Milwaukee Rising

The bizarro writings of the JS’ John Schmid bless a local group’s just makin’ it up:

At its two Milwaukee factories, Super Steel LLC employs about 250 workers. But in a document to be released Thursday by the Milwaukee 7 economic-strategy consortium, Super Steel’s headcount inaccurately balloons to 500 – which amounts to a full 10% of the 5,000 jobs that the M-7 credits itself with helping to create or preserve.

The M-7 commemorates its first five years of operations with a civic gathering at We Energies’ downtown headquarters Thursday that will include top political and business leaders from the seven counties of metro Milwaukee. Emblazoned on each invitation is the group’s own tally of its success: “5 years, 5,000 Jobs, $300 million in Payroll = 1 Milestone Meeting.”

And even if those numbers are demonstrably inflated, the group’s leaders are in no mood to apologize for their arithmetic. Regardless of how many jobs the group has actually helped create or preserve, it can make one overriding claim: For the first time, someone is systematically trying to recruit investment and jobs into a region that many of its own residents often disparage as a Rust Belt town, a second sister to Chicago, an inhospitable tax hell.

“We’re the boots on the ground,” said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, one of the M-7’s primary organizers. “No one else is playing that role.”

In that context, the hyperbole in the job-creation document being released in conjunction with Thursday’s event is understandable.

The story goes on to report that M7 claims that it helped Super Steel retain 350 jobs. There are 250 jobs at the firm.

Yeah. Understandable.