Photo credit: Chris Abele for Milwaukee County Executive Facebook Page
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s recent blitzkrieg bulldozing of his Alexander Eschweiler-designed lakefront home shocked people. Obliterating a $2.6 million Shorewood landmark sure was a conspicuous display of wanton wastefulness. Even more alarming, however, is the less well-known fact that Abele has also quietly acquired for himself unprecedented—in Wisconsin—county executive powers.
Through a 2015 power grab abetted by Republican state legislators Dale Kooyenga and Joe Sanfelippo (after Abele funded their re-election campaigns), the Wisconsin Legislature (in Act 55) gave Abele exclusive authority over all Milwaukee County property not zoned as parkland. Abele, an heir to a billion-dollar Boston family fortune, now has unilateral say about a vast amount of our inherited shared assets without any public process. Abele needs only one other rubber-stamping signature: either that of the Milwaukee County comptroller or a real estate professional appointed by the Milwaukee County Intergovernmental Cooperative Council (composed of Milwaukee County mayors and village presidents). This cynically bypasses the elected Milwaukee County Board, upending the constitutionally mandated balance of power.
In a July 8, 2015 memo, former Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel Paul Bargren listed powers Abele had finagled: “The executive could lease, sell or convey any non-park county property regardless of board policy and without board approval.” He added: “The new provision gives the executive the ability to ‘construct, purchase, acquire, lease, develop, improve, extend, equip, operate and maintain all county buildings, structures and facilities.’” Abele can sell or destroy taxpayer-owned buildings and designed landscapes on a whim. He can give away public land as favors, make sweetheart deals and grant long-term leases without accountability to the elected county board or taxpayers footing the bill.
Public property that Abele can slice, dice, erase and replace is worth many billions of dollars. It includes our county-owned airport, zoo, many buildings—some with historic significance—and countless acres of land. For example, Abele said in 2017: “The county owns a fair amount of land that isn’t zoned for parks, including agriculture land... But if there is land that doesn’t have conservancy value and where development could increase property tax revenues to support things like parks, I’m all for it.” In other words, he intends to sell it.
Abele can now freely flex autocratic power and run roughshod over long-term land-use plans as well as community values—even to blithely bulldoze landmarks. He can “efficiently” toy with land and other public assets unfettered by the rightful input of county supervisors and citizens.
|
|
Abele’s penchant for dumping and privatizing public assets and services favors short-term expediency rather than responsible long-term stewardship, equitable access, and respect for the county board’s oversight role. It also totally disrespects the treasured assets our ancestors bequeathed to us. Diminishing and dismantling the public realm devalues our civic space and ultimately threatens economic vitality and the tax base. This will not serve “the greatest good for the greatest number”—the code espoused by generations of progressive Wisconsin public servants.
In a fully functioning democracy—government of, by and for the people—transparent processes involve citizens in decisions about public assets. In fact, residents in all 71 other Wisconsin counties have that right. Likewise, public property cannot be divested without citizen oversight at the state and federal level.
The Wisconsin Legislature should soon reverse the undemocratic powers it foolishly granted to Abele. County citizens must contact their state legislators to urge such action. The nonprofit 1000 Friends of Wisconsin assists citizens in collectively making “land use policies and activities that advance healthy communities, positive economic outcomes and environmental benefits in Wisconsin.”
Democracy is being undermined by Abele’s blatant power mongering and manipulation. In recent years, he has also stealthily funded the campaigns of many other rightwing Republican elective office seekers in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Such largesse inevitably comes with strings attached. As Americans again celebrate national independence from monarchical rule, we should consider how local taxation without representation is also tyrannical. That’s true no matter how anyone tries to sell it or, in Chris Abele’s case, buy it.
