For all the whining and complaining Scott Walker and Fred Luber have done about Tom Barrett helping bring 125 good jobs to Milwaukee, thus undercutting Luber’s company, Super Steel, keep one thing in mind:
Neither Scott Walker nor anyone from his staff contacted rail equipment manufacturer Talgo to ask them to consider the Super Steel facility before the company made its decision,Talgo executive Ferran Canals told committee members.
If Scott Walker really wanted to support Super Steel didn’t he do anything to help the company when he had the chance?
Is it at all odd that Scott Walker is railing for Super Steel? I company he’d never let Milwaukee County buy trains from anyhow??
Good point….after all, he bought buses for the county from a Canadian company!
Doh meant… A company
I also posted this under your “hypocrisy” blog since the two seem to be interrelated.
It’s not so much that he’s attacking the jobs that MAY going to happen – since there are no guarantees that these jobs will materialize. However, the point I believe he’s trying to drive home is that Barrett and Doyle went out and allowed this Spanish company, where all the profits will go back to Spain to build these train engines in our backyard.
Both could have easily used a local company to build these trains where the money, jobs, and profits would have all been generated and remained local. That’s just simple logic when determining how to start spurring growth in this dying city. Rather now, that money will drive growth somewhere in Spain.
The argument I’ve heard from the Barrett/Doyle camp is there were not any “qualified” engineers to design and build them. How difficult would it have been to work with local firms, bring in a couple of consultants that are well-versed with building train engines, and have them train the local workforce? A lot of common sense seems to be missing from current leaders – the fact that one’s a lawyer and the other a lifetime politician speaks volumes when looking at why the economic picture in this city and state are the way they are.
That sentence has been trimmed from the JS story, in a bit of creative editing, IT reports.
Yeah, I noticed that. It’s certainly curious that it was edited out.
What would you have Walker do? What would a telephone call have accomplished. Talgo is going to listen to the bald-headed gremlin signing the checks for the trains…not some local politician with absolutely zero control over this deal.
Seriously, what should Walker have done? In the end…we’re spending almost a billion dollars to build a “high speed” train that will go slower than most senior citizens on I-94…charge too much to attract commuters…take its one or two westbound riders to an airport smaller than the one they left behind…enrich a foreign company…and will cost millions more in the long run because it won’t sustain itself. Even if SuperSteel got the work….this project is a colossal waste of money.
If Melnik is right then Walker should have told Luber to go piss up a rope and shut up. If Tom is right then any business is just a wish away. Thank goodness tere are people who understand that local jobs mean local growth, even if ownership is from elsewhere.
The Talgo deal is already bringing in more contracts despite the foot-dragging by Walker.