J.B. Van Hollan, whom I supported, has issued an OPINION that municipalities cannot require construction businesses to have more education or experience than the State requires.

I have an interest in this that is twofold. First, I am in a business that requires knowledge and adherence to the State and local building codes. I support the municipalities that want to exceed those minimal requirements of the State because; Secondly, The Federal Constitution gives rights to the State and then wider rights to The People, which are municipalities and the individuals.  So, unless the State Constitution expressly prohibits municipalities from enacting more stringent laws and codes than the State has, We The People have the Constitutional right to do so.

I am disappointed that a Republican came to the wrong opinion on this. It serves to show that Mr. Van Hollan, while a Republican, is not of the Tea Party mentality.

The Tea Party is a mentality of upholding the Constitution or amend it as provided by it. That should be something that correct thinking Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians agree on.

During a lull at work, I was catching up on trade periodicals. In one magazine encompassing the building trades, a survey of 1,200 contractors around the country was done. It asked if road and traffic conditions were affecting their business.

Over 90% responded that business was being hampered by driving delays. Road delays cut productivity and increases costs which are of course paid for by consumers.

It is a rare commute to work where I am not delayed in the morning. Joining me are numerous air conditioning companies, electricians, plumbers, dump trucks and all sorts of business vehicles that are being delayed making their deliveries, arriving at service calls or getting parts from wholesalers such as where I work.

As conducting continuing education classes for customers is part of my job, I had an early Monday morning class to hold in Chicago. I drove down Sunday evening to stay at a hotel and encountered stop and go traffic on the Interstate 294 bypass. Mainly people going home from spending money on northern Wisconsin's economy.

The point of all of this is that roads, in good condition and large enough to handle peak traffic volumes, are necessary for a robust economy. If somebody can explain how spending money on resurrecting a railroad system from the 19th century can solve any of these problems, I'm anxious to hear them! Oh, and Oconomowoc, don't fret the temper tantrum from Doyle and Busalachi. Maxim's is a bigger attraction than the slow speed rail could ever draw. Just keep the roads around it in good shape!

So I come home from work Friday night and am enjoying watching Jim Cramer tell me how easy it is to make money in the stock market. I hear some snap crackle and pop. I know we don't have any rice crispies in the house but it could be a toy of the dogs that makes a crackle when they bite down. Problem is, Kanook is outside and Minnie is in my lap.

Shortly, I see the picture flicker with each crackle and pop. Pat walks in and comments on a burning smell. After pulling the plugs to the TV, cable box, VCR, DVD player and stereo system, we jump in the car and are off to the local big box TV store in the area. This set was around 20 years old, fixed once and I long ago said that when something goes wrong with it, I'm not spending anymore money on it.

The intention was to just replace the TV with a flat screen of about the same size as the old one. Keep it cheap. I needed the money to invest in what Jim Cramer suggests every night. After looking at the rows of TV's, we ended up spending around six shares of Apple stock on a high definition set packaged with a BlueRay home theater system. Did I mention that we've watched about a half dozen movies on our DVD player in the last ten years? However, it's entertaining to watch the dogs react to the booming bass from the subwoofer.

From the beautiful store, we are armed with our stamped receipts and directed down the road to the warehouse. It's nearing the 9PM closing time and rather dark when we pull up to a dimly lit truck dock. Suddenly we feel like we are in some alley downtown in the big city, waiting to transact some nefarious business deal. A push of a call button and a warehouse worker takes our papers with a grunt and lowers the overhead door, saying he'll be back in five or ten minutes.

Loaded up and heading home, I anticipate the work ahead exchanging devices. The hardest part is assembling the new stand which comes with about one hundred screws and directions as clear as an IRS tax form.

So you want HD TV? We have Time Warner cable and have seen about a billion commercials extolling that they have more free HD channels that the dish companies and at no additional charge if you have digital cable. True. However, we found out that our existing cable box is not for HD, so that required a trip to West Allis to exchange it for an HD box. Next are the special cables. You may have heard of them. They are special for HD and expensive. I needed two of them. On top of that, one of my sons who was helping out hooking things up said that I needed an optical cable too. So that all was one trip to the cable company for the box and three trips for three cables. The credit card is getting hot now. I'm hoping that Apple stock begins to rally.

