MILWAUKEE NO-SHOW IN MAYOR CONFERENCE REPORT

Nearly 600 Cities File Infrastructure Proposals
With U. S. Conference of Mayors
Milwaukee Not Among Them

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

On Monday, December 8th, 2008 the United States Conference of Mayors issued the second installment [pdf] of its "MainStreet Economic Recovery Report," covering 427 cities and their "Ready-to-Go" infrastructure projects costing $73 billion, and creating 847,641 jobs.

Survey cities included Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans, Boston, Las Vegas, Houston, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City [MO and KS] and hundreds more.

The First Report [pdf] issued in November, covered 154 cities and identified 4,645 ready-to-go infrastructure projects that would create 261,652 jobs costing $25 billion.

Milwaukee's name was nowhere to be found in either report, most likely because it is not a member of the Conference.

I'm not sure who is to blame for our city sitting by idly while Beloit, Green Bay, Janesville, New Berlin, Racine and Sheboygan press their cases in Congress, but it is worthwhile to note that the report is issued by an organization that calls itself "The Voice of America's Mayors in Washington, D.C."

I'm not suggesting that Mayor Tom Barrett would have been able to clear his schedule last week to join colleagues Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in their Capitol Hill press conference announcing the plan, but surely Milwaukee could at least have submitted something to the organization when it was surveyed in November.

The mayor should be familiar with the Conference of Mayors -- Daniel Webster Hoan and Henry W. Maier, his predecessors with the longest tenures in office here, both served as national presidents. The mayor himself has addressed the organization, most recently in 2007.

It's not like the mayor would have to devote much work to finding likely projects in this city. Comptroller W. Martin "Wally" Morics, C.P.A. did the heavy work for him with his "Audit of the Department of Public Works Residential Street Paving Program," [pdf] also issued last week.

The report, prepared at the request of Alderman James A. Bohl, Jr., found that 21 per cent -- 214 miles -- of city residential streets were in poor condition, and recommended a $6 million increase in expenditures each year for the next quarter century simply to halt the deterioration of the infrastructure. In recent committee meetings, Bohl has called for a change in Federal highway policies, arguing that city streets should be eligible for the funding that seems to only go to freeways and highways. These are important policy points that cover multiple jurisdictions, including the largest city in the state. Milwaukee should be in the vanguard here, not silent.

Ready-to-Go projects are expected to be all the rage in Washington during the coming administration, and the president elect has made infrastructure improvements a priority for his first hundred days.

Governor Doyle, testifying to the full House Appropriations Committee membership on December 12th, 2008, invoked the term itself when he said, "Wisconsin has been working hard to line up projects that are ready to go."
The list he sent to Obama included over 1700 items. Leading the pack: the $1.9 billion reconstruction and expansion of I-94 from the Illinois border to somewhere in Milwaukee.

Doyle's skewed priorities prompted Ald. Robert J. Bauman to issue a release on December 11th, 2008, [pdf] criticizing the governor's shortsightedness, saying, "Fixing local streets and roads would positively benefit many more Milwaukee and state residents than expanding I-94 during the rebuild between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line."

Bauman, the chair of the Common Council's Public Works Committee, added "as a body, we're on record clearly stating that local street repair needs should come first, and that we should not be expanding highway capacity in southeast Wisconsin until we fix our existing roads, streets and bridges."

Now that we finally have a government interested in infrastructure improvements in places other than Iraq and Afghanistan, it is vital that our elected officials do as much as they can to secure funding for this city. Mayor Barrett was the first mayor to endorse Obama for president, so maybe he's calling in his chips privately. (In fact, that's the case, according to mayoral spokesperson Eileen Force, who says the city does not belong to the conference because of its annual cost of about $15,000. She says the mayor's office will release a list of its projects sometime this week.)
But it remains an embarrassment that Milwaukee's pressing needs were not included in the Conference of Mayors survey along with the 581 cities that were. There are 1,200 cities in America over 30,000 population. Let's hope Milwaukee is counted among them when the Federal dollars start rolling. But this report is hardly encouraging.