The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 2

Local Issues.

The Bad certainly has to be the crime in Milwaukee. I know the numbers can be misleading but the fact remains we have a higher murder rate per capita than New York City. That's terrible. Yes, 90% of the murders that take place are bad people killing other bad people. But, that's still not good, and it raises the chances of innocent people getting caught in the crossfire. Plus, it just doesn't make out city look good and makes certain areas of the city very undesirable. While Mayor Barrett want to claim a renaissance is taking place, it perhaps isn't in the area he believes. The other frustrating about the situation is that the aldermen, the Mayor, and the Governor all want meeings and studies to be held rather than actually do something about the problem.

Runner ups in this category are the freeways (the city does not want expansion) and rail systems (the city does want to expand this).

The Ugly? Taxes. The Common Council raised our taxes . . . and wanted raises. The County Board raised our taxes . . . and wanted raises. The Mayor raises our taxes. MPS raised our taxes. MATC raised our taxes. Fees all over the place went up. The Governor raised our taxes. Thanks to Scott Walker and republicans at various levels of government things aren't worse than they are. People are leaving the state in droves, yet, with a slight increase in city population Mayor Barrett thinks we're undergoing a "renaissance".

Runner up: The weather. Global warming my butt. And snow plowing/removal. Atrocious so far.

The Good? This wasn't a very good year for the city of Milwaukee. Still, for my family this was a banner year. I'm sure every city has it's attractions. None compare to, of course, to that which is our lakefront and the many festivals held there. Wisconsin, in general, is a great place to take a vacation. Between the festivals, State Fair, our many lakes, Door County, our Zoo, and countless other places and activities, summer is anything but boring here. From the time my daughter ended school to the time she went back, almost every weekend had some fun activity. While Milwaukee may have it's problems, it's easy to get away from it all and forget about them for a bit.