County Executive Chris Abele Explains Veto of Advisory Referendum

After writing EXCLUSIVE: Mayor Asks County Executive to Veto Referendum on RCI Project on Monday, October 10, 2011 we sent the following letter to County Executive Chris Abele asking him to deny Mayor Taylor’s request to veto the Milwaukee County Board’s resolution calling for a county-wide referendum vote on the RCI project.

Dear County Executive Chris Abele:

I am a twenty-year resident and home owner in the City of Franklin.  The purpose of my email is to ask you to deny the October 5, 2011 request by City of Franklin Mayor Thomas M. Taylor to veto the County Board’s September 29, 2011 action adopting a Resolution providing for an advisory referendum on the plan by MMSD to pay more than $41 million to the City of Franklin for the costs related to the construction of the Ryan Creek Interceptor project.

Mayor Taylor has claimed on several occasions and in a September 26, 2010 JSOnline story that this project will “[Open] much of the land to a building boom [and] would add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025.”

I have made two open records requests to Mayor Taylor asking him for documentation proving his claims; to-date he has not been forthcoming with any such documentation.  My latest request dated October 13, 2011, to-date has gone unanswered and makes me highly suspect of the mayor’s claims, which appears to be the primary reason he and certain Franklin Alderman favor this project.

I am asking you to deny Mayor Taylor’s request for your veto and to allow the referendum go forward.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,

Fred V. Keller

Here is the County Executive’s reply.

Mr. Keller:

Attached is a letter responding to the e-mail I received from you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to contact the office anytime at (414) 278-4211.

Chris Abele RCI Veto E-Mail

RELATED STORY

• Abele vetoes Ryan Creek interceptor referendum (The Business Journal)

PREVARICATED

Courtesy of Merriam Webster:

pre·var·i·cate/prɪˈverəˌkeɪt/verb

pre·var·i·cates; pre·var·i·cat·ed; pre·var·i·cat·ing

 [no obj] formal: to avoid telling the truth by not directly answering a question

▪ Government officials prevaricated about the real costs of the project.

The following email was sent by this publication to Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor on Thursday, October 13, 2011.   We also emailed a copy of this email to Franklin City Clerk, Sandi Wesolowski.

Mr. Mayor:

In light of your October 5, 2011, letter to County Executive Chris Able,  requesting he veto a Resolution providing for an advisory referendum on the plan by MMSD to pay approximately $41 million to the City of Franklin for the costs related to building the Ryan Creek Interceptor project, I want to remind you of your statements in a September 26, 2010, JSOnline story entitled "Franklin: The final frontier."

Following is an excerpt from "Franklin: The final frontier," by Don Behm:

... Development would follow the pipes, Mayor Tom Taylor said.

The city is seeking nearly $31 million in low-interest Clean Water Fund loans through the state Department of Natural Resources so that it can build a large sewer across the frontier.

Taylor wants to complete it by 2014 - several years ahead of MMSD's projected timetable of 2018-'19 - to launch what he describes as an overdue period of growth for the city's southwest quarter.

 Opening much of the land to a building boom would add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025, Taylor forecast with confidence. The added businesses would take some of the local tax burden off the shoulders of homeowners, he said. ...

My question to you is; if Mr. Abele vetoes the Resolution as you've requested, how will this affect the $1.2 billion increase to the city's property tax base by 2025?

Surely the City has done its due diligence to confirm that this project will indeed truly add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025.

At your earliest convenience will you please provide me with a copy of this due diligence document?

Thank you for your cooperation.

Fred V. Keller, Co-Editor & Publisher

THE FRANKLIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL

In a follow-up phone call to the City Clerk we were told that no such due diligence document exists and therefore, by law the City cannot create such a document to fulfill our open records request; and that the mayor’s claim of a “$1.2 billion increase to the city's property tax base by 2025” was based solely on information and conclusions drawn from three documents; the Ticknor Report, the Franklin First Report and the City of Franklin’s Comprehensive Master Plan.

… Pants on fire?!

To verify the mayor's claim, we conducted a search of the City’s website for the Ticknor, and the Franklin First Reports and turned up nothing, which prompted us to send an email to Mark Luberda, City of Franklin Director of Administration on Monday, October 31, 2011, the contents of which follows:

Mark:

Are the following reports on-line on the City’s website?

1.       Ticknor Report

2.       Franklin First Report

3.       City of Franklin’s Comprehensive Master Plan

 If they are, I’m having difficulty finding them.  Will you please provide me with the links to each of these documents?

 Thank you,

 Fred Keller

Follows is Mr. Luberda’s October 31, 2011 reply:

Fred,

 I don’t believe that items #1 or #2 are on the website.  The Comprehensive Master Plan can be found by clicking on “Resources/Documents” from the main navigation bar across the top.  It then appears as an option as the fifth option down in the center column.

 Regards,

Mark Luberda

It would appear clear to any reasonable person  that Franklin tax payers have been sold a $41 million pig in a poke by the mayor and the Franklin Common Council, and by vetoing the possibility for a County referendum on this matter; Mayor Taylor and County Executive Chris Able are complicit in silencing the voice of the people on the matter.

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Abele vetoes Ryan Creek Interceptor Advisory Referendum

The Business Journal reported yesterday that Milwaukee County executive Chris Abele has vetoed a Milwaukee County Board resolution calling for an advisory referendum on a Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District plan to [re]pay the city of Franklin for costs related to building a sewer interceptor on the city’s southwest side.

