CITY TO STATE: EXTEND I-94 COMMENT PERIOD

On December 10th, 2007, Public Works Commissioner Jeffrey J. Mantes and City Engineer Jeffrey S. Polenske sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi asking to extend the public comment period for the I-94 North-South Corridor Study from December 31st, 2007 to January 25th, 2008. They argued the issue required one cycle of common council meetings before the city could submit a formal "comment/position" on the preferred alternative. The next council meeting is scheduled for January 15th, 2008.
The DOT has been criticized, most notably by Gretchen Schuldt and Citizens Allied for Sane Highways, for scheduling the public hearings on the $1.9 billion project during the Thanksgiving - Christmas season, (she nails the department in this post) and for holding them in obscure locations and under byzantine rules. (The public was allowed to comment, one at a time and behind closed doors, before a court reporter, which hardly gives one the "Town Hall" feeling.) Busalacchi's silence on the matter makes it seem unlikely he would expand the hearing time unilaterally. However, the DOT hearings are largely held to satisfy the requirements of the Federal Highway Administration, which possibly might not object to giving citizens another month to digest the intricacies of the largest public works project ever proposed for this state. (I have a call on this subject pending to David Scott, the Southeast Freeway Coordinator for the Federal Highway Administration, and a recipient of the letter from the city.)

HOW TO COMMENT
The Department of Transportation has published the following contact information for those prepared to drop their holiday plans for a few moments:

• calling the project hotline: (262) 548-8721
• e-mail us at dotsefreeways94nsc@dot.state.wi.us
• fax your letters in to (262) 548-5662
• or send to WisDOT: Attention Bob Gutierrez at P.O. Box 798 Waukesha, WI 53187-0798

THE SOUTH 27th STREET ISSUE
One provision of the highway plan that has businesses and residents concerned is the proposal to eliminate the existing northbound exit at S. 27th St. The street, Milwaukee County's longest, was developed as a post World War II shopping strip, with relatively dense housing adjacent. Such neighborhoods are facing numerous challenges, including competition from more accessible neighborhoods. Closing a major exit, they say, could accelerate the decline of the district, which already sports vacant storefronts and feeble property values. The South 27th Street Business Association, led by Todd Reardon of Braeger Automotive Group, has been the most vocal and active organization on the topic.
According to the I-94 North-South Corridor Study 27th Street Fact Sheet, the elimination of the 27th street exit will eliminate "the existing 'weave maneuver' which requires drivers to merge across three lanes of traffic. This specific segment of freeway has a crash rate over twice the statewide average."
When pressed for an alternative design, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation refused to incorporate the possibility from consideration because it would cost $40 million extra, would require the acquisition and demolition of 10 homes and 16 apartments, and would not provide any significant improvement in traffic flow or safety.
The department "recognizes that businesses are concerned with this change in access. WisDOT will continue to meet and discuss with the 27th Street Business Association ways to mitigate these impacts so that the commercial district can growth (sic) along with traffic volumes."
Traffic would instead be routed to Layton Avenue, extending the trip by about three minutes, and steeply increasing the volume of traffic and pollution on that already burdened stretch of road.
Reardon and his groups got some media attention on the subject in October when they first noticed the disappearing exit, which had been present in earlier renditions. He's now making the organization's case to elected officials like Ald. Bob Bauman and Mayor Barrett. Almost all of the business on the street originates within 10 miles of the area, and asking people to exit the highway at S. 13th St. and W. Layton Avenue to get to S. 27th St. is hardly intuitive. Bauman challenges the orthodoxy of the engineers, who feel obliged to eliminate each and every one of the left-hand exits on the interstate system. However, permitting a left-hand exit at 27th St. would solve the problem at that location. The group challenges the number of homes said to be endangered, and has called for an independent study of options. Also, Bauman says there may be opportunities to relax certain of the numerous federal highway standards to remedy the situation of S. 27th St. However the DOT has not been responsive to those requests.

