"With Gov. Scott Walker hinting that he may move to end the city's longtime residency rule for public employees..."

"... Mayor Tom Barrett went on the offensive Friday, saying he's certain property values would drop if the requirement goes away."

"People in [the southwest and northwest sides] of the city are concerned about their property values," Barrett said. "They should remember when their property values go down that it was Governor Walker who did that to them if he proposes this. I'm still hoping he doesn't propose this."

Isn't that the wrong reason for requiring residency? You want to use people — deny them free choice — in order to bolster the real estate market? I can see not wanting the city to hollow out as people escape to the suburbs. You don't want Milwaukee to turn into Detroit, but what about the real people who work for the city? If they want to live too far out in the suburbs, their only option is to give up their jobs?

Note the big effect on who teaches the schoolchildren of Milwaukee. And then one of the reasons you might not want to live in Milwaukee is that you don't think the schools are good enough. A vicious circle there, no?

From the comments at the link:

I am considering moving out of Milwaukee. I own a $200,000 house and my taxes are almost as much as my mortgage. How can you even consider making someone pay almost $7K year for a $200k house and I can't even send my kids to the public schools. Don't even get me started on crime.... clean up the city and you won't have to hold employees hostage!

On the other side, also from the comments:

If you draw a city paycheck, the city has every right to require you to contribute to the local tax base by living there. If that's simply too much to bear, there are other places to work. No one is forcing anyone to work for the city of Milwaukee.

"Your safety. It's no longer a spectator sport. I need you in the game. But are you ready?"

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. But are you prepared? Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We're partners now. Can I depend on you?"

Says Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. in a new radio ad (which you can play here).

Predictable pushback. From the office of Tom Barrett (the Mayor of Milwaukee who challenged Gov. Scott Walker in the recall election and lost):

"Apparently, Sheriff David Clarke is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie."

And from Jeri Bonavia, executive director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort:

"What (Clarke's) talking about is this amped up version of vigilantism.... I don't know what his motivations are for doing this. But I do know what he's calling for is dangerous and irresponsible and he should be out there saying this is a mistake."

Should Wisconsin embrace the Chicago-Milwaukee megacity?

Or should it compete with Chicago, luring Chicago businesses to relocate here?

The ["Milwaukee's Future in the Chicago Mega City" conference] was prompted in part by a report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a global economic think tank based in Paris. The 332-page report issued in March advocated closer ties within the Chicago-Milwaukee economy, and declared the region "is at a tipping point."...

The OECD found that the Chicago-Milwaukee region is politically splintered despite common industries, highways and shoreline. Among the most pernicious practices that split the region, the OECD found, is Wisconsin's practice of poaching companies....

In March, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch boasted that she got in the game early. "Right after I was elected I started making cold calls down to Illinois," Kleefisch said in a radio interview.

"More than 5,300 violent assaults have been misreported since 2006..." in Milwaukee.

"An internal department audit shows that 20% of aggravated assaults were underreported as lesser offenses that didn't get counted in the city's violent crime rate during that time."

"This is the highest error rate I have ever heard of," said Samuel Walker, criminology professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. "A genuinely independent audit of the department is necessary."

Mayor Tom Barrett praised the department for being transparent about flaws in crime data.

"While there were errors in total crimes reported to the FBI, the Police Department's analysis shows crime trends previously reported are correct," Barrett said. "Milwaukee is a safer city."

Barrett, you will remember, was the Democratic Party's candidate in the recall election against Scott Walker.

It's Day 17 of "Video a Day Until the Walker Recall." This is called: "The War Against Milwaukee and Madison."

It's not just a song. (Sample lyrics: "Milwaukee, heavy on minorities/Madison, for homosexuality/Milwaukee and Madison, I love you both.") The song is just the intro, though it takes 2 minutes. There are still 3 minutes left on this video, by Adam Schabow.

Stay tuned for spoken word section: "This is my house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I live in the heart of a heavily, heavily African-American neighborhood... I love my neighbors.... At work, I'm the only white person in a department of 26, 23 of them are employees that work under me. I love my employees and I love my boss." (Note: They're not your employees.) This quickly becomes an attack on Scott Walker for using racism as a campaign theme, the notion being that to criticize Milwaukee is to scare Wisconsinites about black people.

Via Meade, via the Isthmus forum, where Schabow announced his project.

"Nice police department you got there, Mayor Barrett."

