Walker’s legacy: mismanagement and privatization schemes

Walker’€™s legacy of managing the Milwaukee County parks: mid-year budget deficits, pool closures, underfunding, complete and utter mismanagement by his appointed staff, and taking credit for a national award that was granted because of the efforts of a creative director and private citizens who took park maintenance into their own hands.

Walker’€™s often used strategy of making public infrastructure and services so terrible that the only option appears to be privatization is clearly on display once again.

Dan Cody writes here about the problems with the MJS story about the parks audit, and the underlying issue of needing a dedicated funding source.

These issues, however, could have been addressed by Walker long ago. He’€™s had eight years and eight budgets now with opportunity to clean up the problems. Instead there have been repeated mid-year budget crises, repeated layoffs and downsizing, increased fees, and reduced access through closures and repeated attempts to shut down various beloved community pools. All in an effort to further strip the parks budget. Walker’€™s leadership has been inconsistent at best, and downright destructive in his zeal to eliminate county jobs.