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What’s the old adage? Something like: If you have a weak stomach, don’t watch either sausage or laws being made.
Six years ago, The Park People proposed the creation of a separate Park District governed by elected, unpaid commissioners, to save our great Parks System from ruin. This simple measure, such as has been adopted by hundreds of cities and counties across the nation, requires approval by the Wisconsin Legislature.
It has taken this long to get the Wisconsin Legislature to even consider a bill to allow that to happen, not just in Milwaukee County but also in any county or municipality in the state that wanted to enjoy the benefits of a Park District.
Park districts are beneficial because they take public parks out of the realm of partisan politics and budgetary shenanigans in the same way independent school boards keep public schools from being subject to political whims and cyclical budget crises. Award-winning parks systems such as Minneapolis’ and the more than 350 independent park districts in Illinois, as well as the private, non-profit district that has brought about the marvelous rebirth of Central Park in New York City, have showed that this apolitical, proactive approach to local parks stewardship works, and works better.
But even though our legislation has finally been introduced and assigned to a committee it will go nowhere if it doesn’t get that committee to schedule a hearing.
Why wouldn’t it? Well, if Senator Mark Miller, chairman of that committee, Environment and Natural Resources, saw it as purely a Milwaukee County initiative (which it isn’t; as mentioned, it would allow any Wisconsin city or county to gratefully enact a Park District), and if he demanded the support of his party’s Milwaukee delegation before he would give the bill a hearing (he does), and if the Milwaukee County Democrats denied that support for purely political reasons unrelated to the public good (they have), then the bill would and will go nowhere. And the Milwaukee County Parks, and possibly many other parks systems in Wisconsin, will continue to decline toward decrepitude.
Why, you may wonder, would elected Milwaukee County Democrats not garner full support of something that thousands of their constituents want – thousands or their strongest constituents, by the way, including the members of a slew of environmental groups?
Three reasons: One, they are tied to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, which is supposed to be non-partisan but isn’t (it is composed overwhelmingly of old-line Machine Democrats); two, they are tied to the public workers unions, which for some reason haven’t come to realize that the only hope of saving their few remaining jobs is to get themselves out of the clutches of Milwaukee County government; and three, they hate Scott Walker, who as county executive has endorsed the Park District plan as the only way to save our parks.
But, you may well say, that’s wrong! That isn’t the way government is supposed to work! If thousands of constituents, Democrats and Republicans alike, are crying out for a way to save our parks, those representatives are supposed to listen – and act!
Ha. In your eye, Pollyanna. Politics works like this: “I don’t like the guy who is supporting this because he’s a conservative Republican, and I don’t care that 10,000 Milwaukee County environmentalists and park-lovers also support it, because, in the end, I know they’ll vote for me anyway, even if they have to hold their noses when they do.
“Furthermore, you unwashed masses, you, if you don’t understand by now that representative government in Madison has nothing to do with either representation or the public good, but rather has everything to do with backrubs and massages, full-body if necessary, for the constituents who count; i.e., the local politicos who keep us washed and fed, well, you just haven’t been paying close attention.”
But we digress. Here’s a recap. Milwaukee County Democrats in Madison hate Scott Walker even when he’s right; love the unions even when they’re wrong; and ignore the public routinely until such time as its attention involves some form of public humiliation.
It is a case of very strange bedfellows. Conservative County Executive Scott Walker and moderate Republican Sen. Alberta Darling agree with thousands of wild-eyed liberals that our parks are in crisis and that there is a better way to save them, and they agree to support that. Democrats such as Reps. Dave Cullen and Jon Richards and freshman Sen. Jim Sullivan listen to 200 union members and 19 County Board members and agree to support them, instead, even though they are simply wrong and don’t know it.
We don’t want to bash the unions. These people work hard, and they are certainly justified in their fears for their jobs. Walker proposed cutting more than 80 full-time jobs from the Parks Department alone in next year’s budget. And the County Board is working hard to restore those jobs to its b
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