The Hank Aaron State Trail is featured in a Rails to Trails magazine story written by Story Hill resident Mike Brady, who also manages to plug Story Hill.
Way to go, Mike.
That’s him in the picture, misidentified.
In the neighborhood: Hank Aaron Trail featured
March 18th, 2010So you still want TABOR?
March 16th, 2010The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sums up what the Taxpayers Bill of Rights did for Colorado since 1992, when it was adopted. Various Republican legislators have pushed for a Wisconsin TABOR that would sharply restrict the growth in government revenue.
TABOR was so successful in Colorado that voters in 2005 decided to suspend it to allow the state to recover from the damage it already had done.
A few nuggets from CBPP:
- Between 1992 and 2001, Colorado declined precipitously from 35th to 49th in the nation in K-12 spending as a percentage of personal income. As of 2006, the state maintained its low ranking among the states at 48th.
- Colorado’s average per-pupil funding fell by more than $600 relative to the national average between 1992 and 2006.
- Colorado’s average teacher salary compared to average pay in other occupations declined from 30th in the nation in 1992 to a low of 50 th in 2001, and edging up only slightly to 49th in the nation as of 2007.
- Under TABOR, Colorado declined from 23rd to 48th in the nation in the percentage of pregnant women receiving adequate access to prenatal care, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Colorado plummeted from 24th to 50th in the nation in the share of children receiving their full vaccinations. Only by investing additional funds in immunization programs was Colorado able to improve its ranking to 43rdin 2004 and to 23rd in 2008.
- Under TABOR, the share of low-income children lacking health insurance doubled in Colorado between 1992 and TABOR’s suspension, even as it fell in the nation as a whole. Colorado now ranks last 47th among the 50 states on this measure.
Wow. A formula for disaster, based on a concept that candidate for governor Scott Walker embraces.
In the neighborhood: Parade tomorrow
March 12th, 2010The St. Patty’s Bluemound Rd. parade, sponsored by the Bluemound Rd. Business Advancement Assocation, kicks off tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. The parade will start at Nort 65th Street, march down Bluemound Rd. and end at North 50th Street.
In the neighborhood: burglar to be sentenced
March 12th, 2010Antonio Z. Andrews will be sentenced on April Fool’s Day for his night-time Story Hill neighborhood crime wave this fall, according to court records.
The sentencing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. before Circuit Judge Richard Sankovitz.
Andrews pleaded guilty Feb. 24 to one count of burglary. He still faces misdemeanor charges in two other cases.
Mexican violence and corruption: a real threat
March 18th, 2010It’s the five guys picked up in Pakistan who allegedly plotted terrorist attacks that are getting most of the attention, but it is what is going on in Mexico near the US border that is probably a bigger threat to security.
Three people connected to the US consulate were murdered last week in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and that made northern US newspapers, but the general escalation of violence has generally been ignored in Wisconsin media. That journalistic neglect is more than an oversight. Violence is claiming lives in Mexico; it is bound to spill over to the border states and beyond. Corruption already is leading the charge.
From the New York Times, which has done an excellent job covering the issue.
Federal anticorruption investigators continue to struggle to keep up with the screening of newly hired United States law enforcement officers working on the Mexican border and have fallen far behind in checking current employees as well, federal officials testified on Thursday.
The testimony came during a hearing in Washington before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on rising corruption among the ranks of federal law enforcement officers who patrol the border and guard ports of entry.
Representatives from the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security painted a grave picture of drug trafficking organizations trying to recruit federal officers to work for them and infiltrate the ranks.
Another, earlier Times story is here.
All the elements are there growing corruption in US law enforcement. The Border Patrol expanded very rapidly. Mexican drug gangs don’t blink at the most vile violence — if you were an underpaid border agent and someone gave you a choice between accepting a large bribe or having your family killed, what would you do?
Yeah, the five guys in Pakistan should be covered, but so should what is going on within our own borders and just beyond. Exploding bombs make a lot of noise and can cause a lot of damage all at once; drug-related assassinations in Mexico makes less noise and spread fear and damage incrementally; and the spread of corruption is silent, but can cause the strands that hold societies and countries steady to rot and fall apart.
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