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What’s your definition of a riot?

I know my definition includes any of the following:

• Bottles or other hard objects being thrown
• Police in riot gear using tear gas or other crowd control measures
• Fires being set and looting occurring

However, according to the folks over at the Daily Scoff, this is what constitutes a riot:

Now call me crazy, but I don’t consider that a riot. Now this is a riot:

Like I said, call me crazy, but I don’t see how the first picture could even remotely be construed as being a “riot.”

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When are these folks going to get it right?

Understaffing in Milwaukee County’s procurement office has left it vulnerable to inside rip-offs, a new audit report says.

Budget cuts shrank the staff by more than 50% between 2003 and 2007, leading to shoddy recordkeeping, poor training and corner-cutting, the report from County Auditor Jerome Heer states.

Most notably, a policy change in 2003 allowed buyers to make purchases of any amount without any management oversight, the report says.

“We were just lucky somebody didn’t exploit the vulnerability,” Heer said Wednesday. The office oversees about $50 million in county purchases annually.

So I can’t help but wonder, does dumb luck count as a management style? After all, it’s thanks to dumb luck that the county has avoided being ripped off due to staffing cuts, poor training, and corner-cutting. I’m also left to wonder if this is really the kind of County government Scott Walker is proud to manage. I know he’s pushed hard to decrease the size of county government, but at what cost? Some cuts just shouldn’t be made, and cutting the ability of the county government to provide oversight and prevent wasteful or inappropriate spending shouldn’t be something we strive for.

Perhaps if Scott Walker spent more time managing Milwaukee County and less time getting his gubernatorial campaign up and running, this kind of problem wouldn’t be happening.

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A few weeks ago, the Oak Creek and Franklin common councils voted in favor of naming the South 27th Street corridor the “Boomgaard District,” a name that’s the brainchild of the South 27th Street Steering Committee and Zizzo Group Advertising + Public Relations, a Milwaukee firm hired by the cities for $370,000 to brand and market the district for development. Not long after the name was announced to the public, folks from both communities began to question the choice, and what began as a few bloggers noting their confusion and concern has turned into a full-fledged news story.

What I found to be most interesting in the MJS story on Boomgaard was a quote attributed to Oak Creek Mayor Dick Bolender, who said:

“I want it changed,” said Oak Creek Mayor Dick Bolender, who broke a 3-3 Common Council tie in favor of the name during a closed session in March - an apparent violation of state open meetings law - though he insists he was never enamored of the choice.

“My heart wasn’t in it then, and it’s not in it now,” he said.

What I can’t help but wonder is why Mayor Bolender voted in favor of a name he wasn’t absolutely sold on, and what’s more, I can’t help but wonder why he voted in favor of a name he didn’t fully support, given the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent coming up with the name. I’ve emailed Mayor Bolender for clarification on why he voted in favor of the Boomgaard if he wasn’t fully convinced it was the right choice for the 27th Street corridor, and hopefully he’ll have a good answer, because his comments voicing his concern about the name - which come after the public has reacted negatively to the name - seem to fly in the face of his vote in favor of the name.

Greg Kowalski over at Today’s Concerns has some excellent commentary on the decision to name the corridor the “Boomgaard District,” and he’s been leading efforts by bloggers and citizens of both communities, so go check out what’s he’s written on the “Boomgaard Boondoggle.”

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Being a former employee at the Milwaukee County House of Correction, I try to keep up with the latest news and happenings from that particular institution, so imagine my surprise when I opened today’s paper and saw an article about an inmate from the HOC who’s being charged with first-degree reckless homicide after being accused of supplying another inmate with prescription methadone pills, causing that inmate’s death. What’s most disturbing to me, at least at first glance, is the fact that the HOC wasn’t even licensed to distribute methadone to treat heroin withdrawal:

Methadone is frequently used to treat pain and as a non-addictive substitute to help wean heroin addicts off that drug. The House of Correction is not licensed to treat heroin withdrawal with methadone, according to the criminal complaint. It wasn’t immediately clear why Fitzpatrick was getting the methadone, but according to the complaint, he had been getting 14 pills twice a day from the medical dispensary. He traded an unspecified number of the pills to Orlowski for snack chips from the House of Correction commissary, the complaint says.

While it’s obvious to me internal House of Corrections policies regarding prescribed medications are largely to blame, both for continuing to give an inmate methadone despite not being licensed to do so and also for allowing the inmate to hoard his methadone for weeks at a time. However, I can already see who Scott Walker and HOC Superintendent Ron Malone are going to blame, in order to deflect blame away from themselves:

Attempts to revive Orlowski about 6 a.m. were unsuccessful, the criminal complaint says. A correctional officer checked on Orlowski at 4 a.m., when he was snoring loudly, and last checked on him at 5:25 a.m., the complaint says.

The Orlowski family claim says that correctional officers “refused to look at or check up” on Orlowski early that morning despite repeated pleas by other inmates.

If you’d like to read more on the foibles and follies at the Milwaukee County House of Corrections, check out a series of excellent blog entries by capper over at folkbum’s, or feel free to check out my archive.

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First of all, there’ll be no gnashing of teeth or whining here.

Am I disappointed in how things turned out last night? Hell yes, but such is politics. Sometimes your side wins and sometimes they lose; that’s just the reality of our political system.

While I’ve made no effort to hide my dislike for Scott Walker and the job he’s done as Milwaukee County Executive, I wasn’t terribly surprised he won, because Lena Taylor ran one of the worst campaigns I’ve witnessed since I became interested in politics. At times she seemed disinterested, and at others she seemed clueless, and I can’t help but wonder if she was really the best liberal candidate out there to run against Scott Walker.

And sure, I’m disappointed Louis Butler lost to Michael Gableman, but my disappointment has less to do with Gableman’s ideology - though I do disagree with his judicial philosophy, to the extent that he has one - and more to do with the kind of negative and unethical campaign he ran.

While last night had its share of disappointment, there were also some positives. The “Frankenveto” is no more, and that’s definitely a good thing. The “Frankenveto” allowed for tremendous abuses by Republican and Democratic governors alike, and I for one am glad to see it go. Besides, our governor will still have some of the broadest veto powers in the nation without the “Frankenveto.” Another high point was the re-election of Lisa Neubauer to a full term on Wisconsin’s Second District Court of Appeals, defeating newly conservative wannabe Bill Gleisner.

Closer to home, I’m glad to see Pat Jursik won a full four year term on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors without any opposition, and I was happy to see Tom Zepecki elected to another term as South Milwaukee’s mayor. Pat and Tom have done well during their time in office, and they definitely deserved another term in office.

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