The Milwaukee Post

September 27, 2013 • Milwaukee Post • 9 OPINION Regional? Not even close Barrett wants help with crime but won't budge on Kenosha casino Grab your wallets. Milwaukee's mayor is again talking about regional "cooperation." For Milwaukee, cooperation is always a one-way street. "You pay for our stuff," Milwaukee says. "But when you need something, we'll use all of our muscle to stop you." Tom Barrett was recently babbling about the violent crime crisis in Milwaukee being a "regional problem." That's news to the region since virtually all of the violent crime is in Barrett's city. The gang-bangers are killing one another in droves as the fight for drug turf intensifies. The huge surge in heroin trafficking may be part of the reason. Barrett blames all this on poverty and says the region is to blame because it has concentrated all the poor people in the city. Translating this prattle into English, Barrett has finally decided he needs to hire more police but doesn't want to pay for it. This is where the region comes in. It's a tired song and dance. Mass transit ... baseball stadium ... parks ... the arts ... the list goes on and on. A new basketball arena will soon join this list. All of this stuff is for Milwaukee but since the region benefits, everybody has to pay. Yeah? Imagine the reaction from Barrett if somebody proposed to put the replacement for the Bradley Center on Moorland Road in Brookfield. It isn't just Barrett. The Metropolitan Question of the week Milwaukee Association of Commerce is also big on this looting of the region for Milwaukee's benefit. MMAC and Milwaukee were founders of the probusiness group called M-7. This coalition is supposed to support economic development in the seven counties of southeast Wisconsin. One of its founding principles was that no community would fight to oppose economic development in another part of the region. (You may recall my ridicule of the notion that Milwaukee would ever live up to its part of the pledge.) Kenosha wants a casino that will produce an economic windfall. The proposal from the Menominee tribe would create an estimated 3,000 permanent and about 1,500 temporary construction jobs. So who's opposing it? MMAC. So much for the M-7 vow of cooperation. And, the word "Metropolitan" in MMAC's title evidently stops at the Milwaukee County line. Barrett and MMAC say the Kenosha casino would cost jobs at the Milwaukee Potawatomi casino. That's probably true. But the new casino combined with Potawatomi would certainly result in a net increase of overall jobs with the two casinos combined. But Barrett and MMAC want it all and it all has to be in Milwaukee. So much for "cooperating" with the "region." The sad thing about this is sickening phoniness from Milwaukee is that the region does need to cooperate. If Milwaukee rots, the whole area will suffer. And, residents from the entire region certainly enjoy the benefits of Milwaukee business, sports and arts attractions. Summerfest, the Brewers, Northwestern and Harley are great for all of us. But it isn't the region that's not cooperating. The parochialism comes from Milwaukee. Always. Waukesha and other communities want Lake Michigan water. Milwaukee doesn't want them to have it. So, tell us again, Barrett, about how everybody else has to fix your crime problem. *** Another conservative talk show host (OK, it was Charlie Sykes) has been riding me for being too harsh in my criticism of Governor Walker's obstruction of the Kenosha casino. He argues I am doing the work of the Democrats in ripping Walker on the jobs issue and says the governor has always been consistent in his criteria on a new casino. Sorry, Charlie, but I'm not going to jump around with Republican pompoms. Conservatives need to fight for their principles and all of us need to fight for economic development, regardless of who is on the other side. Besides, no one was more critical than me of former Gov. Jim Doyle's sellout of state interests to the Potawatomi tribe in exchange for campaign and other political support. Conservatives who want to Readers Forum Previously we asked: , Do you feel the Affordable Care Act is OK the way it is written or does it need more changes? Call 744-6370, Ext. 15 and leave a brief answer to the Question of the Week along with your full name with spelling, phone number and city. No address is required. Readers may also send an email with a brief answer to: dbutler@conleynet.com. Are charter schools better than, on the same level or worse than public schools? You answered: "They do it for less, usually with better graduation rates and better acceptance to higher education. We hear about the few frauds and not about the successes. It's an alternate for a few; should be for all. Ask the parents of the students attending." – Noah Borkenhagen Franklin "Charter schools are better as far as teaching the basics compared to public schools. In public schools, all they want is a baby sitter and that's why the teachers in public schools can't teach because the parents want baby sitters so they can get away from them for a while." – Don Tuttle Milwaukee STANDING UP for MILWAUKEE MARK BELLING maintain any credibility can't rip Democrats for doing the same thing for which they give Republicans a pass. The same can be said for the staunchly conservative Club For Growth, which has always fought for economic development but refuses to get behind the Kenosha proposal. Phonies. Unless "growth" in Kenosha doesn't count. But more importantly, the Walker sycophants are hurting the governor. If Walker doesn't get behind the casino proposal, he will be hung with his terrible position. If Walker turns his back on all these jobs while failing to fulfill his promise to create 250,000 new jobs, he'll pay a price in next year's election. Those of us trying to change Walker's mind are the ones who are really on his side. *** Last week's column referred to declining membership in the Wisconsin Professional Firefighters Association. In fact, it has not lost members. I should have pointed out that the group, headed by a an extreme leftist from Madison, has never had the support of many local firefighter unions. (Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column appears weekly in the Milwaukee Post.) Coffee shop to open at former Paradise Theater WEST ALLIS – CoffeeWorks is opening a shop in the former Paradise Theater in West Allis. The nonprofit coffee shop supports the mission of the Epikos Church. The church opened last year at the former theater after investing $2 million into the building. CoffeeWorks, according to the church's Facebook page, is scheduled to open by October. The Plan Commission on Wednesday will review a sign plan for the shop and church. Early data shows 7,000-plus jobs added in Wisconsin in August MILWAUKEE – Wisconsin added about 7,300 jobs in August, according to preliminary estimates released by the Department of Workforce Development on Thursday . About 35,000 seasonally adjusted jobs were added from August 2012 to August of this year, according to the DWD. Non-seasonally adjusted total job growth for that same time period was 48,200, including private sector job growth of 45,500 from August 2012 to August 2013. The unemployment rate for August was 6.7 percent, down from 6.8 percent in July, according to the data. Both of those figures are lower than the national unemployment rate of 7.3 percent

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