Rob Henken, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum
Given my long-time respect for the Shepherd Express and my previously constructive conversations with Virginia Small about Milwaukee County’s parks and cultural assets, I was greatly surprised and dismayed to read her recent piece on “The High Hidden Costs of Selling Milwaukee County Parks.” I felt that she grossly mischaracterized a recent report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum, ascribing to us a position we did not and never would take.
The article declares the Forum “endorsed” the sale of county parks in the final installment of our five-part series of reports on the region’s immense local government infrastructure challenges. To support that contention, Small selectively quotes from a section that simply lays out the available options “if new financing mechanisms, financing arrangements and funding sources are not sufficient or palatable to address the region’s capital needs.” One of those options is to forego certain requested capital projects in the parks. Rather than representing an endorsement of selling parkland, our mention of that option is a warning of the undesirable consequences should state and local policymakers not work collaboratively to address capital funding issues.
Indeed, nowhere in the report do we even mention the notion of selling parks specifically. In the passage cited by Small, we state, as a point of fact, that failure to repair certain parks infrastructure could require the closure of portions of parks, or amenities within them, for safety purposes. That’s a far cry from suggesting the sale of parks and, again, it’s not an endorsement of such action, it’s a warning.
I urge your readers to review the report in question and our entire series of reports at wispolicyforum.org. Our three-year, painstaking analysis of the region’s local government infrastructure needs was intended to factually document the dimensions of our local infrastructure challenge and the options for addressing it. Those who know the Forum recognize that’s what we do: We research the facts surrounding critical policy challenges, and we lay out the potential courses of action without endorsing any of them.
In this case, most of our discussion focuses on potential new revenue sources, including several different variations of sales taxes (each of which would require a change in state law). We also explore the potential for greater private sector support (both from enhanced philanthropic contributions and various forms of public-private partnerships), as well as various tweaks to the manner in which the county issues debt. In addition to laying out those potential approaches, we cite the one remaining undesirable option: “liquidating assets or otherwise crossing requested projects off the list.”
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We acknowledge that, because the county’s infrastructure repair backlog is now so formidable, some reduction in the list of capital projects is likely to be necessary even if new sources of funding do materialize. As context, we cite the hypothetical notion of eliminating specific projects or amenities within parks from the list—not because we support the idea, but because parks are a discretionary county function, and logic would dictate that closing a pool or a golf course would be preferable to closing a county trunk highway or a courtroom.
Our series of reports should be viewed as a call to action—and not a threat—to those who value Milwaukee County’s parks and cultural assets. Our primary point was that something needs to happen soon to save these assets, and that collaboration between state and local leaders will be the key.
Rob Henken is president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
