In his campaign ads, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele takes credit for keeping the Milwaukee Bucks in the city. In one TV ad, a supporter actually says, “Thanks to Chris Abele, the Milwaukee Bucks are staying put.”
Like most of Abele’s campaign messaging, this boast falls apart under scrutiny. And it’s very interesting that Abele is making the Bucks deal a centerpiece of his multimillion-dollar campaign for re-election, since he was unwilling to defend it in front of county taxpayers, preferring to send his aides to public hearings while he worked behind the scenes to put Milwaukee County taxpayers on the hook for $80 million.
Let’s start with the premise that the Bucks, under new ownership, were going to leave Milwaukee. The new, out-of-town Bucks owners may have made it seem like they were considering relocating the team to, say, Seattle, but most saw this as a routine negotiating tactic while the owners were trying to get the taxpayers to help underwrite their new arena.
Lawmakers jumped in. Even Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who seems to hate Milwaukee, came up with a plan to have the state bond for $220 million of the costs for the new arena. Walker, claiming that it was “cheaper to keep them,” argued that the entire state, including state taxpayers, benefited from keeping the Bucks in Milwaukee. With that kind of high-level backing, it was pretty much assumed that the Bucks were not going to move the team.
But a funny thing happened once Chris Abele inserted himself into the backroom negotiations with the Bucks owners and Republican legislators. Instead of letting the state take on the public financing portion of the Bucks arena, Abele put Milwaukee County taxpayers on the hook for $80 million over the next 20 years. His plan to finance the $80 million was to collect $4 million of bad debt owed by delinquent property taxpayers each year. There are a few problems with Abele’s approach. First, the bad debt would only be collected from suburban property owners, since the City of Milwaukee has its own debt collection system. That means that cash-strapped suburbanites would be paying for the Downtown arena. Second, according to the independently elected Milwaukee County comptroller, there likely isn’t enough bad debt to pay for the $80 million the county would owe going forward. That would blow a hole in future county budgets funded with property taxes. But apparently Abele didn’t know or care about that, because he didn’t consult the comptroller while he was devising his plan.
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As bad as that scheme is, Abele made it worse. Abele being Abele, he pushed for more power at the expense of good, clean, open government. Astonishingly, he sought near-unilateral power over almost everything in county government via a super-veto that would let him prevail in any conflict with the Milwaukee County Board. He also sought near-unilateral control over the sale of all Milwaukee County land. Lastly, he also requested that the county-owned Marcus Center be turned over to the state, even though the county has supported the facility and has incurred debt on it. The state entity would not assume the debt, leaving that on the backs of Milwaukee County taxpayers, according to Abele’s plan.
Abele’s scheme wound up in a Republican amendment to the state budget, slipped in at the last minute without public debate by his longtime ally, state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills). Wisely, some of Abele’s scheme was dialed back, but he was still given near-unilateral power over the sale of non-park land, which includes the zoo, the airport and the Milwaukee Public Museum.
Part of Abele’s plan made it into the final Bucks arena agreement. The county is still on the hook for $80 million, but his plan to gouge suburban taxpayers to pay for the arena has been scuttled and he has to find a way to come up with $4 million annually. In addition, the Marcus Center can be turned over to the state free and clear, leaving Milwaukee County on the hook for the Marcus Center debt.
Separately, Abele sold off nine acres of prime county-owned land to the majority Bucks owners for $1 and thanks to his new powers he was able to sell it in private, without a vote by supervisors.
It’s interesting to witness Abele’s campaign’s boasts about keeping the Bucks in town. Quite frankly, Milwaukee County taxpayers would have been far better off under Walker’s plan than Abele’s scheme. Perhaps that’s why Abele only negotiated in secret with Republican legislators and the Bucks owners and wouldn’t speak in public at any hearings on the matter. Chris Abele doesn’t want county taxpayers to know about his lousy negotiating skills, his apparent desire to please and impress his fellow 1% elites and his unquenchable thirst for power at the expense of good government.
