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Saturday, December 16, 2017

Anonymous Column - "Pass It On" #15


On The City's Failed Leaf Pick-Up
✦ Last year's leaf pick-up (2016) was bad and should have been a warning for city officials to keep a closer eye on Mother Nature this year. Instead, they failed twice as bad this year. If you can't get a simple roadside leaf pick-up scheduled right, you shouldn't be paid to do it wrong.

✦ How much money did City Manager Mark Freitag save Janesville taxpayers with his failed leaf pick up? Where is our refund?

✦ So, some in Janesville are saying the city leaf pick-up is a luxury and people shouldn't depend on government to do it for them? We pay for it. If you can't get it right, pay it back.

✦ How much money does our city manager get paid? $150K? And he can't schedule leaf pick-up in a timely efficient manner?

✦ We're a red state now. If we want less government and fewer regulations but allow those in government who can't get it right to keep their jobs, we deserve to be ripped off. Might as well return to burning leaves at the curb. Let's burn tires too and save us those disposal fees.

✦ Why doesn’t the city schedule snow plowing, say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and ignore what Mother Nature is doing just like they do with the current leaf pickup?

✦ I just saw that Janesville City Manager Mark Freitag's top budget priority is "tax to the max." Vote him out!! Oh wait. I forgot that Janesville taxpayers can't vote him out. He was appointed by Forward Janesville "tax to the max" elitists. He works for them.

On WalkerConn
✦ Giving $3 BIL of taxpayer $$ to FOREIGN Corp to build $10 BIL plant... why not keep the $3B and let them build just a $7 BIL plant?

✦ About that $10 billion Foxconn plant. It's expected to be assessed at $1.4B and THAT'S a high estimate. Oh, and the $7B in annual spending has been downgraded to $4.6 billion - and THAT has been downgraded to $1.4B. Funny how those numbers match.

✦ Foxconn costs keep climbing. Along with $3 bil cash incentives and $252 mil for I-94, now we have $134 million in state $ for new highways, $140 million in higher electric rates, and hundreds of millions in local subsidies.

On Paul Ryans' "retirement"
✦ The "Paul Ryan is leaving" stories are not stories but planted market research....why are publications buying it and dutifully running it?

✦ Paul Ryan floating retirement at this time is pure genius.

✦ I don't think Ryan got the response he was looking for when he floated retirement. He expected people to come to his defense or lament "we always lose the good ones first." Instead he got "good riddance." He just might have to retire.

✦ If you want to know more about Paul Ryan's future, ask the Koch brothers and Diane Hendricks. He works for them.

✦ So the local rumor mill has Ryan building a home outside of the district, west of Janesville. Like that is supposed to mean something?

✦ I always thought Paul Ryan wanting to tax cut the rich, destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were hysterical ruminations from leftists and other haters to smear the congressman. My apologies.

✦Paul Ryan can retire now or in 2018, but he will always be the guy who enabled Trump's worst behavior, lied about health care and taxes, and coddled racist clowns like Steve King to maintain power.

On Wisconsin's Budget Surplus
✦ Did you know that Gov. Walker recently boasted about a budget surplus of $597 MILLION?? Where are our rebate checks?

On Janesville's Privileged Elite
✦ Sheriff Spoden blurred the lines between his duties as sheriff and being a father. Most parents would have done the same. The state said Spoden did nothing illegal, but the Janesville Gazette still slammed him for being, "if not criminal." Give me a break. I never thought it possible, but I fear the Gazette hasn't reached their bottom yet.

✦ When Rock County Sheriff Spoden misspoke, he accidentally reported on the treatment area elites expect from public officials and law enforcement. This is what they're angry about most.

✦ Sure, the County Sheriff chose some poor words suggesting an investigation was unnecessary because "the kids come from good families." But in the era of Trump, speaking your mind is supposed to be the honest way even when it's offensive. Ask Trump's supporters.

✦ Make no mistake. Area elites in Janesville are the people who defend the city's broken manager/council government. In fact, they think electing people from wards for city council in a representative democracy is forced diversity.

✦ Anybody get the names of the adults or address of the home where the underage drinking pool party took place? No? Why not? Special treatment? But just have a drinking party on a porch in the Fourth Ward involving a serious injury and clicky Janesville facebook pages will post names, mugshots and gang signs.

✦ Let's not kid ourselves. Janesville is not different than most other towns. Not just with law enforcement either, but in city hall and the local media. People of wealth, particularly its native business community and city hall insiders are a protected class treated far differently than those living in the central, south and west sides of the city.

✦ The Janesville Gazette was unusually quick to condemn Sheriff Spoden for blurring the lines between his duty as a father and sheriff, but to practically reference his actions as "criminal" is beyond the pale especially for a newspaper that endorsed Scott Walker three times.

✦ Funny. When Janesville City Manager Mark Freitag called those around him who failed to reach the height of elitism he attained, "chumps," few took notice.

✦ According to the Gazette article, the Rock County DA admits to having a personal problem prosecuting the three teens from good families who were truthful about what happened when so many were not. Hmmm. No worries about the good ol' boys club taking a hit. It is firmly intact.

✦ The privileged in Janesville have got to go. They think they're above the law. Money buys privilege and privilege begats power.

✦ Shut up already. There are no "privileged" people in Janesville. Well, except for members of Forward Janesville and the Paul Ryan klan.

On JanesvilleCon
✦ Remember when Janesville residents voted against a property tax hike referendum to pay for additional road maintenance? Soon afterwards, the city council thumbed their noses at the people and doubled the wheel tax anyways.

✦ Then the city manager mismanaged us into a $850K budget deficit and asked for immediate public discussions - only to drop the subject completely for the next six months.

✦ Because at the time, the city administration and council were foisting a TIF District on downtown properties that would carve out about $1M annual from a general fund facing an immediate $850K deficit.

✦ Only until after the TIF District was approved did the city manager and Janesville Gazette return with reminders about the $850K deficit which by then had grown to $950K.

✦ To balance the $950K deficit, the city council then approved $2.3M in registration fees, utility rate and permit fee hikes.

✦ For the next year, the city manager boasted how his policies helped double the city's tax base growth in a one year period, policies that resulted in raising the city's property tax rate even higher.

✦ In the meantime, the administration struggled to find $60K to help fund the county's animal shelter and can't manage a single softball field while they plan a $500K remodel of council chambers and consider building a new ice arena for a well-connected city hall insider's failed sports business.

✦ That's the JanesvilleCon ...so far, in a nutshell.

On Republican's Tax Reform Bill
✦ I see their "tax reform" bill more like a swamp renewal and stock buy-back. Congress ran out of things to sell, so now they have all those loopholes, exemptions and subsidies to re-offer in exchange for massive donations from those willing to buy. Starts the entire "best democracy money can buy" process all over again.

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