Regular reader? Kachingle is a simple way to support my blog and other sites you love.
|
Posted by Zach on September 1, 2010, at 5:13 am Former Wisconsin Commerce Secretary (and former Republican U.S. Senate candidate) Dick Leinenkugel is leading an effort to start an angel investing group in Vilas County, where he has a vacation home.
Among those involved is G. Steven Burrill, founder of Burrill & Co., a San Francisco investment bank focused on life sciences companies that has more than $1 billion under management.
Over the next few months, they will ask wealthy people who live in or own vacation property in Vilas County to join the group, which will invest in start-up companies. The group will invest $50,000 to $500,000 in each company, Leinenkugel said.
“One of the planks of our strategic plan is to assist entrepreneurs. We realize they have to have access to capital and somebody to vet their business plan and provide assistance,” Leinenkugel said.
It’s good to see Dick Leinenkugel continuing his efforts to encourage business development in Wisconsin, a role that he certainly worked hard at as Wisconsin’s Commerce Secretary, even if he wasn’t tremendously successful due to the economic downturn and a myriad of other factors.
Posted by Zach on August 31, 2010, at 9:35 pm A lot’s been made elsewhere on the blogosphere about the fact that the website of PACUR, the plastics company owned by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson was edited to change the company’s history to be more consistent with Ron Johnson’s version of his “life story,” but Annie K. of eau snap! astutely pointed out how a PACUR employee was outed by Dan Bice:
A company employee said Monday that he was guessing that the change was something ordered up by the Johnson campaign. The staffer said he was unaware of the website edits.
“They’re probably doing this to make sure all their T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted,” said Brad Sall, a Pacur employee.
I hope for Brad Sall’s sake he won’t soon be an ex-employee of PACUR for daring to open his mouth and speak ill of Ron Johnson’s U.S. Senate campaign.
Posted by MadCityMan on August 31, 2010, at 6:20 pm
Posted by Zach on August 31, 2010, at 5:59 am Yesterday Democratic Lt. Governor candidate Henry Sanders, Jr. released an editorial making the case for the state to implement Best Value Contracting as a means of ensuring Wisconsin’s taxpayers get the most possible bang for their bucks, both in the short term and especially in the long term.
Here’s the text of Sanders’ editorial:
Wisconsin taxpayers deserve best value in state contracts
by Henry Sanders, Jr.
People often say state government should run like a business, or that the people in charge of the budget should approach it as they would their own family finances. As someone who runs a small business, I see that logic. In truth, it’s quite a bit more complicated than that, but government spending has some things in common with business and household budgets — namely, you get what you pay for.
Say I’m shopping for a car. I could buy the cheapest car on the lot. But chances are I’m going to spend some extra money for added safety, better handling, better gas mileage, and more leg room. Besides all that, if I buy the cheaper car, I know I’m going to have to spend more on maintenance in the long run. We all know from being burned once or twice that cheapest is not always the best value.
The same goes for state purchasing and contracting. Wisconsin law currently requires that public contracts at the state and local level be awarded to the “lowest responsible bidder.” In effect, many projects — from technical assistance to major construction — are awarded based on cost alone. While these policies certainly reduce the immediate costs, they have also often forced a race-to-the-bottom, resulting in the use of lower-quality input products and sub-standard work. Lowest responsible bidder policies have also been known to ignore previous performance and product quality issues. In many cases, the necessary repairs, replacements, and additional work hours cost the taxpayer significantly more in the long run.
If you purchased a low-price car with high repair costs, you probably wouldn’t buy the same model again. But in government in Wisconsin, “value” can’t be considered when purchasing goods and contracting services. The law says it has to be all about price — even if that’s not the best value for us as taxpayers.
I want to change that, and Best Value Contracting is a key component of Progressive Recovery, my 18-point plan to put Wisconsin back to work. Wisconsin should change the law to implement these practices as soon as possible.
Best Value Contracting (BVC) awards projects to contractors that meet the best combination of price, quality, technical expertise, and past performance. It allows government to look beyond the usual, more myopic up-front price comparison, so that we’re actually looking at the real, long-term costs to the taxpayers. BVC can also be used to prioritize the employment of local contractors and workers, making it effectively a “Buy Wisconsin” initiative as well.
Best Value Contracting has a proven track record of success. Nearly 70% of federal construction spending has used BVC since 2001, and more than ten states have authorized the use of BVC for state and local projects.
Project bids would still use standard Request for Proposal (RFP) criteria – with all the usual public announcement and competition requirements. Up-front price remains a key criterion, but a weighting system would be applied to other important factors, including past performance, safety history, training, expertise, and impact on the local workforce.
By authorizing and implementing Best Value Contracting policies, the State of Wisconsin and our local governments will take a more holistic approach to the bidding process, get more value from contractors, place a greater weight on getting local workers back on the job, and save millions of taxpayer dollars in the process. I urge the legislature to write BVC into state statutes as soon as possible in the next session. My years of experience as a nonprofit executive and a small business owner have reinforced the value of “getting what you pay for.” It’s about time our leaders in Madison understood that value, too.
Posted by Zach on August 31, 2010, at 5:33 am Under John Chianelli’s watch, problems at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex were rampant, finally boiling over when allegations that a violent male patient had sexually assaulted a female patient, resulting in that female patient becoming pregnant, despite the fact that she was supposed to have been getting birth control injections. Last week Wednesday it was announced Chianelli was removed from his post as head of Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division and demoted, presumably as punishment for his complete incompetence, but while Chianelli was allowed to demote to a position as deputy director of the Disabilities Services Division – a position in which Chianelli will earn over $91,000 a year – county officials are attempting to terminate Karl Strelnick, a psychiatrist at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex who supervised five housing units at the center of the problems at the Mental Health Complex.
