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Holliday’s blast lifts Cardinals past Brewers

September 2, 2009 By

Matt Holliday broke a 4-4 tie in the 7th with a three-run homer, sending the St. Louis Cardinals to a 7-6 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on their series opener in St. Louis.  Holliday’s blast made a winner of pitcher Joel Pineiro, who won his 8th straight and 14th game overall.

The loss goes to David Weathers, but it was Todd Coffey who served up Holliday’s blast.  Braden Braden LooperLooper (pictured) got the start for the Brewers and went 6-innings against his former team.  Looper allowed 4 runs on 8 hits.  Albert Pujols added his Major League leading 41st home run of the season off of Looper.  It’s the 33rd homer allowed by Looper this season, which leads the majors.

The Cardinals improved to 26-9 since the July 24th trade that brought Holliday to St. Louis from Oakland.  They’re 30-4 since July 1 in games started by the Cardinals big three, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Pineiro.  Carpenter will start game two of the series for St. Louis tonight, against Milwaukee’s Dave Bush.

Casey McGehee hit a three-run homer for the Brewers, who saw their
3-game winning streak come to an end.

(UPI PHOTO / Bill Greenblatt)

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

Milwaukee financially roadblocked by state

September 2, 2009 By

Wisconsin’s local governments may someday have to choose between police and fixing potholes, unless the state changes the way those governments are funded. That’s according to new study by Milwaukee’s Public Policy Forum, which says cities are running out of ways to pay their bills and it blames state restrictions. The study looked at Milwaukee’s finances, but Policy Forum president Rob Henken said every local government in Wisconsin faces the same problems – state aid that has not risen in 12 years, higher property taxes than the national average, and upsetting taxpayers with new fees while raising others up to 100-percent in recent years.

Public safety accounts for the largest chunk of Milwaukee’s cost. Of that, 80-percent of fire and police budgets are made up of personnel costs that continue to rise as health insurance gets more expensive. Henken says this problem is seen all over southeastern Wisconsin in both the private and public sector. Scaling back public safety services, or curbing pay or benefits for fire and police, would be a challenging task if city leaders decided to do so.

The report said Milwaukee is managed well, but the state restricts what cities can do to increase revenues.

AUDIO: Brian Moon reports (MP3 :68

Filed Under: Economy, Politics & Government

DNR split proposal has familiar ring

September 2, 2009 By

A state lawmaker proposes splitting the Department of Natural Resources. With an Assembly committee set to vote on a bill restoring the authority to appoint the DNR Secretary to the Natural Resources Board, state Representative Mike Huebsch will offer an amendment to create two separate agencies DNR into two agencies.

“While a lot of people can list concerns they have with the DNR, and problems they have with the DNR . . . the idea that simply choosing a different way of picking the secretary is going to solve all those is ridiculous. It’s simply not going to be the case.”

Huebsch’s amendment relocates administration of environmental laws to a new Department of Environmental Quality, with a Secretary is appointed the by the governor. That would leave the DNR to focus on fish and wildlife. “I keep the name, Department of Natural Resources, and that agency would have a Natural Resources Board that is chosen differently than it is right now. The governor would still choose the board, but there would be qualifications as to how you could serve, and who could serve.”

“If you want immortality, just become a bad idea, and the legislature will never let you die, you’ll just keep coming back,” says state Representative Spencer Black. The Madison Democrat is author of the bill to restore the authority to appoint the secretary to the Natural Resources Board, and chairs the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, which will vote on the bill – and consider Huebsch’s amendment – today. “This is a bad idea,” says Black of the proposed split.

And not a new idea, either. “When I first chaired the Natural Resources Committee, in 1987, the very first hearing I had was on a proposal by then the new governor, to split the DNR,” Black says. “It was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now.”

Huebsch says a version of DNR split even made it to the desk of Governor Scott McCallum, as a policy item contained in a state budget. McCallum vetoed it. The West Salem Republican still thinks the idea has merit, and says he may offer it as a separate piece of legislation.

 AUDIO: Bob Hague reports (:60 MP3)

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation, Politics & Government

GAB addresses troubled database

September 2, 2009 By

The head of the Government Accountability Board says the agency may have acted too quickly in rolling out a new electronic system for filing campaign finance reports.

Since the Campaign Finance Information System went online in January, it has been the target of frequent criticism for problems such as limited accessibility and missing data. There have also been complaints about long delays in filing reports, with state Representative Gary Sherman (D-Port Wing) says it took his treasurer 12 hours to send the information through.

State Representative Cory Mason (D-Racine) says time clearly wasn’t taken to fix the bugs before the system was put in place and all candidates were required to use it.

Lawmakers held a Capitol hearing Tuesday, where they outlined concerns about the continued use of the database. GAB Executive Director Kevin Kennedy says they are constantly working to fix problems, and are already taking steps to address specific concerns raised during the hearing.

Still, Kennedy says they probably could have avoided some problems by delaying implementation. He says they felt a great deal of pressure to get the system out as quickly as possible.

The system was intended to give the public more access to campaign finance reports and make filing easier for candidates. However, critics say it’s doing just the opposite right now, in its current form.

AUDIO: Andrew Beckett reports (MP3 1:06)

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:
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