Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Truth Comes Out About Taffora

During his first term as Milwaukee County Executive, Chris Abele hired Brian Taffora to be his Economic Development Director.

By all accounts, Taffora did a good job.

But the hitch was that he didn't want to move to Milwaukee as required by county ordinance.  So Abele gave him a waiver from having to move to the county.  Then he gave him another waiver.

Shortly after his election for a second term, and just days after Taffora was again confirmed by the county board for his position, Abele miraculously and mysteriously found a way around the law and gave Taffora a four year extension of the waiver.

What luck!

The county board, hearing how the people were angry that Abele thought that he and his pals were above the law, changed it so that Taffora had to move to Milwaukee County or lose his job.

Abele had his expected hissy fit about it, claiming it was unfair because Taffora just couldn't find a buyer for his Cedarburg home, even though he had plenty of options to make it possible for Taffora to come to Milwaukee County and not take a bath on selling his house.

(It does leave one to wonder just how good Taffora is if he couldn't even sell his house.  Presuming he was even trying.)

Well, it's pretty obvious now that the issue was that Taffora never had an intention to move to Milwaukee, since he didn't reapply for the position or even make any sort of genuine effort.

But don't worry, Abele wasn't about to let his good buddy suffer.  Abele just hired him to be the vice-president his own commercial real estate company.

So, Abele willfully tried to manipulate the system to give one of his pet employees breaks that he wouldn't have given to any other worker.  By doing this he lied to the board and disrespected the workers and taxpayers alike.

Yet it's the county board that is supposed to be the bad guys?

Something is completely screwy about that.  No wonder Scott Walker got elected three times and Abele twice.  We must be gluttons for punishment.

3 comments:

  1. Any idea if Brian Taffora is related to Ray Taffora, late of Michael Best & Friedrich and Van Hollen's DOJ?

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    1. IDK, but wouldn't that be interesting if they were related?

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    2. They are cousins.

      http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/124023314.html

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