Green Bay’s Northwoods League team is still looking for enough financing to build a new stadium in a city where it makes sense. If they can’t find it there, isn’t it time for someone to declare Chad Bauer’s plan for a Northwoods League stadium in Frame Park officially dead?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of Wisconsin pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year. The report had only a limited release and the Department of Homeland Security admitted it was a mistake. Should I disregard this as inconsequential? No, because it bothers me that no one said, “No, this isn’t right,” while it was being proposed, when it was requested, when it was OK’d or when it was conducted. Was J.B. Van Hollen aware that this report was requested? Maybe not, but someone, somewhere should have said “No, this is un-American and I will not do it.” We really need to start standing up for what’s right in this country or it will be taken away. Doing it because your boss tells you to is not acceptable.
I’ve learned that your favorite Chinese restaurant is a highly personal thing. No matter what you do, if someone has their own favorite, they will find a reason to dislike yours. If you have a favorite Chinese restaurant and your BFF has his or her own favorite Chinese restaurant, the two of you will have at least that one thing on which you will absolutely, irrevocably never agree. Golden Gate happens to be my favorite.
The Freeman has a pretty good run-down of the candidates. The Journal has the better article on the finance reports of the candidates, but the Freeman prints an actual list, which I like. Plus Laurel Walker previously had an article outlining the candidates’ positions.
I have concerns with each of the candidates:
- I fear Nelson wants to figuratively turn Waukesha into Milwaukee’s 16th Aldermanic District and the Southeast Wisconsin Transportation Authority’s cash cow. And yes I think he dresses like a clown.
- I’m wondering about the Enriquez plan to hire yet another administrator, “a new purchasing overseer who’d find ways to save, perhaps with joint buying with other communities or by trimming employee benefits”. We have enough administrators and that sounds like part of the city administrator’s job description. But at least Darryl wore a tie for the Freeman picture. I like that Darryl sees the danger in Larry’s plan to make us “West Milwaukee West”. Update: Darryl called me to clarify that he would not be hiring a new administrator. Rather by examining current employees’ functions, he would either be adding or changing those functions to encompass the proposed duties.
- If Scrima wants to take half-pay if he gets the job, I say “fine, whatever.” I’m concerned that his solutions to Waukesha’s radium contamination sound like someone who either never attended one of Dan Duchniak’s presentations about the alternatives which the water utility considered before arriving at the Lake Michigan option, or attended and didn’t listen, or attended and didn’t believe that the water utility had done a thorough enough job. While I believe Waukesha better have a “Plan B” because I think either Michigan or Ontario will quash Waukesha’s application, Jeff’s solutions sound simplistic and uninformed. It’s unfortunate because on other issues, he sounds pretty good.
- I don’t see that Radish has staked out a position for the city significantly different from Nelson other than his stance against the homeless shelter at St. Matthias. I think what he sees but hasn’t articulated is that we need to limit the number of non-profits taking storefronts and buildings in the downtown area because non-profits don’t pay property taxes, while businesses do. This position has merit. As someone who has worked in the inner city of Milwaukee and on the seemingly bombed-out west side of Chicago, I can tell you that storefront churches do not add to an area’s ambiance. But I think he could better accomplish his goals as a strong alderman.
- Beglinger sounds exactly what I would sound like if I ran for mayor, at least on the property tax issue: complaining. I’m not sure I see any significant solutions in what he tells me, unfortunately. His views on the water problem … well just cut and paste everything I said about Jeff Scrima above. I will say this about Beglinger: His views echo a large percentage of residents whom I have talked to who live in the city, however, but I’m not sure what that means in the end.
Is it possible for me to have even more respect for the men and and women in my armed forces after I read this from Michael Yon’s latest from Afghanistan: “The crew has parachutes in case the aircraft becomes uncontrollable. I asked a pilot how in the heck he was going to get into a parachute if the airplane was out of control. Bottom line: at least one pilot is going to have to ride the plane in while the crew gets out.”
Holy cats. Don’t put that on the recruiting posters.
