Monthly Archives: April 2010

Worth every penny — Part II

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Here’s the truth about your Milwaukee Public Library: it’s hurting.

Hours were cut 22% this year. Twenty-two percent! That’s just nuts! As we celebrate National Library Week this week, libraries are open fewer hours and are buying fewer books.

The awful thing is there isn’t enough money in the city budget to fund everything the way they should be funded, including libraries. The more awful thing is that the budget is going to get more awful.

So what to do? That’s what the Library Board has been wrestling with. I think, without speaking for my colleagues on the Board, that we would rather increase the number of libraries in the city and increase the types and numbers of books and materials the library carries and increase the hours that all this is available to residents.

Ain’t gonna happen, at least in the near term.

We are looking now at cutting costs where we can, creating efficiencies and re-inventing the library system. The smaller stuff is getting underway — pretty soon you will be asked to check out your own materials.

The Library Board is examining bigger steps and is moving, with great care, toward consolidating some neighborhood libraries and establishing larger area libraries and express centers (sort of literary/media quickie marts). It’s not the perfect solution for library lovers, but we are hoping it will allow the library system to stabilize hours and continue to provide services at a reasonable level.

That being said, we are more than open to library-saving ideas. If you’ve got any, please let us know.

I hope you’ve had a great National Library Week. And I hope we can continue to celebrate for years and years to come.

Worth every darned penny — part 1

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There is a book I have sitting on my desk at work. It is called “Music Lust” and I checked it out at the Milwaukee Public Library.

I will leave the house in just a few minutes to take the dogs on their early morning walk. I will listen to an audio book, an Elvis Cole mystery called “Chasing Darkness.” I got it at the Milwaukee Public Library.

Sometimes I check out audio books without ever leaving my house, because I can download them for free through the Milwaukee Public Library. When I need to look up an old newspaper story, I don’t use the Journal Sentinel’s crappy search engine, I use the incredibly complete online archive available through the Milwaukee Public Library.

I love the library. What a terrific resource, and worth every darned penny of property tax support. Happy National Library Week, everyone! And don’t forget to pay your overdue fines!

(Full disclosure: I am on the Library Board as a designee of the superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools).

I-43 ranked ahead of Zoo for reconstruction

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It’s bad enough that Zoo Interchange bridges are in such bad shape that they need to be replaced.

It’s worse that there are stretches of the freeway that should have been rebuilt way before North-South I-94 and before Zoo Interchange.

Based on the factors that make up the holy litany so often cited by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation — design deficiencies, safety, congestion, structure conditions and road conditions, the Zoo Interchange would be the fourth reconstruction project undertaken in southeastern Wisconsin, and North-South I-94 would have been fifth, according to WisDOT records.

If WisDOT really considered all of those things, the stretch of I-43 between the Mitchell Interchange  and Silver Spring Dr. would have been the first to be rebuilt. I-894 from the Zoo Interchange to the Hale Interchange, including the Hale, would have been second; and I-94 from the State Highway 16 to the Marquette Interchange, including the Stadium Interchange and  US 41 north, would have been third.

Then the Zoo Interchange would be rebuilt and then North-South I-94, which WisDOT pushed to the head of the line while denying it had anything to do with politics.

WisDOT did find a way to make the Zoo Interchange rank second in reconstruction priority by simply ignoring congestion and design deficiencies. Congestion — the very thing WisDOT bleats on and on about when advocating for freeway expansion — had to be dumped as a factor to boost the Zoo Interchange on the priority list.

Even without considering design deficiency and congestion, the I-43 span still ranked first;  US 41/45 from the Zoo Interchange to the Richfield Interchange, including the Zoo Interchange, ranked second; and I-94 from State Highway 16 to the Marquette stretch ranked third.

North-South I-94 again ranked fifth.

Here is the guts of the WisDOT chart, created back when agency officials were trying setting the reconstruction agenda.Priorities