Costs rise as terra cotta problems at City Hall

More than seven months after a chunk fell off Milwaukee's newly renovated City Hall, the investigation into what went wrong is still ongoing - lasting months longer and costing more than four times as much as originally estimated, city officials say.
The probe has already cost $425,000 and the price is still rising, said Ron Schoeneck, architectural manager for the $76 million renovation that wrapped up in December 2008. Testing and inspections first projected to take several months are now unlikely to be completed before the end of this year, and possibly not until spring, according to Schoeneck and his boss, city Facilities Director Venu Gupta.
Meanwhile, scaffolding continues to ring the iconic building. That will stay in place to protect pedestrians until city officials know what happened and can be sure no other pieces will fall off their 115-year-old headquarters, Schoeneck said.
None of this is what city leaders had in mind when they celebrated the end of the three-year restoration project. It was the biggest public works job in city history, and it came in on schedule and under budget. It later won multiple awards, including one from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The scaffolding had been down for more than two years when, on the evening of Feb. 17, a piece of masonry fell off the east side of the building. As it struck the ground, the terra cotta broke into three roughly 5-pound fragments, slightly damaging a car parked on N. Market St. - JSOnline

When a piece of concrete fell off of a parking garage and killed a person, many Dems cried out that it was due to the lack of spending by then County Exec Scott Walker.  But, a piece falls off of City Hall and very easily could have killed someone and there is no outcry? No, it is now about how much it is costing to find out what went wrong.

ATF - Fast and Furious - More Details Coming Out

WASHINGTON - In secretly recorded conversations between two individuals deeply entwined in the ATF's controversial "Fast and Furious" operation, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is described as "collateral damage."
The recordings were obtained exclusively by CBS News. The man who made them - Arizona gun dealer Andre Howard - ran the Lone Wolf Trading Company and was speaking with Hope MacAllister, the ATF operation's case agent.
Two of the guns Howard sold while cooperating with the ATF that were later found at Terry's murder.
"It happened. It's terrible," Howard said. "That's life ok we move on." - CBS News

State Sen. Lena Taylor Taking Heat

Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt on Thursday criticized Democratic state Sen. Lena Taylor of Milwaukee for a Facebook posting in which she called for a boycott of paper products made by Georgia-Pacific, which is owned by the politically conservative Koch Brothers.

Georgia-Pacific also is one of Green Bay's largest employers with 2,300 workers.
"A boycott of one of our largest employers would be very hurtful," Schmitt said. He added that in the last five years Georgia-Pacific had invested more than $110 million in expansion and new machinery locally.
"We're very disappointed in her comments," said Schmitt, adding that he does not know Taylor.
"Georgia-Pacific is one of those great companies that we're proud to have in our community," he said. "She's not explained herself, but no one here is taking these comments as anything more than political rhetoric. But it's something we don't need."

Taylor said Thursday that she's urging the boycott because the political policies and leaders that Charles and David Koch support "harm the community."

Taylor was one of 14 Democratic state senators who left the state in February for three weeks to impede Republican Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill, which eliminated most collective bargaining for most public employees. The Koch brothers are supporters of Walker.

Taylor posted the following on her Facebook website:

"Money talks! Why shouldn't you buy the following: Dixie Cups, Vanity Fair Paper Products, Mardi Gras Napkins, Brawny and Sparkle Paper Towels, Angel Soft and Quilted Northern Toilet Paper. . . . Your purchase supports destruction of democracy, two words . . . Koch Brothers. Join the boycott, send this to all of your Facebook Friends."

She said she got the post from other elected officials, but she would not say whom. And it's not the first time she's posted the message on Facebook, she said. - JS Online

Sen Lena Taylor Intentionally trying to kill Jobs in Wisconsin

Why, as a Senator in the state legislature, and in a time of such economic concern and high unemployment, would you call for boycotts of businesses within your own state?  Ask Sen. Lena Taylor.

She is obviously unhappy that people are allowed to excercise their rights to support someone other than herself. 

This is plain and simply Thug Politics. 

WISN Story

Police Union Votes Down Contract

In their first deals under a new state bargaining law, Milwaukee firefighters and police commanders have agreed to pay significantly more for their health care in exchange for pay raises.
But the police officers union has rejected a similar deal - even though the city offered to fill 100 police vacancies, a top priority of the Milwaukee Police Association.
Contracts expired at the end of 2009 for all three unions, and they have been working under extensions of their previous agreements. Unlike other public employees, police and firefighters were exempt from the state law that ended most public-sector collective bargaining and required state and local government workers to pay 12% of their health care premium costs and half their pension costs.
City negotiators, however, pushed to extend the same health care contributions to the public safety unions. The pension issue, by contrast, has been in legal limbo since City Attorney Grant Langley issued an opinion saying the state law did not apply to the city pension fund.
The Milwaukee Professional Firefighters Association voted Wednesday to ratify a three-year contract that would retroactively freeze pay for 2010, incorporate premium pay into base salaries for 2011 and raise wages 4% next year for some 800 firefighters up through the rank of captain, said City Labor Negotiator Troy Hamblin and Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of the Common Council's Finance & Personnel Committee.
Late last month, the Milwaukee Police Supervisors' Organization ratified a deal with similar 2010 and 2011 wage provisions, followed in 2012 by raises of 4.75% for sergeants and 3% for lieutenants, captains and deputy inspectors, according to documents sent to Murphy's committee. Sergeants are the overwhelming majority of the union's roughly 325 members, Hamblin said.
But the larger police union, representing about 1,800 rank-and-file officers and detectives, voted 52% to 48% this week against a contract that would have raised 2012 pay by 4.3%, with the same 2010-'11 pay provisions as the other two safety unions, city officials said. - JS Online

Regulation Nation

From financial services to farming, plumbing to computer repair, business owners say new regulations have them so bogged down in compliance that it is hindering their ability to plan and expand for the coming years.

