Tag Archives: Vornholt

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.

Maybe it’s time to leave SEWRPC: Murphy

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The city should consider telling the State Legislature Milwaukee no longer wants to be included in the SEWRPC region, Ald. Michael Murphy said this week.

“Why don’t we direct our intergovernmental to say ‘We want to pull out. You’re not serving our needs,’ ” Murphy said during a budget hearing Monday.

Murphy’s ire was sparked by a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporting that the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission continues to delay a long-promised housing study. From the story:

Evenson said he hopes within a month to assemble an advisory committee and examine whether the housing study fits in with all the other projects facing the commission next year.

City Intergovernmental Relations Director Paul Vornholt said the city has failed to get SEWRPC to act.

SEWRPC’s response “has been, at most, lip service, obviously inaction, but they never outright reject you, they never say ‘no,’ he said. “They say it’s in the works, it’s a budget decision, it’s a priority.”

It’s been 28 years since a regional housing study was conducted, Murphy said. “We’ve made one request of them — one — and they’ve ignored us. Or they placated us and they push us off.”

A resolution calling for the county to pull out of SEWRPC, introduced earlier this year, should be brought forward for consideration, Murphy said.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he said.

“I completely share your frustration,” Vornholt said.