The Milwaukee Post

January 20, 2017 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 By JOHN TORINUS As Gov. Scott Walker, the Legislature and the University of Wisconsin Regents address the 2017-2019 budget for the state, they need to be mindful that Milwaukee was one of three metropolitan areas out of 51 with a population over 1 million people that lost jobs in 2016. The four-county area lost about 2,000 jobs. The pattern has been there for a decade. The four-county area lost about 3,000 jobs from 2006 through 2016, and the two-county Racine metro area lost another 4,000. That is despite the heroic efforts of the Milwaukee 7 Economic Development Partnership over roughly the same time period on 77 relocations and expansions that increased the job count by about 14,500. The Milwaukee metro area also lost pop- ulation. Its out-migration was 22,597 from 2010 to 2014. Fewer jobs and fewer people tend to run together. Without the M7 strategies, the picture would be worse. There are many reasons for the stagnation, including the rapidly increasing productivity of the manufactur- ing sector, once a source of job growth. Weather, high taxes and crime rates also play roles. State leaders surely understand that Wisconsin's lackluster economic growth rankings are the direct result of Milwaukee's slow numbers. The long and short of these realities is that state and M7 leaders need to take a step back and come up with some additional strategic depar- tures to reverse these unhealthy economic trends. First, though, we need to face some economic truths: Downtown Milwaukee in the midst of a real estate boom, often sub- sidized by state or local taxpayers. Great! But beyond the initial construction jobs, which are very helpful, such development doesn't move the long-term job numbers. Every public entity, business and many nonprofit organizations have supported workforce training. Again, these programs are enormously helpful. But job creation has to come first. Recruiting from other states and countries is not a winning strat- egy for Wisconsin. We, of course, need a welcome mat for companies who want to locate here. But there aren't enough of them to make a big difference. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. smartly shifted funds away from this failed strategy. Jobs are the missing link in the efforts to resuscitate Milwaukee cen- tral-city dynamics. Our best growth clusters are in areas like finance, health care, IT, business serv- ices, education and insurance. They merit maximum support. So what have we learned and what bold steps can we as a state and region take toward reinvention? For openers, we have learned what a great university can do for prosperity as we watch the University of Wi s c o n s i n - M a d i s o n lead its south-central region to high levels of prosperity. For my money, I would make the state's biggest bet on lifting UW- Milwaukee to the status of a world-class-status urban university. UWM, our region's largest and smartest organization, has come a long way in the last two decades, especially in R&D and connecting its expert resources to the state's powerful business center. Its new School of Freshwater Sciences, for exam- ple, is pivotal for the region's Global Water Council and its 180 corporate members. UWM is directly connected to Johnson Controls for work on energy storage, to Rockwell on the of Internet of Things, to GE Healthcare on computations for embed- ded systems, to the blooming startup com- munity through the new Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship. It is increasingly tied to our growth clus- ters in health care, IT, financial manage- ment and insurance through internships, collaborations and the supply of graduates. I love UW-Madison and its prowess (for better or worse, I took my journalism courses there), but, beyond graduates, Milwaukee does not get a lot of help from the flagship campus. So, the region's rein- vention has to be generated here. The same virtue holds for centering economic devel- opment on the four-year campuses in the other regions across the state. Other states are doing just that as they align and regionalize the structures of their state educational systems and their economic development resources. New North in northeastern Wisconsin has done just that at the ground level, combing its two universities, its private colleges, tech- nical colleges and K-12 districts into a K-20 education council. It is tied closely to its industrial clusters. Ship building is one example. An emerging master stroke in the M7 region is the accelerating collaboration by the region's other excellent colleges and universities to create innovation muscle. That is increasingly happening across our campuses, often in alliance with UWM. In the end, though, to stimulate prosper- ity in Milwaukee, UWM needs a fairer share of state funding. Our legislative dele- gation needs to take that on as a bipartisan effort. The pro-growth Democrats, a rare commodity, and pro-growth Republicans need to get their acts together. (John Torinus is chairman of the board of Serigraph Inc. in West Bend and blogs regularly at www.johntorinus.com. His col- umn runs occasionally in the Post.) Climate change is more than 'a theoretical construct' To the editor: State Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, believes that it was appropriate for the state Department of Natural Resources to scrub its website of references to human- caused climate change "because climate change is a theoretical construct." I couldn't disagree more. In June, 31 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Meteorological Society, sent a letter to Congress calling for climate action and stating that climate change impacts in the United States already include greater threats of extreme weather events, sea level rise, water scarcity, heat waves and wildfires. The American Association for the Advancement of Science states that the letter "reaffirmed the reality of human- caused climate change." Warmer air holds more water, and heavy precipitation events increased by 37 percent in the upper Midwest from 1958 to 2012, according to the National Climate Assessment. Record rainfall and flooding in north- ern Wisconsin this past July and in west- ern Wisconsin in September caused mil- lions of dollars in infrastructure damage as well as two fatalities. In order to deal with climate-driven threats, one most first recognize them. It's essential for the DNR's website to accurately represent the best available science. Terry Hansen Oak Creek Walker lacks leadership on transportation To the editor: I want to thank Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb for his hard work, honesty and dedication in trying to solve Wisconsin's $1 billion trans- portation budget deficit. I do not blame Gottlieb for "resigning" as transportation secretary, given Gov. Scott Walker's refusal to accept the looming crisis and refusal to take proactive measurers to address the $1 billion budget mess at the DOT. It is apparent that Walker is playing pol- itics as usual instead of doing the respon- sible thing and fixing the real issues at the DOT. Time and again the governor has put his own political ambition over the needs of Wisconsinites and the sacking of Gottlieb is another prime example. Unable to face the hard truths that Gottlieb out- lined, Walker simply looks to manufacture his own truth. This move will do nothing to fix this crisis, it will do nothing to engen- der the trust of the taxpayer, and it will do nothing to ensure our local roads and infrastructure are maintained. It's like Wimpy used to say, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Except for Wisconsin the bill has already come due and all Walker can think to do is silence the messenger. Sen. Tim Carpenter 3rd District Milwaukee OPINION LETTERS TO THE EDITOR UWM emerging as key to revitalizing state Torinus

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