Uppity Wisconsin

Faced with the prospect of answering to Milwaukee citizens, those running for city-wide office should be offering creative and proactive ideas to address critical City issues.

Forget your turf wars, and the politicians’ it’s-not-my-job excuses, get off your ass and do something. Right?

Make coalitions with city-wide officials, make inaction a dirty word. Do something to be part of the solution.

At least all agree with that, right? Wrong.

For stating: "The city attorney stood on the sidelines while the federal government was forced to clean up the Milwaukee City Council … We can unite the city by fighting crime, protecting families and standing up to public corruption," state Rep Pedro Colón, the Democratic state legislator running for city attorney in Milwaukee, gets blasted by Mike Nichols of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today, among other enemies of an engaged City Atty.

Nichols calls Colon’s get-off-your-ass-and-do-something approach (that's my description) mere “self-aggrandizing.”

Sneers Nichols, “After that, I guess, he (Colon) will leap tall buildings in a single bound, eliminate murder in all major U.S. cities and then put away O.J. once and for all.”

Why the ridicule? What the hell is wrong with calling for uniting the City and clarifying existing policy to focus attention on real problems that real people have encountered.

From his comfortable perch, Nichols wants candidates for this city-wide office to tamper down hopes of what the city attorney can contribute, and not try to unravel issues that citizens of Milwaukee recognize as serious concerns.

Those suggesting otherwise certainly ought not to be the object of mocking.

One hitch with the Nichols’ do-nothing-and-ridicule-anyone-who-says-otherwise mandate; it’s been tried and it doesn’t work out so well.

It’s likely that Nichols’ proposed it’s-not-my-job, let-someone-else-take-care-of-it approach to addressing serious issues will fail miserably at the ballot box, as it should.

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