WMC AWOL In Bidding War For GM Auto Plant

Tweet

Capital Times Excerpt: (Ed Garvey)
Where do you suppose Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was while the governor fought to keep the Janesville plant open? We hear from WMC on just about every issue from taxes to elections, but heard nothing on this one. Why not, Jim Haney? Don't you care about Wisconsin and the 1,200 families in Janesville?

Like a coward soldier going AWOL during wartime, the WMC should be stripped of the “Manufacturers and Commerce” title within their name. And remove "Wisconsin" too - they are an embarrassment to the state.

Local Health Care Debates Without Paul Ryan?

Tweet

Posted in the Janesville Gazette's “Latest News” Web Page newsbox on Monday was this link - Gingrich to appear at Wis. fundraiser for Walker 5:43 a.m. This "news story" was published under "BRIEFS" in the hard copy on page 5A.

Posted on page 3 of Monday's Gazette hard copy was a story mistitled, "Health Care Debate Comes to Janesville." Obviously, health care is a hugely debated topic this very minute, yet the two events held in Janesville are not true debates in that sense. The events are hosted by one of Wisconsin's leading health care advocates, Paulette Garin, and invite the general public to attend. Garin will present the various plans that are currently being discussed in Congress. The events are meant to be educational.

The main point here is that the Janesville Gazette took a simple and straight forward local event announcement not too dissimilar from Gingrich's scheduled appearance in Milwaukee (a GOP fundraiser getting news coverage!), and attempted to re-characterize and politicize the health care event before Garin has a chance to tell it. The newspaper literally carried out their own debate on their terms and attempted to trump Garin's viewpoint with quotes from Rep. Paul Ryan.

JG Excerpt:
A government approach means higher taxes, Ryan said. He proposes instead tax benefits that would help people buy private health insurance. He said his plan would also bring about universal health coverage, but it would be a totally private insurance system.

I've got to be careful around here when quoting Paul Ryan or the Janesville Gazette, because when I quote them accurately it's called either "out of context" or a "smear campaign." But does anyone really know what a "tax benefit" is? And how will a "tax benefit" pay for health care when oftentimes real hard earned cash isn't enough? As Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont said, "every dollar of premium that a private insurance company does not spend on health care is a dollar more in profits."

JG Excerpt:
Ryan said his plan would allow patients to make their own coverage and health care decisions.

How can the population have universal health coverage yet everyone has their own individual plan? Classic Ryan double-talk. Words put together to sound good but actually mean nothing.

So here's the rub. Given the complexity and urgency of health care reform, it is critical that media report on the subject fairly and accurately. On both accounts, the Gazette failed. But since the Gazette wrote up Garin's health care info events as "debates" and injected Paul Ryan's view into her schedule, why not man up on the challenge they presented and call Paul Ryan in to debate Garin on health care reform at one of Janesville's high schools? Instead of playing his surrogate against the health care advocate. I'm guessing here she would oblige.

"Healthcare for all is more a destination of clear thinking and the pursuit of human progress than a political position." -- from a friend

NOTE: This posting is the independent perspective of its author.

Janesville GM Had No Chance With Ryan And The Gazette

Tweet

JG Editorial Excerpt: (June 26, 2009)
Here’s another way of looking at news that Orion will get the plant. Even if Janesville had been chosen, GM wouldn’t have rehired all those laid off; workers probably wouldn’t have earned the same pay, and there is no guarantee that the cars will sell well and the plant would stay open.

After spending the last decade never offering any sort of genuine editorial support for the local UAW while simultaneously enabling a willfully ignorant handful of morons to whipsaw the workers wages and benefits with cheap shots in their weekly anonymous "Sound Off" column, the Janesville Gazette NOW laments over the fact that the UAW conceded to wage reductions so low that they are frankly...not worth fighting over.

Those latest remarks from the Gazette follow closely in lockstep with all of their positions during the past two year run-up leading to the closing of the GM plant. Consider the time they attacked Sen. Feingold over his position on CAFE.

JG Editorial Excerpt: (July 9, 2007)
It might already be too late for the local GM plant. By voting for the Senate bill, Feingold turned his back on Janesville.

To which I responded...

