Consolidation … merger … intergovernmental cooperation … call it what you want sometimes good ideas just ain’t gonna happen. This is one of them.

APPLETON — Even before Len Vander Wyst was hired as Appleton’s next fire chief, Mayor Tim Hanna had hopes of increasing cooperation among Fox Cities fire departments.

But with this week’s hiring of Vander Wyst, a former Appleton firefighter who spearheaded the merger of the Neenah and Menasha fire departments, and served as chief of Neenah-Menasha Fire Rescue for six years, the mayor is dreaming of even bigger things.

“Ultimately what really makes sense down here would be taking the heart of the Fox Cities and making it a fire district, take it off the tax levy and have it paid for in a way that is more closely related to what its purpose is,” he said.

Appleton …   Menesha… Grand Chute … Neenah … Whoa Nellie!

How many partners you think are going to get involved in this merger?

The larger the number of partners involved in a solution to a problem, the less likely the problem will be solved.

This idea is DOA.

It’s not a bad idea, it’s just DOA.

You know it’s bad when Forbes has an article “America’s Fastest Dying Cities”.

How does Forbes define a dying city?

 A dying city faces ” fleeing populations, painful waves of unemployment and barely growing economies.”

Where’s it worst? Ohio, according to our analysis, which racked up four of the 10 cities on our list: Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland. The runner-up is Michigan, with two cities–Detroit and Flint–making the ranking.

The article continues …

So far this decade, 115,000 people have left Cleveland, for other climes. Smaller changes in other regions can be just as painful. Nearly 30,000 people have left Youngstown, Ohio, and they aren’t being replaced by either new babies or new immigrants.

The article does not say how these dying cities can be revived.

I am sure each of these cities has unique problems so there is no universal cure for their ailments. If there is no universal cure then solutions must come from within each individual city. Real local leadership is needed.

What I fear is these cities will wait for ”the cure” to come from Washington.

They will be waiting a long time if they do.

Every state legislature runs roughshod over local officials.

Unfunded mandates, laws to enforce and sometimes just meddling in general.

Recently the State of Wisconsin went above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to meddling in general.

It was a small item tucked into a budget bill filled with similar small items that shouldn’t have been there.

But the controversy that erupted around it showed one more thing that’s wrong with how the state Legislature operates — one more thing that needs to change.

The provision allowed “a federally recognized American Indian tribe in this state having a reservation … encompassing not less than 60,000 acres nor more than 70,000 acres or any business entity that is wholly owned and operated by such a tribe” to get a Class B beer or liquor license from the state instead of from its municipality.

It just so happens that the Oneida reservation is about 65,000 acres. That’s one of the tricks the Legislature plays. It doesn’t come out and say, “This only applies to Oneida.” It writes general language that really only applies narrowly.

But there’s a bigger issue here. The Oneida provision caused a stir because the village of Hobart had been in a dispute with the tribe. Oneida owed Hobart $500,000 in taxes and fees, but hadn’t paid. As a result, the village pulled the tribe’s liquor license at the tribe-owned Thornberry Creek Golf Course before the dispute was settled.

Hobart officials had no idea the provision, which took away their leverage with the tribe, was in the budget until it was too late. They’d like to know how it got in the bill. And that’s the problem.

The Legislature has little transparency about who adds provisions to bills, or a host of other actions lawmakers can take. They just happen and the public has no idea who’s responsible for it.

In this case, we know it was added in the Senate caucus. But a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker said she didn’t know if Decker was responsible for it. No legislator has stepped forward to say, “I suggested it.”

No surprise there. If there’s any way legislators can avoid taking responsibility for something that might cause them a problem, they’ll take it.

It’s cowardly and it ought to change. Any provision added to a bill and any action taken in the Legislature has to have a sponsor whose name is open to the public, just like any other bill introduced in the Legislature. It’s one more layer of secrecy in the capitol that needs to be pulled away.

Incredible story.

If I were on the Hobart Village Board I would be “smokin’ pissed.”

There is only one explanation … money.

The only question besides who wrote the provision in the budget, is how much were they paid to do so?

Hopefully we will find out some day.

Keep on it Post Crescent!

Did you know there are 511,039 elected officials in the U.S.?

Of those 542 are at the Federal level …  18,828 at the state level …  and a whopping 491,669  at the local level.

Those numbers to me indicate that the foundation of our government is at the local level. The foundation of our government is not based in Washington.  I have always believed that.

I guess I wrong all these years.

Or, at least that is what I am suppose to believe.

Sometimes I run across local government items that are just plain wacky. No other way to describe them.

Son of a gun, here is another one…

RACINE — Two aldermen want to offer free land and lower taxes to city, county and school employees, to attract them to the city.

Under their proposed program, City of Racine, Racine County and Racine Unified School District employees could receive a free deed to certain city-owned land if they promise to build a new home and live there for five years. The employees would also pay lower property taxes for their first five years.

So, in addition to the public employee benefit package they receive, they would be offered free land and lower taxes?

Wacky?

Or not?