The TV is more than I expected. This thing even connects to the Internet via our wireless router so it can download the greatest videos of YouTube and other services. I'll pass on that, for now. Also more than I expected are remote controls. After all these years of technical advances, I still have three remotes to fiddle with to orchestrate the whole mass of modern media. It makes me pine for the old black and white TV from years back where you got up and clicked to either channel 4, 6 or 12 and left it there.

So maybe in another 20 years they will finally master the technology of combining three remote controls into one. Or better yet, a system that works on telepathy!

Can't wait for the Packer preseaon games to begin!

WaukeshaNow is about what is going on in Waukesha. Having said that, nowhere is the controversy about our water situation so heated as on the op-ed pages of the Waukesha Freeman. That is not to say that JSOnline does not have it share of information and comments about the situation either.

My observation is the plethora of comments that are anonymous. That includes nicknames that serve in no way to identify the writer. Observing the writing style of many of these verses of vitriol, I see enough in common that I question if most of them are from but a few people writing under the different nicknames and the cloak of anonymity? I think the Freeman is using poor journalistic judgment and I have written them saying so.

If you can't make an opinion and identify yourself, you have no valid opinion, with few exceptions.

One man does not a race make. Historically, several people running for a single office is a good thing until it degrades to negatives and exaggerations. In my perfect world, a candidate is kept in a vacuum from knowing their fellow candidates, puts forth their best arguments for their election and is judged on those merits.

However, the race for governor is far from usual. Extravagant spending without considering the long term consequences, spending federal money like it is manna from Heaven and not understanding the "free puppy"* consequences of it and a failure to understand how high taxes, fees and excessive regulation costs jobs, make this election far from usual.

This election calls for personal ambitions to take a back seat to the good of the state. Mark Neumann served honorably as a Congressman. He was urged to run for the Senate. Understandably, he rather would stay in the state. However, his campaign is on the verge of being self destructive to himself and the good of the state.

He has had a campaign nearly exclusive on tearing down Scott Walker rather than campaigning against Tom Barrett, who reluctantly accepted the nomination and is running a half-hearted campaign. Neumann's campaign is sapping energy from the Walker campaign that needs to be saved for the final election.

I was recently in the Eau Claire area for business. I asked people about the governor campaign. Scott Walker was the unanimous favorite. As a side note, Newt Gingrich was mentioned as a GOP presidential favorite. Interesting.

I'd like to see Mark Neumann withdraw from the race with honor. Withdraw and support Scott Walker now so future races can be considered without the baggage of destructive campaigning clouding him.

*A free puppy costs much in devotion of time, household items, food and veterinary bills.

I have a simple question and suggestion about the escalating divide that seems to be tearing our city apart. Ok, granted that having Lake Michigan water is the surest solution to our supply and quality woes. But what good does all this planning do if the governing bodies of the great lakes does not approve our application? Further, is OUR DNR working with us or against us?

For you who like conspiracy theories, is this a Rahm Emanual moment of taking advantage of a crisis? Is the Doyle administration seeing this as an opportunity to force Waukesha to be beholden to Milwaukee? A step closer to tapping into the wealth of the county? I see that Milwaukee's now charging 6.1% sales tax.  As odd as it sounds, we may not make any favorable progress until Governor Walker shakes up the state government, for the better.

It is time to follow the lead of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and do a pre-vote survey. Let's ASK the powers that are needed to approve our application IF they will! If not, why waste the time and increase the hatred that seems to be boiling in city hall. It is time that would be better spent on looking for the alternative solutions. That is why Mayor Jeff Scrima was voted into office. I remind the Aldermen of that fact.

Postscript; I've yet to hear any explanation of the unanimous vote to strip the Mayor of the management authority of the city administrator. It doesn't look good.

The news media reported that the common council unanimously voted to have the city administrator report and be reviewed by the council rather than by the mayor. This is an unusual move and one that needs explanation to the voters.

