Tag Archives: Bohl

Council, without public input, passes $40 car sales fee

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It will cost $40 to park a car on the street and stick a “for sale” sign on it, under an ordinance adopted Tuesday by the Common Council.

Anyone wanting to sell a car on public property — namely, streets — will have to fill out an application and have the vehicle inspected by the Department of Public Works. There could be fines and towing for those who don’t obey.

The public not notified of the ordinance or provided an opportunity for input before the measure was  debated and approved, 10-4, by the council Tuesday morning.

The $40 fee already is in effect in small areas of the city, and Ald. Joe Davis asked the council’s Public Safety Committee to extend it to his district as well. The committee, instead, recommended Tuesday morning that it be extended to the entire city and the council agreed a short time later.

A portion of Ald. Robert Donovan’s district was the first to be subject to the $40 fee. Donovan told the committee that the large volume of car sales on the streets were causing problems in some areas. He said some of the cars sold turned out to be stolen.

Ald. Robert Puente said it would be easier for police to enforce the ordinance if it were citywide.

Voting against the measure were Aldermen Jim Bohl, Michael Murphy and Joe Dudzik and Alderwoman Milele Coggs.

TIF for street repairs? Maybe not such a great idea

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While Gov. Doyle commits to spend billions to widen freeways that don’t need widening, city streets are falling apart. The situation is dire and aldermen are getting desperate to come up with some way of making things better or at least slow the descent into much, much worse.

Ald. Jim Bohl came up with an idea that will increase funding for street repairs by, in a roundabout way, increasing property tax rates for non-city units of government like the county, school district, Milwaukee Area Technical College and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

Bohl wants to use TIF district funds to pay for street repairs. TIFs are an economic development tool that allows municipalities to borrow to make improvements in an area, then use the new property tax revenue generated through the improvements and subsequent private development to pay off the loan. The borrowing municipality — in this case, Milwaukee — gets to use all of the new property tax money to pay down the loan instead of distributing the revenue to other taxing units as is customary.

Bohl’s idea — received warmly by several other aldermen — is to increase project costs within some or all of the city’s 48 TIF districts and use the extra money to fund street repairs outside of the districts, but within a half-mile of their borders, something state law allows. The city gets to keep the money generated by the TIF a little longer to pay off whatever the street work costs.

The other taxing units still need to collect the full amount of their levies and other property taxpayers simply will have to come up with more money to make up for the amount the city is withholding — they will, in short, be taxed at a higher rate because of the city’s keeping the TIF funds to pay for street repairs.

Yes, the streets really, really need fixing and Bohl is at least making an effort to get the damned streets fixed. Unless I’m really missing something, though, Bohl’s plan essentially would force other units of governments to put the cost of the street projects on their tax levies. This does not seem like a development likely to foster goodwill and cameraderie amongst all those starving local units of governments who can barely cover their own expenses.

Road-builders pouring concrete and money on the ground all over the state are having a good chuckle, though. No starvation worries for them. They’re eating well at the state trough.

A Milwaukee gas tax?

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Ald. Jim Bohl said yesterday the city should consider seeking the autority to levy its own gas tax of a couple of cents per gallon to fund local street repairs. Bohl, during a meeting of the Common Council’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee, said that an audit to be released this week will say the city should be spending about $35 million a year on street repairs instead of the $5 million and some it actually is spending (caution:  your correspondent is relying on memory for the numbers).

Bohl made his comments after Paul Vornholt, city intergovernmental relations director, said the city would seek more funding for local road aid in the upcoming state budget. Bohl argued that the state was not going to help the city, and that the road builders, generous to both sides of the political aisle, realized the real money was in building new lanes that eventually will have to be reconstructed, generating more revenue and profit.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is seeking just a 1% increase in funding for local road aids in the 2009-11 state budget. Very little of the projects that qualify for the aid actually get it. Last year, general transportation aid (local road aid) paid for just 22.5% of eligible costs for counties and 18.4% for municipalities.

Favorite quote from the water debate

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I didn’t get to hear much of the debate over selling water to New Berlin, but the absolutely best quote that I did hear came from Ald. Jim Bohl, who argued that using parliamentary procedure to delay the inevitable victory by the pro-sale faction would just be poor sportsmanship.

“A further delay tactic,” he said solemnly, “is a nah-nah, boo-boo game.”

The great orators have a new man among them. 

More water sales to New Berlin on tap

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New Berlin would pay Milwaukee $1.5 million for the right to buy Lake Michigan water and a much larger portion of New Berlin would get Milwaukee water than does now, under agreements to be considered by the Milwaukee Common Council.

About one-third of the suburb now receives Milwaukee water, and the proposed deal would add the middle third of New Berlin to the Water Works’ customer base. Click here and go to page 10 to see a map of the expanded service area.

“This area is outside the Great Lakes Basin but is within the MMSD service area; water is returned to Lake Michigan,” according to a Water Works feasibility study of the proposal.

The deal will provide economic benefits to Milwaukee water customers of an estimated $1.60 to $4.50 per residential account per year, the study said.

“Future water rate increases would proportionately increase the amount of the benefit,” the study said.

The maximum amount flowing to the suburb would increase from 4.8 million gallons per day to 6.3 million gallons per day. The proposed agreement also sets hefty charges of $10,000 to $30,000 per hour for excessive demand by New Berlin.

“This is intended to be an incentive to New Berlin to use various storage and well pumping combinations as well as emphasize their conservation efforts,” the Water Works study said.

The $1.5 million New Berlin payment to Milwaukee would go to the city’s general fund and would be in addition to regular water rates that go to the water utility, according to a resolution introduced by Aldermen Michael Murphy and Jim Bohl.

Under a proposed agreement between the two communities — a sort of side agreement to the actual water sales proposal — representatives from Milwaukee and New Berlin will meet once a year to talk about “opportunities to improve the availability of skilled workers in both communities and to improve the access of workers in each community to job opportunities.”

The two communities also promise not to “promote, encourage, offer economic incentives to, or otherwise solicit businesses to relocate from the City of Milwaukee to the City of New Berlin, or the City of New Berlin to the City of Milwaukee.”

Both the water sales agreement and the $1.5 million payment are scheduled to be considered by the Common Council’s Public Works Committee on July 29.