Report details tough times for workers in Wisconsin

The Center on Wisconsin Strategy says "this is a stressful time for workers" in its biennial report on the state of labor in the Badger State.

The think tank notes that workers are still trying to get back to income levels of 2000. The bursting of the housing bubble, soaring gas and food prices and mass layoffs are creating an economy "teetering" towards recession. The report calls economic gains "a spectator sport," since most people are not experiencing them first-hand.

Some notable findings:

• Wisconsin's workforce is roughly $2,500 behind the national average in per capita income. The state's median wage was $15.17 per hour, but it is declining, something that hasn't happened since the early 1980s. The wage is a mere 57 cents an hour higher than the median wage in 1979.
• One of five workers earned wages that couldn't keep a family out of poverty.
• The state has lost 24,000 jobs since June 2007.
• Wisconsin places second in terms of the share of its workforce in manufacturing, it lost about 13,000 manufacturing jobs in the past 15 months.
• The poverty gap between whites and blacks in Milwaukee was the highest disparity posted by any of the nation's top 100 metropolitan areas in 2006. Only Minnesota exceeds Wisconsin's white / black poverty gap.

Park People Ready for Battle: The Park People are doing their annual rallying to save Milwaukee County's emerald ring from further dilapidation -- at least that's their view.

Jim Goulee of the Park People is stressing the importance of public involvement. Cutting staff and changing positions to seasonal help would not be good for the health of the parks, he says.

Preliminary budget requests have the Parks Department cutting maintenance by from $918,000 to $252,500, a 72 percent drop. It also would close two community centers at Martin Luther King and Kosciuszko parks in the hopes of perhaps getting day care centers or some other private entities to lease the space.

The plan would also privatize golf course concessions and the parking operation at O'Donnell Park. It would also cut 50 worker posts at the parks. One bone being tossed to taxpayers is the possibility of opening 10 new dog parks, but sites were not listed.

"If this is allowed to happen the Parks Department would lose nearly 1,000 years of knowledge and experience that the full-time employees offer. This can not be allowed to occur," Goulee says.

County Exec Scott Walker is expected to announced his budget plan Oct. 1, but there are three public hearings slated for next week: Tuesday at Kosciuszko Community Center, 2201 S. 7th St.; Wednesday at Granville Senior Center, 7717 W. Good Hope Rd.; and Thursday at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center, 1531 W. Vliet St.

The hearings begin at 6 p.m. and run until 7:30.

High Rise Fight: Two city commissions will hold a rare joint public hearing to consider building a 26-story high-rise condo structure along the lakefront.

New Land Enterprises wants to put 35 condo units, valued at $1 million apiece, next to the historic Goll House at 1550 N. Prospect Ave. The Historic Preservation Commission and the City Plan Commission will consider the request Monday.

The Historic Preservation Commission comes into play since the city declared the Goll House a historic landmark in 2002. The Goll House was built in 1898 by Ferry & Clas, designers of the Milwaukee Public Library, the Pabst Mansion and St. John's Cathedral, among other local landmarks.

In 2005, New Land bought the building, which is currently used as office space. The proposed high-rise would be built on land behind the mansion and extend eastward to within 10 feet of the property line at the base of the bluff, adjacent to the Oak Leaf Trail bike path.

Developers plan to use the mansion as the lobby for the building, a glass and steel tower. It would also have a party room for residents. Neighboring condo owners are legitimately upset with the project and have hired their own public relations firm to push their point.

"The alternative (to development) ... is stagnation," argues the developers' prospectus to the Plan Commission, adding that the Goll House's current use as office space isn't making them enough money.

New Land is one of the East Side's most active developers and has recently been quite buying former city-owned parking lots and putting up apartments and condos. The firm had to give up control of its Kilbourn Tower project after one of the partners got in trouble with the federal government over aid payments.

Partner Boris Gokham pleaded guilty in 2004 to one felony count in federal court after he set up a home health care company that collected more than a million dollars for services never rendered. He got one year probation and had to pay $12,050. Other developers took over the Kilbourn project and finished it, but sales in that structure are not as strong as in its neighbor, the University Club Tower.

The new building would add another exclamation point to the burgeoning number of high rises on Prospect Avenue, including the Lafeyette Tower and the Break Water Condominiums.

More than a Powdered Nose: State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) took time from her heated re-election battle with state Rep. Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee) to take a swipe at Barack Obama and a recent comment he made mocking John McCain's and Sarah Palin's vow to reform the nation's Capitol.

"You can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said. "It's still a pig. ... You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

"As a mother and working woman, I am offended by the sexist remarks made by Barack Obama comparing Governor Sarah Palin to a pig wearing lipstick. ... It's shameful that Obama and the Democrat smear machine would destroy and belittle a qualified woman so they can win an election, while sacrificing decades of achievements of working women in America," Darling stated. She is a former teacher and marketing director.