It is unusual in that the mayor and the administrator are full time positions. The Mayor has day to day contact with the administrator. The council is a part time position. The contact that a typical alderman has with the administrator is perhaps only a few hours a month during committee meetings and council meetings. The mayor is the elected leader of the city, like him or not.

Both media outlets for the city have failed to interview aldermen and report why such a drastic measure has been taken, at least as of Wednesday evening.

Whatever prompted such action by the council, I question if it is a poorly thought out and handled situation. Indeed I would think that such a drastic change should have been put to a referendum. If there is disharmony in city hall, the voters must be informed of it.

Eric Holder, our country's Attorney General blurted out that he was against the Arizona illegal immigrant law but admitted that he had not read the bill. A Milwaukee County Supervisor, speaking in favor of Milwaukee boycotting Arizona, stands and babbles that she cannot understand the need for the Arizona bill because Arizona is far removed from the Mexican boarder. Uh, you DO know that it does, I hope.

These are but two examples of liberal madness. To a Constitution supporter as I am, it brings emotions of pity for them being so stupid, amusement at how anyone that did a smattering of homework before electing them or people that appointed them to a position of power and anger that these are but two  examples of many who are tearing down our country using reasoning based on idealism rather than educated logic.

Waukesha County Supervisor Peter Wolff has introduced a resolution going beyond supportive spirit to the Arizona law but actually encouraging doing business with Arizona businesses, when possible. I'm not sure what that means. If it means giving business to a supplier in Arizona rather than a self destructive state like California, I might be for it as long as cost to the taxpayers of Waukesha are equal. Unfortunately such policy may hurt a business that may not share the destructive views of liberalism as the state that it is based in does.

If the Board wishes to issue a feel-good resolution supporting the spirit of Arizona's law, fine. Though, I don't see any need for it and may indeed do some relationship damage locally to residents with Mexican heritage. Going beyond that to specifically patronize Arizona is too much though.

It was a coincidence that I was reading about Billionaire Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway investing in a Chinese battery maker turned automobile maker, known as BYD on the Chinese stock market ticker. This company makes batteries for many cell phones that we use and also has become China's largest automaker. They are making an electric car that is similar to the Chevrolet Volt in that it too runs on electricity and when the batteries drain out, a small gasoline engine generates the power to continue driving.

It is interesting that Buffett wanted to buy 25% of the business but the owner would only allow 10%. Needless to say, Buffett wants these cars in America!

The story that I was reading stated that they sell the car for around 1/4 the price of what the Volt is expected to be. Their cell phone batteries are also extremely cheap. When asked about this, the owner of the company said that they use cheap laborers instead of robots. The workers are paid little, eating in company cafeterias and live in company housing.

The coincidence is that in today's (Monday's) Milwaukee Journal business section, a story on page three tells of worker strikes in Chinese factories and businesses agreeing to increase pay, often significantly. Some of this is at the urging of the Chinese government. This story highlights a business in the same city where BYD makes their cars and batteries. Shenzhen China is the silicon valley of that country.

The story tells of rather high suicide among the workers. When asked, worker Ah Wei explains that "Life is meaningless". "Everyday I repeat the same thing I did yesterday".

Sounds like stuff that labor unions here have fought to correct. Long hours and boring, repetitive jobs. Money won't make the job any easier to do. And as to the repetitiveness, there are robots to do that. So much for the labor advantage!

It’s amazing how news goes from hot to cold. Heard much about high speed rail lately?

I’ve been doing a lot of motorcycling lately. I bought a new motorcycle that is more fun to ride than my Honda GoldWing and gets around 10 mpg better. But that is another story. The tie-in to high-speed rail is much. After all, people have to get to the railroad station, right?

My new motorcycle is lighter than my GoldWing and the tires are a little smaller. Both of these make any irregularity in the road feel harsher. I’ve written about the condition of Waukesha roads. The city is doing what they can with the money that they have. However, in that last sentence, much is said. Read on.

Two sections of roads in my work commute and in my pleasure riding route stand out in my memory. One is in Milwaukee. 70^th street between I94 and the West Allis city limits where it suddenly gets better. That section of road is so bad, you have to swerve around the dips, bumps and pot-holes or risk losing control of the motorcycle. It gets lots of traffic so you’d think that it would be a higher priority. We know money is very tight in Milwaukee.

