Report to Constituents - Request to Veto Resolution 11 (Highway S Modifications)

Today I am requesting that our County Executive veto resolution 11, as amended.

This is no longer about Highway W, that plan was defeated.  This is about a new plan, hatched by the County Board. 

The new plan uses designs for an intersection designed for 200 cars per day, despite the fact that the intersection will now see more than 2,000 cars per day.  The plan will most likely need a significant redesign, and will see a significant cost increase, in order to be safe and effective for this higher traffic volume.  Our Highway Commissioner admitted as much at Wednesday's County Board meeting, and the board admitted as much when they sent Resolution 12 back to committee.

This plan also had no public notice or public hearings.  The neighbors near this intersection might love this plan, or they might hate this plan.  Without having public hearings, so that they can learn about the plan and express their thoughts, we don't know what they think about this plan.

A veto at this point would not be a way to build highway W, but instead would be a way to stop a plan that is ill-conceived and lacks public notice.

Ice Age Trail

Tis weekend brought us great weather, and I decided to take advantage of that by continuing my exploration of one of our County's hiking trails, the Ice Age trail.  I started exploring this trail last year, and this year I am adding a new element, rucking.  I am also setting a stretch goal for myself, to do an "out-and-back" hike of the entire 8-mile West Bend segment of the Ice Age trail (16 miles total) by early fall.  I hope I can meet this goal.

Rucking, or backpacking, helps build leg and back strength, and can double the calories you burn while hiking.  You throw 15-25 pounds worth of weights and stuff in your backpack, and then hike as normal.

The West bend segment is an adventurous hike, with elevation changes and a rocky terrain.  Long term, the goal of the Ice Age trail Alliance is to connect the West Bend segment to the Kewauskum and Slinger segments.

Today I started with an out-and-back hike of a 2.8 mile segment, from Ridge Run park (By UWWC) down to Paradise Drive.  The last mile or so, I was struggling, but I made it.

Statement on Shootings in Kewauskum

Like many in our community, I am saddened and deeply troubled by yesterday's shootings in Kewauskum.  Words cannot describe the array of emotions I feel about this incident.  I urge the community to support the families of the two victims of this criminal.  My heart goes out to the families, my prayers are with them.

My thanks go out to all of the law enforcement involved for their efforts yesterday in risking their lives to keep our community safe.  This incident clearly had the potential to be even worse than it already is.  The criminal who ravaged our community yesterday clearly had no value for the sanctity of human life.  The efforts of law enforcement undoubtedly prevented further loss of life.

I encourage everyone to stay clear of this area and out f law enforcement's way, so that they can do their investigation.  I await more details on this incident.

2021 County Budget

 

At last night's Executive Committee meeting, we discussed the 2021 budget.  A few things about our budget:

• Taxes go down, again.  This year they go down 5.5 cents per thousand dollar in home value, which equates to $11 for a home assessed at $200,000.  Add this to the 30 cents we have reduced taxes over the previous four years I have been in office, and the net is about 35 cents per thousand, or $70 per year on a home valued at $200,000.
  
• The rebuilding of Samaritan will likely hit the 2022 or 2023 budget.
   
  
  
  
• The levy increases $700,000 based on new construction within the community.
• 90% of the new spending will go towards public safety and the Sheriff's department.  At a time when our country is seeing many local governments cave in to a loud but small group by reducing funding to law enforcement, this is a refreshing re-affirmation of our commitment to a safe and secure community.

 

• Our County Park will, for the first time ever, need no tax levy money.  Our parks are now fully self-sustaining.  Best of all, park usage is at an all time high. We added high-demand amenities to our park system, along with an entrance fee.  Those amenities include dog parks, disc gold courses, wedding barns, rental cabins, beer gardens, and more.  We have proven that people are willing to pay to use the parks, if we offer parks that are exciting and engaging.

 

Public Safety Reports

As Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, one of the things I do is submit reports to the full County Board on the activities of the Public Safety Committee.  Below are the reports I have submitted for the past two months:

October

Mutual Aid Requests---Sheriff’s Department 

The key item that was discussed at this month’s County Board meeting involved the Sheriff’s department providing aid to other municipalities within our County, as well as outside of our County, to assist with civil disturbances.  

Within our County, there have been several mostly peaceful protests, marches, and demonstrations in Municipalities including Germantown, Hartford, West Bend, and Slinger. Sheriff’s deputies assisted in providing a law enforcement presence in these communities to ensure that these protests, marches, and demonstrations remained peaceful. The sheriff’s department also provided substantial assistance to one municipality, Germantown, to prevent disorderly protesting. Sheriff Schulteis is committed to providing aid to any Municipality in Washington County to prevent mostly-peaceful protesting from evolving into violent or unlawful activities. 

Washington County Sheriff’s deputies were also utilized to help with civil disturbances in Kenosha and Milwaukee. Both cities are part of our emergency response region. As such, counties and municipalities in this region are committed to aiding each other when necessary. The aid we rendered helps to ensure that, should it ever be needed, those communities would render aid to us. 