Says Instapundit, linking to my post about the man with the pro-Walker sign who was arrested by the Milwaukee police today. He adds:

There’s also some sort of scandal involving the Milwaukee police, isn’t there? Oh, yes, there is: Milwaukee Police Accused Of Performing Illegal Body Cavity Searches.

Oh, and there’s the crime statistics book-cooking scandal.

Plus a policy favoring illegal assaults on gun owners.

Then there’s that whole vote-fraud business.

"State and local leaders called Wednesday for independent audits of the Milwaukee Police Department's crime numbers..."

"... citing a Journal Sentinel investigation that found more than 500 cases in which serious crimes were misclassified as lesser offenses."

Why aren't we all talking about the "secret plan to evacuate some residents of Chicago in the event of major trouble during the NATO summit next month"?

3 days ago CBS 2 reported on an e-mail that the Red Cross sent out to volunteers in the Milwaukee area:

It said the NATO summit “may create unrest or another national security incident. The American Red Cross in southeastern Wisconsin has been asked to place a number of shelters on standby in the event of evacuation of Chicago.”

According to a chapter spokesperson, the evacuation plan is not theirs alone.

“Our direction has come from the City of Chicago and the Secret Service,” she said.

What's going on?

You know I'm already agitated about the potential for Chicago folk to come up to Milwaukee to vote in the Scott Walker recall election. (Remember: "Chicago is up in the house!"/"Everyone left is from Chicago"?) The Wisconsin courts, conveniently, have blocked the voter ID law.

And now there's this secret evacuation plan, with the City of Chicago and the Secret Service — the Secret Service, will there be prostitutes?! — working together? And Milwaukee is the evacuation zone?

Sorry to verge into the conspiracy-theory area of thinking, but why isn't this evacuation plan story big news?

ADDED: Instapundit links and says "Well, I did have a post last week, though this sounds bigger." That link goes to this:

Residents of a Chicago condo whose building will be in the eye of the NATO storm are being warned that they should move out for the weekend ... or risk being trapped inside by rioters.

Wow.

Let's review the newest ads in the Wisconsin recall race.

Tom Barrett — the Milwaukee mayor who is running in the Democratic primary — has an ad in which state senator Jon Erpenbach — who, we hear, "helped lead the fight" in the "war" that Scott Walker started —  does all the talking:



We see pictures of the protesters filling the state capitol rotunda. Erpenbach is being used to vouch for Barrett's fidelity to the ideals and agenda of the protesters.

Next is Kathleen Falk — the former Dane County executive, also running in the Democratic primary:



Like Barrett's ad, this one begins with a black and white photograph and a female voiceover. Barrett had a picture of mean-looking Scott Walker and an unnamed script-reader telling us about the "war in Wisconsin." Falk's ad has a super-cute picture of Falk as a little girl, and the voice is Falk's — she grew up in Milwaukee and Waukesha county. There's tinkling piano music. Then we see, in color, Kathleen Falk, sitting in a warmly sunlit room, her hands clasped around a warm yellow mug. She's murmuring about "simple Wisconsin values" — "work hard, be honest" — "trust," "truth." She brings people together: "That's the Wisconsin way."

Isn't the comparison interesting? Barrett — over there in Milwaukee — needs to connect himself to the protests in Madison, and he employs the handsome Erpenbach to assure us he's down with the struggle. Falk — who really was here during the protests and is a Dane County politician — relocates herself to Milwaukee and Waukesha, Barrett's neck of the state. There are no views of the protests or even of anyplace that reminds us of Madison. She represents "Wisconsin values" and "the Wisconsin way," which "our leaders" have "lost sight of." She doesn't even name Scott Walker.

Here's Doug La Follette. He's Wisconsin's Secretary of State, also running in the Democratic primary. He begins with a little mechanical cow, representing Wisconsin. It used to work, but it has stopped working, "because Scott Walker has betrayed the Wisconsin idea." The mechanical cow walks, then stops walking, at which point we see some unpleasant-looking protesters:



"It's time for a steady hand," says the voiceover, as we see La Follette's hands winding up the little cow and sending it to continue walking again. Okay.

The other candidate in the primary is Kathleen Vinehout, who's a state senator. Here's her YouTube channel, which doesn't seem to have any ads. I started looking at this video, because it seemed like the closest thing to an ad over there:



When I clicked through to get the code to embed that video, I saw it had "0 views"! I was the first view on that, which I'm not really even sure she wants people to see. She's giving a speech in some dark bar or casino-like place. I don't know if anyone is listening, but at 1:12, somebody off-camera drops something metallic. A pan, perhaps. Apparently, La Follette's campaign is just not modest enough to embody Wisconsin values. Undercutting the minimalism of La Follette — it's not easy!