The next less than memorable section of road is our very own Northview road. This has long been the start of my local motorcycle ride route along highway G to E and around Ottawa. This road has also deteriorated to the point of being hazardous in places.

My point is that these and all roads will continue to be needed no matter if railroads, busses, trolley’s and street cars are slammed down our collective throats to our wallets. If we cannot afford to maintain them now, how can we when we have to subsidize mass transit?

The state wants to tap into the Transportation Fund to be used for general revenue items. We can’t let this happen! The Federal Government did the same thing with the Social Security and Medicare funds. We now know that was a mistake but those responsible have either died off or retired to luxurious lives funded by the spoils of political plundering.

Our gas taxes and registration money must go for roads and not for rails, or other unrelated projects!

You've called ahead to have your air conditioner checked over before it got warm. Good for you. Human nature prevails on all of us. When it is hot, a technician may have more than a days work to get done and might only have time for getting the problem at hand fixed.

Even with the best of intentions and you, with the best of equipment, you might not be getting all the cooling or efficiency that you paid for. Even if you have an older system, it might have room for improvement and savings without replacing it with a new system.

The federal government has proposed a national energy savings program called Home Star. It is part of the so called Jobs Bill. Like much legislation, it is full of "good intentions". That means some may be good and some may have unintended consequences. Politics aside, the portion that I am excited about concerns ductwork for heating and cooling as it relates to efficiency. You see, much of the cool air that you pay for never makes it to where you want it.

Without getting too technical, these Home Star standards address the little leaks in the ductwork of your house. They are there and they add up to a huge waste of energy and when it's hot, may be why it never seems to cool down in the house even though a technician says that they can't find anything wrong with it.

Think of caulking your house. For many years, you've heard about buying a tube of caulk and sealing up around the windows, doors and the siding of the exterior of the house. A little leak here and there adds up to energy wasting. This holds true for your ductwork even though it is usually all inside the house!

Feel the joints and seams of your ductwork while the air conditioner is running. Each little breeze from an air leak adds up to big losses of cooling capacity. How much? Well, the Home Star requirements are that in an existing home, the ductwork can leak no more than 20% and in a new home, no more than 10%! That's after joint and seam sealing is done. Think of how much is being lost before sealing the joints!

This leakage requirement is especially important on the return side of the furnace. This is the most neglected ducting in they system, yet it is very important. Ideally, there is a return air grill in every room that has a supply grill. The system should be balanced so each return admits the same amount of air that is supplied to the room. if your house is like mine, I have only a return in the hallway and living room. When a bedroom door is closed, the room pressurizes. That means the other rooms with returns form a vacuum, admittedly very weak. What happens though is some air is blown out of the leaks in the room or warm moist air is drawn in. Not a lot, but it adds up and also can increase the dust in the house too.

Besides air pressure losses, I've been in homes locally where ductwork is in the attic. I have measured thermal looses and gains to the heat of the attic. Here, not only seam sealing is needed but good insulation of the ductwork is needed too.

There are professional ways to test for duct leakage. One method is using a device called a "duct blaster". However, you can do it yourself just by feeling for air leaks and looking for them. How to seal them? Professionals prefer a product call MASTIC. This is a thick coating that is painted on. There are also gums called Duct Seal and of course Duct Tape which can be used too. Silicone rubber is an alternative, but gassy until it cures.

If you ask your heating and cooling company about duct sealing, don't be too disappointed if they don't know about it or minimize it's importance. It is still something that commercial heating companies, called Mechanical Contractors, have had to work with due to commercial building codes that don't affect private homes. You might want to check around though. There are bound to be companies soon advertising that they test and seal ductwork.

Ask if they are either NATE certified in the Air Distribution Specialty or certified by the National Comfort Institute or NBI.

Keep comfortable!

In media both printed and electronic, I have seen pre-election-like criticism of Mayor Scrima. It is apparent that many of these people will criticize for any reason, be it unfair or trivial. I believe them to be ideologues of the Nelson administration who remind me of President Clinton’s staff vandalizing the White House prior to President George Bush taking residence. I want to be clear that I am in no way implying that Mayor Nelson has any connection with this. I see it as groupies or paparazzi which the person of focus has no control over.

