I scooped the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Sonic on Miller Park Way and Burnham had a soft Grand Opening this evening.  Officially, they open at 6:00 AM on Tuesday, February 24th.  (Sponsor's Name Here)'s Official Son Mitten, will begin his employ at Sonic on Wednesday.  But as he and I were running errands this evening, I told him that I had a hankerin' for a Limeade.  He mentioned that there was a special opening for the corporate and local bigwigs tonight, but not for the general public.

I suggested that we drive past, as I'd bet that they'd open early.  Mitten (being the naive little pisher that he is) not only said "75% chance against it", but he also started to chicken out and said "I don't want to get in trouble if it looks like they aren't open yet".  As soon as we got close, we could see the signage in all it's neon glory.  Not only were they open to the public, but had a line about four cars long to pull into the parking lot at 9:00 PM.  My point to him was that there would be no way that a hyped restaurant like this could be open for a handful of cars, and turn away every other car that tries to pull in.

Remember when Krispy Kreme opened on Hwy 100?

You can tell that they are planning on a whole lotta business, as they have devised a "staging" area for cars before you are allowed into the parking lot.  You have to pull behind the strip mall just south of Rocky Rococo's and just north of the soon-to-be-opening Office Max and drive behind that strip mall.  There, a parking attendant will hold you until there is either room in the drive through or at a stall (wave to Mitten if you see him on Wednesday.  He will be a parking lot dude freezing his *** off.  I tried to tell him that parking cars on the lawn for State Fair is a lot warmer.  He insists on starting this new job anyway.)

I've only been to a few Sonics (Marshalltown, IA, Knoxville, TN, some Godforsaken part of LA between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Albuquerque, NM) but this **slurppppp** Limeade is to die for.  Mitten won't tell me all the ingredients, but I think one of them is crack.

Last Thursday, February 7th, I sent this exact same E-mail to all four mayoral candidates...

Dan Devine devineformayor@yahoo.com; Mark Nisenbaum mnisenbaum@msn.com; Thomas Tilley tilley2003@yahoo.com; and Linda Dobrowski ldobrowski@ameritech.net.  To this point, not one of the four has responded.  I don't think any of these questions are insulting, rude or otherwise offensive.  They were asked as an undecided voter.

I would like to know a little bit about your ideas on topics that are important to me...

Taxes - Will you audit city budgets in midstream?  How reactive will you be when a citizen calls you and says he caught a garbageman asleep in his truck?  Do you feel our taxes are too high?  If so, what fluff is in the budget that you feel can be cut?

Crime - A neighborhood boy is 15, and has been arrested in the last year for shoplifting from a department store, and for possesing weed.  Both times, he was given "First Offense" treatment which basically includes some community service.  As someone who knows the kid, I know he doesn't "get it".  Big picture... if all kids "don't get it", then what good are these programs?  Other cities have had success with "Broken Windows" types of poicies where small infractions are treated as big deals.  Do you think that may be successful in West Allis?

City services - I think it is stupid that I have to buy blue recycling bags, and that they have to be blue.  Although it is fine if people want to wash their garbage and cut down boxes, but I don't feel that the city should force me to do that, and I certainly don't think I should be required to pay for my recycling supplies.  I have read studies that suggest that communities spend more in resources for recycling programs than the benefit derived.  Do you feel the recycling program should be revamped, and if so, how would you approach it?

Economic development - What's the point if the roads are so clogged and slow moving that the business aren't worth getting to?  Those condos on the east side of West Allis on Greenfield Ave are going to be a road clogging disaster.  All of those condo owners and apartment residents will have cars, and they will be coming and going at all hours, all day.  With that added traffic, how many people from West Milwaukee and Milwaukee are going to want to navigate that traffic to get to downtown?  Traffic is already slow on 76th, 84th, 92nd Streets, so why shouldn't residents go towards Southridge (with two lanes of traffic past Lincoln) or Hwy 100 to shop?  How is spending resources to spur development on Greenfield Ave. worthwhile if the traffic isn't worth the hassle to go there?

Other than listening to Mark Belling, I am not very political.  I also don't have any desire to be an activist or volunteer.  I want the next mayor to believe what I believe.  Please let me know your thoughts on these topics.

