It’s come to my attention that there are plans circulating which would eliminate part of Veterans Memorial Park on Milwaukee’s lakefront in order to build a parking lot.

As unbelievable as it may seem I’ve been informed it’s being proposed and have a copy of a document being circulated that shows how the War Memorial wants to take over several acres of park land in Veterans Memorial Park and turn it into a parking lot.

For those who are wondering, there is currently a huge parking lot in the O’Donnell Park parking structure which is located about 200 feet from the War Memorial, so your guess is as good as mine as to why the War Memorial feels it needs to go out and decrease the amount of park land in order to provide parking spaces a whopping 50 feet closer.

Below are some overviews of the land in question, including an overlay of where the proposed parking lot would go.

I’ll have more information as I get it, but Milwaukee County elected officials and County Supervisors especially should be wary about considering this proposal if it gets to the point where they need to weigh in on it.

Yesterday 76 more people in Milwaukee County had to sit down at the kitchen table and tell their family something I can’t even begin to imagine: they’d been fired.

The Journal Sentinel has the breakdown, including a quote from the administration (though not the CE himself, he was apparently at a campaign rally in Racine yesterday when the news hit):

Those being laid off are 27 security guards at five major county buildings, 25 parks maintenance workers, nine Mitchell International Airport employees, five highway maintenance workers and 10 other Department of Transportation and Public Works staffers. They were given two weeks’ notice. – jsonline.com

My best goes out to all of them. I know a few who were maintenance workers for the parks and loved doing their jobs.

After this round of layoffs there will be no more “Parks Maintenance Worker I” positions anymore. There used to be 45 or so of these positions just a few years ago. Heading into spring, the impact on our parks will be immediate and noticeable. These are the people who, among other things, empty garbage cans, plow snow, fix swing sets and make sure parks are safe for families to enjoy.

There are now by my estimates fewer than 60 people now available to take care of the 15,000 acres of park land in 144 parks in our County. If you were planning on having a wedding reception at some place like South Shore Pavilion like Jenny and I did, you may literally be responsible for making sure the bathrooms have toilet paper for your guests and the trash has been emptied the day before. There just won’t be anyone left to do it anymore.

The move will save a less than impressive $1.8 million this year, and I’m left to wonder why those being asked to make the sacrifices and tighten their belts continue to be the blue collar workers who are more often than not the primary bread winners for their families?

If the administration in the County were serious about tackling the $10 million budget hole, why are they only going after blue collar workers? As I’ve pointed out several times, why does the County Executive have both a “Receptionist” and an “Executive secretary for scheduling“? Why both a “Director of Communications” and a “Deputy Director of Communications“? What is really the difference between the two positions (and handsome salaries that match) in the County Executive’s office for “Director of Community Relations” and “Constituent Services“?

If you’re going to get serious about fixing the budget deficit, why not start with your own office first? Surely, consolidating or eliminating some of those positions would put a dent in the $10 million deficit just as well as firing the people who keep the parks clean, right?

If you’re going to get serious about fixing the budget deficit, why not start with the boondoggle of a payroll system known as “Ceridian” that’s cost taxpayers over $20 million to develop and after five years still isn’t close to working? How about getting rid of the programs like Ceridian which are wasteful instead of the people who take out the waste?

I could go on, and a lot of people who know more than me about County Government could as well.

To those of you who had to have that gut wrenching conversation about “what do we do now?” with your wife or husband or children last night, my thoughts are with you.

Read about what’s happening in Colorado Springs Colorado these days if you want a sneak peak into what Milwaukee County would look like if the “kill off government” crowd gets their way. If your tax rate isn’t the first thing you consider when choosing where to live (and most people aren’t) and you actually value a high quality of life where you live, it’s frightening.

No pools, no parks, no street lights, slashed safety budgets, increased response times.. it goes on and on. But at least they didn’t have to raise taxes!!

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an article in today’s paper about the audit report of the Milwaukee County Parks system which I wrote about yesterday.

For the most part, the article simply restates what the audit report says with a few quotes sprinkled in for good measure.

The one thing I was disappointed about is the headline for the article, “Sales of county parkland suggested”.

The sale of parkland is one of many recommendations made in the audit, so why did the JS choose to imply with a headline like that a sale was the only suggestion made?

