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Several aldermen looking to try and derail Pratt’s elevation to acting mayor

Some Milwaukee aldermen are researching whether they could have an alderman other than Common Council President Marvin Pratt elevated to acting mayor when Mayor John Norquist leaves the post on January 1, 2004.

“It would be very difficult to pull off and I don’t really see it happening,” Murphy said. “It could end up hurting those that try to do it and the candidate that they may be backing.”
– Alderman Michael Murphy

Norquist announced Sunday that he would leave the mayor's office on January 1, 2004 to become president of the nonprofit Congress of the New Urbanism. Norquist, whose terms ends in April 2004, announced last year that he would not run for reelection after he was forced to empty out his campaign fund to pay off a former mayoral staff person, who accused him of sexual harassment.

Alderman Michael D'Amato said he was concerned that there could be two major transitions in the mayor's office during a four-month period if Pratt did not win the general election. D'Amato said he believe the acting mayor should not be a candidate for the office and instead "a caretaker" to provide direction and policy consistent with the current administration.

"We could have wholesale (staff) changes and then four months later, wholesale changes again," D'Amato said. "I believe that would hurt city government."

D’Amato said he is also concerned that there may be Norquist cabinet members who do not support Pratt's candidacy and there always a chance for sabotage or retaliation.

"This would be a tenuous situation for everyone," he said. "This is not something (to benefit) Marvin Pratt, Tom Barrett or Tom Nardelli. I just want to ensure that the city continues to run smoothly."

Alderman Michael Murphy said the only way he was aware that another alderman could become acting mayor was if the Common Council would remove Pratt from the president's position and elect a new alderman to lead the 17-member council.

"It would be very difficult to pull off and I don't really see it happening," Murphy said. "It could end up hurting those that try to do it and the candidate that they may be backing."

The expected elevation of Pratt to acting mayor on January 1 will shine the spotlight brightly on Pratt and he will have a very short time, only about six weeks before the mayoral primary, to make an impact that will swing voters into his camp. And political observers said he is going to be under much greater scrutiny from the media and the public.

“It has advantages and disadvantages and will depend on how Marvin reacts to being under the glare,” said Geoff Hurtado, a former city and county official, who now runs his own planning firm. “There is going to be a tremendous amount of pressure on him to perform, yet he is going to only have a short time to do anything.”

Barrett told to shed ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ image

Mayoral candidate Thomas Barrett must have listened to his campaign advisors, who recently told him that he had to shed his “Mr. Nice Guy” image and be more aggressive if he wants to win the crowded race to replace Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist.

“I believe you are going to see a much different Tom Barrett in the mayor’s race. He is going to take the gloves off and raise important issues such as who is responsible for what has gone on at City Hall over the past few years that has resulted in this embarrassing federal investigation.”
– Tom Barrett supporter

Barrett came out swinging on Sunday when it was revealed that Norquist was going to leave office on January 1, 2004, which will elevate one of Barrett’s main opponents, Common Council Marvin Pratt, to be acting mayor for four months.

In television and newspaper interviews, Barrett forcefully tried to link Pratt to the recent federal investigation of Milwaukee City Hall that has resulted in three aldermen being convicted. Two of the aldermen, Rosa Cameron and Jeff Pawlinski, have resigned from office, and the third, Paul Henningsen, is expected to resign after he is sentenced in September.

“The dynamic is that you have three alderman convicted and a tainted mayor leaving office," Barrett said. "We need a change in City Hall."

A Barrett supporter said about 12 of his closest advisors met with the former Milwaukee Congressman on June 20 and urged him to be more aggressive and challenge the other candidates in the race, rather than trying to be nice to everyone.

“He understood what we were saying and said he was going to make sure he was aggressive and out front on the issues,” said a Barrett supporter, who was at the meeting.

In the governor’s race last year, the supporter said Barrett was concerned that if he and Governor Jim Doyle got into a negative campaign, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk could have won the race in an election that would have mirrored the 1988 U.S. Senate race in which Russ Feingold was elected.

“I believe you are going to see a much different Tom Barrett in the mayor’s race,” the supporter said. “He is going to take the gloves off and raise important issues such as who is responsible for what has gone on at City Hall over the past few years that has resulted in this embarrassing federal investigation.”

DNR recommends expansion of ozone non-attainment zone

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has recommended that the state’s ozone-nonattainment zone be expanded to Jefferson and Sheboygan counties, but not to 10 other counties, including Fond du Lac, Walworth, Dodge and Winnebago counties.

The DNR recommendation, which was sent to Governor Jim Doyle in mid-June, was greeted with cheers by the counties not added to the nonattainment zone list, but with anger from those who were included. The recommendation to include Jefferson County is preliminary and subject to final review by the DNR and federal Environmental Protection Agency of the results of the summer of 2000 to determine if there were ozone standard violations.

Doyle is expected to give his final recommendation to the EPA by July 15.

Business leaders throughout the 11 counties have said a nonattainment designation brings with it “significant new regulations with serious implications for economic development and the daily lives of individual citizens.”

“We intend to try and fight this because we have no control over air that is blown into Jefferson County and negatively impacts our air quality,” said William Hausen, Jefferson County Administrator. “It is not fair to paint us with a broad brush and put us in the same category as the heavily industrial areas.”

Hausen said due to a breakdown in communications, many county leaders were not even aware of the possibility of the designation until earlier this week. DNR officials were apparently discussing the proposal with the Jefferson County Economic Development Corp., which recently disbanded, but not with other county or municipal officials.

The Watertown Common Council has already gone on record against the designation, unanimously passing a resolution requesting that Doyle not extend the nonattainment zone to Jefferson County.

On the other hand, State Rep. Dan Schooff, a Beloit Democrat, said the DNR’s decision not to include Rock County in the nonattainment zone was “great news.”

“A non-attainment designation would have a detrimental effect on our local economy and its development efforts,” he said.

DNR has originally discussed the idea of expanding the nonattainment zone to the 11counties at the May 20th meeting of the agency’s Clean Air Task Force, but that move was killed by Doyle in what one state regulatory official told The Daily Reporter was “a political decision.”

EPA currently designates eight Wisconsin counties as nonattainment areas, or areas that fail to meet air quality standards: Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Manitowoc, Door, Washington and Waukesha. Nonattainment areas must take steps to reduce ozone production by cutting emissions from power plants, factories, automobiles and other pollution sources.

Neighborhood group calls on Henningsen to resign

A Milwaukee neighborhood group has called on Alderman Paul Henningsen to resign following his recent conviction on four federal mail fraud charges.

Henningsen was found guilty June 20 by a federal jury on four mail fraud charges, but found not guilty of an extortion charge.

In a letter to Henningsen Tuesday morning, Amy Theisen, president of the Historic Concordia Neighbors, Inc., a neighborhood group located in Henningsen's district, said the group's board voted Monday night to ask him to step down.

“Throughout your nearly 20 years of service, you have always put your constituents first,” Theisen wrote in the letter. “Now, we ask you to put us first one last time and again resign from your office.”

Theisen said the group was concerned that if Henningsen remained in office until September, when he is scheduled to be sentenced, residents will have no representation on the Common Council until the April 2004 election.

“The neighborhoods in your district are changing and rapidly improving,” Theisen wrote. “This is an important time that calls for strong leadership and a persistent voice fighting for our needs in the midst of the political upheaval currently underway in Milwaukee. We cannot afford for our voices, our representation on the Common Council, to be silenced for almost a year.”

For his part, Henningsen, who has been on the Common Council for 20 years, said he has no plans to resign at this point.

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