Welcome to the Leader‘s news roundup, where we gather all the important stories that may have otherwise slipped unnoticed through Milwaukee’s media churn. The last few weeks have presented quite a mixed bag. On one hand, we’ve learned that our electric rates are once again going to rise, MPD got their hands on some new invasive technology and GOP legislators introduced a bill that attacks both librarians and children in one fell swoop. On the other hand, Henry Kissinger died – and that’s not even the best news!
This Is not a Drill: Act 10 Might just get Repealed
One of the worst aspects of Scott Walker’s legacy may soon be over. On Thursday, seven Wisconsin unions representing service workers and teachers filed a lawsuit to overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that essentially ended collective bargaining for most public unions. Now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a liberal tilt, unions finally have a real chance of repealing the law. (CBS 58)
We Energies to Get More of your Money … Again
It’s starting to feel like an annual tradition – last week, The Public Service Commission (PSC) granted electric rate increases for Madison Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy and Alliant Energy to increase rates in 2024 and 2025 as well as limited requests by We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service to modify their 2024 rates.
The companies cited plans to construct renewable energy projects and a grid modernization effort as the reason for the rate hike. PSC asked for a report demonstrating how these plans would save customers money as energy companies retire coal plants and transition to renewable energy. None of the companies provided this information before the rate increases were approved.
For We Energies customers in Milwaukee, this means we’ll be seeing a 2.5% electric rate increase, translating to a $3.89 increase in the average customer’s monthly electric bill next year. (WPR)
If you’d like to remove corporate greed from your energy bill and have a say in how public utilities are managed, sign the Power to the People petition and join the campaign to replace We Energies with a democratic, publicly owned alternative.
MPD Embraces Dystopia with Invasive, Expensive Technology
The Wisconsin Examiner recently obtained contracts which show at least two technologies that Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) uses to track and intercept phones in Milwaukee. One is a Cell Site Simulator (CSS), which tricks nearby phones into connecting to it by mimicking a cell tower. MPD purchased the CSS in 2019 using a $498,900 grant. Later that year, MPD purchased a C-Hostile Emitter Angle Tracker (C-HEATR) using a federal grant for $36,632. The C-HEATR works with the CSS to get more precise location data. MPD upgraded this system in 2022 for a total cost of over $6 million.
One of the companies MPD bought equipment from is PenLink, a company that produces technologies to help police intercept and analyze phone or social media data. When asked how MPD uses this technology, a spokesperson stated, “We use it for live intercepts and to analyze call records and social media records.” However, when asked if MPD uses PenLink technology to intercept social media records, a MPD spokesperson stated, “This state doesn’t allow us to intercept social media.” Given the incalculable number of times police officers have lied with impunity and the way MPD intentionally obfuscates the use of phone-tracking technology by referring to it as a “confidential source” in court records, the answer seems like an obvious “yes.” (Wisconsin Examiner)
Milwaukee may Finally Speed up Lead Pipe Removal
Thanks to a newly announced EPA 10-year timeline to remove lead pipes, Milwaukee officials may be forced to shorten their proposed timeline by decades. Currently, around 65,000 active lead lines need to be removed in Milwaukee. Milwaukee Water Works (MWW) has been replacing an average of about 1,000 pipes each year; to keep up with the EPA timeline, MWW would have to replace between 5,850 to 6,900 lead pipes each year.
Considering that other Wisconsin cities like Madison, Green Bay and Stoughton have already replaced all of their lead lines, the EPA 10-year timeline serves as a desperately needed catalyst for Milwaukee’s lead pipe removal project. (WPR)
Wisconsin GOP furthers Pursues its Commitment to Intimidating Educators and Children
In morally bankrupt Republican legislative news, recently introduced proposals would require librarians and school librarians to alert parents about what kids under 16 are checking out. Another proposal would repeal a statute that protects librarians from prosecution for obscene materials. This is yet another example of the Wisconsin GOP intimidating educators and restricting children’s access to information. Is this what they mean by “free speech”? (WPR)
Lambeau Workers to Hold Union Election
We started on some optimistic union-related news, so we’ll end on some optimistic union-related news as well. Service workers at Lambeau Field will have a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election on Sunday to determine if they will be granted union representation. The workers are negotiating with Delaware North, which employs around 70 vendors in the concourses at Lambeau Field. Winning this union election would be a huge win (sports pun intended) for the workers! (WPR)
Wisconsin’s Corrections Systems Persistently Violate Human Rights of Incarcerated People
Wisconsin’s prisons and jails have been an international embarrassment for years. Incarcerated people have suffered inhumane conditions including prolonged solitary confinement, vermin-riddled cells, physical and sexual violence, and arbitrary punishment by prison staff. The Milwaukee County Jail and Waupun Correctional Facilities are most notorious, but the problem is systemic.
Recent reports from the Green Bay Correctional Institution attest to how widespread this problem is. The prison in Allouez was built during the McKinley administration and does not appear to have updated its protocols since the days of the chain gang and the bread-and-water regimen. Inmates have complained of cells full of rat droppings, lockdowns that last for months due to inadequate staffing and incompetent administration, and a lack of access to communication with the outside world that destroys families and violates fundamental rights of those put behind bars. Most horrifyingly, callous neglect led to the torturous death of prisoner Antonio Whatley in 2021–Whatley had requested a wheelchair to make it to a medical appointment because he was too weak to walk. Staff refused, and he died within hours.