WISDOT: $2.30 / GALLON GASOLINE IN 2035
One of the crazy presumptions that drives the data WISDOT engineers use to plan our highway system can be found on p. 487 of the "Regional Transportation System Plan for Southeast Wisconsin 2035" published by the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission [SEWRPC].
On that page you will find "Forecast Year 2035 Motor Fuel Cost and Motor Vehicle Efficiency" charts.
According to the data, which apparently no engineer dared challenge, motor vehicles will get 30 miles per gallon of fuel in that marvelous world of the future. Remarkably, the price of gasoline will cost $2.30 (in 2005 dollars) per gallon 28 years from now! These numbers were derived from the U.S. Department of Energy, which forecast gasoline prices of $2.19 in 2030 in 2004 dollars. So, the era of cheap fuel is going to dawn over the next quarter century, according to the credulous engineers. No wonder they design sprawling highways. Anybody who believes in a future of cheap oil is not paying attention to world events. We are, for the first time, using more fossil fuels than we are discovering; China and India are exhibiting a voracious, unpredicted, appetite for oil, and at last count a dependence on foreign oil (there being little of the other kind) can be fraught with political peril. Just ask our troops in Iraq.
As I look out my window right now, Mr. Chavez of Venezuela is selling us his Citgo gasoline for $3.00. That's in 2007 dollars.
--Michael Horne

MSNBC: SELIG'S DAUGHTER CHAIRS BREWERS!

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

A Brooklyn-based freelance writer named Mark J. Miller tells us today, Wednesday, December 19th, 2007, in "Scuttlebutt" on the MSNBC website that Wendy Selig-Prieb is still the chairman of the Milwaukee Brewers! The anachronistic observation is contained in a post about Eric Gagne, the recently signed Brewer who is named in the Mitchell report on performance-enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball.

As Miller, who has a regular column on the website, writes in a section appropriately called "Rumors":

An added bummer for the Brewers, whose chairman of the board is Commissioner Bud Selig’s daughter, is that Gagne is probably the highest-profile player to be named who is in the group of players who supposedly took drugs post-2004, when the league finally had some kind of rules against performance-enhancers.

Milwaukeeworld tried contacting MSNBC sports brass to inform them that Ms. Selig is no longer part of the Brewers' management, but to no avail. For the record, Mark Attanasio is the team's lead investor and chairman, according to the official MLB website. He purchased the team from the Seligs and others in January, 2005. (See here to prove it.). The Seligs are to the Brewers as the Dodgers are to Mr. Miller's precious Brooklyn: gone, gone, gone! Outta here!

MORE FROM THE SPORTS DESK

Deanna Favre, the wife of Green Bay Packer Quarterback Brett Favre, was spotted Wednesday, December 19th, 2007, outside of Hers, a fashionable women's boutique located at 309 N. Water Street in the Historic Third Ward's lovely Renaissance Building.
The unaccompanied Ms. Favre climbed into the back of a black Lincoln Town Car -- opening the door herself -- and was driven south. How very low key, yet elegant! But liveried motor coaches do not come cheap, and neither do the clothes at Hers. Ms. Favre might feel comfortable frittering away her marital property on herself with such extravagances, which could easily amount to tens of thousands of dollars in a year. But when the money runs out (at this rate in the year 3025) there won't be any Lincoln Town Car to drive the Favre family to the poorhouse!
--Michael Horne

