Monthly Archives: March 2010

Oh, that poor paper

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There is very little goo d news in the Journal Communications 2009 annual report, which the company released earlier this month.

Here’s the shorthand version: retail advertising, down $21.8 million, or 19.6%, from 2008; classified ads, down  $21.5 million, or 44%; and national advertising, down $2.7 million, or 35.1%.

Ouch. The “good” news is that the company cut staff enough to avoid a net loss.

In retail advertising, the report said, “the most significant decreases were in furniture and furnishings, dining and entertainment, finance/insurance, home improvement, health services, department stores, small retailers, automotive, food, business services, real estate, communications and airline and travel.”

What’s left? Livestock rentals?

In the neighborhood: do you know this dog?

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This dog was found wandering in Story Hill this morning. Do you know who his human is?

This dog was taken into custody by police early this morning on Sunnyside Dr. near the entrance to Mitchell Blvd. Park. The male dog, apparently a stray, had been wandering around for a few hours. One officer said the dog was friendly. The officer   was kind enough to take this picture to assist in the effort to find the pup’s owner.

The dog was to be transported to the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control shelter, 3839 W. Burnham St.

The Zoo Interchange and bad spending priorities

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The finger-pointing between gubernatorial candidates Scott Walker and Tom Barrett over who is to blame for the problems with the Zoo Interchange would be laughable, if it did not draw attention away from the real issue — the state’s refusal to take care of the highways it builds.

The past few governors and the state legislature never figured that out — if you build a highway, you need to take care of it. They got the first part of that equation — highway building — down pretty good, but the taking care of it part? Not so much.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has been an agency run amuck for a long time now, enabled by Governors Thompson and McCallum and Doyle and the state legislators who perennially suck up to the road builders. Got an unnecessary interchange project in Waukesha County? The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is there for you. Want to build a sometimes interchange because of a single sporting event? Just call WisDOT.

But boring ol’ maintenance? Never mind.

The facts are rather neatly and depressingly laid out in the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s own Budget Trends report. From 1994 through 2009, spending on the three big highway-building programs — major highway development, state highway rehabilitation and southeastern Wisconsin highways rehabilitation — totaled $13.6 billion (transportation debt, most of which is incurred because of those programs, is a separate category). Spending on highway maintenance and operations totaled just $2.7 billion over that same period.

The top blue line is annual highway construction spending. The pink line is annual maintenance spending. Source: Transportation Budget Trends, 2008

The top blue line is annual highway construction spending. The pink line is annual maintenance spending. Source: Transportation Budget Trends, 2008

Yup. In a state with an aging highway system, the state powers that be decided that only one dollar should be spent on maintenance for every five dollars spent on new construction. Worse, the spending disparity grew over that time period. In 1994 maintenance spending was about 25% of the amount spent on highway construction. In 2009, maintenance spending equaled about 19% of highway construction spending.

Republican Walker, when he was in the state legislature, cast some votes for those bad budgets. But this is a bipartisan issue. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle rejected a request for a 1% annual highway maintenance budget increases for 2009-11.

Sen. Sullivan holding Town Hall meeting tonight

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Transit NOW wants everyone to know about this:

Monday: Sen. Sullivan Town Hall-Urge Support for Transit

Senator Sullivan is holding a Town Hall Meeting on Monday evening.

Because you are a constituent of his, we wanted to let you know about this opportunity to
thank him for his support of transit and urge his help in passing the RTA legislation.


There is just a few weeks lift in the legislative session to get an RTA bill passed. Action is needed now! Senator Sullivan has said that he has not heard enough from his constituents in support of the RTA.

Senator Sullivan Town Hall Meeting

Monday, March 29, 5:30 PM
Wauwatosa Library
North Avenue at 76th Street
(Apologies for the short notice—we just found out)


What is at stake?

  • Without action on the RTA, we are faced with losing up to a third of our bus service, which will be devastating to our economy and to families as people are cut off from jobs. Nearly half of the transit trips are for work purposes. A UWM study found that in the past 8 years over 40,000 jobs became inaccessible by transit due to cuts in service. That number is projected to climb to 100,000 in the coming few years under the current trend.
  • The RTA bill will give us property tax relief. It will allow for a shift in the transit funding source off of property tax and onto a sales tax—a smarter way to go because it brings in 20% – 30% of the revenue from visitors.
  • The RTA is a jobs bill—it will allow communities to keep people connected to jobs and school, it will help attract businesses and investors to create jobs by spurring economic development. It will reduce dangerous traffic congestion—and it will give commuters options during the Zoo Interchange reconstruction and other projects. It will allow us to be competitive in garnering our share of federal dollars—finally!
  • The RTA provides the structure for communities to fund transit systems and coordinate them efficiently on region-wide basis that is vital to supporting a thriving, green, globally competitive economy—and and give us property tax relief.

See a recent article in the Wauwatosa NOW:

County needs more transit options if economy to thrive, business leaders say
http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/89055262.html

See a recent op ed by two Wauwatosa leaders:

RTA will spur Economic Growth
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/84809982.html


Visit www.TransitNOW.org, and www.southeasternrta.wordpress.com for more info.

Improvements to the mortgage relief plan

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President Obama is going to unveil a real mortgage relief plan, about three years after he should have.

It’s got some very good elements, but it is crying out for some income limits.

Here are the major elements of the plan, according to the Washington Post:

  • Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s income, which would typically be the amount of unemployment insurance, for three to six months. In some cases, administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to skip payments altogether.
  • The government will provide financial incentives to lenders that cut the balance of a borrower’s mortgage. Banks and other lenders will be asked to reduce the principal owed on a loan if the amount is 15 percent more than their home is worth. The reduced amount would be set aside and forgiven by the lender over three years, as long as the homeowner remained current on the loan.
  • The government will double the amount it pays to lenders that help modify second mortgages, such as piggyback loans, which enabled home buyers to put little or no money down, and home equity lines of credit.
  • More incentives will be paid to those lenders that find a way to avoid foreclosing on delinquent borrowers even if they can’t qualify for mortgage relief. For example, the administration is scheduled to launch a program next month encouraging lenders to have borrowers sell their homes for less than the mortgage balance in what is known as a short sale.
  • The FHA will offer incentives to lenders that reduce the amount borrowers owe on their primary mortgages by at least 10 percent.

All of those are much-needed measures, but should be limited. There is a fundamental difference between a family of four living on in a 1,500-square-foot house and a twosome living in a 3,500-square-foot monstrosity. Even if layoffs equalize the two households incomes, the former should simply be given more consideration. The couple in the bigger house has more options — like downsizing.

This proposed measure will provide a little relief, but probably less than will be hyped. A six-month mortgage grace period, in the form of lower payments, may really benefit those who can find a job within six months, but will only delay the inevitable for those who can’t and will cost taxpayers a tidy sum even for those not ultimately helped.

It also would be nice for the government to include a “stupid choices” factor that would disqualify homeowners who can’t make their mortgage payments because they made stupid choices — fancy car debt over a savings account, for example, or a $600,000 house on a $100,000 income.

It is, alas, unlikely that the federal government, which often moves with the grace of a large bulldozer, will make those fine distinctions. And this bailout will cause resentment, too.