Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Milwaukee County Executhug

As the gentle reader could easily imagine, this has been a rather hectic and nerve-jangling week for your humble host. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has been making things miserable with threatening AFSCME workers with threats of draconian and indefinite furloughs combined with the desire to make us give up our legal rights, including things like unemployment benefits, bumping rights and rights for being recalled to service.

He tried to tell us it was either these furloughs and lack of legal rights, or a ton of layoffs. All of this while we are supposed to be negotiating our contracts, which had expired at the end of last year. More on this later when I am at a liberty to speak more openly.

Another development was the proclamation from Walker that all County buildings would be opening later and closing earlier, which did not provide any real savings, but did make it more difficult for the public to conduct their business.

It seems like this issue has caused a bit of controversy inside Walker's inner circle. Such a controversy, that Tom "The Enforcer" Nardelli, Walker's chief of staff felt compelled to issue this email:


In case you have a hard time reading it, I will transcribe it for you (all emphasis and poor grammar are Nardelli's):
Within just 10 minutes of our Cabinet meeting today, we received calls from the County Board Press office and the Chief Judge (who called from Madison) asking about a press conference we were planning for today to announce the hours of operations of county buildings. I am very concerned that one or more of you would run off to pass along information from our cabinet meetings. The worse part was that the information is inaccurate. At no time did we discuss plans for a press conference today. Obviously the snitch was sleeping at the switch! To really makes matters worse is that we received a call from CBS58 asking why were planning a press conference that was conflicting with the Board's press conference on Bike Racks! Wow, how misinformed can one be!

I hope the snitch who passed on this bad information will have their credibility questions. If we learn who is imparting information from our cabinet meetings, even erroneous information, I will personally deliver their pink slip faster than they can blink!

Thomas G. Nardelli
Chief of Staff
Milwaukee County Executive
414-278-4211
Fax 414-223-1375
This memo came to light due to the fact that the Board was questioning why they were not informed two weeks ago when Walker decided that he was going to lay off people, as is required by law. It turned out that the County Executhug and his hit man were threatening people like that regarding the lay offs as well.

I clearly remember the last time a local elected official was caught extorting people and demanding a no-snitching culture. While this doesn't quite qualify as being as egregious, I wonder if we will see the same level of outrage this time. Something tells me not to hold my breath for it.

2 comments:

  1. "snitch"...LOL. Wow what a goof! Yeah...that's the kind of people we need in government. Threatening people...

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  2. This Nardelli email and the proposed DeBruin censure.....a pattern.
    This is Chianelli's (devil's) hands at work: punish, threaten, suppress the truth and the truth tellers.
    They've been doing it to the clients for years...this is just an evolution.
    BUT, the good news: Chinanelli is beginning to act and sound shrill -- which usually happens when the end begins.

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