DEBRASKA TO CHALLENGE WITKOWSKI FOR 13th DISTRICT SEAT

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

Bradley D. DeBraska, the Milwaukee Police Association head for 16 years until his 2005 retirement, plans to challenge another City of Milwaukee pensioner for a seat on the Common Council.
DeBraska filed a campaign registration statement with the City of Milwaukee Election Commission yesterday, Tuesday, December 18th, 2007, declaring his candidacy for alderman of the 13th District.
That seat is now held by Ald. Terry Witkowski, who has also announced plans to run for what would be his second term.
DeBraska's decision to enter the race puts him in a curious situation, since the police union endorsed challenger Chris Kuester before DeBraska entered the race. However, police union endorsements traditionally have been used by candidates to show they have passed muster with the police department. DeBraska does not have to prove any such thing, due to his long service on the force, and Kuester probably won't get much mileage out of that particular endorsement.
DeBraska could be a formidable candidate, and starts out with a higher name recognition than either of his opponents or practically anybody on the council for that matter.
The race in the 13th district, which was not even on the radar screen yesterday, now rivals those in the 6th district (where current alderman Michael McGee is in jail) and the 3rd district (where alderman Michael D'Amato has decided not to run) as the most interesting races on the council.

KAYE v. MILWAUKEE RICO CASE BACK TO U.S. COURT

Special to the readers of milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne


The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided yesterday, Monday, December 17th, 2007, to remand case 06-3139 back to district court to settle a few issues, including whether that court had properly recorded its dismissal of the original complaint. Also at stake: the judge's order granting attorney's fees to the defendants, and a sanction of plaintiff-appellant Joesph Kaye for both the original case and his appeal.
Kaye had sued the City and numerous officials and officers of a neighborhood group alleging bid rigging in the sale of city real estate along the Milwaukee River. His action took the form of a federal RICO suit 05 C 982, heard by Judge J. P. Stadtmueller in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Stadtmueller threw out Kaye's case, sanctioned him and ordered him to bear the cost of attorneys' fees. According to the judge, he had many reasons for doing so: “Kaye has not properly pleaded predicate acts of racketeering or a pattern of racketeering. ... Because each of Kaye’s RICO claims requires that Kaye plead a pattern of racketeering activity, … he fails to state a claim against the City of Milwaukee Defendants. ... Kaye does not specify the many victims, the time frame involved, the five separate schemes, or the distinct injuries. Kaye does not cite to any allegations within his complaint or to any exhibits.”“Even if this court accepts Kaye’s allegations as true, the alleged predicate acts of bribery do not constitute a pattern of racketeering and Kaye’s RICO claims must be dismissed.”
What Stadtmueller failed to do however, was to render his decision "final and appealable," according to the appeals court ruling.
"The defendants contend that since the district court sanctioned Kaye, we can assume that it was washing its hands of a frivolous lawsuit and moving on to other things. ... That may be what happened here, as indicated by the fact that the defendants asked the district court to dismiss with prejudce, but the district court did not explicitly do that (it did not say whether the dismissal was with or without prejudice).
"On remand, the district court should indicate whether it had intended to dispose of the entire case or let Kaye file an amended complaint, and proceed accordingly. It should also set the amount of attorney's fees. Any party aggrieved afterwards can file a fresh appeal. The defendants have moved to sanction Kaye for filing this appeal, but we do not believe the issues raised here are so insubstantial as to warrant that, especially given the possibility of amendment; the motion is DENIED."

[See previous Milwaukeeworld posts for more information on the path of this case over the past two years.--Ed.]

MilwaukeeWorld: APPEALS COURT HEARS KAYE v D'AMATO ARGUMENTS

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Seventh District got a chance to hear arguments Friday, November 30th, 2007 in Case 06-3139, Joseph Kaye v. ... www.milwaukeeworld.com/blog/2007/11/appeals-court-to-hear-kaye-v-damato.html - 29k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

MilwaukeeWorld: KAYE TO PAY IN TOSSED RICO SUIT -- Updated! - 1:28pm

Joe Kaye filed a lawsuit on his own behalf ("pro se") in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleging a violation of federal Racketeer ... www.milwaukeeworld.com/blog/2006/07/kaye-to-pay-in-tossed-rico-suit.html - 32k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

MilwaukeeWorld: CITY MOVES TO DISMISS RICO SUIT

It was brought by Joseph Kaye, an attorney who once owned a property in the East ... It quotes the original complaint of Joseph Kaye in which he says, ...
www.milwaukeeworld.com/blog/2005/11/city-moves-to-dismiss-rico-suit.html - 28k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this