There was some discussion about rendering aid when the community restricts the response of law enforcement in a way that prevents the use of proper crowd control measures, such as using tear gas. Sheriff Schulteis did not send any deputies to assist with crowd control during the Democratic National Convention because the the prohibition on the use of tear gas. The consensus of the committee confirmed the Sheriff’s decision that we should not engage in mutual aid requests if law enforcement is not able to use tear gas if needed. This is an effective and appropriate measure to deal with individuals unruly crowds. 

If Washington County would see significant protest or civil disobedience, it would be critically important for all municipalities within our County to very quickly mobilize and join the Washington County Sheriff’s Department in rendering mutual aid. Our municipal police departments have typically worked well together.

Grant---Sheriff’s Department 

After the Public Safety meeting, the Sheriff sent this information:  

“I did not know this yesterday, but I wanted to let you know we were awarded a 49K non-matching grant that we applied for from the state. Preference was given to multi-jurisdictional drug units that were attempting to foster collaboration between agencies. 

I had been working with the new Hartford Police chief to get a Hartford officer into our drug unit as they have not had representation in decades. The strategy worked. We are going to be able to purchase a new vehicle, radio and work station for the Hartford officer here at the SO without affecting our budget.”

August

Civil Service Commission 

The committee voted unanimously to forward an ordinance change to the full county board that would dissolve the civil service commission. We believe this would reduce dead time in the hiring process, and enable us to proceed through all the same steps while reducing the hiring timeline. Currently it takes between 16 and 24 weeks to hire someone, while removing the civil service commission would reduce the hiring time down to 8-11 weeks, saving anywhere from 5-16 weeks in time to hire a new deputy. The streamlined process would be faster and more flexible, and it would enable us to add in additional screening options, such as an assessment center, without lengthening the time. We are looking to add an assessment center (with an additional interview conducted by an external agency) to the hiring process. We are really “late to the party” on this, as a lot of other counties and municipalities have already made this change. We are in the minority of Counties that still have a civil service commission.

 I met 3 of the 4 current members of the civil service commission. They are all great, dedicated people who care about our community and want to make sure we hire quality deputies. I ask the board to join me in thanking them for their service to the commission. We can keep them involved in the hiring process without the civil service commission. This change is really more of a procedural change that moves our hiring process into the 21st century and positions us to more proactively and efficiently recruit and hire the talent we need. 

Swat Team

Our committee approved spending $15,000 on swat team equipment. We will invite 3 police officers from municipal agencies to join the county’s swat team. This will expand the capabilities of our swat team, and improve inter-agency cooperation & coordination. The county will not incur any personnel cost related to this, just the $15,000 equipment cost.

Trump's White House Surprised Me

As many of you may know, I was very relunctant to cast my ballot for Trump in 2016. His style was abrasive and clumsy, and there were questions about how genuine he was. Now, in 2020, I am a very enthusiastic support of Trump, for a variety of reasons.

One of the things that has particularly impressed me about Trump is the outreach and coordination from the White House. Back in February, I wrote this about the Trump White House: "In talking with other County Board Supervisors, the level of communication from the Trump White House is a significant increase, as previous administrations have traditionally not communicated with local governments very much. Since governments can generally work more effectively when they communicate and coordinate with each other, this increased level of communication from the White House is very welcome." The communication from the White House was especially strong during the outbreak of COVID-19. In late March, I participated in a flurry of White House conference calls, many of which had jammed phone lines, to learn more about the threat that COVID posed.

Another thing that has particularly impressed me about the Trump Administration is its foreign policy endeavors. Trump is now being nominated for 3 nobel peace prizes. For my entire life, and for most of my father's life, the Korean pennisula has had a declared state of war between North and SOuth Korea. Trump changed that, and has gotten a strong start towards the peace process. He has also brokered peace agreements in the middle east between arab states and Israel, something no previous President has accomplished.

Trump has kept his promise to renegotiate NAFTA. The USMCA is a better deal for America, and we have Trump to thank for it. Trump has also toughened up our stance with Cina, who has been ignoring our copyright and patent laws and heavily taxing American exports to Cina, creating a trade imbalance between our nations.

Trump has kept another promise, to reduce needless regulations and red tape. The Trump Administration has cut nearly eight regulations for every new, significant regulation - more than fulfilling his promise.

Most importantly, Trump has taken a strong stand against socialism, an economic system that always destroys prosperity and leads to economis ruin. The only oil rich nations on the globe that sees rampant poverty are Iran (due to sanctions) and Venezuela, a country that was prosperous 20 years ago but made the mistake of turning to socialism. By cutting taxes, Trump has brought jobs back to America and produced 3 years of prosperity. I believe he will also get our economy back on track after COVID.

On COVID, Trump had a quick response. He shut down flights to China, and was derided by Democrats as a Xenophobe for doing it. He quickly ramped up our response, and as a result our country did not see 2 million deaths, which was forecasted. He reduced deaths by 90%, to 200 thousand, and a vast majority of those deaths had underlying health conditions that contributed to their death.

Is Trump abrassive? Yes. Do his tweets sometimes bother me? Yes. Ultimately, results matter far more than tweets and stray comments, and Trump is getting fantastic results for the American people. We need 4 more years of Trump. Please join me in supporting him.