Candidate Scrima campaigned on exploring options to rolling over to the paranoid Milwaukee politicians. People forget that obtaining Lake Michigan water requires more than an agreement with Milwaukee or Oak Creek or Racine. It requires approval of each governor of the states and provinces on the lake. Does anyone really believe we will get that approval? It would set off a flurry of requests for approval by other municipalities. Any one of them not getting approval would spawn a lawsuit. It’s easier for a governor to say no than explain to the citizens of that state why they are spending money to defend themselves from something that could have been avoided by just saying no the first time.

I wish there was an easy answer to this. It is a problem due to the “expand the tax base” mantra of prior politicians of our city. Mayor Scrima is indeed trying to salvage the situation the best that one can. Tuesday’s presentation before the council by Procorp Enterprises was one of the options that Scrima was voted to office to explore. Procorp being a company with radium removal technology.

Thus far water commissioner Duchniak has told us that Lake Michigan water through Milwaukee is our cheapest solution. Nothing has been mentioned that the chances of it being approved by the surrounding governors are very slim. To not have a contingency plan would be irresponsible. Thus far Mayor Scrima is handling it responsibly.

As an assignment, please read the letters to the editor in Sunday's Crossroad's section concerning Marquette University.
 

Politically, many of us seem to take someone's or a party's conclusions too easily. We don't do our homework to see if their opinion should be ours. Case in point is the hysteria concerning Marquette University and the withdrawal of a job off from a Washington University professor to be Dean of a department. Have you formed an opinion? If you have or haven't, have you seen why her job offer was retracted? I will provide you with what the Journal has not, this is a link to her “Curriculum Vitae”. If after reading through it, you think that she still should be offered the position, I sure would like to see your comment placed below!

Harley Davidson is in trouble. Either every old coot who's going to buy one has done so or those that have passed along without wrecking theirs has caused the used motorcycle market to be glutted with them so new  sales have tanked. I say this with affection as I somewhat fit into that category. I now have three motorcycles in the garage myself. One is brand spanking new....but not a Harley.

Putting aside my criticism of most of their models just being styling variations of the the same basic machine and lacking any real diversification, lets look at the political reasons why they are in trouble. Taxes and labor expense.

Look, they are considering to RELOCATE in order to reduce their operating expenses. How can a manufacturing business move a complex operation and save money? It can only be because labor is cheaper and taxes are less elsewhere. Making motorcycles is not much different than making cars, or anything else for that matter. We know the automakers have shed factories and done what they can with their unions in order to survive. Only Ford succeeded. GM and Chrysler failed. Foreign brands have built factories where land, taxes and labor are cheaper than in the rust belt. 

Where I work, a coworker just bought a new motorcycle. Looks like a Harley to most people. It's a Yamaha. Another bought one two years ago. Looks like a Harley, but it's a Kawasaki. I assure you that my new motorcycle does NOT look like a Harley, but they used to build a similar machine that had they not discontinued it, could have evolved in what I have and be sitting in the garage now. Anyone remember the Topper?

We can't help Harley with their labor pains. We can help them with taxes, but should we? Our bed of taxation has been building for years. It may be too late to say oops!

Oh, one other guy has a machine that looks like a Harley. It is a Harley. Always an oddball in the group!

I admit that my headline is a trap. However, the community has made it clear that they'd rather not have any sex offenders here at all. We keep track of them pretty well. We also keep pretty good track of others that have had criminal pasts. When it comes to criminals, we don't have much of a forgive and forget attitude, do we?

With that in mind, I find it fascinating how the liberal news media and others have viciously attacked Arizona's new law. Actually attacking Arizona itself by calling for some kind of boycott. Some are amusing. For example, San Francisco has announced a boycott of Arizona. Even a Journal editor has announced his own boycott of Arizona.

Here's my point. Reread paragraph one. Allowing anyone to make it over our boarders without at the least, having some background check, is allowing who knows what kind of criminal into our country and dispersing to places unknown. Perhaps next door to you. Think about that when you make a judgement on Arizona's desperate attempt at regaining law and order that the federal government has failed to do.