If they soften the gas mileage requirements as per Paul Ryan, GM WILL NO LONGER BE AT THE FOREFRONT ON ANYTHING. ANYBODY can build a gas guzzler. If autoworkers really believe gas guzzling trucks and SUV’s are the future, stick with Paul Ryan. If anyone thinks that gasoline will never pop to five dollars a gallon or more within the next ten years, stick with Paul Ryan. Building EnergyStar Trucks and SUV’s will be the future market and to the contrary, Janesville can be the future if we don’t turn our backs on this reality.

Although it has been assumed that GM decided to build a fuel efficient small car in the states instead of China as a concession to the UAW, I believe there was another pressure point on GM to build here.

Last year most everyone felt the damage done by the oil speculators appeared irreversible. As a result, Janesville will probably never manufacture large-engined SUV’s ever again. With the loss of the SUV plant under its belt mainly from the crashing economy coupled with $4.50-a-gallon gasoline, who would think the only thing remaining that could possibly bring new production to Janesville would emanate from the most unlikely legislation – CAFE. With CAFE, Janesville at least stood a chance along with two other major GM facilities to gain small car production. Without CAFE, there was no impetus for GM to build small cars in the states to balance fleet mileage. They could build them in China.

So, back in July 2007, what course of action did the Janesville Gazette and the befuddled Paul Ryan take? They double-teamed Russ Feingold over the proposed CAFE standards and then played off the eminent demise of the Janesville factory as a victim of the legislation.

JG Editorial Excerpt: (July 9, 2007)
"This bill is a big problem for us," Ryan said of the local GM plant.

What's amazing is how the UAW blindly supports Feingold and other Democrats seemingly at every turn, while members of Local 95 jump at every glimmer of opportunity to bash the Republican Ryan.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Ryan, completely out of touch, was gleefully leading the sing-along Gazette into a blind curve.

Sadly, Ryan and the Gazette weren’t the only ones to rail against higher fuel standards. Some local Democrats and UAW members literally embarrassed themselves standing against CAFE.

JG Editorial Excerpt:(July 9, 2007)

So, Mr. Sheridan, any comment on this?

"I can say I'm disappointed with our senators on this vote," he told the Gazette. "I don't know where they're coming from."

I was surprised by Sheridan's remark. Particularly since he has a long history in the auto manufacturing field. But when your source of information happens to be the false choices offered from the immovable and closed mindset of golden parachute executives, he may have had no choice. Corporate GM was as clueless as Paul Ryan.

In hindsight, we now know that tighter US fleet average standards did not bring about the demise of Janesville's SUV plant. And in fact, CAFE at the minimum gave Janesville a one in three chance to acquire new production. Had Ryan and the Gazette succeeded in fooling everyone back then, it would have had zero in zero chances.

Growth Plan's Flexibility Tested - Fails

Tweet

Monday's Janesville city council meeting had one of those "who blinked first" moments during a discussion over what appeared to be a rather harmless zoning change request for a banquet hall on the west side of town.

The applicant's request for B3 zoning which would allow for "permitted use" of a banquet hall was not recommended by the city administration. They advised the council to modify the request to a B2 zoning designation which would allow for a less favorable "conditional use." No big deal, right? But who would think that a request to change zoning on an existing developed parcel would pose a test of both the city's Comprehensive Plan and the city council's flexibility and integrity? At first not me, but such was the case during Monday's meeting.

To see this relationship unfold we have to rewind slightly to a little over three months ago when city council members each presented their positions on the city's growth (Comprehensive) plan. During that meeting, several council members justified their vote in favor of the Comp Plan passage by insisting it was not set in stone because each zoning, annexation or development request would be judged case-by-case.

Possibly unaware of the banquet hall zoning connection to the Comp Plan, council members during Monday's meeting quickly moved to make a motion to approve the original request changing the parcel zoning from O1 to B3. After a short discussion among the council, they appeared to be on the verge of approving the B3 until the City Manager, Eric Levitt, interrupted and repeatedly warned the council members that changing the zoning on this particular parcel to B3 runs counter to the recently approved Comprehensive Plan and that doing so would set "a new and dangerous precedent." Well, if there ever was a time for the Janesville city council to demonstrate the flexibility they spoke about when they hastily approved of the Comp Plan several months ago - now was that time.

Although the city manager offered few details as to why the B3 request was not consistent with the growth plan, he did make it clear to the council that any deviation from the plan now could damage the plan's integrity. After a few more assurances by the administration that the zoning change applicant would not be charged additional money (from multiple applications), the city council surrendered to the manager's suggestion and approved of the rezone, but only to the Comp Plan-compliant B2.