In no particular order:
- Better team won and the officials weren’t a factor. Guess nobody went to work today in New Orleans.
- Honest to God, I knew the Colts were in trouble when Manning seemed to lose track of the time and the third quarter ended on him abruptly. He just doesn’t make mistakes like that.
- Gee, I didn’t think I was in a bad mood, but I thought this year’s crop of Super Bowl commercials were pretty hum-drum. Have I become jaded?
- “Most Haunted” still has the worst ghost hunters in the business. Shrieking at the slightest of sounds, always a stone being thrown at them from nowhere, what a crock.
- Hockey in a football stadium just doesn’t work. Everyone has the worst seats in the house.
- I didn’t see Sarah Palin’s speech to the Tea Party conferees in Nashville, but color me not particularly enthralled by her interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Well, she’s got two years to work on her delivery. Her suggestion of a scenario where Obama might “play the ‘war’ card” to get re-elected was awkward, at best. When asked to play the new Fox News commentator and predict what might happen to the Democrats in the November elections, she declined to voice an opinion. What? Gah. She might be a better fit as an “independent” commentator/fundraiser, rather than as a candidate. She gave Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan a nice plug, though.
- Watched the ARCA race on Saturday night a lot longer than I normally would because I wanted to see how Danica Patrick would fare. I would suspect that ARCA TV ratings will increase, at least for a while until the novelty wears off. There were actually six (!) women driving in the race. I thought it was tacky of Speed TV to use the instrumental bridge of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” as background music for (at least one of) the recaps of women drivers’ standings midway through the race as if we were to associate the female drivers with the “Robert Palmer Girls”.
- But not too tacky for me to use them to boost readership:
This is the Freeman front page from the day I was born. The world has changed. First of all, we had a Democratic POTUS we could trust and be proud of, but there were a couple of other items as well. For instance, the role of fireman in the community certainly has taken a 180° turn:
And here’s a headline we may never see in our lifetime again. It’s about the Christmas Parade:
I’ve got some kind of virus, I’m running a temperature and I want to sleep all the time, so I’ll keep this short:
- Jessica Mc Bride comes as close to an endorsement of Darryl Enriquez for Waukesha mayor as Darryl probably should want.
- Saturday Sound Off.
I have no idea what Darryl Enriquez’ political proclivities may be. Darryl was a newspaper reporter and, as this recent article in Catholic Online says, “the vast majority of US journalists vote for Democrats”, but Darryl may be a leader, rather than a follower. In any case, Darryl received a politically important endorsement in the race for the supposedly “non-partisan” office of Waukesha mayor. Both the old and the new media got the release last night from Darryl E’s campaign that he has secured the backing of The Lone Clapper, Republican State Rep. Bill Kramer. This is fairly big news in what’s supposed to be a non-partisan race.
However, if his campaign has a complaint about the endorsement, it’s Mayor Larry’s own fault for injecting partisanship into the office, however. Remember that his first stab at blogging on the city web site included a widely panned endorsement of B. Obama. He has been an unabashed backer of all candidates with a “D” after their name, as Wiggy points out and has received organizational and financial support from Democratic Party supporters. They’ve got a phrase I used to hear a lot when I worked the north side of Milwaukee, “What ever goes around, comes around.”
However, the lines do get blurred in a “non-partisan” race. Alan Huelsman, son of former Republican state senator Joanne Huelsman, is reported to have a large “Nelson for Mayor” sign outside his house. His support for Nelson may be more economic than political, since Mayor Larry wants more “affordable” (i.e. “rental”) property in Waukesha and Mr. Huelsman builds apartment buildings.
I suck at home repair. If you have been here before, you already knew that. But I thought you’d enjoy this little vignette:
Yesterday, Waukesha Water Utility called me to set up an appointment to install a new type of water meter to replace the old “new type of meter”, which used something called a “telephone line” to call in my water and sewer usage to somebody or something somewhere. They said they wanted to replace it now with something called a “drive-by” meter, which must get more than a few snickers in zip codes 53212 and 53208, but more likely, it’s got a different name there.
