Spring City Dries Up

In late July, I scheduled a meeting with Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima.  I was curious to find out more about the local water issue as well as his stance on it.  As I waited, I was having a nice conversation with his secretary about some of the things I would be discussing with Mayor Scrima.  She told me to read an article in the previous day's local newspaper.  It was about the Water Planning Commission.  Everybody and their mother was mentioned in the article, with the exception of our mayor.  This surprised me at the time, considering there was a large picture of our former mayor Larry Nelson.

Larry Nelson was elected mayor by pretending to have a conservative background.  Boy, did he ever fool us.  He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a commission to tell him how to do his job better.  If that wasn't wasteful enough, he alone screwed our city into submission to the EPA.  There was concern for years over radium in our water source.  There were several ultimatums given to all of Southeastern Wisconsin by the EPA.

1. Buy technology to remove the radium from the water.
2. Get water from Lake Michigan.

Sounds easy enough.  Yet only lakeside communities were in the Lake Michigan water basin.  Water they used was later replaced either naturally through precipitation, from storm drains, or after used water was treated.  Waukesha lies outside this lake basin, and drains its water into rivers that ultimately feed into the Mississippi River.  Larry Nelson favored the second option, even though many of our city's suburbs such as Delafield and Oconomowoc decided to purchase the water purifying technology.  He thought it'd be cheaper than removing the radium.  This technology would cost the city about $15 million.  He got the gears going towards buying water from Lake Michigan, more specifically, Milwaukee.  This all being done without the consent of a single citizen of Waukesha.  Mayor Scrima was elected on this issue; anything costing more than $50 million should be sent to a referendum.  However, once in office, the stubborn liberals of the city council excommunicated Mayor Scrima from having any say in the water issue, and proceeded with water negotiations.

During my meeting with Mayor Scrima, I was given information I wasn't sure much of Waukesha knew.  For all you out of towners, Waukesha, in general, is a fairly conservative city of 70,000.  While it is in the Milwaukee metro area, Waukesha is far enough away that it has its own characteristics of being a city; its own transit, its own suburban areas, and its own problems.  Mayor Scrima informed me as of current, a pipe to receive Milwaukee water and the system to drain it back into the lake is estimated to cost $160 million.  This is three times more than Waukesha's tax revenue.  The costs will be forced onto Waukesha residents on the sewage and water bills.  This means water costs of our city, which was founded because of its natural springs, was inevitably going to skyrocket 100's of dollars per month.  If most residents knew this, the city council would be banned from any affairs in the city of Waukesha.  I mean, many residents have a hard enough time paying bills as it is, but to add that much money for a human necessity is outrageous.

I don't really care if Mayor Scrima is conservative, liberal, Marxist, communist, socialist, or anything else.  He wanted to do the right thing and let us decide through referendum.  Unlike fake conservative Larry Nelson, Mayor Scrima knew the residents of Waukesha would never agree to purchase dirty lake water for a higher price.  Give me $160 million and I'll build a dang pipe myself!  But to my disbelief, the cost wasn't the worst of it.

Milwaukee, being 5 times larger, has had very little influence over the development of our city.  However, now that Waukesha needs something from Milwaukee, the big bad wolf wants to put stipulations in the purchase of water.  And Milwaukee will huff and it will puff until these stipulations drive everybody out of Waukesha.  See, Milwaukee wants several things from us in addition to our $160 million + monthly water costs.  First, the city wants Waukesha to have a lot more low income housing projects.  While there is nothing seemingly wrong with this at first glance, there is a lot wrong with this particular stipulation. 