"A panel of federal judges in Milwaukee has barred Wisconsin elections officials from using new Republican drawn redistricting maps..."

"... and ordered that two districts be redrawn because they unfairly weakened the voting power of Latinos."

The judges ruled that both Assembly Districts 8 and 9 in Milwaukee violate the Voting Rights Act, and said the state Government Accountability Board cannot implement the new maps in their current form....

The judges' memo that accompanied their decision was another harsh one for Republicans. It slammed GOP lawmakers over the secrecy surrounding the redistricting process.

Sentencing young offenders to Shakespeare instead of jail.

The Milwaukee County Board seems to think $65,000 will buy a Shakespeare program capable of transforming young criminals:

Modeled after a Shakespeare program in Massachusetts, the local version would help boost self-esteem for participants and teach them to work collaboratively....

Woman stabs a man 300 times — allegedly — in sexual activity that got "out of hand."

The 18-year-old man — according to the police affidavit — met the woman on line and traveled from Phoenix to Milwaukee for some consensual activity:

"Once he got to the residence, he was bound and stabbed numerous times over a time frame of what he described as two days," the affidavit states....

Officers followed a blood trail to an apartment in the 900 block of E. Knapp St, where the door to one of the units was open. Inside, there was blood on the floor and on bedding in a bedroom as well as duct tape that appeared to be a restraint, according to the affidavit.

A 22-year-old woman introduced herself to officers, saying, "I think you are here looking for me."...

When police searched the apartment, they found a book entitled "Werewolf's Guide to Life," a necromantic ritual book; and a black folder called "Intro to Sigilborne Spirits." According to various websites, Sigilborne spirits include female werewolf spirits who engage in sexual acts.

Ow-ooh... Werewolves of Milwaukee.

Cops on bikes: "It's a hazardous duty in that you don't have a squad car around you."

"I don't think any of this is a risk that's above and beyond what we do on a daily basis. It's part of the job. It's an inherent danger to be a police officer. It's an inherent danger to be a bicycle officer. But the five in a month is obviously more than we'd like to see any time."

Life in Milwaukee.

"Milwaukee recognized for urban farms, aquaponics."

"International team recognizes Milwaukee's 'high potential' to improve access to healthy food, revitalize neighbor hoods and create jobs."

Many cities, including Milwaukee, have "food deserts," or large areas without traditional grocery stores because poverty is high, and supermarkets choose not to operate there. As a result, residents have less access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. Neighborhood corner stores and convenience stores typically don't offer quality fresh produce....

Hence, "high potential" for urban farms and aquaponics. I sense high potential for boondoggle-ponics. There aren't enough grocery stores, so you want people in the city to farm? You want the poor to become farm workers... subsistence farmer workers? Is that really a good use of city space and human labor? Who benefits?

By the way, inserting a space in the word "neighborhoods" — see above — creates the wrong impression.

"How T-Plush and Two Wallbanging MVP Candidates Are Mixing a Strange Brew in Milwaukee."

The Milwaukee Brewers get a Sports Illustrated cover story (for the first time since 1987). Excerpts:

• "He has brought silliness back to baseball." (general manager Doug Melvin on [Nyjer] Morgan)


• "In a sport populated by cardboard personalities, Morgan carries on conversations with fans both supportive and hostile, often between pitches (Fan: 'You're horses---.' Morgan: 'Thank you for supporting your local hero.')"


• "All teams have customized handshakes. . . but the Brewers have customized handshakes with their security guards."


• "The Brewers irritate some traditionalists - or as Morgan calls them 'plain-Jane wonderbreads.' "


• "Still (LaTroy) Hawkins reminds Morgan to read tweets three times before sending them. (Ron) Roenicke meets with him regularly to clarify rules. The team does have rules."

"In the aftermath of the troubling State Fair Park incident that involved marauding black teenagers..."

"... it seems lots of people have become experts on African-American culture."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane disparages these pseudo-experts.

According to the U.S. Census, there are approximately 220,000 black people in Milwaukee. Anyone who believes they can make such general assumptions about them is way off-base.

Clearly there's a segment of mostly younger Milwaukee black residents in the community that needs immediate intervention. But calls for more personal responsibility are only appropriate if you truly believe the concept, which means you only hold the people who actually committed the crime personally responsible and no one else.

And you certainly can't blame it on culture....