However, in retrospect, this "growth plan set-in-stone awakening" at Monday's meeting clearly proved that months ago, several city council members spoke either prematurely or unknowingly when they claimed the Comprehensive Plan was not a rigid document but just a guideline that could be changed at any time. It also brings attention as to why the city manager failed to question, rebut, correct or even politely challenge the council member's claims during the city's run-up to approve of the Comp Plan. Yet he had no reservations now advising the council against exercising any flexibility they previously insisted the Comp Plan possessed.

This entire city council episode including the potential and serious implications it held with the Comp Plan received the following report in the Janesville Gazette.

JG Excerpt:-- Rezoned the former Moose Club at 120 N. Crosby Ave. so the owner can build a banquet facility in the basement.

Tax By Zone Should End Farmland Exploitation

Tweet

The Wisconsin State legislature is finally moving to close a loophole that has given developers huge property tax breaks on land rezoned and revalued for residential or commercial estate purposes.

Under scrutiny are definitions and zoning designations of the use-value assessment law enacted in 1995 to help keep farms viable by giving them a property tax break. To my understanding of this latest provision inserted into the state budget, farmers and land owners of parcels zoned AG will see NO change in their property tax assessment formula because only land zoned AG will continue to qualify for the use-value (discounted) assessment.

Excerpt:
In Fond du Lac, Wegner, the assessor, said there are two commercial lots that should be assessed at $636,100, but are valued at a total of $900 because winter wheat was planted on them.

Most Wisconsin urban and small town homeowners probably had no idea their property tax bill was inflated partly to help cover developer's carrying costs while they gobbled up and exploited farmland on the cheap. As many as 250,000 acres zoned for residential and commercial development in Wisconsin have been assessed less than a penny on the dollar in property taxes while their owners enjoyed increased land values and profits from sales and speculation.

Despite some opposition from a few farmers about the new zoning proposal, it was less than four months ago when only a handful of brave farmers spoke in opposition of Janesville's hastily approved comprehensive growth plan to target 9,800 rural acres for development, rezoning and annexation - with 1,600 acres within current city limits. Where was further outcry against the city's disastrous plan to pave over the very essence of their livelihoods? Excluding the few who spoke out, I was astonished by the lack of concern shown by our local farmers.

Again, it is important to keep in mind that the current use-value assessment law will remain intact for farmers and land owners who have fought to maintain the land strictly designated for the intentional purposes of farming.

Let's not try to kid anyone here, tax assessments are based on market value, and zoning designations play a large part in establishing a baseline market value on property. Land meeting all of the conditions to achieve and keep the AG zone designation is rightfully discounted no matter what the use is. Besides adding more balance and fairness to everyone's share of the property tax load, this provision will encourage AG land owners and developers to think twice before they approach their local village or city council for annexation or a change in zoning from agricultural.

I applaud the state legislature on this provision and hope they have the courage and fortitude to follow through on closing the tax loophole. It will have a hugely positive impact on the quantity and quality of future growth, restore property tax fairness and strengthen the use-value assessment law against future exploitation. Removing this loophole has been a long time coming.

Please call or write your state legislator and tell them you support the Senate version of the state budget bill closing the use-value tax loophole.

Also, Wisconsin's Agricultural Assessment Guide

Partisanship A Poor Excuse To Support Sunshine

Tweet

Saturday's Janesville Gazette contained their editorial supporting Assembly Bill 143. Titled "Call Lawmakers today and demand open budget process," the newspaper takes great offense to the direction taken by the legislature to fill the state's budget hole and their freedom to regroup in partisan caucuses in an effort to reach a consensus. Both Wisconsin state houses have Democratic majorities.

The paper also attempted to demonstrate what a local governmental body such as a non-partisan city council must do in order to stay in compliance of Wisconsin's Open Meeting Laws, while the state legislature has exempted itself from obeying the same rules.

JG Editorial Excerpt:
Just who, you might ask, enacted an open meetings law that rightly forces local councils and school boards to conduct business in the light of day but allows state lawmakers to shut out the public? Why the legislature of course.

