Commentary Update for May 20, 2002: Bird on School Boards, DA Turmoil, EAA, NYT on Caucus Scandal, Ed Thompson, Structural Deficit

Friends,

Former Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education President LuAnn Bird is the guest on this week's Commentary. We spend much of the program talking about her recent study of Wisconsin School Boards: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/lbstudy.htm

In other news, this coming Thursday Jim Mather and I will interview Winnebago County District Attorney Joseph Paulus. As most of you know, Mr. Paulus is embroiled in a controversy involving allegations that his office has accepted payoffs in return for reduced charges in drunken driving cases. Paulus claims the allegations are the work of a disgruntled former employee and a political opponent. An archive of stories and opinions on the matter can be found here: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/paulusarchive.htm

In the last email I reported that the Paulus story was broken by WBAY-TV. I received an email from Chris Lee, the "animated little guy" and founder of Commentary, who told me correctly that the story was actually broken on May 10 by WHBY 1150 am radio in Appleton. Chris Lee was an undergraduate at UW Oshkosh in 1990 when he approached Mr. Mather and I about the possibility of doing Commentary. We took a long hiatus in the 1990s and then came back in 1999 under the guidance of Doug Freshner. Chris now runs Leemark Communications (http://www.leemark.com/). Among other things, Leemark designed the Oshkosh Cable Access Television website (www.ocatonline.com).

Last year, Commentary exposed the Experimental Aircraft Association's regular inflation of annual attendance figures (http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/experimentalattendance.htm). Turns out that the EAA has a Florida inflation wing also. The Northwestern ran this story on Saturday about the "Sun and Fun" fly-in in Lakeland, Florida held this past April: http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/local/051802-2.html.(no longer available online)I had a conversation today with Rick Rousos, a reporter for the Lakeland Ledger. Rick said that he and others have always been suspicious of the the Sun and Fun management attendance reports (always in the 600,000 range), but neither he nor anyone else has found a way to prove that they are inaccurate. Here's Rick's recent story on the event: http://www.theledger.com/local/local/17sun.htm. (no longer available online)

Wisconsin got some national attention in the New York Times yesterday. Unfortunately, we look more like a banana republic than the progressive bastion we like to pretend we are: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/national/19WISC.html.
The Times even did a feature on Ed Thompson: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/etinnyt.htm

Finally, if you are interested in Wisconsin's structural deficit, Professor Andrew Reschovsky's recent LaFollette Institute piece (in pdf) is must reading: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/structuraldeficit.pdf

Best,

-Tony