New Berlin

Waukesha Continues Institutional Disdain For Transit

October 6, 2011 by The Political E...

Another Waukesha story - - no light rail. No regional transit authority. No Amtrak stop. No direct transit from downtown Waukesha to downtown Milwaukee. No direct service from New Berlin's Industrial park for Milwaukee or regional workers to downtown, the South side, the North side, etc.

No connection from Pabst Farms to anywhere. And now no takers for employer vans, now in storage.

You have to wonder how vigorously these vans have been marketed to employers.

Thursday In Madison Is LazichFest, In A Round About Way

October 5, 2011 by The Political E...

Ah, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) - - Wisconsin's gift to political theater that keeps on giving.

On Thursday morning she's scheduled a hearing on the state's use of traffic roundabouts - - that foreign roadway import that calms traffic, and saves on stoplight costs, but which Lazich finds overwhelmingly baffling.

City of Milwaukee Mark Belling fears a New Berlin roundabout, too.

Even though all turns are to the right.

Some other true-fact items from the Lazich archives:

*  She proposed criminalizing prank phone calls. This came after Scott Walker was embarrassed spilling the beans to the fake David Koch and earned her a shout out on "The Colbert Report."

* Led opposition to the Great Lakes Compact of 2008 even though it was making it possible for her home town to get the Great Lakes water supply it sought, because she believed it would destroy Wisconsin's sovereignty.

Uncomfy conservatives and their enablers now even busier dismantling dissent

September 23, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

You've got to admire the chutzpah (pronounced "chuts-paw" by Michele Bachmann) of Republicans and conservatives and their opinion-leader enablers. First they mounted a bald attempt to seize permanent control of government -- and that's hardly an overstatement, since at least one GOP party official a couple years ago said flat out that was their goal. But the effort hasn't been going entirely as planned, so they're doubling down.

How, exactly, do you go about seizing control when the public isn't keen to vote your political cabal into undismissable majorities? Well, there are ways, as we are learning in Wisconsin. For example:

* Trying to eliminate or make much more difficult our state's constitutional provision for recalls of state elected lawmakers. The recalls can be for any reason the voters choose. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as of this morning has now written at least two editorials backing this dumb-down of what we ought to rename Constitutional Recall.  

Suburban Milwaukee Crossroads Author Unafraid To Say "Apartheid"

September 19, 2011 by The Political E...

I don't know Dr. John Ridley, a retired surgeon living in Mequon, but I appreciate his Sunday Crossroads op-ed's straight-forwardness:

I have relatives who live in Whitefish Bay near Hampton Ave., and I have relatives who live in Milwaukee's central city near Hampton Ave. Only a few miles separate their neighborhoods, but they live worlds apart...

It's currently fashionable to assert that folks are mired in poverty due to an unwillingness to assume personal responsibility. It should be equally stressed that in Milwaukee's case, the practice of apartheid as public policy systematically created the distressed environment that sculpts such lives.

People yell at me sometimes for using the word "apartheid" to describe our region's policy-driven reality - - an example, here - - but it's the truth, as I see it.

And, alas, the analysis is not new.

New Berlin - this is the future of Wisconsin education

August 30, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Last night's New Berlin school district meeting is a frightening reminder of where education in the state is heading.  Having been given the Scott Walker "tools" to compensate for draconian funding cuts for schools, the New Berlin school board has taken full advantage.  And then some.

About 2/3 of teachers in the state are now working with no formal contract - the former negotiations between teachers and school districts are being replaced by board-written handbooks of work rules. I am somewhat bewildered by some of the turns of events.  The supposed purpose of the Walker "tools" has been to save districts money - but the new school handbooks seem to largely be about punishing teachers in the districts.  The New Berlin rules include such oddities as dress rules saying teachers (I assume only female) must wear below-the-knee skirts.  Many of the rules involve making teachers work more unpaid hours in the classroom.  I don't know of any other profession where an employer could arbitrarily change all of the work rules, drastically cut salaries, and remove benefits with impunity, and then accuse the workers of thuggery if they had the termerity to complain.  This is indeed a brave new world of union attacks.

The new rules go so far as to monetarily punish teachers if they quit.  I find that astounding. I also have a number of questions: