Taylor believes we actually need to reinvest in our community — rather than cut or sell off our most valuable assets. Citing her success running a small business, Taylor believes she has “innovative solutions” to make use of untapped resources to solve the budget crisis. She also vows to fight for access to resources. To that end, she says she’ll assess the county’s assets — infrastructure, buildings and equipment — to determine needs and identify opportunities for economic growth. The idea: By identifying how to invest our dollars, and just as important, how we can work together, we’ll be able to make our transit system, parks, buildings and land to be developed more valuable assets for our county, she says.
“It’s going to take money — whether its tax dollars or some other form of revenue generation — and I think Lena is far more qualified in that area to put us on the right track,” says Rich DeSpears, president of Local 170, which represents Milwaukee County Mental Health Employees. “Scott Walker’s tax cuts? That’s not a solution for anything. He’s even talked about getting rid of County government. But if you don’t have the county, who would take care of all the services?”
And when it comes to garnering state, federal, and private funding for the county, Taylor’s stated repeatedly that she’ll be the advocate Milwaukee County’s needed for some time now. How? For starters, by tapping existing relationships on the local and state level and with the Democratic Party. Taylor charges, rightly, that Walker has a poor working relationship with the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. If you can’t work and play well with others at home, it can make it that much more difficult to partner with other less-fractured local governments.
Meanwhile: Taylor, as a member of the powerful Joint Committee on Finance, has learned to work both sides of the political aisle. She’s helped bring millions of new dollars to the county — specifically, for education, public safety and transit services.
It helps that Taylor realizes that Milwaukee County is part of a bigger whole — several wholes, actually — and that collaboration/regional cooperation is critical to all of our futures. That means working actively with the county’s various cities, school districts, neighboring counties and leaders to uncover inefficiencies and identify best practices to develop savings opportunities.
More on assets: Taylor aims to restore our once-beautiful parks. As all public employees know, parks are essential to our sense of community, physical well-being, public safety, as well as our economic development. Taylor does, too. She believes that park maintenance requires full-time skilled workers — and that county services “operate most efficiently when our county employees have a vested interest in their work, which requires that we have a vested interest in them,” according to the Taylor Web site.
As she put it (repeatedly) at a Feb. 21 Taylor-Walker debate, held at the Italian Community Center and presented by the Public Policy Forum:
“We need to have people working to improve our infrastructure ... We won’t be able to cut our way to prosperity.”
Ultimately, Taylor believes that County government needs to be a “parks champion fighting for proper funding” — whether it means exploring public-private partnerships or other collaborative efforts — in order to protect and maintain the value of one of the community’s most valuable (and, under Mr. Walker’s watch, most neglected) assets.
“Nobody wants to pay more in property taxes, but you can’t squander your assets,” Taylor said following the Feb. 21 debate. “You have to invest in your infrastructure. We have to be willing to invest.”
Taylor wants to make it OK for a County Executive to talk “education.” To Taylor, who in the State Senate consistently voted for education funding enhancements, that means using the County Exec’s office to promote, nurture and otherwise champion the cause.
The link between education and work, and (ultimately) economic development is inexorable; as a result, the County Executive has an obligation to “unite people on the issues that will enable us to educate our children,” Taylor believes.
“Although its not a ‘county issue,’ it’s something I will use in my bully pulpit as County Executive,” she said during the Feb. 21 debate. “Education is crucial to me.”
Taylor wants to reclaim what she terms the county’s “transit legacy.” Once considered one of the best (if not the best) mid-size U.S. transit systems, the Milwaukee County Transit System has been hit with service cut after service cut, prompting fare increases.
Meanwhile, federally allocated capital funds, including a pool of $32 million which had been saved for transit capital and infrastructure improvements, has been spent down to zero on annual operating expenses while the Walker Administration refuses to act on a permanent dedicated, non-property tax source of transit funding, Team Taylor claims.
“Eventually, these trends will lead us to a point where public transit will no longer be a cost-efficient alternative for the average rider,” Taylor says. “What is left of the transit system will be of value only to those who have no other transportation alternatives, including those members of our community who least can afford increased fares.”
So: Taylor’s pushing for what she calls a “stable transit system,” which — like the community’s other quality-of-life assets — are inherently linked with our economic development prospects.
Taylor believes the county needs a “visionary” to make such a system a priority. And she believes that she’s the visionary for the job.
We agree.
Taylor proactively seeks solutions and manages to steer clear of the cynicism that seems to have engulfed the “cut-first/ask questions later (if ever)” crowd.
She recognizes that productivity, efficiency and morale aren’t mutually exclusive — that they’re actually mutually dependent.
She believes in preserving the county’s most valuable assets and reinvesting in our future rather than cutting our way to wherever it is that one gets to when one attempts to cut their way to prosperity.
She understands what it means (and takes) to partner productively with other public officials.
She gets the education-jobs-transportation-economic growth link and wants to make sure it stays linked.
Lena Taylor sees a future for Milwaukee County because she believes Milwaukee County has one.
For more on what you can do to help ensure Lena Taylor is able to see that vision all the way through, go online at www.lena2008.com.
