Political games in Waupun. It seems we have our own Nancy Pelosi among other things.

This past Monday evening the city council here in Waupun agreed to new union contracts with city employees. There were no contract details provided publicly beforehand. In fact, my alderman was not told they were going to be voting on this until he received his pre-council meeting packet last Saturday. He told me he was caught off guard by this. He stated the last he knew several months ago the union had rejected the offer from the city and everyone was waiting for the budget repair bill to be passed. This apparently was not true, but the committee handling these negotiations were keeping a lid on it. Here's a link to the story.

http://www.wiscnews.com/bdc/news/local/article_22529180-5443-11e0-8494-001cc4c03286.html

From the article..."Last week, Clark finally got information about the potential reductions in state aides, including state shared revenues, transportation aids, payments for municipal services, and recycling grant funds."
Please note the word "potential" there. I will be checking on Monday to confirm, but if I am reading that correctly, these numbers are not set in stone, but rather are based on the state budget proposed by Governor Scott Walker. I tried to get a definitive answer from Mayor Jodi Steger this afternoon, but she didn't know. All she would say was Kyle Clark had the information on what the shared revenue would be for this year.
So, it appears we have some unknowns here, yet it was decided to ink new contracts despite these unknowns. I'll go into that a bit more later on.
We also don't know what the details of the union contracts are. According to the article, "In fairness to the union, I'd like them to have an opportunity to vote on it before discussing what's in the offer," said Clark.
So, we apparently have our own version of Nancy Pelosi here in Waupun. Last year Pelosi said "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it."
So, the people who actually pay these public employees don't have the right to know the details. Some elected members in our city did some number crunching, decided it looked okay, inked new contracts with little to no public notice and we still don't know the details. So much for representative government.
The next issue we have is an article written by Mayor Steger that appeared in the Action Shopper on March 23. Among other things, she addresses "rumors" that have been running rampant in our city. One of the rumors is that unions are boycotting area businesses that do not support their cause. The Mayor wrote "This is a false rumor according to all of the representatives."
I spoke with the Mayor this afternoon. As far as she is concerned, that's the end of the story. I asked how this meeting with these union reps came about. She stated the meeting was requested by City Administrator Kyle Clark and he asked her to join them. So, the union reps deny, case closed. I asked the Mayor if she bothered to check with the businesses to get their take, and she said she did not. When I asked why, she said she wasn't contacted by any of them. So, this is how our Mayor and City Administrator address rumors in our city. They ask the people accused of potential wrong doing, those people deny it and that's good enough.
Another rumor the Mayor addressed in the Action Shopper article was in regards to a resolution. Apparently former mayoral candidate Jay Graff and a handful of correctional officers requested the council draft a resolution that would "support all local union bargaining rights." She said the resolution was not considered because it wasn't on the agenda, and if it's not on the agenda, it can't be voted on...and that was, at least according to the Mayor's article, the end of it. But that's simply not the case.
The Mayor wrote that article on March 16, and it appeared on March 23. On the same day her article was published, an email was sent out with a rough draft of the proposed resolution. It will be voted on during the next council meeting on March 29. According to my alderman, it's first on the agenda and here it is in its' entirety.

RESOLUTION #3-29-11-01

WHEREAS, The Waupun Common Council acknowledges the fiscal budget deficit of the State of Wisconsin and the shared participation in balancing the budget.

WHEREAS, The Common Council acknowledges that the entire community of City of Waupun including employees, businesses, and residents will be impacted as the result of the fiscal budget deficit of the State of Wisconsin.

WHEREAS, the Common Council acknowledges that the City of Waupun will participate in balancing the State of Wisconsin budget though the reduction in State Aid payments.

WHEREAS, The Common Council acknowledges that the City of Waupun employees will participate in balancing the State of Wisconsin budget through contributions to pensions and health insurance premiums.

WHEREAS, The Common Council acknowledges that the City of Waupun business community will be impacted with the loss of disposable income estimated at $33,378,342 throughout Dodge and Fond du Lac Counties.

WHEREAS, The Common Council acknowledges that the City of Waupun residents may be impacted in a loss of services due to the reductions in State Aid payments.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City of Waupun supports local city employees and the approximately 190,623 public workers in Dodge and Fond du Lac Counties and the City of Waupun supports the principals of collective bargaining and requests that the City of Waupun retain local decision making with its employee unions regarding good faith collective bargaining and decisions associated with local tax dollars,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Clerk is hereby directed to send a copy of this Resolution to Governor Scott Walker, State Senator Randy Hopper, State Senator Scott Fitzgerald, State Representative Jeff Fitzgerald, and State Representative Richard Spanbauer.

Adopted this 29^th day of March, 2011.

_____________________________________

Mayor Jodi A. Steger

_____________________________________

Angela Hull, City Clerk   

Wow. In discussing this with the Mayor, I learned she is a true politician. On the one hand, she told me this wasn't her idea and she won't be voting on it. (She would only vote in the event of a tie and we currently have an uneven number of aldermen, so a tie vote is not possible.) But on the other hand, when I read the paragraph to her that contained the actual resolution, she said she agreed with it because the city has been balancing it's own budget for years, the people at the state can not say the same, and we don't need Walkers help. 

Fascinating. While they apparently don't NEED the Governor's help, they did TAKE the Governor's help from the budget repair bill to get the union to agree to concessions. According to the Mayor, they got everything the Governor asked for "and more." That's not true. According to my alderman, the unions do not have to re-certify under this new contract and, despite what's in the budget repair bill, union dues will still be withheld from paychecks. So, union membership will still be mandatory and so will union dues. 

Now, this get's back to an earlier point I drifted away from. As I said, it appears the numbers they used to make these decisions are "potential" savings. The state budget is not yet law, in fact it's not even been debated yet. If the "potential" numbers become reality, Waupun will get a significant break compared to other communities because we have an unusual problem here. We have a lot of state owned property in this city that is not subject to property tax, so our shared revenue from the state it higher. These "potential" numbers show the state is being quite fair and our cuts are minimal. 

Now, if this resolution is passed, we will, as a city, be telling Governor Walker, Senator's Fitzgerald and Hopper, and Assemblymen Fitzgerald and Spanbauer hey thanks for your help in not cutting our shared revenue to the bone, thanks for giving us the repair bill so we could get concessions from our employees, but stay the h*** out of our business and let us do our own negotiating in the future. 

Besides the fact that it's ungrateful, it's slightly less than bright since the budget has not yet been passed. 

My biggest issue with this is the complete lack of transparency in our city government. Had I not called my alderman and questioned what happened with these sudden contract agreements, I would have not known about this insane resolution. And while the Mayor went out of her way to address the "rampant rumors", the "what" has not changed, only the "when." 

My alderman knows how I feel about this, and he also knows I can't be at the council meeting on Tuesday because of prior commitments. He and I are on the same page on this, so I know my feelings will be represented.