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Wisconsin
Newspaper Blasts Wisconsin Legislators for Rhetoric Over Smart Growth Law
Taken aback by the legislative Joint Finance Committee's 10-6 vote against the state's 1999 Smart Growth law, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel laughs at the law's three main Republican foes, Representatives Dan Meyer and David Ward and Senator Scott Fitzgerald, for ''an entertaining array of fanciful claims'' about forcing local governments to plan their future, calling these claims ''overblown rhetoric intended to cloud the issue.''
The vote came with little discussion, says the daily's editorial, quoting equally upset Republican Representative Sheryl Albers, whose press release revealed that the matter was decided in ''not more than a few hours'' and that ''the explanatory note accompanying the motion wasn't even an accurate reflection of current law.''
The law, the editorial reminds the foes, requires local communities only to adopt comprehensive long-range land use and development plans by 2010, while creating such plans openly with broad public involvement, which doesn't negate but ensures local control.
The law tells communities to address some elements but ''not what to do'' about them -- it ''does not require communities to provide a certain amount of green space or allow specific kinds of development or bar other kinds of development.'' And since no community exists as an island and since whatever one does has an impact on some others, the editorial continues, ''(p)lanning together to create communities that serve all citizens is a matter of simple common sense, not a matter of Big Brother government.''
In fact, the editorial points out, ''the real Big Brother here appears to be the state legislators who prefer making deals and decisions about this budget behind closed doors, with little or no public debate.''
Glad that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle is expected to try to keep the Smart Growth program intact, the editorial says he will need help, concluding, ''We hope that smart legislators on both sides of the aisle will vote in the interest of their constituents and provide that help.'' -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
5/15/2005
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