Barrett’s Valley, Walker’s Corridor

What’s the difference between Tom Barrett and Scott Walker?

The Menomonee Valley versus the Park East corridor.

Barrett, the Milwaukee mayor who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, tried out that answer Thursday at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at the Law School. Chances are you’ll hear it a lot more in coming months as Barrett battles with Walker, the Milwaukee county executive who is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.

Barrett said that the city was responsible for what to do with vacant land in the Menomonee Valley, and, in recent years, attracted companies which employ about 2,000 people to the western part of the area south of I-94 and west of downtown (presumably, that doesn’t include the Potawatomi gambling complex).

Milwaukee County is responsible for the Park East land, the former freeway zone that runs along the north edge of downtown. 

Continue ReadingBarrett’s Valley, Walker’s Corridor

Down to Earth Advice from a Lofty Diplomatic Perch

Being an American ambassador can be a pretty surreal experience, but it can lead to some real advice for people considering careers in international business law.

Rick Graber, a prominent Milwaukee lawyer and Republican leader, was ambassador to the Czech Republic for the last two and a half years of President George W. Bush’s administration. He described his experiences as ambassador and gave advice during a recent hour with about 25 students in Profossor Irene Calboli’s International Business Transactions course at the Law School.

Graber called the lifestyle of an ambassador unimaginable – a spectacular 60,000-square-foot house and eight to ten people to run the house. “You’d take your shirt off in the evening and, magically, it would be clean in the morning,” he said. “That doesn’t happen much in Shorewood.”

Graber described the two major issues that occupied him during his time in the Czech Republic.

Continue ReadingDown to Earth Advice from a Lofty Diplomatic Perch

Bad Omens for Wisconsin in the Race to the Top

The U.S. Department of Education is expected to announce by the end of this week the finalists for the Race to the Top grants that have been dominating national talk about education lately. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia, put in proposals to get some of the huge pie of $4.35 billion to be awarded for the what federal officials conclude are the most potent proposals for raising achievement in schools and cities where results until now have been poor.

Don’t expect Wisconsin to be among those tapped to move into the next stage of the first round of grants.  

At least two national bloggers who keep eyes on the process made predictions this week on who will stay in the running, and neither picked Wisconsin. Bloggers on the widely-read Education Week Web page picked Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, and Colorado as finalists, and projected Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Tennessee, as the states that would get first round grants that could run to $100 million or more.

Thomas W. Carroll, who blogs for the City Journal Web site, picked seven states as the most likely to win shares of the Race to the Top money. They are Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware and Michigan.

There will be a second round of grants later this year, but Wisconsin is not likely to be in the center of contention then either, unless something happens that makes the state’s proposal appear like it’s going to change the status quo in more dramatic ways than the current proposal suggests.

Continue ReadingBad Omens for Wisconsin in the Race to the Top