The Legislature passed the Budget Repair Bill yesterday. Among the items included in the bill, besides 31 positions for the State Crime Lab (an issue that form AG Peg Lautenschlager acknowleged and was working on before ol' JB Van Hollen decided to make it a campaign issue), the bill also restored 270 positions for State Power Plants. Most people are probably saying "huh", what da heck, why? Here's the story...
Back in 2005, good ol' Scott (Scooter) Jensen managed to get his dream of privitizing the Power Plants that produce heat at all state institutions (prisons, universities, mental health facilities, etc) into the state budget. The plan was to sell the facilities at a fraction of their value to some private interest that would operate them more cheaply and get the state out of the Power Plant business. The employees would have been offered jobs with these private firms (whoopee), but, you can bet that we would have found out the same thing that Minnesota did. That the private companies don't care very much for the facilities, they care more about the bottom line. Minnesota had major issues with their privatized plants and is ending up going back to state run, at a major cost. Fortunately for Wisconsin, the Governor vetoed this, but, he was not able to restore the positions of the roughly 271 human beings who work to keep those plants running 24/7. The bottom line is that 271 individuals would have been out of a job as of July 1, 2007. In order for this not to occur, the positions had to be restored by April 1, 2007. The Republicans in control, wanting to distance themselves from ol' Scooter (what is it with Republicans and that name) promised they would take care of this minor technicality right away back in '05. Well, it was February '07 and they hadn't done that. They had lost the Senate and a few seats in the Assembly and seemed more interested in making some political hay out of this. So, about 40 Power Plant Operators visited the Capitol on a pretty cold day and reminded the folks that it could get pretty cold in their offices if there was no heat. Well, the Republicans played a few more games, but, they had to take care of the Budget Repair Bill to get J.B.'s positions in the crime lab. Steve Nass, tried pretty hard to change the bill, but, when all was said and done, the Budget Repair Bill passed. So, thanks to all the Legislators who supported the Repair Bill, including our Assembly rep from the 54th!
Speaking of privatization, there were some outspoken comments at a City Council forum held prior to tonights Democratic Party meeting. Three candidates were solid in their positions against privitization of core public services, Bryan Bain, Jess King and Tony Palmeri. Bob Cornell and Meredith Scheuermann were willing to "consider it as an option", as was Frank Tower. Mr. Nielsen and Mr. Esslinger did not attend the forum. Tony got applause from the audience when he reminded the group that privitization is what caused the issues at Walter Reed Hospital.
I felt that this forum actually brought out more of the true colors of the candidates and indicated that several are using the coattails of others to hang on to---ie., the me to candidates. I'm pretty sure where my votes are going, at least for City Council.
LC2