County Updates

Statement from County Executive Josh Schoemann

There was some confusion regarding the health department website, and an e-mail address for managing inquiries and complaints related to the mask mandate.  Our County Executive put out a statement about it.  In short, “Washington County is not enforcing the mandatory mask mandate.”

Washington County is not enforcing the mandatory mask mandate. Sheriff Schulteis has made this clear from his law enforcement perspective, District Attorney Bensen has said it is extremely difficult to prove and Public Health Officer Johnson has made clear that the health department does not have the time or the resources to pursue any complaints. The health department will not be investigating reported mask mandate violations.

Complainers have inundated the health department with calls and emails. The health department's job is to assist the public to get tested and assist businesses and organizations in mitigating outbreaks or hotspots. Please stop complaining to them and wasting their time, so that they can do their important work of contact tracing, test monitoring and helping businesses and schools to stay open.

Separating these email inboxes ensures the unhelpful complaints do not clutter the real work of the department.

These frivolous complaints, and all mask mandate complaints, are not going to be responded to by the health department. Please do not call the health department to complain or spam the dedicated COVID 19 questions email. Do not waste law enforcement time and resources with these pointless calls or emails. Do not pester the District Attorney's office, they have real criminal cases to prosecute. Complaining about your neighbors or businesses slows the COVID-19 response and is not helpful.

Wearing a mask is the polite and responsible thing to do; the citizens of Washington County are capable of making their own decisions to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

https://www.co.washington.wi.us/inner.iml?mdl=news.mdl&ID=302&fbclid=IwAR06HeRNTcJmmzl02xUK3ZMdf4l_I2CsOjqCHx1MqqWVKYCKleFqk39zIYk

Government over-reach from the Governor

Let’s be honest, this virus seems scary, and the news media has certainly done its share to increase that sense of fear.  I lost a former coworker two weeks ago due to suicide, and in the last month I have had 2 constituents and 1 coworker mention that a person they knew had committed suicide within the last month.  In the entire rest of my life, I have never know of this many suicides.  In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan said “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”   Of course, he was not speaking of covid-19, but his words seem fitting.

Our Governor has, in violation of the law, declared a state of emergency for the second time, for the same emergency.  To do this, he ramped up testing, creating record levels of negative and positive tests, and then claimed the increase in positive tests warrants the second declaration.  Besides mask mandates, this declaration if left unchallenged might permit the governor to close all schools and even locking down our state again.  Our economy cannot handle another lockdown, and quite frankly it seems completely unnecessary given the small surge, if any surge, that Wisconsin has seen in actual infection rates.  Keep in mind, each of these actions will be temporary, maybe 30 days, and then each will be extended, and extended again, and then yet again.  In May, we found out that our Governor wanted to keep our state closed through February of 2021.

Washington County will be challenging the Governor’s illegal and unconstitutional actions, which constitute a clear over-reach of the authority of the executive branch.

Regarding the mask mandate, I don’t like government mandating solutions.  Many people, including me, have issues that make wearing masks challenging.  If I had to go into an environment where I knew there were lots of vulnerable people, I would find a way to tough it out and wear a mask for that time period, that’s the caring thing to do.  I also make a point to actively avoid being in those situations, which is also the caring thing to do.  And, when I am out and about in the community, I make a point to social distance, which is also the caring thing to do.  On the other hand, I reject the idea that, simply because there is a 1 in 750 chance that any one of us might have covid, we all have to wear masks everywhere we go and all day at work.  Social distancing has done a lot to slow the spread of this virus, and in most public settings that will usually be enough.

I am proud to report that last month, our County Board unanimously approved resolution 17, which upheld our oath of office and our commitment to upholding the constitution.  Challenging the governor’s overreach will be part of that commitment.

I also question the one-size-fits-all nature of a mask mandate.  Florence County still has only 7 cases, and a population of only 4,295 people.  That population is largely rural.  In contrast, Milwaukee County now has 20,637 cases, in part due to high population and population density.  Why do these two counties need Madison-issued decrees that treat them exactly identical?  The one-size-fits-all approach shows a lack of common sense.  These issues should be handled locally, as each County has its own unique situation.

Quick facts about COVID-19

Per the state DHS website, as of yesterday (8/7/2020):

Children

·         Nobody under the age of 20 in Wisconsin has died of COVID.  Not one child.

·         Only 135 of confirmed cases are people under the age of 20.

·         For people under the age of 20 who test positive, less than 2% ever need hospitalization.

Active cases

·         Active cases 9,534 (in a state of roughly 6 million people).

Deaths

·         96% of people who died from covid were over the age of 50.

·         88% of people who died from covid were over the age of 60.

·         At least 44% of those who have died lived in a long-term care facility or group home.  It is possibly that this percentage is as high as 72%.

·         Lastly, a MacIver Instute review found that, of 383 covid deaths in Milwaukee County, 372 (97%) had other contributing health conditions.  In some cases, the death certificates listed 6 other serious health conditions that contributed to the death. https://www.maciverinstitute.com/2020/08/its-always-a-covid-19-death-in-milwaukee-county/