Frankly, it’s sloppy and poor reporting more interested in generating “buzz” than actually reporting the findings of the audit report. Unfortunately, it’s what the public will consume and another glaring example of the sorry state of Wisconsin’s largest daily newspaper.

For the record, here are all the recommendations in the order they were made in the audit:

1. Establish criteria for determining whether a facility should be fixed or demolished.
2. Replace some current facilities with alternative structures that have lower construction and/or maintenance costs.
3. Expand opportunities for the types of public/private partnerships that have successfully leveraged private capital in the maintenance and improvement of several Parks locations.
4. Undertake a comprehensive assessment of current and future Parks developments, taking into consideration alternatives to reduce overall infrastructure costs. Another alternative that could be considered in this assessment is the potential for divestiture of some County parkland. Divestiture could take the form of sale for development, or transfer to a municipality or non-profit entity for continuation or development of recreational use. Various restrictions associated with the original acquisition of parkland (e.g., federal funding requirements, deed restrictions on donated land, etc.) could prohibit or severely restrict divestiture options for many Park system holdings.

Why the reporter or editor from the Journal Sentinel went down the path of selecting the fourth recommendation as the headline and focus for the story is telling and unfortunate.

As for the issue of selling park land itself, I’d argue that it would do nothing to address the long term problems the parks are facing nor would it address the massive amount of deferred maintenance. If you simply sell off a portion of parkland without addressing the root issue, in five or ten years you’ll simply be in the same situation because you’ve failed to maintain the parks that you didn’t sell off the first time.

The “solution” of selling park land in Milwaukee County to address the $200 – $300 million in deferred maintenance would be about as logical as amputating your foot because you need hip replacement surgery. It does nothing – zero – to address to real issue which is an unstable and unsustainable funding source for the Milwaukee County Parks. That is the problem which has led to deferred maintenance and until we get serious and deal with the funding for our parks, all the posturing in the world about how to alleviate the symptoms won’t make a bit of difference.

The real solution is a dedicated and secure funding source for the Milwaukee County Parks just like the one voters approved last November. It’s only with a secure and dedicated funding source that we can even begin to address the massive amount of deferred maintenance that needs to be done and reverse the downward spiral of one of Milwaukee’s greatest treasures: it’s 15,000 acres of public park land.

While (as of 10pm) the Journal Sentinel still doesn’t have anything up about what happened at the County Courthouse today regarding the County Board dealing with the County Executive’s vetoes, I do have some thoughts and news about what happened today.

At the end of the day, some critical programs and services were completely cut, some were saved and the property tax levy for Milwaukee County will rise 2.18% next year, which is lower than the rate of increase of many other Counties in SE Wisconsin.

So what did the County Board override and keep funding for?

• Security services at the Courthouse.
• Alcohol treatment and drug addiction (AODA).
• Add indoor aquatic centers at the Noyes and Pulaski pools
• Nearly 40 park maintenance workers
• The  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Kosciuszko community centers
• The Community Justice Resource Center

Services or programs that didn’t survive:

• Sports authority funding, which provides recreational opportunities for underserved youth.
• The call center for those needing help to get help for the Milwaukee County Transit System.
• Housekeeping services will be outsourced at the Dept. of Health and Human Services as well as the Behavioral Health division.
• Funding for an office of sustainability.

Also of note is that the “plan” to put parking meters on Milwaukee’s lakefront went down in flames. Only four Supervisors voted for parking meters along Lincoln Memorial Drive at Bradford Beach. Supervisors Borkowski, Sanfelipo, Cesarz, and Lynne DeBruin (my County Supervisor) all were in favor the the $1/hour parking meters along the Lakefront.

While there were some definite victories today, the fact is that in several key areas, the County Board fell short of overriding the County Executive’s vetoes by a single vote on several occasions. At the end of the day, the average property tax bill for a Milwaukee County homeowner will rise in 2010 by around $3.00. That’s three dollars for the entire year.

On another note, the mood in the Courthouse was very tense today. Some Supervisors are clearly not dealing with the pressure of special interest groups like CRG well and instead of showing some courage and standing strong to bullying, they instead chose to bow to the demands of a very small, but very vocal group.

One thing that’s very clear? This entire process is going to play itself out again next year as the CE will be in the final days of an election for Governor (if he makes it through the primary) and if we continue to ignore the fact that the funding structure for Gov. services in this State and County are fundamentally broken.