Is Kane saying that if we believe that each individual is personally responsible for the crimes he commits, then we cannot think of the larger culture as causally related to crime problems? Obviously, it's important to refrain from judging individuals according to stereotypes — true or false stereotypes — applicable to groups, but Kane seems to be making a much broader point.

ADDED: Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter lectures black teenagers: "You have damaged your own race."

"Point 'em out, knock 'em out."

"Police have said a number of the recent attempted muggings and muggings in the city this summer are being committed by young men engaged in a strategy called 'point 'em out, knock 'em out,' where a victim is singled out by the muggers then attacked."

The city is Madison, Wisconsin.

ADDED: Meanwhile, at the Wisconsin State Fair (near Milwaukee):

Police said the group of young people attacked fairgoers who were leaving the fair grounds. Police said that some victims were attacked while walking. They said others were pulled out of cars and off of motorcycles before being beaten.

Why Gov. Scott Walker isn't talking about the Milwaukee streetcar project.

You need to understand the history of Milwaukee urban transit and the role Walker played in it before he became Governor.

That story started 20 years ago, when Congress appropriated $289 million for a Milwaukee-area transit project. It was first slated for a bus-only highway between Milwaukee and Waukesha, but then-Gov. Tommy G. Thompson vetoed that idea in response to neighborhood opposition.

Congress then took away $48 million, and state and local officials started a major study of how to use the remaining $241 million. The study recommended building a light rail system, adding bus-and-car-pool lanes to I-94 and expanding bus service.

Walker, then a state representative from Wauwatosa, was among the suburban Republicans who helped kill that plan, persuading fellow Republican Thompson to rule out using any state or federal money to study light rail.

In frustration, Milwaukee community activists filed two civil rights complaints against the state with the U.S. Department of Transportation in late 1998.

The complaints noted that many of the central city's African-American residents didn't have cars, but nearly all white suburbanites did. Therefore, activists argued, the state was discriminating against minorities by favoring freeways over public transit.

Read the whole thing to see how this played out in Milwaukee politics, with Walker favoring buses over trains and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett favoring rail. Barrett was the Democratic candidate for Governor last fall, and now he's got his rail project approved. He's not seeking state money, and the the settlement in the lawsuit supposedly "prohibits the state from blocking the streetcar project."

IN THE COMMENTS: Readers are pointing out that the proposed route for the streetcar does not extend into Milwaukee's minority neighborhoods.

The real goal of a lawsuit often fails to match up with the legal ground that is used to invoke judicial power. Similarly, political rhetoric often exploits values that don't square with what politicians are really doing. There are many reasons to play the race card, and only one is that you actually intend to serve the individuals you are leveraging your argument on.

"Seat bullying" at the Brewers' Miller Park.

Can you believe that there are people who move from the seats they paid for to seats they didn't pay for and fight to keep those seats when the real ticket-holders show up?

The ticketholder comes back and runs into resistance from the squatters.

"The group was upset we returned and one of them asked, 'Where did you go?'... Where did we go? Are you kidding me?!"

There's a $55 million budget shortfall in Milwaukee, so let's build that $64.4 million streetcar.

2 absurdly discordant stories on the front page of today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

1. "Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said Friday the county faces a 2012 shortfall of about $55 million and renewed blunt warnings about the inevitability of service cuts."

"There is no way we can avoid major cuts to balance the budget - and balance the budget is what we are going to do," Abele said during a public briefing on county departmental budget requests for 2012.

2. "Milwaukee streetcar plan on track for passage."

Milwaukee Common Council leaders Thursday endorsed building a $64.6 million modern streetcar line downtown, a move that brings the city closer than ever before to resolving a public transit debate that has raged for nearly 20 years.

With Thursday's vote, a majority of aldermen have now declared their support for building the 2.1-mile line pushed by Mayor Tom Barrett...

The council's Steering & Rules Committee acted despite warnings by city Comptroller W. Martin "Wally" Morics, who urged aldermen to slow down the process, and despite two utilities' fears that the planned route would add tens of millions of dollars in costs and delay the project....

Mayor Tom Barrett is the Democrat who ran for Governor last year and lost to Scott Walker. One of his big issues was the high-speed rail line. That was the issue that made me vote for Scott Walker. Chris Abele, as the Milwaukee County Executive, occupies the position Walker vacated when he became Governor.

From the streetcar article: "Modern streetcars resemble light rail vehicles. But, like old-fashioned streetcars, they typically run on rails laid in streets, draw power from overhead wires and operate in traffic." So... don't just worry about the money. Worry about the accidents.