Chris Abele likes to think big. How big? Try this on:<\/p>\n
\u201cMove the capital.\u201d<\/p>\n
What? Move the state capital from Madison to Milwaukee? The idea was greeted with laughter when Abele, the Milwaukee County executive, floated it during an \u201cOn the Issues with Mike Gousha\u201d program at Marquette Law School on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to picture the odds of that coming to pass as anything other than flat zero.\u00a0But Abele was serious \u2013 sort of. He knew it was not going to happen, but, he said, “you can’t talk me out of thinking about it.” There is \u201cplenty of research\u201d that shows the advantages in terms of economic impact and government efficiency of the state capital and the state\u2019s largest population center being the same. Think of Boston, Denver, and Minnesota\u2019s Twin Cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond such far-out ideas, Abele talked about other big goals during the session with Gousha, the Law School\u2019s distinguished fellow in law and public policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig idea number one: I think government can get a lot more efficient,\u201d Abele said. Making county government more nimble is one of his continuing goals.<\/p>\n
Big idea number two: something like regional government for the Milwaukee area. \u201cHow do we get all the governments around Milwaukee to be less turfy — sort of city versus county versus suburbs — \u00a0and more aligned,\u201d Abele said. People pay for having all of these levels of government and things could be organized more effectively.<\/p>\n
A third big idea, offered in response to a question from Gousha about the failure in 2016 of an education reform that would have put efforts to raise the success of some low-performing schools in Milwaukee under Abele\u2019s control, was to get to a situation where people focus on what to do about schools and helping students and not on battles between public schools, charter schools, and private schools in the voucher program.<\/p>\n
Abele hit on a lot of the issues that confront county government in the one-hour session \u2013 among them, the tight budgets, continuing issues around county pensions, mental health services, services to homeless people, public transportation needs, the state of the county park system, his big differences with Sheriff David Clarke, and his hopes for the county\u2019s new Office on African American Affairs. On many fronts, he said, things are better than they were several years ago \u2013 but there\u2019s a long way to go.<\/p>\n
Gousha asked about the general financial health of county government. \u201cBetter, asterisk,\u201d Abele answered. The asterisk, he said, is connected in large part to the growing gap between how much tax revenue people in Milwaukee County send to the state of Wisconsin and how much aid the county government receives from the state. The City of Milwaukee and other units of government in the metropolitan area have comparable situations.<\/p>\n
Gousha asked Abele about speculation that he might run for governor in 2018. Abele said no. He said there was still a lot he wanted to accomplish as the head of county government and he loved living in Milwaukee. \u00a0(\u201cPlease tell people in Milwaukee that it\u2019s OK to love Milwaukee,\u201d he said.)<\/p>\n
So he\u2019s going to stay in Milwaukee. So now governor\u2019s mansion for him — unless, of course, the state capital was moved here, and then maybe . . . .<\/p>\n