First, Waukesha's housing projects help Waukesha residents in their times of need.  Milwaukee wants Waukesha, an independent city, to help them.  Basically, the city of Milwaukee wants to take out the trash, and the dumping site will be Waukesha itself.  Milwaukee has tried gentrification numerous times, ultimately failing on the North side, the South side, and parts of the East side.  The problem?  There is no where else for low income families to go but West.  This is partially the reason Milwaukee is consistently voted as the most segregated city in America.  Milwaukee already has a strong hold on the cities of Wauwatosa, West Allis, and West Milwaukee, but those are much more built up and condense than Waukesha.  Waukesha is an expansive city in size, perfect for Milwaukee to send its garbage; simply fill undeveloped areas and parks with low income housing.  They have never before had such a great opportunity to strong arm a city 20 minutes away into doing as they please.  While Jeff Scrima never actually said Milwaukee wants to send their trash here to clean themselves up, I'm smart enough to draw my own conclusions from what I hear and see happening every day. 

One might say, well low income housing projects bring opportunity for families to relocate to better and safer areas, giving their children better opportunities.  Well, facts are facts.  Housing projects failed miserably in the 1950's, and they won't succeed today either.  It will just plague other unprepared cities and suburbs with the violent crimes seen in the larger city of the metropolitan area.  All the meanwhile, Milwaukee will go about building million dollar condos to compliment their shoreline, bring in much needed tax dollars, and steal businesses away from other deserving cities.  Waukesha, as an independent city, seat of Waukesha county, has a right to develop on its own, as well as protect what it has.  You don't get put on Money Magazine's Best Small Cities list by having hoards of project housing.  In fact, with Milwaukee's encroaching power over Waukesha, our city has fallen from number 36 on this list, to the 70's, and not even appearing on the list this past year.  Why?  It is becoming an increasingly crime ridden city as it is. 

Additionally, Milwaukee wants more direct transportation lines.  The reasoning being to better connect the Milwaukee metro area.  Yet they don't push this on Ozaukee, probably because Ozaukee county is made up of a majority of white, upper class folks who don't need anything from the city of Milwaukee; who in fact want nothing to do with the city.  Now I'm not coming at this from the perspective of being rich and white (because I am definitely not rich).  Waukesha has always been a city of people with all different backgrounds, poor and rich; all races, all which work together to make Waukesha a great small city.  The majority of Waukesha is the working middle class.  A middle class who works to see their city as where they live, work and play.  One might say Waukesha is a bourgouise town, however 40% of residents are renters, not home owners.  This shows even apartment dwellers in our great city (which I have grown up as one of them in an apartment near Horeb Springs Park) work to make it just that, great.  Milwaukee's continuing interference in our local affairs is like spitting in the face of every man, woman, and child who have worked so hard to make our city so nice. 

A single metropolitan transportation system will not benefit Waukesha, but hurt it.  Downtown Waukesha revitalization is increasing ever more rapidly.  People actually enjoy our downtown.  This transit line, whether it be a bus system or light rail, will cut right through the heart of Waukesha.  More people will work in downtown Milwaukee because of it, yes, but that will take away much needed jobs and business from our own city.  Additionally, it'll make cleaning up Milwaukee all the much easier to do.

The mayor gave me information on the water issue that most citizens don't know.  This is very concerning to me; not that we don't know, but that the city council and water planning commission don't readily put this information out there.  I hope to meet with our Mayor again sometime to further discuss some local issues.  I personally believe that Mayor Jeff Scrima is doing a fantastic job, and should keep fighting the good fight. 

Waukesha, aka Spring City, was founded because of its natural spring waters.  Now, we can't even use the water under our own feet because of federal regulations.  Former liar, I mean mayor, Larry Nelson sent Waukesha on an expensive journey.  To agree with the EPA on this issue is to strike a deal with the devil.  Nelson chose to build a pipe, a very expensive pipe.  When Mayor Scrima ousted Nelson, the Nelson loving city council ousted Scrima from having any say in the water commission.  This ultimately ousted the citizens of Waukesha.  The radium in our water is not at dangerous levels, and to spend hundreds of millions of dollars we don't have over cleaning up what we do have is simply obsurd.  The radium hasn't killed anyone here yet.  And it's been there from the start. 

I say if the EPA gives Waukesha an ultimatum for getting a survival necessity, then the EPA should pay for it.  It's too bad they can't, because last time I checked, due to federal policies such as these, they don't have any money to pay for changes.  So they put it all on us.  Talk about corrupt regulations.