The State Senate last night voted to pay for Oak Creek’s $3.75 million share of an I-94 interchange at Drexel Ave.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation itself says the interchange would harm efforts to redevelop older commercial areas of Milwaukee.
Not a single peep in protest from Milwaukee Dems.
More here.
The Joint Finance Committee early this morning approved the creation of a Regional Transit Authority, but limited it to Milwaukee County.
The committee also approved a new authority and a $16 per car rental car fee, which will automatically rise with inflation, to fund the expansion of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter line. The KRM is a much needed development, but having it run by a non-elected body using automoatically increasing taxes is far, far from ideal.
The Milwaukee County proposal would allow a 1% sales tax to support Milwaukee County transit. That’s good news for transit (if not for sales tax payers) and bad news for transit. It’s good because it would get some desperately-needed money to the Milwaukee County Transit System. It’s bad because it would get money only to the Milwaukee County Transit System and would seem to pretty much gut chances that suburban counties will extend transit within their borders.
On the other hand, if this measure holds, a more developed transit system in Milwaukee County could prompt business leaders to look more favorably at locating in Milwaukee city or county, rather than in places where workers don’t have a good way to get to their jobs.
There is a lot of room for mischief and funding diversion in the measure, though. As Wispolitics.com reports, “The motion also specifies that revenues from the RTA’s sales and use tax can be used to fund transit, parks, cultural, and emergecy medical service programs in Milwaukee Co. Milwaukee Co. will be the fiscal agent for the RTA.” Fifteen percent of the revenue will be earmarked for the city of Milwaukee.
Gov. Jim Doyle’s attempt to strip homeowners and other property owners of legal rights in condemnation disputes with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation was dropped from the proposed 2009-11 budget after key lawmakers determined that the proposal was a policy issue, not a budgetary one.
Doyle wanted to make it harder and more expensive for property owners to appeal WisDOT low-ball offers for private property the agency wanted to take over to make way for transportation projects. The proposal would have limited lawyer’s fees for property owners who take their cases to court and win, thus leaving property owners hugely wronged by WisDOT with the prospect of large lawyer bills for taking on the state.
Gov. Doyle’s budget proposal would strip legal rights and potential state protections from property rights who challenge the State Department of Transportation when it grabs privately-owned land for transportation projects, budget documents show.
Doyle accepted a WisDOT budget request to limit legal fees a court can award to lawyers who represent property owners who successfully claim that WisDOT shortchanged them in the amounts the agency offered for property. The governor is proposing that attorney’s fees in litigated compensation cases be limited to one−third of the difference between WisDOT’s offer and the court-awarded purchase price, except that if one−third of that difference is less than $5,000, the amount of attorney fees included in litigation expenses may not exceed $5,000.
The limits would apply when the court-awarded sales price exceeds the the WisDOT offer by at least $700 and at least 15 percent.
WisDOT made it clear, in its original budget request, that its intent was to discourage lawyers from representing property owners.
“Litigating land purchases consumes more time and resources within the Department compared to negotiating directly with landowners,” the department said. “It could adversely affect the timeline of highway construction projects. Securing land can be a first step in a project and any delays can impact final completion and overall project cost.”
Doyle’s budget also would strip residents legal protections from residents who challenge government land grabs. Under current law, the Daprtment of Commerce can investigate when the state tries to condemn and take property to make sure the state is obeying the law. If there are violations, Commerce can take the state to court. The governor wants to end the department’s ability to help the land owner.
Doyle also would kill the right of a person who loses their property to appeal to Commerce for review of his or her complaint. Under current law, Commerce can try to negotiate an acceptable solution with the agency that condemned the property. Commerce would not be able to do that under Doyle’s budget.
Finally, Doyle’s budget would kill a law that the attorney general, at the request of Commerce, to prosecute all necessary actions or proceedings for the enforcement of the laws relating to relocation benefits.
You should be happy if you are in the highway-building industry, but if you drive on local streets, maybe not. A fund and taxing authority for the Southeastern Wisconsin RTA is included as well, as is a smaller-than-requested hike for transit ops.
More here.