Holld On

I couldn't be everywhere today, so I am missing the public meeting on the demolition of nature in the Milwaukee River valley to continue with the reality of the Lee Holloway case. Ironically the public meeting system that was held to discuss the construction of the meeting place in Gordon Park also voted to put in a basketball court there, where are we, within a mile of U.W.M, basketball central? No court went in, so what's the point of wasting my time when I can be doing something constructive. I really don't know how they can build dorms on top of a Deep Tunnel opening anyway. I saw my first mosquito already in February, they'll put a stop to that wrong headed idea this year.

Mr Holloway has been under attack for the past year, which is a crime for any elected public official to have to put up with, since it is essentially the forced silencing of a fraction of a constitutionally free society. For an ethics board, with members appointed by the executive to attack any member of the county supervisors is a short circuiting of the republican nature of government. Does our county have a constitution? I wonder what the checks and balances are?

The real issue is that a hard core faction of all white county supervisors are the ones really behind the trouble. They launched a no-holds-barred attack to remove Mr Holloway from office. Some of this gang have already made insulting, irresponsible and false comments about him. They have even called for a meeting that was clearly illegal in a futile attempt to oust him.

These Supervisors have been aided and abeted in their efforts by County Executive Walker, the group calling themselves "Citizens for Responsible Government", and by the editorial board of the Jurinal Sespool. The racism becomes obvious when one realizes that the first Black Chairperson of the County Board is being opposed by a nearly 100% white constituency.

Mr. Lee Holloway has been a popular and respected politician ever since he ran for mayor in 1988 and was elected as Supervisor for the 5th district in 1990. Over the years he has had the good-will of the vast majority of the voters in his district, as well as the respect of his fellow Supervisors. In 2002, he was elected as Chairperson by a vote of 15 to 10, largely because a majority of the Supervisors were convinced by his outstanding record as a person of integrity who could get along with people of all races and political persuasions.

Since that time there have been many changes of personel on the Board. This happened primarily due to the many 'recall' elections (which are inevitably biased against poorer districts), sponsored by the "Citizens for Responsible Government" (C.R.G.), who even organized a recall against Mr. Holloway and worked actively for his opponent. What part of political responsibility is being actively antidemocratic? Leave our elected officials alone! Mr. Holloway was one of the few candidates to hold up against this brand of factionalist tyranny, and he won handily.

After this defeat, County Executive Walker had the audacity to appoint one of the CRG organizers to the Ethics Board, which was drawing up charges against Holloway.

The only thing that most people have heard about the situation is that an Ethics Board has drawn up these charges against Mr. Holloway which contemd that he did not report property he owned to the County Board, and that he was involved in a sale of property to the OIC, which was not properly reported.

The charge against not reporting property would be laughable if it wasn't being pretended to be serious so authoritatively. Most of the 'omissions in the reporting' occured many years ago and have no current bearing under any law, many of these have been dropped, the 60 or so charges mentioned in the paper today. Mr. Holloway has been fighting to have these phoney charges dismissed (with his own money) but his opponents persist -even though another member of the Board made the same error and no action whatever was taken.

The matter of the sale of the property to the OIC, unfortunately occured exactly when that organization was being overwhelmed with its own internal affairs, and it was them who never properly consummated the transaction that was being arranged between Mr. Holloway and the OIC. Funny how the Jurinal Sespool never seems to put it in that order and seems to omit so much information. These matters were thoroughly investigated at the time by the D.A.s office, and there were never any criminal charges ever mentioned with regard to Mr. Holloway's 'sale' of property.

The additional charge that Mr Holloway's votes with regard to the OIC may constitute a 'conflict of interest' is also without substance as all these votes had an overwhelming majority.

The real reason behind the relentless and unwarranted attacks on the chairman have little to do with the rather minor charges being made by the 'stacked' Ethics Board, they have to do with something usually unspoken and underhanded and far more serious. It has to do with the basic policy which Mr. Holloway and his supporters on the Board have pursued during the past year with reference to the County Budget.

Ever since he was elected as County Executive, Walker was running for Governor under the slogan of "Zero tax increases". The problem that became more apparent to the Chairman and his supporters was that the 'budget cuts' advocated by Walker were for the most part falling on the shoulders of the poor, the elderly and the ill. In almost every case, those with the least political clout - the minorities in other words, which real Republics are designed to protect.

As a result, under Holloway's leadership, his supporters opposed a healthy number of Walker's budget cuts, although with a slim and hard won majority on only some issues. This was enough, however, to raise the ire of the ambitious and egotistical County Executive and a number of his all-white plebian Supervisors on the Board.

This upset the C.R.G. who's palliative name masqurades as an objective voice but is really composed of factional extremists. They supported Walkers 'Zero tax increases' policy one hundred percent, how objective is that? Once Mr. Holloway started to gain support against these extremist measures, the CRG started their campaign of harassment and insults against him.

Much of our tax money has been spent by the County in their pursuit of 'Zero tax increases' a policy founded entirely upon the mechanics of further oppressing the poor and underserved minorities. The preponderance of the expense has been focused on silencing the strongest voices of our minority segments. Their use of flimsy ethical charges, can barely even work on a stacked Ethics Board and is an entire waste of tax payer money, while Mr Holloway has been defending himself entirely with his own private funds. He is right to seek for "due process under the law", him and his family deserve that since it is not a priviledge, it is a right.

During his tenure on the Board of Supervisors, Mr Holloway has fought long and hard to maintain and enlarge programs that serve the most needy and afflicted members of our community. We need more politicians like him, not fewer.