It’s probably unrelated to Waukesha’s expensive quest for Lake Michigan water, but then again, remember when they had to replace the gas pumps at all the service stations because they wouldn’t register gasoline at more than $3.99 a gallon? Anyway, it sounds rather inefficient to me if they literally have to drive by my house to read my water meter quarterly, rather than have the meter call in to a central reporting point, but what do I know?
Well today, two trucks show up, they go downstairs, they come back upstairs and say, “you’ve got a really old meter and we want to replace it with a totally new meter , so it will take a little longer.” Hey, if it costs me the same, nothing, then have it and I’ll just sit and watch CNBC until you’re done. Some sawing, some clunking, up they come. “We’re done.” If it took a half hour, I’d be surprised. Off I go to spend money elsewhere.
I come back to the house around 4:00 and decide to wash the dishes. Turn the tap, nothing. Nada. Zip. Bupkis. It seems that the water utility guy had turned off my hot water supply while putting in the new meter and neglected turn it back on. I called the utility and the first thing they said was, “The type of repair we did would not effect your hot water.” I knew where this was going, I’d been given the brush-off before. I might have said something about showing them the difference between a telephone line and a drive-by. I apologize if I did, but whatever I said, the utility eventually called the installer who had already gone home for the day and he called me. He apologized profusely for his lapse and then he says, “Just turn the ball valve on top of the water heater 1/4 turn.”
“Ball valve” ?!? Until that moment, despite a Master’s Degree, I had no idea that my lack of education included the different types of valves used in plumbing. I suck at home repair. The only valve I was sure I learned when I bought the house was the valve to shut off all the water to the house, should that ever become necessary. That seemed like an important piece of information. Different types of valves … well … no, I don’t know those.
The plumber who installed my water heater went over the myriad of valves connecting the heater to the gas and cold water and hot water but frankly, I wasn’t taking notes because I didn’t think I was going to ever need to know that because the hot water heater was new and I figured I’d be out of here before it became an issue. As I explained to the water utility guy, “I have no idea what a “ball valve” is. I’m a computer geek, not a plumber. Suppose I were to ask you why it can’t be configured remotely?”
We did eventually get it back on but next time the plumber comes, I’m going to ask him what that little red valve I was turning by mistake does. It might be important.
The same question as the liberal blogger James Rowen has in a post about the Waukesha mayoral race. What did Darryl E. hear in his frequent interviews with Mayor Larry which caused Darryl to go home to his lovely wife one day and say, “Honey, Mayor Larry has to be stopped and I am the only one who can stop him.”?
P.S. This week’s Chronicle poll of voting age humans living at my address who are likely to vote and expressing an opinion on the question, “Which non-clownish looking person do I want cutting the ribbons this time next year?”
- Darryl Enriquez
- Randy Radish
- Jeff Scrima
- Bill Beglinger
- Larry Nelson
Several things caught my eye:
- The Freeman gives a little more detail on the campaign finance reports for mayor. You’d think Diamond Jim Doyle would send a little of his unspent, unnecessary campaign funds to help a buddy, wouldn’t you? Cheap bastard.
- With a rebel yell, the library cried “More, more, more.” They want more room, more parking, more meeting space and, consequently, more of my money. Where are we going to get it when they’re hemmed in on three sides? Oh wait, there’s this big back yard outside with nothing on it but an old band shell, a couple of marble things and some dead Indians.
- I still haven’t seen anything about fixing the crumbling parking ramp, by the way. If a parking ramp on North Street is close enough to supposedly provide parking for a baseball stadium on White Rock Avenue, why isn’t a parking ramp ½ block away from the library not enough parking for them?
- Belling breaks down the $1 billion dollar choo-choo and clearly explains why it’s all a lie. I suspect the smart people already knew this.
- Sound Off callers tell you what I’ve told you here in the past: We already had an extensive commuter rail system in southeast Wisconsin and we got rid of it because no one was riding it and it was expensive to maintain.