The county board on Sept. 29 approved holding the referendum, which is nonbinding; Abele announced his veto on Monday. The project would extend an MMSD regional sewerage line at South 60th Street and Ryan Road to the Milwaukee County line at South 124th Street abutting Muskego in Waukesha County.

 Abele said the Ryan Creek interceptor project has the support of city officials in Franklin and Muskego as well as the MMSD, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. He said the project will help open parts of Milwaukee County and the region to new development and expand employment and the tax base.

Earlier this month in an exclusive story, THE FRANKLIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL questioned whether Mayor Tom Taylor was cooking a back room Deal with County Executive Chris Abele over the Franklin tax payer-funded, $41 million Ryan Creek Interceptor Project? Our story also included a six-page letter from Mayor Taylor to the county executive asking Able to veto a September 29, 2011, action by the County Board adopting a Resolution for an advisory referendum on the plan by Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) to repay approximately $41.1 million to the City of Franklin for the costs related to building the Ryan Creek Interceptor Project.

 On Monday morning, October 24, as a Franklin tax payer, I sent the following email to County Executive Abele:

Dear County Executive Chris Abel:

I am a twenty-year resident and home owner in the City of Franklin.  The purpose of my email is to ask you to deny the October 5, 2011 request by City of Franklin Mayor Thomas M. Taylor to veto the County Board’s September 29, 2011 action adopting a Resolution providing for an advisory referendum on the plan by MMSD to pay more than $41 million to the City of Franklin for the costs related to the construction of the Ryan Creek Interceptor project.

Mayor Taylor has claimed on several occasions and in a September 26, 2010, JSOnline story that this project will “[Open] much of the land to a building boom [and] would add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025.”

We have made two open records requests to Mayor Taylor asking him for documentation proving his claims; to-date he has not been forthcoming with any such documentation.  My latest request dated October 13, 2011, to-date has gone unanswered and makes me highly suspect of the mayor’s claims, which appears to be the primary reason he and certain Franklin Alderman favor this project.

I am asking you to deny Mayor Taylor’s request for your veto and to allow the referendum go forward.

Thank you for your consideration of my request.

Sincerely,

Fred V. Keller

Franklin tax payers should ask themselves and the honorable Mayor Tom Taylor why he does not want the people of Franklin to vote on this $41 million sewer project, which will be funded up-front by Franklin Tax payers?

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EXCLUSIVE: Mayor Asks County Executive to Veto Referendum on RCI Project

Is Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor Cooking a Back room Deal with County Executive Chris Abele over the $41 million Ryan Creek Interceptor Project?

County Executive Chris AbeleIn a six-page letter filled with half-truths and unsubstantiated tax revenue figures dated October 5, 2011 (See below), to Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, Franklin Mayor Tom Taylor asked the county executive to veto a September 29, 2011, action by the County Board adopting a Resolution for an advisory referendum on the plan by Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) to pay approximately $41.1 million to the City of Franklin for the costs related to building the Ryan Creek Interceptor Project (RCI).

In a JSOnline story a little over a year ago Taylor was praising the project proclaiming “Development would follow the pipes.”

The story confirmed that the City was seeking, and has since received a nearly $31 million in low-interest Clean Water Fund loans through the state of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) in order to build a large sewer across franklin’s “frontier,” a nine square mile corner of the state's most populous county where only a few scattered homes are visible within a mosaic of farm fields, fence lines, marshes and woods, without sewers and without neighborhoods.

Mayor Taylor forecast with confidence that building the overdue RCI would “[Open] much of the land to a building boom [that] would add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025,” adding that the added businesses would take some of the local tax burden off the shoulders of homeowners  in Franklin.

This latest turn of events connected with this highly controversial project leaves us, and more than likely many of our readers, perplexed, confused and frankly, suspicious of Mayor Tom Taylor’s true motives for applying for a $31 million in low-interest Clean Water Fund loans with WDNR, and the subsequent sale of the RCI to MMSD for $41.1 million beginning in 2015.  MMSD would take ownership of the RCI in 2031, after paying an estimated total of $41.1 million in principal and interest. The motives of those Franklin Alderman who voted in favor of seeking $31 million in low-interest Clean Water Fund loans from WDNR, should also be questioned. 

Why the about face by the mayor, now? 

 We, like many of our fellow Franklin tax payers were under the impression that, based upon Mayor Taylor’s own words, “Development [would] follow the pipes, and that the project would [open] much of the land to a building boom [that] would add more than $1.2 billion to the city's property tax base by 2025.”

What would the County Executive’s veto accomplish?  It would prevent a county-wide referendum vote on the RCI project; essentially silencing county, and more importantly, Franklin voters on the RCI project.  Apparently, Mayor Taylor knows what’s best for us—"the unwashed masses."

Mayor Tom Taylor can be reached by phone at 414-427-7529 or Email at tom2563@att.net

Mayor Ltr to CoExec 10-05-11

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RELATED MEDIA

• Milwaukee County and Franklin Lock Horns over Ryan Creek Sewer Project
• MMSD Public Hearing Notice Regarding New Boundries for the City of Franklin
• County supervisor seeks referendum on Franklin, Muskego sewer work
• Abele vetoes Ryan Creek interceptor referendum

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