Since being a child, I despised litter. For several years I gagged as I drove by the landfill on the southern Ozaukee County line on the way to work. I saw polluted streams foaming from phosphates and ponds choked with algae from other nutrients draining into them. I was sickened by cryptosporidium, thank you Milwaukee.  As I became an amateur radio operator, I learned first hand how the sun has cycles that affect radio wave propagation. As a student in high school along side the expressway in Milwaukee, I saw the blue haze over the road and choked on it's fumes. I remember Gaylord Nelson when he was Governor.

As some of us celebrate Earth Day, I celebrate it by remembering and sorting out the things that humans can do to improve our environment and the things that we cannot do. We can clean up the land and the water. We can clean up the air. But there are things that some of us stubborningly cling to that which we have no control over. The sun controls our climate. We can make feeble attempts at changing it and even fool people into believing it, but this week the earth laughed at them and spewed more carbon, sulphur, chlorine and other pollutants into the air than we can ever hope to match or clean up.

If the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption doesn't convince you that man is incapable of affecting the climate, what will?

The 1994 Pontiac that we bought brand new had seen better days. Now was the time to think about replacing it. We concentrated our searching on East Moreland and as Pat drove the Pontiac the most, she set the criteria on what features it must have. Mainly, air conditioned, good in the snow and easy to park. Oh, good gas economy too.

We found just the car. It was one of those that you fell in love with and knew that you won't find one better than it. It doesn't matter what brand or model it is. The ideal car is different for each individual.

One of the nice touches on the car was pin-striping down the side of it. The salesman said that it wasn't factory but done locally. After we closed the deal and took possession of it, I checked the gas filler cap. Above it I noticed tiny writing between the pin-striping lines. It said, "Sid Did It".

Monday while talking with co-workers, I mentioned the car, of course, and also the pin-stiping and the "Sid Did It". One of them knew about it immediately. "Sid's been around for many years doing that", he said. Later I Googled "Sid Did It". There were many results and conversations about his work. "Sid's been doing pin-striping for over 30 years", said one. "He does it all free-hand. He'll look at the car, determine what color is best used and paint the two stripes entirely by hand. Then he'll write in his signature, Sid Did It" 

It makes the car look pretty neat and is a great conversation maker. Nice job Sid. Thanks!

It has been determined that in the recently years, less and less people pay personal income tax. It is now that 47% of the population no longer pay income taxes. Does that mean we’ve become a poorer nation? No. It is the result of tax credits and continued loopholes that allow a person living very well to pay no taxes, besides those with little income and meager resources.

It has correctly been pointed out that everyone still pays taxes. Everyone buys things that have the sales tax. Every property owner pays property tax and renters pay for that through their rent. So, nobody has a completely free ride.

However, there are some things that don’t make sense. If the government is going to pay out money, why take some back as taxes? Social security income is taxable. How about the many that are on unemployment? That is taxable. What happens when they have to pay tax on it and there is no money to pay it?

Many people pay more than their so called fair share of taxes. If you owe money, you may have to pay with a credit card. Unlike businesses that absorb the 3% to 5% fee, the government wants ALL of you money due so they charge for that credit card fee. Now the person pays their taxes over time and incurs finance fees which in effect makes their tax burden higher than what it could be.

What it could be is no income tax at all. Replace it with a national sales tax, often called a flat tax or fair tax, and everybody would contribute. It would be a pay as you go plan. The IRS would no longer be needed. People enjoying loopholes will now pay their share of the tax burden. People with more money buy more products and services so they will pay more in taxes.

Opponents have argued that the tax would add so much to the price of goods and services that purchasing would go down and the economy would suffer. Would it?

President Obama said Thursday that he has ordered his economic advisors to explore ways to simplify the tax system. Hopefully (there’s that hope and change again) that wasn’t just another crumb to cause us to scatter and divert attention from other things. Or a, “I’ll get back to you on that” which is only meant to buy time until the issue is forgotten for another year.

Judging from the size of Tea Party gatherings around the country, people are fed up with many things. A tax system that the head of the Treasury Department can’t even understand is among them.

