POLICE UNION: COUNCIL TOO BIG

POLICE TO PROTEST BUDGET CUTS
The Milwaukee Police Association held a news conference Tuesday November 8th at the Bay View Post 180 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to "propose a decrease in the number of aldermen and / or their pay as a way to put more cops on the street."
The police union figures a threat of a referendum in April for that purpose might be a way to get the council members' attention on what is the real issue for the police -- a $1.5 million decrease in police overtime in the 2006 budget.
This is a serious matter for our public guardians. The first thing rookie cops learn after how to pin on their badge is how to sign up for overtime, so the mayor's proposal to implement a "Community Service Officer Program" has riled up the boys in blue, especially in a department with over 250 vacant officer positions.
The Community Service Officers would not be sworn officers, union Vice-President Sebastian Raclaw told milwaukeeworld, and it is not certain whether they would be union members. The CSOs would be dispatched to answer low priority calls, like minor fender-benders or noise complaints, which might seem reasonable at first glance. We've all heard complaints about police doing insignificant things (like ticketing our own cars) when they should be doing something about that drug house across the street.
The police, however, say that minor calls often escalate to more significant events that the Community Service Officers would not be able to handle, and in, fact could make matters worse.
For example, police responding to a noise complaint might be able to determine that there is an underlying problem -- let's say the place is noisy because it is a drug house.
Whereas the Community Service Officers might only be able to tell the residents to keep the noise down, fully-sworn officers might have the wiles to receive permission to search the property ("you don't mind if we look around, do you?") and to effect a bust. The CSO visit might simply serve as a warning for the evil-doers to flush their drugs or split the scene.
One officer at the press conference said he had been shot at three times in events that he had thought were of minor character when first dispatched to the scene. People are crazy out there.
The Milwaukee Police Association, in a press release on the subject, said it is "urging the citizens of the City of Milwaukee to join MPA members at City Hall on Friday, November 11th at 9 a.m. to voice your concerns to our elected officials," during the City's budget hearings.
According to John A. Balcerzak, president of the union, "the city of Milwaukee has not missed the two aldermanic districts that were deleted in 2004, but the city has missed the 250-plus police officers who have not been hired. This is clearly evident by the current and rising homicide rate."--Michael Horne

TAB FOR TIMMERMAN REPORT
We learned yesterday that Coffman and Associates is working on a master plan for the county-owned Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport. It is not clear at this time what are the parameters of the report, but we do know the cost of the document, expected to be issued next year. It will cost $172,000, according to Pat Rowe of Milwaukee County, who cautions us that this is not taxpayer money, but from funds derived from the operation of Milwaukee's airports, including Timmerman and its big brother General Mitchell International Airport.--Michael Horne

OUR LOVELY SCAFFOLD -- NOT!
Whitney Gould of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went into transports about the scaffold encircling City Hall, calling it the best piece of public art that is hidden in plain view, and compared it to the Michael Graves scaffold that surrounded the Washington Monument during its restoration in the late 1990's. Puh-leeze!
Milwaukeeworld called months ago for an attractive scaffold for the City Hall project, and we certainly did not get it.
The scaffold, although it creates an airy web around the 19th century landmark, hardly deserves any credit for originality, attractiveness or functionality.
It is just a scaffold.
Certainly the south end of the scaffold could have been constructed with arches at the base, to mimic the entrance of the Great Hall of the People. (Think Eiffel Tower, which is essentially a giant scaffold.) I mentioned this in print and in person to Rocky Marcoux, the Mayor and Robert Greenstreet months ago, suggesting a competition be held to design an attractive scaffold. The plan obviously went nowhere.
We will be looking at this scaffold for years to come, and the entry to City Hall could not be more unattractive or user-unfriendly. As for the comparison to the Graves scaffold for the Washington Monument, I saw this well-lit structure in person several times and found it to be quite elegant.
--Michael Horne