors are overpaid and promises to give back $20,000 of his salary. And he does offer some good ideas, including putting the House of Correction under the sheriff’s authority. But Kujawa seems too willing to embrace privatization to help solve the county’s fiscal problems, including having the county turning over mental health services to private providers.
Hell, the private sector cannot possibly do a worse job of that than the county, which did such a poor job that the Journtinel ran a series on just how poor a job the county did.
We’re also troubled by his opposition to the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail proposal, which even Walker supports.
That’s not the kind of “independence” the Journtinel wants. Of course, I’m heartened by Kujawa’s opposition to that boondoggle.
Jursik finished first in the primary, and 8th District voters would be wise to put her in the winner’s column on Tuesday.
No, they would be monumentally-stupid.
Vote Chris Kujawa on Tuesday, August 7, 2007.
