Doyle Building Scandal
Gov. Jim Doyle must have been hoping and praying no more scandal would appear before Election Day. His prayers weren’t answered, and now he’ll have to answer questions about a Milwaukee building development:
The new project is a six-story dormitory for University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students at North Avenue and the west bank of the river. To oversee the $23 million development, UWM has created a new real estate foundation, a private nonprofit that in turn operates as an arm of another private nonprofit, the UWM Foundation. That makes the new dorm project twice removed from UWM.
Why go to all of this trouble? “It eliminates cumbersome and costly state processes,” notes Sherwood Wilson, UWM vice chancellor of administrative affairs. Translation: no need for a public bidding process or any other procedures that regulate our tax dollars. Thus, a project created for a government entity, UWM, in cooperation with the state Department of Administration (UWM credits several DOA officials) will be done as though it’s a private-sector development.
In a UW System news release, Regent Gerard Randall, no fan of Doyle, was quoted raising concerns about the integrity of the UWM Foundation and the transparency of contractor selection. “It’s critical that the chancellor is ultimately held accountable,” Randall said.
The transparency of contractor selection, you may recall, was an issue for UWM’s Kenilworth building project. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did stories showing that KBS Construction, which was chosen to build the building through a complicated public bidding process, had donated some $43,000 to the Doyle campaign.
Sure enough, KBS Construction was chosen for this new dorm project, too. Also chosen to help build it was the engineering firm Graef Anhalt Schloemer & Associates, which has donated some $19,500 to Doyle in recent years, and Eppstein Uhen Architects, which has donated a mere $3,600 to Doyle. It’s worth noting that all of these companies also donated to Republicans, too; it’s how the insider game is played. But this is precisely what a public bidding process is supposed to prevent.
It’s part of the Doyle pattern: give plenty of campaign cash then get the government goodies. It fits the Adelman Travel bid-rigging scandal and the sale of a nuclear power plant in 2005.
As Owen Robinson puts it,
So it appears that someone (read: Doyle or his minions) has rigged the process to bypass any public oversight for the benefit of Doyle contributors. Don’t you wish that Doyle went through this much effort to grease the wheels of government when a private business (read: Menard’s) needs something?
And as Brian Fraley would put it, “Drip.”
“A Smelly Project Benefits UWM and Jim Doyle“
Hopefully Jeff can tell me where the scandal is, here. Using his logic, I don’t see it. So what if the contractor donated thousands to Doyle’s campaign. If Doyle was going to pick them to build the building anyway, it’s not a bribe, right?