Inmates, political figures, activists, and community leaders all want the facility closed, and yet no movement to making that happen has occurred. Why? The answer isn’t complicated, despite what our bien-pensant media and political class would tell you. Wisconsin simply incarcerates far too many people, disproportionately people of color. A vicious, stupid refusal to improve the material conditions of Wisconsinites (and, in particular, Milwaukeeans) out of ideological viciousness and systemic racism has led to a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. The reactionary ruling cadre in the state legislature always finds more money for riot gear and automatic weapons for the armed agents of the state, but decry diversion programs and community development grants as ‘woke DEI’. Until a political movement by and for the marginalized working class of Wisconsin forces a change, the horror stories from Green Bay are likely to continue. (Journal Sentinel)
Wasserman to Community Organization Trying to Save Local Landmark: Drop Dead
Area landlord and yard sign impresario Sheldon Wasserman took a break from showering money on the Facebook-addled jackboots of our County Sheriff’s department to tell a community organization trying to save the Mitchell Parks Conservatory (aka the Domes) to pound sand.
“The Domes are failing and the time limit is real,” Wasserman said. “The (Milwaukee Board of Supervisors) has a limited tolerance to wait for a substantial and real proposal on the table… the board doesn’t want to wait on pipe dreams.”
Wasserman’s statement is surprising, considering that he and his company seem to have no objection building castles in the sky on such absurd premises as ‘deputies are underfunded servants of the people’ and (allegedly) ‘security deposits only have to be returned under threat of legal action’. Wasserman, a dyed-in-the-wool ‘change nothing but more cops’ brand of Democrat, has been one of the most hard-charging proponents of knocking down the Domes for years. It’s not surprising that a multimillionaire rent-collector from the North Shore would find a public good for South Side families to be a poor return on investment. Then again, perhaps Supervisor Wasserman is just out of his depth; it’s natural to expect a landlord to panic when confronted with a structural repair problem that can’t be covered up with a lick of paint and some spackling. (Journal Sentinel)
County Supervisors Pass Cop-Friendly Budget
As mentioned above, the County Budget passed last week contains the largest single increase in funding for the Sheriff’s department in history. After a long drawn out process aimed at boosting city and county funding after decades of underinvestment, much of this “windfall” is being spent on what passes for “law enforcement”. There’s no sugarcoating the situation; this budget will fall far short of actually solving Milwaukee County’s challenges and making this community a better place to live.
The news was not all bad; socialist and progressive officeholders (such as socialist County Supervisors Ryan Clancy and Juan Miguel Martinez) did make some headway in carving out valuable funding for services such as paratransit, park maintenance, and audits of the jail system. More details can be found here.
All the same, the overall picture is not a positive one. County Supervisor and State Assembly Member Ryan Clancy said “Despite these fiscal and policy victories, this budget contains the biggest increase to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office budget in the history of the county, keeping us from funding everything from transit security to open pools. On the floor, we heard supervisors essentially give up on the idea that we should expect any transparency or oversight. It’s difficult to celebrate the good that we did while knowing how badly we’ve let down the community on the clear, consistent demand to hold them accountable and to reign in their spending. We must do better.”
Socialist School Board Member Demands, And Gets, Termination of Do-Nothing Sweetheart Deal for GOP School “Choice” Organization
Milwaukee has been a lab rat for ‘school choice’ programs for decades, with less than impressive results. One of the underappreciated pathologies of this system has been the environment it creates in which do-little (or do-nothing) “foundations” and “initiatives” can find ample opportunities to wet their beak at the public expense. These educational consultancies and organizations attach themselves to the public educational system like sea lampreys on whitefish, siphoning off funds that could be put to far better use actually supporting our students.
It’s therefore highly satisfying to see socialist school board member Missy Zombor and progressive school board member Henry Leonard act in the finest traditions of Sewer Socialism to demand accountability on behalf of the public. They were instrumental in ending a no-bid tender for vaguely defined “services” provided to MPS by Gerard Randall for an organization called “Milwaukee Education Partnership”. This nonprofit, which lists only one employee (Randall) claims that its mission is to “boost student outcomes and educator retention”, but what it appears to have been particularly skilled at is feathering Randall’s nest to the tune of $1.2 million dollars over the last ten years. Zombor and Leonard demanded an audit of this Potemkin organization’s finances, and when the rest of the school board got a look at them, they unanimously (with one abstention) voted to end the relationship.
Conservative foundation board-filler types like Randall are all too common in a city that has seen its independence and stability undermined by an unrepresentative state government in Madison. The Sewer Socialists of a century ago came to power in no small part by crusading against corruption and sleaze, looking out for the tax dollars of ordinary people to make sure that their city was being run fairly and professionally. It is not surprising that socialism is experiencing a renaissance in Milwaukee today–public service in the public interest is needed now more than ever, and officeholders like Zombor and Leonard are here to provide it. (WPR)
