Libertarian Librarian

UPDATE: Holloway is apparently also a slumlord. Funny how the big hole got fixed the day after a photographer was out there, huh? What a guy-- and he's one of the most powerful men in Milwaukee politics. The question is, why are people defending this guy? The analogy, on the national stage, would be if President Bush threatened to zero out Dept. of Justice funding for the special counsel that was investigating his role for the Plame affair-- would these folks be okay with that? Somehow, I doubt it.

Lee Holloway is currently the Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board and is a weasel and a bully. Oh, and a thief. Give him credit for one thing though-- he's got kahonies the size of coconuts.

Here's the story. Between 1994 and 1998 a Milwaukee public service agency, Opportunities Industrialization Center, paid rent and/or purchase payments to a real estate firm owned by Holloway. Grand total of payments: $165,000. Only problem-- OIC never actually used the building and Holloway still owns it.

In 2004, some of the agency heads of OIC were convicted of participation in a kick-back scheme with then-state senator, Gary George. Some of Holloway's fellow county board supervisors had the audacity to suggest that maybe Holloway should step down as Chairman until an ethics probe into his actions was completed. Holloway responded by taking those supervisors out of positions on various committees, including the Ethics Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the Ethics case against Holloway.

Nice. Despite these bullying tactics, the ethics probe has proceeded apace, but now Holloway wants to deny them funding-- and as the County Board Chairman, he may be in a position to do just that. Got that? Holloway, as Chairman, needs only six other of the Board's twenty members to vote with him and *POOF* he can deny the Ethics Board the funding they need to investigate... Holloway.

And, of course, Holloway's defenders have played the race card, with the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP comparing efforts to even investigate Holloway to a political lynching.

But apparently the ability of the guy under investigation to deny money to the organization investigating him is okey-dokie.

Good grief.

Labels: Politics