Lead Crisis: Milwaukee County DA Investigating Health Department

Nov. 02, 2018

4:03 p.m.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney has been investigating the city’s Health Department regarding its failed lead prevention program.

The search for answers at the Milwaukee Health Department continues. Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton announced last week that the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office is investigating claims of a past cover-up at the Milwaukee Health Department regarding their lead prevention program.

This announcement came after multiple attempts by aldermen and activists to get Bevan Baker, the former commissioner of the Health Department, to testify before the Common Council. Baker was scheduled to appear before a Common Council subcommittee in September, however, he decided to cancel the meeting after hearing of the criminal investigation into his former office. Hamilton, as Common Council President, does have the power to subpoena Baker, but has decided not to.

“Upon hearing that the District Attorney's office was continuing their criminal investigation of the Health Department and would be present at his hearing, Mr. Baker sought legal representation,” Hamilton said in a press release. “Mr. Baker, if subpoenaed, would simply plead the 5th and exercise his right not to answer questions even though he is compelled to be present.”

Hamilton and Zielinski

Some Aldermen, including Ald. Tony Zielinski and Ald. Bob Donovan, have been pushing for a subpoena for months. Even after Zielinski’s cry for a subpoena was met with a harsh response from Hamilton, Zielinski is still criticizing him. “The little time he spent on this lead issue is not enough to exercise our due diligence,” Zielinski said Friday.

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Hamilton released a letter last week to Zielinski that said in part: “We are, as a city, trying to respond appropriately to this crisis while you and your accomplices offer only criticism and conspiracy theories wrapped in misinformation and confusion.”

The Investigation

When asked about the investigation, Milwaukee County Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern said he has “no comment about this matter at this time.” A source also said that investigators were present at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services recently.

Robert Miranda, leader of the community activist group Freshwater For Life Action Coalition (FLAC), said he still wants to see Baker appear before the Common Council. “The people deserve to see Baker plead the 5th. It’s an injustice,” he said.

FLAC met with District Attorney John Chisholm last June to push for an investigation into this issue. It was at that meeting that he said, “There’s a lot of questions here and we feel that there's an onion that needs to be peeled.” He also said the city should “make every effort to hold those people who have failed us accountable.”

Robert Miranda of the Freshwater For Life Action Coalition has been pushing for an investigation into the department for months.

The push for an investigation came after a study by the Wisconsin DHS found that of 108 randomly selected cases of children with elevated blood levels, 91% were closed improperly by city officials. Bevan Baker resigned from his role as the health commissioner last January after word about his mismanagement of the city’s lead prevention program broke.

The Common Council approved Mayor Barrett’s pick of Jeanette Kowalik for health commissioner last September. She has since promised to turn the lead program around. Mayor Barrett also announced in September that he would give $7.6 million to the Health Department to prevent lead poisoning in his 2019 proposed budget.

Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton was contacted for this story but did not respond.

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Comments (1)

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Bureaucrats (gov't) or Executives (private)

It's all the same, both Public (and Private) institutions have a mandate to reduce costs, so the leaders (and owner/investors) choose to promote those who serve those cost-cutting ends. Clear your plate silently and with least disruption to your co-workers, a human condition of sliding by for your paycheck, few truly want to do the right thing. "Do your Best" boy scouts are idiot nerds, we are more likely to say "pay yourself first."

This is a commentary on the true nature of being both a worker and a consumer at the same time in an environment that consistently sets up a growing gap of imbalance where the workers are paid less and consumers either pay more or get less.

And as far as work goes, "You get what you pay for", and you saw how bosses let go their office assistants before letting go the people who actually did the work the money pays for. You know what I mean. We have bosses who let go the administrative assistants and clerical staff who were really doing the bosses' work, now the bosses have to do the record keeping, organization, and timely reminder work themselves... and we all know how that is going, the rest of us say "it's not my job."

And for what end? So that the differential between worker and consumer is as large as possible, because that is what spells P-R-O-F-I-T. "Use it or lose it" means pay it out as perks and bonuses to the execs instead of sharing it with the true workers.

The people crafty and devious enough to rise to the top have been using us voters to put their kind of people into the lawmaking and judicial parts of the people's government and set up these rules and trends, it is why voting in PRIMARY elections matter.

I'm not saying all people are bad, not all politicians are bad either. There are those that truly try but find their hands tied when the money or the support is not there.

You the voter must decide to fix it for everyone, not just fix it for your kind while cutting off "those people". That is likely what is at stake here, it is not a black / white thing, but it is a status thing here. Yes, there are those who prefer to keep it so that being poor means you must be slave-black or immigrant-brown, and being black or brown means you must be poor and not worth hiring, so it looks like a color thing to them. No time to wait and judge character, snap decisions desired (like color.)

The Cadillac driving store-front pastor is no different from many of our government department heads or private corporate executives, its about making sure to deliver the least amount of service and value for the money they take in, because that feels the same as the true goal, to get paid as much as possible for the amount of work you hold your self down to.

Everyone wants a life worth bragging about, right? It gets the men more chicks or more testosterone toys, it gets the women bigger homes or more peer envy status, everyone wants a life where you can clock out on time and still have energy to enjoy your private life.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago