Allow Public Comment

In June 2010, the Fort City Council debated whether to allow the public to speak before their meetings. I wrote about why it is important.

When will Fort Change?

This appeared as a letter to the editor in the September 17, 2004 edition of the Daily Jefferson County Union.

I submitted a follow-up that was printed on September 30, 2004.

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I read your coverage of the St. Joseph's bond issue with great interest.  As Bill Camplin put it, this is another fine example of good-ol'-boy politics.  Decisions pre-made by small, non-elected groups are a long-standing tradition in Jefferson County.  Who will rock the boat?

These bond subsidies are like TIF districts.  Start with a rubbery definition of blighted property.  (Amazingly, it covers abandoned factories as well as corn blight.)  Follow it with reports withheld until the last minute, add stacked opinions from paid experts, pretend the controversy will go away by ignoring any opinions to the contrary, then move it along to the foregone conclusion stage with early
construction and a few rushed votes.  All this effort, just to save a corporation a few percent points in interest on multi-million dollar investments.

In this case, although the funding mechanism may dance along the edge of violating the Wisconsin Constitution's very simple prohibitions against directly funding or aiding religion, the entire enterprise of local, state and Federal government are clearly spending time and effort to create and sell the bonds, thereby aiding one religious group's efforts to expand their untaxed property holdings and indoctrinate more young minds in a particular set of beliefs.

Borrowers like the low interest rates of industrial revenue bonds.  Investors like them because the interest they earn is exempt from Federal income tax.  Wisconsin tax dollars may not be in play,
but Federal tax revenues certainly are.  There's been plenty of legal controversy about using bonds for church schools, right up to the Supreme Court.  Perhaps Fort Atkinson will be another test case. 

One big building, with church and school separated only by a wall? How can they claim that religious activities won't take place within the school?  Isn't that the whole point of a private religious school?  Who will verify their promise?  What happens if they break it?  Will this hinge on a definition that gets
stretched, too?

And for Rev. Bill Nolan to imply that because the church engaged in charity, the city should return the favor by granting the bonds - well, that's not from the Gospel I know. 

Declining to underwrite the church's expansion is not meant to be an insult.  It doesn't mean the government opposes Catholicism or denies its good deeds.  Separation of church and state is a
one-way block.  Wisconsin's First Amendment plainly states that we never want to use the awesome power of government to aid one religion over another.  Most people, religious or not, recognize charity as an end in itself with no payback expected.

Without public oversight and indignation, elected officials pressured by good-ol-boy politics and rooms full of citizens with their palms extended will happily trod over each Amendment of our State and Federal Constitutions, starting with the First, then to the Second and down the line.  Protecting everyone's Constitutional rights is never popular.  Handing out pork to crowds is always popular.

John McKenzie asked why there was so little opposition as if he expected more.  It's never easy to find someone courageous enough to stand up in front of hundreds of neighbors and say No.  Barbara Lorman, Steve Tessmer and Bill Camplin deserve commendation.

Many of the Fort Atkinson's decisions about economic development are guided by recommendations from the Fort Atkinson Industrial Development Corporation.  The FAIDC is a wholly private group. 
No citizen or reporter can attend its meetings, so you won't read anything other than their prepared press releases.  Why is this a good mechanism to guide Fort's development?  If the FAIDC is doing good deeds, it can do them better out in the open.

The Union article describes how Sheldon Mielke, a member of St. Joseph's, wrote and distributed a hand-out to promote the bonds.  Mielke is president of the FAIDC.  Although it does not receive funding directly from the City, it piggy-backs on subsidies given to the Chamber of Commerce.  There is very, very little documentation at city hall about the relationship between the FAIDC and the City.  Mielke opposes opening the FAIDC to public scrutiny.

Mielke was the president of the County-level Jefferson County Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) that openly fought against open records and public participation.  His son John Mielke was a member of the JCEDC Board.  They fought until the County Board refused to renew their 2002 contract.  The JCEDC ran out of money, never delivering contractually-promised databases of local economic information and leaving a debt of $10,000 in back-rent to the County.  Contracts broken, money owed all with no consequence to the same good-ol' players.

Every community needs to conduct economic development in an open process.  The County formed a new consortium.  The City of Jefferson restructured its mechanisms.  The public needs to participate long before a decision is a foregone conclusion.  You need a fair, open system in place long before the next bond question or Wal-Mart controversy comes along.  When will Fort change?

Sincerely,

John Foust

I submitted a follow-up that was printed on September 30, 2004.