County Board set to remove county’s Corporate Counsel for first time ever

The turmoil surrounding the Milwaukee County Board is neverending…

In a surprise move, Corporation Counsel Kimberly Walker has been notified that at least 12 of the 18 County Board members are planning to vote to fire her at Thursday’s board meeting.

Abele appointed Walker to the $134,000-per-year job two years ago, but the board can remove her over Abele’s objection if two-thirds of the members back the effort.

“The county executive is beyond surprised — he’s outraged,” said Abele spokesman Brendan Conway. “There is nothing that they could find factually that she’s done wrong.”

Conway accused the board of carrying out a “political vendetta” against Abele for supporting Act 14, a newly passed law that curbs the board’s staff and resources while beefing up the county exec’s power. It would cut supervisors’ pay by more than 50% to about $24,000 a year if approved in a binding referendum in 2014.

One County Board leader dismissed any suggestion that supervisors are trying to punish Abele.

“That’s crazy,” responded Supervisor Theo Lipscomb, chairman of the Judiciary, Safety and General Services Committee. “I’m not that petty. Maybe they are.”

When asked why he wanted to oust Walker, County Supervisor Lipscomb said, “In the words of Chris Abele, I can get better service elsewhere,” without offering up any other reason(s) as to why he wanted to get rid of Walker.

After being contacted by Sup. Lipscomb and told that he’d be moving to oust her as the county’s top lawyer, Walker said Lipscomb gave her the option of heading off the vote by stepping down quietly on her own, which she chose not to do.

According to the Journal Sentinel’s report, Walker said she wasn’t given specific reasons for the decision to remove her as the top county lawyer, but she did opine that her gender and race could have been factors in the decision. Given the makeup of the County Board, I’m disinclined to believe their decision to get rid of Walker has anything to do with her race or gender, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to venture a guess that the board’s action has everything to do with the fact that Walker was hand-picked by County Executive Chris Abele.

So without offering any tangible reasons as to why, the County Board is set to set a series of precedents by voting to remove the first African-American and the first woman to serve as Milwaukee County’s Corporation Counsel for the first time in Milwaukee County’s history.

I can’t wait to see what the County Board comes up with next…

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9 thoughts on “County Board set to remove county’s Corporate Counsel for first time ever

  1. Yes, Zach, because giving Abele advice how to circumvent Open Records Requests is no big deal. It’s odd how you condemned Walker for doing that, but now are defending Abele for doing the same thing. Would you please explain your hypocrisy?

    1. Show me where exactly I defended Abele for attempting to circumvent ORRs.

      So are you okay with the County Board making this decision without any discussion/debate? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

      1. As for the Board, first off, more hypocrisy since you felt it was OK for Abele to buy Act 10 without discussion.

        Secondly, what’s to discuss. She solicited the commission of a crime. What should be discussed is why Abele didn’t act on it and whether Kim Walker should be referred to the DA’s office and/or the state bar.

  2. I saw this story, and the only thing that occurred to me was, meh. The Board proves itself to be ineffectual and irrelevant on a near daily basis. And these are people I mostly like. And, as I recall, Capper and many others loved Abele when he was running against Jeff Stone. Yet I don’t recall Abele exactly standing and up and singing Solidarity Forever. We’re talking about a guy who lives on Lake Drive, and you’re blind-sided when it turns out he’s kinda, sorta pro-business? Really?

    The effect of all this is that more and more people are just going to tune out County government altogether–and continue to piss off the remaining allies they have. When the GMC comes in with a proposal to take it down completely, there might be a few rallies and news releases, but, behind the scenes, few will really care. When was the last time anyone thought, hey, Milwaukee County government’s really working for me today?

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