While I don’t deny Karl Strelnick should lose his job as a result of his gross mismanagement, why is John Chianelli being allowed to keep a high paying job within the County as a reward for his gross mismanagement? Why isn’t Chianelli being punished at a level commensurate with his mismanagement and incompetence, and why isn’t Scott Walker in his role as Milwaukee County’s “chief executive” demanding that Chianelli be fired?
By allowing John Chianelli to keep a high-paying job within the County, Scott Walker has shown that accountability isn’t as important as protecting his backside, and that’s a crying shame.
Posted by Zach on August 31, 2010, at 5:01 am Here’s something I’ve been wondering about the 2010 statewide races here in Wisconsin:
Why is it that with the exception of the Republican gubernatorial race, in which Scott Walker and Mark Neumann have actually gotten together to debate the issues, none of the other major contested races (Democratic gubernatorial primary, Republican U.S. Senate primary) have seen a debate between the various candidates?
In the Democratic gubernatorial race, businessman Tim John has issued numerous debate challenges to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, with those challenges presumably falling on deaf ears, while in the Republican U.S. Senate race, Ron “Sunspots” Johnson has turned down, cancelled, or not responded to at least nine invitations to debate his opponent, Watertown small businessman Dave Westlake.
While I understand that Tim John and Dave Westlake aren’t viewed as “top tier” candidates – and thus aren’t taken as seriously as Tom Barrett and Ron Johnson – Wisconsin’s voters should still have the opportunity to compare and contrast what all the candidates in a given race have to say about the issues voters are most concerned about this year. It’s a shame these candidates are instead ignoring their opponents and denying Wisconsin’s voters a chance to see the candidates engage in precisely the kind of political debate that is the very backbone of our democracy.
Westlake’s campaign has also issued a press release about this, calling Johnson’s refusal to debate or to attend vetting sessions as “demonstrating a regrettable willingness to shortchange voters—and that’s just plain dangerous for Wisconsin.”
Posted by Zach on August 30, 2010, at 10:20 pm If you’re at all interested in checking out a rather thorough accounting of Scott Walker’s failed leadership when it comes to Milwaukee County’s Behavioral Health Division and the Mental Health Complex, you should really check out EndtheAssaults.com.
Posted by Proud Progressive on August 30, 2010, at 9:52 pm The “tea” parties were an annual event that with enough money from with enough money from the Koch Brothers, and an aggressive free PR campaign from Fox \”news\”, and it seems like these collections of loons are popping up everywhere like dandelions in the spring. We even had The rodeo clown glen beck, draw a fairly large crowd with his latest keep giving me money rally.
The “tea baggers” have wanted their country back for a long time now. As I have stated numerous times here, while there is some traces of a grass roots movement with the “tea partiers” and real anger towards government, I have also pointed out that it is hard to take them seriously because of their complete lack of understanding of the issues they are so upset about.
USA Today just pointed out that the “Taxed Enough Already crowd must want to bring their country back to 1950 because that is the last time they paid such a low rate of taxes.
Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman‘s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.
As they break down very well at Crooks and Liars, the next time the \’tea partiers\” bring up President Obama it should be to thank him!
Posted by Zach on August 30, 2010, at 9:15 pm Since folks on both sides of the political spectrum have taken it upon themselves to tear apart the ads being run by the statewide candidates in order to find something to make into an election issue, I figured I’d take a look at a recent ad being run by the Republican Governors Association on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker. The ad, which is a takeoff of the “tastes great…less filling” Miller Lite ads from the 1980′s, attacks Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but as the Barrett campaign pointed out earlier today, there’s just one problem with the ad: it wasn’t filmed in Wisconsin!
To prove the point that the ad wasn’t filmed in Wisconsin, here’s a screenshot from the ad, with one of the beer tappers highlighted:
 Image courtesy Barrett for Wisconsin campaign
As was noted by Ryan Alexander of the Barrett campaign, Blue Point is a small microbrewery in Long Island, NY that is only distributed to 500 locations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York. What, couldn’t Scott Walker and the Republican Governors Association find a real bar here in Wisconsin in which to film their attack ad?
No doubt the Right Wing Outrage Brigade™ will be all atwitter now that it’s been revealed that this ad wasn’t filmed in Wisconsin and presumably didn’t use real Wisconsinites, after their attempts to may hay out of the fact that a recent ad run by Sen. Russ Feingold’s campaign included the name of a fictional individual. Ultimately, despite the tongue-in-cheek title of this post I don’t see this as being a big scandal, just like I don’t believe the attacks on Sen. Feingold’s ads by the Right Wing Outrage Brigade™ were worth wasting much time on. Political ads are marketing; nothing more and nothing less, and the fact that at times they play fast and loose with the facts shouldn’t surprise anyone.
However, here’s a tip for Scott Walker and the RGA….if you’re going to put out an ad purporting to be set in a bar in Wisconsin, at least try to pick some of Wisconsin’s great beers as the tappers.
Posted by Zach on August 30, 2010, at 7:25 pm Just a couple of technical notes relating to the site itself:
- Just below the Blogging Blue logo at the top of the page, you’ll see a series of links to various pages within Blogging Blue. In addition to providing a link to our comment policy, you’ll also find links to our contact form, an events calendar, and a discussion forum. My hope is to make Blogging Blue more informative by providing information on upcoming events, whether political or otherwise, as well as promoting a more “interactive” environment for regular readers via the discussion forum.
- In regards to the discussion forum, users will be required to register in order to post on the forum, just so that we can keep things orderly.
|
Blogging Blue on the ‘Net
|
Join the Discussion…