This preliminary report from WTMJ seems pretty damning, and I'm guessing other journalists will take to today's tragedy like pigs to slop. Scott Walker's strategy of trying to defer county maintenance expenses until he could win a higher office might be coming home to roost in the worst possible way and at the worst possible time.
At least the Zoo Interchange didn't kill anyone. Barrett Bypass? How about the Walker Wake?
According to the MJS, Walker says he knew of no report suggesting the ramp suffered from deferred maintenance. Hmmm, seems that county staff prepared a report - a pretty detailed report. So is Walker lying? Forgetful? Ignorant of what his own employees are doing? Or are all maintenance audits simply placed in a giant folder labeled "Things For The Next County Executive To Deal With"?
After giving family and friends time to mourn, it'll be interesting to see how and when Mark Neumann and Tom Barrett approach this, and more importantly, how the Walker campaign addresses what could become a very thorny issue.
The bottom line: the O'Donnell garage operated by Milwaukee County Parks is in really bad shape. County leaders have known the specifics for at least six months and we have the evidence to prove it...
Nearly $600,000 deferred maintenance to the garage -- important repairs found by Department of Public Works inspectors last December as part of a county audit.
The list had seven repairs considered "critical," including water leaks, unsafe fire doors, and no sprinkler back-flow protection.
There were eight "potentially critical" issues, like problems with the systems that prevent stress cracks and keep pipes from freezing.
Plus, the list shows more than a dozen other "necessary" or "recommended repairs," like cracked concrete walls, cracks to the garage super-structure, rusting metalwork, water damage, and missing tiles.
At least the Zoo Interchange didn't kill anyone. Barrett Bypass? How about the Walker Wake?
According to the MJS, Walker says he knew of no report suggesting the ramp suffered from deferred maintenance. Hmmm, seems that county staff prepared a report - a pretty detailed report. So is Walker lying? Forgetful? Ignorant of what his own employees are doing? Or are all maintenance audits simply placed in a giant folder labeled "Things For The Next County Executive To Deal With"?
After giving family and friends time to mourn, it'll be interesting to see how and when Mark Neumann and Tom Barrett approach this, and more importantly, how the Walker campaign addresses what could become a very thorny issue.
18 comments:
Its good to see that Team Walker has pulled in BP's external pr firm to misremember, dodge questions and act falsely caring about the situation. First, the courthouse is falling apart from deferred maintenance in April, then the mental health hospital needs $15 million of emergency repairs ordered by the state and federal government in May, now a county parking ramp is collapsing in June-Walker seems to be in line for the Tony Hayward CEO of the Year award.
Might be a design issue here - sounds like this parking structure had "issues" from the get-go, before maintenance or lack thereof would have been an issue. $30 million dollar structure, $3.4 Million spent on corrections, architect fired. Real issue is why the structure wasn't torn down right away at the expense of the contractor or architect.
I don't disagree. But just as Obama has to eventually own Bush's crappy economy as his own problem, so too does this inherited issue fall on Walker's head. Just because the ramp has been a problem from the get go doesn't mean it wasn't Walker's responsibility to find a long-term solution. And between this and the cornice at the courthouse falling onto the steps and the mandated repairs to the mental health facility, there's certainly a narrative developing here that could be very problematic for Walker politically.
This will be the Walker campaign's Willie Horton by September. $5 says Neumann tees off on it first.
A thorny issue, yes. A campaign killing issue?? Hardly.
If Neumann attempts to use a dead child as a talking point, it will be the end of his campaign, not Walker's.
Yeah, why don't you ask Don Friske how much using a dead kid in a campaign ruins your chance of success. Methinks you could use a refresher course on how dead kids can be used in hit pieces.
http://tinyurl.com/2d5kgos
The report mentioned in the WTMJ article, along with a memo from the County Parks Director to the County Exec's office.
Notice that none of the identified repairs directly involve the thing that went wrong.
Didn't figure it would, but it still doesn't fix Walker's problem. He's got a troubling narrative building of county infrastructure that's in disrepair, he's pathologically unwilling to invest any money into fixing any of it, a 15-year-old kid is dead, and knowing Walker, he's busy looking for someone else to blame for what happened.
