STILL NO CONNECTOR FILE

It has been two weeks since Common Council File 051610 was introduced, yet there is still nothing in the file except the title of the resolution, which reads simply, "Resolution expressing the City of Milwaukee's support for the Milwaukee Connector public transit project."
The only items appended to the file are seven press releases issued by Ald. Bob Bauman, who opposes the project, and who has made his reasons clear. He's got lots of them.
The Steering and Rules Committee, which consists of all committee chairmen of the Common Council, a list that includes Bauman, is scheduled to meet April 27th to discuss the resolution, which, as noted above, has not been shared with the public. This leaves us only three weeks to decide a $300 million issue on which information is either scarce, aged, unknown or withheld. This is amazingly sloppy operating procedure on the part of the Common Council. Who do these people think they are? The County Board?
I feel, at best, the rubber-wheeled guided bus system proposed as the Connector represents a capitulation to the forces of talk radio, those savants who, fifteen years ago, frightened the public and transportation consultants away from considering a rail system for this community.
In the meantime, cities across the country have defied the talk show gods and built light rail systems. And guess what? -- the rail systems work, and the talk radio hosts in those cities have been forced to discuss other topics, occasionally ones of substance.
--Michael Horne
[Update: April 7th 2006 The file has grown by one item with the introduction of a letter from Connector supporter Ald. Michael S. D'Amato.]