Even though President Obama recently acknowledged the need to minimize regulations, the number appears to be growing. Obama administration regulations on new business rose to 3,573 final rules in 2010, up from 3,503 in 2009 -- the equivalent of about 10 per week. - FOX News

Is there a need for regulation? Most likely yes, there are a need for certain types of regulation.  The problem is that the Government has decided that it is their responsibility to control every aspect of business.  It is that type of mentality that kills jobs and prevents growth.  Free market generally regulates many businesses on its own.

Obama Double Dipping to Pay for New Stimulus

Members of the bipartisan deficit "super committee" are on edge as President Obama calls for Congress to pass his $447 billion jobs plan, fretting that the stimulus-style proposal makes their task that much harder. 

The president, who is sending his plan to Congress Monday evening, claims the bill will not add to the deficit. The White House says that over the next two weeks, Obama will spell out exactly how he intends to pay for the proposals, and then some. 

But the task of offsetting the cost of the bill will ultimately fall to the bipartisan committee. That committee already is charged with finding about $1.5 trillion in deficit savings by Thanksgiving -- Obama's bill brings their target to about $2 trillion. Though the president plans to give the committee a roadmap to reaching that larger target, Republican members expressed concern that the latest request will make it much harder to drum up enough avenues for deficit reduction in a mere two-month timeframe. 

"This proposal would make the already-arduous challenge of finding bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction nearly impossible, removing our options for deficit reduction for a plan that won't reduce the deficit by one penny," committee co-chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said in a statement. 

Obama, outlining how he plans to find additional savings, pointed to exactly the same targets the super committee was already looking at. The president mentioned three possible sources of money-- eliminating or reducing some tax deductions, making changes in entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid and making wealthier households pay "their fair share," a reference to tax increases.  - FOX News

Walker Savings Bringing Back Teachers

Teacher retirements may have doubled statewide in this year of Wisconsin budget wars, but some school districts are lessening the drain on classroom experience by bringing back teachers who left the classroom at the beginning of the summer.
Peter Hirt, superintendent of the North Lake School District, said his district has hired two teachers who announced their retirement in March.
Though the two are being paid at about the rate they would have been paid had they stayed on, Hirt said, the district is still saving money on their compensation - and would be even if the alternative was to hire replacements right out of college - because the district doesn't have to pay for their health insurance or contribute any more to their retirement fund.
At least three other Milwaukee-area districts - New Berlin, Wauwatosa and Greenfield - hired back retired staff this year at even greater saving, because the teachers are now being paid at lower rates than they were before.
The Associated Press reported last week that about twice as many public school teachers decided to retire in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years.
Many of their departures apparently came in anticipation of Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill, which restricted collective bargaining by most public employees, including teachers, and required them to make new pension and health insurance contributions. The new law, which led to weeks of protests at the Capitol, took effect in late June.
The hired-back teachers in North Lake are second-grade teacher Karen Niehausen and Spanish teacher Camille Faherty. Hirt said the two came to him in March and volunteered to retire to protect younger teachers from being laid off.
Hirt says at that time, before Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill became law, it looked as if the one-school elementary district would have to lose four of its 37 teachers to balance its budget. He said the district accepted the two retirements and announced the layoffs of two more junior teachers in March.
But after school officials crunched the budget numbers this summer and saw how much they'd save from the provisions in the Walker legislation, they realized they could afford to again fill the four positions that had been trimmed. They called back the two laid-off teachers and then chose the two retired teachers from lists of multiple applicants for the other two jobs. - JSOnline

Funny how this is being made Headline News.  Headlines are talking about the "waves of teacher retirements."  Now it seems that there are several that are now re-applying and coming back to work.  Thanks to the Savings from Gov. Scott Walker's Budget Repair Bill.

The Civility of the Left

Cranking up the anti-Tea Party rhetoric, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa called on workers to "take these son-of-a-bitches out" as he warmed up a crowd Monday in Detroit ahead of President Obama's Labor Day speech.

The rhetoric coming from speakers at the event was already heated before Hoffa took the stage. Hoffa then declared there's a "war on workers" and vowed that organized labor would "remember in November" which lawmakers were opposing the president's agenda.

"We've got to keep an eye on the battle that we face -- a war on workers. And you see it everywhere. It is the Tea Party," he said. "And there's only one way to beat and win that war -- the one thing about working people is, we like a good fight."

Hoffa called on workers to get involved in opposing Tea Party-aligned lawmakers next November.

"President Obama, this is your army, we are ready to march," Hoffa said. "But everybody here's got to vote. If we go back, and keep the eye on the prize, let's take these son-of-a-bitches out." - FOX News

While Obama and the left attacked Palin for targeting lawmakers for removal from office that had nothing to do with the shooting in Arizona, they now apparently condone Hoffa's comments.

The double standard shows a complete lack of leadership from the President and the Democratic party.

President preaches Country over party, just doesn't practice what he preaches.

First time since 1945, Zero added Jobs

Employers added no net workers last month and the unemployment rate was unchanged, a sign that many were nervous the U.S. economy could be at risk of slipping into another recession.

The Labor Department said Friday that total payrolls were unchanged in August, the weakest report in almost a year. It's the first time since February 1945 that the government has reported a net job change of zero. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent. - FOX News