For the record, I am asking these as a citizen, however, I do have a blog on West Allis Now.  Please let me know if there is anything you do or do not want me to blog about.  I don't know if your responses turn into a blog, but if they do, I would like to know up front what your boundries are.  Thank you.

(Picture me waving my finger at each of you in the international symbol of "shame on you".)

I have posted 11 blog entries since Aaron's last post.  12 entries since Steve posted last. 

And I have posted 17 times since Carol, Julie, the West Allis players and Mary Ann posted their last entries.

In fairness to the above mentioned posters, they each write a good blog.  Regardless of the dwell time in between posts (and I have been guilty of going over a full week a couple of times) each blogger has chosen his or her passion, and does a good job in expressing the intended thought.

Truth be told, most of my recent posts have been about the USBC Masters.  But that's OK.  I continued blogging about the Masters because the number of hits that I had.  My 10 entries about the Masters over the course of the week had over 1900 hits.  Granted, there very well may have been the same people checking each day, but when each entry averages 190 hits, that tells me that a lot of people every day were interested in that topic.  If my hit count would have been real low, I would have made far fewer entries.

When I first started blogging, FranklinNOW's Kevin Fischer sent me an E-mail stating that I should blog about what I am passionate about.  I also mentioned in my first entry last March that I may not blog much about West Allis.  As a matter of fact, when MyCommunityNOW editor Mark Maley and I were discussing my entrance to the blogosphere, I said up front that I don't have a lot of opinions on West Allis proper, but that I felt that what I had to say was interesting.

Now, with all that said, where in West Allis is somebody who has a passion for the city, for city government, the schools, the architecture, etc., who can write a coherent blog about what is really going on in the city?

I am not that person.  With a full time job, four kids, two dogs, two bowling leagues, an enjoyment of sporting events and very limited free time, I don't have the extra time or energy to attend school board meetings.  Or city council meetings.  Or open hearings about zoning.  Truth is, I can't comprehend most of it. (Blame the former West Milwaukee High School.  There wasn't a civics class to be found in 1984 through 1986.)

In my cynical view of life and politics, a successful candidate for any election will say whatever s/he feels will win that election.  Once in office, s/he will do whatever s/he can to maintain that office.  Those candidates with the wide-eyed, genuine stances on property taxes, school finances or development ideals usually get crushed at the polls.  If they get elected, they may try to advance the agenda, but after losing so many battles, they become one of the old guard.

As stated, I am not the one to call candidates on that stuff.  Or to push forward a public issue.  For example, I am absolutely certain that Mayor Jeanette Bell got paid off to "retire" in the form of a profitable sale of her house (in a horrible seller's market) for additional development in an area where the traffic is choking.  Maybe she floated the retirement idea, and somebody grabbed the bait, bought her off and sent her out into the sunset.  Maybe I am dead wrong.  But I am not the one to do that investigating.  I would rather check fantasy football stats.  However, somebody SHOULD be doing that checking.  What really got my goat was when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote this puff piece that mentioned how hard it was for her.  She's got seller's remorse and the MJS never even looks into the timing of her retirement and her house sale for development. (And that "I recused myself from the discussion" garbage.  I believe that like I believe that I am a World Cup goalkeeper.  She very well may have recused herself, knowing people would take care of her to get her out of the way so West Allis can be graced with yet another Walgreens.  Humbug.)

BrookfieldNOW has Cindy Kilkenny, who blogs multiple times daily about the Elmbrook School district, and about the mayor (who appears to be a shady charachter). 

NewBerlinNOW has Linda Richter, who was a former New Berlin school board memer who comments regularly about the wasteful spending of the school board (like this entry from early this week about the cost of a sign for Reagan Elementay school).

FranklinNOW has community journalists (the fancy way of calilng us "bloggers") in excess, but they have multiple players who comment regularly on the community.  Unfortunately, they usually end up arguing with each other and calling each other names, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Maybe the name calling is going to far, but civic debate on things like design of the in-construction Target store on Hwy 100 & Drexel, the school board jamming through a 5.9% increase in the property tax levy for schools or the need and agenda of an environmental commission are all laudible topics. 

West Allis residents... Are you our Cindy Kilkenny, Linda Richter or Fred Keller?  Contact Mark Maley and let's get the WestAllisNOW site acting like we belong to the second largest city in Milwaukee County.