Monday, March 24, 2008

97th assembly battles

It was a battle on the op-ed page Saturday in the Waukesha Freeman. The disgraced former school board member Roger Danielsen, who was forced to resign before he could be recalled, had a letter to the editor printed. My favorite part:
That’s right. The latest budget repair bill passed by Kramer and his friends in the Republican-controlled Assembly is pushing school aid payments (your money they took in the first place only to delay giving it back to you) until long after when it’s needed here.

As a former school board member and treasurer for the Waukesha School Board, I can tell you we are forced to spend substantial amounts of your tax money paying interest on money long past due to us by the state to fund its local schools commitment. It seems like every time they get in trouble in Madison, they’ve got one solid place to dump on: the schools.
Someone should've told Danielsen the Senate Democrats pushed school spending into the next biennium, too. Buncha right wing fascists. Of course, as a former school board member (who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled) Danielsen is uniquely qualified to discuss the financial straits of the Waukesha School District since he played a large role in creating the situation - before he was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled.

Meanwhile, the current front runner for the Democratic nomination to face Bill Kramer in November is not resting idly by. His supporters were a little cranky in the Sound Off section because Schmuki's announcement did not receive the same attention as the announcement by Roger Danielsen, the former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled.

Steve Schmuki

Hello. I have a complaint regarding the coverage of the candidates of the 97th Assembly district. One of the candidates, Roger Danielsen {a former school board member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled - JW}, announced that he was running and received headlines on the front page. This past week, one of the other candidates Steve Schmuki, who ran in 2006 and captured approximately 44 percent or the entire vote in a heavy Republican Waukesha district, received actually no coverage. He had a small paragraph on Page 3 and I’m just wondering what happened to equal coverage.
Seriously, did the current front runner really want the same kind of press coverage for his announcement as Roger Danielsen, the former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled? After all, most of the coverage in the story was about how Roger Danielsen was a former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled. If Steve Schmuki wants that kind of negative coverage, I'll certainly try to accomodate.