More Wasted Taxpayers Money and a Culture of Corruption (Fixing Milwaukee)

Sigh:

When the County Board set up the Task Force on Work Reform for Men more than a year ago, it was pitched as a low-cost effort to find jobs for out-of-work African-Americans and Hispanics.

Who can argue with that?

But the biggest job the task force has created so far is a $248,000 consulting gig for a previously unemployed political type.

Under a no-bid contract, Gerard Randall is pulling down $12,000 a month from the county tax levy to offer advice to the task force headed by Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs.

[…]

But Randall was in no mood for talking last week.

Asked via cell phone if he could discuss his contract for a few minutes, he replied, “No, I can’t.”

No Quarter then visited Randall’s shop Friday afternoon in the offices of public relations firm Zigman Joseph Stephenson at the swanky Renaissance Building, 309 N. Water St. Randall was nowhere to be found.

Coggs, the chairwoman of the task force, did not return calls.

In mid-2007, Randall was pushed out of his $154,000-per-year job running the Private Industry Council, a position he had held for nearly a decade. He was kept on for nearly six months at the largely government-funded agency to help his successor with the transition.

Somehow this guy has found a permanent place on the public dole.

If he is connected to the “Coggs” family that might explain it. They seem to pop up all over Milwaukee politics in elected office over an over again – without actually  providing positive results. Maybe I shouldn’t be to harsh on them, its not like any local politician  (City Common Council, Country  Board, School board, Congresswoman Moore) have anything to brag about given the sorry state of things.

How should Milwaukee be fixed? A starting point could be: cut the overt graff, and cut the pork.