Nearly every Janesville city council meeting ends in a closed door session allowing them to conduct business often involving thousands of tax payer dollars, in the dark of the night. This is legal because the Wisconsin state legislature granted them and all governmental bodies and their agencies thirteen statutory exemptions to do so. I don't recall the Gazette complaining about those closed door meetings. But the Gazette not too long ago did complain about the closed door negotiations between the Janesville school district and the local teachers union. Unfortunately, that position by the Gazette seemed to be more of a media based complaint for the lack of news content, than by any disposition of theirs to open government on behalf of the general public.

One point here is that local governmental bodies appear to have equal if not greater freedom to conduct business behind closed doors than the legislature does. The other point is the Gazette's activism for open government appears selective and driven by their partisan differences with the legislative majority instead of a genuine desire to turn on the lights within all levels of government, particularly those on their own turf.

For many reasons I have less trouble with our legislators and representatives meeting together as partisans behind closed doors than I do with the same legislators or government agencies meeting with private interests, so-called taxpayer groups, media or corporate lobbyists behind closed doors. Yet they are allowed to do so under collective bargaining or for competitive reasons among others. It's all legal because the legislature and courts say so. That's not to say I support any of it, it's just the pecking order of where I place my trust.

AB 143 doesn't solve the apparent split personality of Wisconsin's political climate, but it is a step in the right direction that might eventually lead to bipartisan legislative debates. If enacted, I only fear that it could be abused politically and wind up as a toothless law duping the public into believing government no longer operates in the shadows.

Rock Netroots companion piece to this posting.

Secret Government Deals Should Be Scorned - Regardless of The Merit

Tweet

I’m getting way ahead of myself on this one after only five days have passed since the Janesville Gazette headlined their publicity piece last Sunday on the Rock County Development Alliance.

If you may recall, that article was a very lightweight info-ad masquerading as a news article on a new local government agency recently formed to lure prospective business owners and entrepreneurs into the county - I think.

JG Excerpt (Alliance Article)
Each week, the group is in either Milwaukee or Chicago making detailed presentations to potential brokers, developers and investors.

The alliance taps a bigger war chest of talent and money.

Most will not appear on any public radar screen. Discretion and confidentiality are an integral part of dealing with prospects.

Keep in mind that the above statements were drawn and parsed from government employees and followed with absolutely no sense of common curiosity by the newspaper's writer.

Regarding an unrelated story, the Gazette published an editorial on Wednesday attacking Sen. Judy Robson for inserting a nursing school into the state budget during late hours.

JG Editorial Excerpt: (on Robson)
We abhor such secret decision-making and late-night earmarking, regardless of the merits of the decision.

That's a pretty heavy blanket to keep on when the heat is turned up. Lets' hope their high-ended criticism of government officials dealing under a perceived cloak of secrecy isn't meant for Judy Robson alone - regardless of the merits.

But as far as Robson was concerned, she was right to budget for the nursing school. All the data points to this. Nobody, including the UW dismisses the rising urgency of more nurses in the health care field. So the need is right and the timing was right too. Yet, the legislators were right to remove it from the budget, but not because she did it “in the dead of night” as the Gazette put it, but only because – of the economy. The only thing wrong with the $47 million nursing school is the economy, but that's not her fault.

History tells me that two years from now, the so-called "governmental watchdogs" at the Gazette will be seething when the UW finally presents their feasibility study along with the engineering, design and technological reports for the new nursing school. Chances are high that the price of a "properly planned" school as they prefer to call it will make Robson's $47 million request look like small potatoes.

Still, it's wasn't fair for the Gazette to paint Robson's legislative work as underhanded or buried in secrecy. It was all out there for everyone to see.

We can't say the same for the activities of the Alliance group.

New Wiki Based Political Candidate Tracker

Tweet

From the folks at Open Congress comes a new source of information on your favorite candidates for public office. You can see a full list of all the potential challengers in your district, fundraising information for each, as well as a summary of recent electoral trends. All of the information is fully referenced.

It's a wiki, so the whole project is crowd-sourced. The idea is that if a lot of people contribute a little bit of knowledge, the RaceTracker will become a one-stop shop for local citizens to learn more about electoral politics in our area and become better voters. People can begin there journey into this knowledge base by checking out the blog.

Best of all, RaceTracker is free, open-source, non-partisan, and collaborative. Add what you know to the wiki, citing a news source, and help build public knowledge about Congress. You can check out the Racetracker Page here.