Someone should tell Sue Black to watch out. She's a lesbian anyway - canning her could help Walker prove he hates gay people as much as Mark Neumann.
While reading over the Southeastern conservative blogs, no one is questioning Walker's lack of commitment to fix old infrastructure, I am sure Tom Barrett would get that same break for the Walker Zombies. Walker now looks more like an ass for his Barrett Bypass billboards and other stunts.
The Walker sidewalk anyone?
So the fact that the repairs were made is not sufficient to satisfy the Walker haters? Slum lord Lee Holloway was on TMJ 4 saying he is going to be all over this. Hey Slum lord fix your buildings first before you even think about going after Walker.
Walker inherited a complete fiscal disaster in Milwaukee County and unlike Tom Barrett who has done nothing but raise taxes and drive business out of the city, Walker has tried to hold the line on taxes while maintaining programs and facilities.
Unfortunately a 15 year old boy is dead, but to blame Walker is stupid. I saw that one report said the structure could have been damaged by the earthquake that hit Canada. Is that Walkers fault too?
Clearly one repair wasn't made, and the county's obviously not doing such a bang-up job on maintaining facilities, or I wouldn't be reading about them falling onto sidewalks and people every other month.
You know Irwin, the argument you're making is the same argument that conservatives so vehemently reject when Obama offers it: none of this is my fault because I took over the last guy's mess. Just be aware that if you want to forgive Walker you have to let Obama blame everything on Bush as well.
Like I said, the problem here is the narrative. It was barely three months ago when a poorly maintained cornice partially collapsed onto the steps of the courthouse. The mental health facility is in need of immediate corrective improvements. When you've been running Milwaukee County for eight years, you don't really get to blame shit on Tom Ament anymore.
But Walker thought he was going to be out of here four years ago so he doesn't bother addressing any of these issues. Defer, defer, defer has been his motto. Let the next guy deal with it.
Did Walker kill this kid? Of course not. Does the culture of public sector negligence he advocates as a governing philosophy play a part? I think that's a fair question to ask, and Walker better find a convincing answer before he gets Sarah Waukau-ed over this.
If deferred maintenance was not issue, then why does Milwaukee County have a list of $200 million of county park deferred maintenance projects? Does anyone serious believe that if Jim Doyle or Tom Barrett had a list like that Scott Walker wouldn't be talking about it or putting up a big billboard. Walker and his rose colored glasses supporters have to the wimpiest political group ever because they can never actually win a debate without crying it's unfair or wanting everyone to quit so they can win. I would love to see Scott Walker as Governor, no other candidate in the last 50 years has been less tested,knowledgeable about issues and unprepared with actual solutions. No one who actually follows politics for a living outside of Wisconsin believes that is anything more than an opportunistic college dropout.
Me parece que the previous commenters don't get the point of the original post, patiently reiterated 4 x by The Supervisor. The facts don't matter all so much. The narrative is a killer for Walker.
Add that narrative to the sense that Walker is a phony, which is already bouncing around any thoughtful head, and Walker might have a problem.
We Dems like this because it means that we might get to play with Neumann. It's work to pivot from pointing out that the opponent is a phony to pointing out that the opponent is an extremist, but we'll go to work if that's what we must do, thank you very much.
Google "parking structure collapse" - see where else this has happened.
Hardest fact to overcome is that the parking garage was last fully inspected in 2004, according to The Business Journal of Milwaukee.
This parking garage is like a used car that you would buy. The previous owner told you it was real lemon with lots of problems, your friends tell you to give it extra attention. However, you do the bare minimum, run everything until all the dashboard lights are lit up, then you fix some of the problems at the garage. One day the front wheel falls off the car at 55 MPH, if you are Scott Walker- its an act of god. However, for 98 percent of the population, they knew it was a lemon and they would have given the car extra maintenance care, not less. Once Scott Walker is so smart that Marquette should just send him his degree.
I think the thing that's most telling about what a shitfest this is going to be for Walker is how few conservative bloggers are willing to mutter even a peep about this. If you were do the tour of their sites, it's like this thing didn't even happen.
If a garage collapses and kills a kid but conservative bloggers won't talk about it, does it make a sound?
http://theundergroundconservative.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/lethal-falling-concrete/
Posts like this show that Walker is really drowning in the water.
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