While Tuesday’s election wasn’t a 7.0 on the Richter scale of political earthquakes, it was a tremor warning of big things in the future.

So called high speed rail was dealt a blow by the results of the Brookfield and Oconomowoc mayoral race. It was a message by The People that they don’t want it. The gubernatorial race is over for the Democrats and will be a race between Walker and Neumann.

Also warning liberals is a national survey showing that as high as 40% of people calling themselves supporters of the Tea Party movement are Democrat! The Tea Party movement principles are supported by 48% of the country. I believe that number will grow over time.

As to the Democrat’s claim that it is a bunch of angry white people, 79% of Tea Party members are white, closely matching the national 75% amount of white people versus other races. That means that the Tea Party is the “big tent” that is often talked about regarding political inclusiveness.

It wasn’t too long ago that Democrats were calling the Republican Party dead. As in most things, they were oh so wrong. Don’t confuse the Tea Party and the Republican Party as the same.  43% of Tea Party members are independent. The way I see it is that the Democratic Party must shed itself of the secular progressives misguiding a good portion of our national family. It will become home to the RHINO’s, Republican- In- Name- Only, and the Republican Party will renew its vows to fiscal conservatism and constitutionalism.

The Tea Party doesn’t exist to become a divider. It exists to give The People a platform to send a message to both the Republicans and Democrats. It gives The People Common Ground. The way I see it is the message to the Democrats is don’t trample the Constitution to enact your agenda. Republicans, don’t allow them to trample the Constitution without a fight and while you are at it, hold true to your conservative message.

I wrote before the Mayoral primary elections that I promoted Darryl Enriquez for Mayor, but held an interest in Jeff Scrima. Now that the race has been narrowed to Jeff Scrima and Larry Nelson, a hard decision needs to be made. I’ve decided to support Jeff Scrima and I hope that you will consider my reasons.

Not the most important reason, but one none the less, is our Mayor Nelson’s gregarious personality. In the debate before the primary where he was one of two winners, I attended the debate at the Civic Theater hosted by WTMJ personality Jeff Wagner. I did not know who Larry Nelson was, latter finding that he had been a teacher to both of my boys, but was disgusted with his gleeful refusal to follow the debate rules on time and held the microphone, going beyond finishing his point, and grinning that he is getting away with it while Jeff Wagner tried to politely regain control of the debate.

I am reminded of that every time it comes up that Mayor Nelson has attended some function, dressed inappropriately. I cannot help but think that such dress and manners do not help the City of Waukesha’s position when negotiating locally, regionally and nationally.

There is also a larger issue why I will not vote for Larry Nelson. If you plan to vote for him, I wish that you’d think about this very carefully. The Mayoral race is a nonpartisan race. That is, candidates are not to be labeled from any particular political party. Both he and city administrator Lori Luther have inappropriately demonstrated over and over that they are Democrats, to the point of Nelson having Obama stickers on his personal car and acting as a delegate to the Democratic national convention.

Is that by itself a bad thing? No. Both are people entitled to their private activities, but those activities cannot be expected to not have consequences or reflect upon the taxpayers of the city. Indeed it does reflect a political philosophy. Both on the national and state level, I have found the actions of Democrats to be despicable. Backroom deals and unconstitutional laws with no bipartisan support cannot be tolerated by us.

April 6^th is the first opportunity we have to begin sending the message to Democrats countrywide that they have gone too far. The local level is where we must begin. For that reason, Larry Nelson’s political career must end now.

But why vote for Jeff Scrima? I have met the man and he presents himself well and will represent Waukesha respectfully. He is a young man with no political experience, which can be a good thing, but has business experience and organizing. While some of his remarks may not seem to have been well thought out at the time and have gotten some bad press, he will grow into the position of Mayor well. I also believe that he is better suited to help untangle the many mandates burdened on the city by the state. I am also a believer in term limits. This is a great place to start! Remember, it is important to have a City Council which represents us on the very first level of politics. I believe that the majority of Council member will find it refreshing to work with Mr. Scrima.

So if you believe as I do that we need to think nationally by acting locally, please vote for Jeff Scrima.