December 13, 2009

License plate recognition cameras still in budget;
Gateway gets $500,000 for health lab building

While most of us were sitting on our butts Sunday watching the Packers eke out a victory over the Bears, or endangering our lives (and credit cards) at the mall, the U.S. Senate was busy approving a $1.1 trillion spending bill.

And agreeing to send $800,000 directly to Racine. The projects the bill will fund here are:
  • $100,000 to fight crime with four license plate recognition cameras to be mounted on police cars.
  • $500,000 for Gateway Technical College, to renovate and equip its Health Occupations Laboratory.
  • $200,000 for Racine’s EXCEL Program to address student risk factors and student / parent needs. This program includes age-appropriate activities in a variety of curriculum areas that address the physical, intellectual, and emotional needs of the students.
Deep in the FY10 Omnibus Appropriations bill -- which combines $447 million for federal agencies and $650 million for benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- is $850,000 for crime prevention in Southeastern Wisconsin. Milwaukee gets $750,000 of that; we get the rest, thanks to Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Gateway and EXCEL funds are part of $3.2 million for job training, education, and health care initiatives in the Milwaukee area. Most of that is going to UW-Milwaukee, $900,000, and Marquette University, $850,000.

Racine's projects are just three of 5,244 earmarks included by members of Congress, with a total cost of just under $4 billion, according to the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Another earmark that may benefit us is $3,409,000 to enhance Wisconsin’s transit system: The federal funds will be used to support Wisconsin’s transit agencies, by purchasing buses, support vehicles, vans and taxis across the state. Funding will also go to construct, upgrade and repair transit facilities and to purchase equipment to improve fleet operations and security.

We had an earlier story about the license plate recognition cameras in November, when the Senate first approved its version of the Appropriations bill, but now it goes to President Obama for signature... and disbursement. And just in time, we might add: the government's previous spending authorization bill expires on Dec. 18.

21 comments:

  1. With how many people are out of work, P1 should be creating jobs and fixing the economy and health P2. $1.1 trillion! If we keep losing jobs and businesses keeping closing and offshoring and we become more and more dependant on foreign imports, just where is the U.S. going to got money from to pay this back?

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  2. May God have Mercy

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  3. Here we go again with the Racine Police Department's camera fetish again. I've never seen a police department so obsessed with cameras. These cameras have done nothing to fight crime yet we keep buying more and building more useless COP houses.

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  4. Can you quantify your beliefs about cameras?

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  5. Thank God for this spending. Its not like we have to pay for it or anything, we just have to turn on the press

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  6. I agree with the need for the plate recognition cams, etc. It will speed up getting a run back on the plates rather that tie up the dispatch. It should also help cross reference the owner of the car who may be driving the car to see what the cops might be in for cautionwise.

    However, I agree with ANON 2:59. Although healthcare is important, we need jobs badly!

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  7. WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ALL THIS RUNAWAY SPENDING? Washington is spending this country to disaster.

    Isn't there one democrat that sees what is going on and can say no?

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  8. I tell you who will pay for it. Everyone will pay for it some how. Through much higher taxes on those that are producers which will in turn kill jobs. The Democrats and some Repubs think that the producing class is there to syphon money from. The end result is that we are going become indebted to government some us to 60% of what we make. This is just sick.

    It is obvious to me that the current administration's grand plan is to control the private economy and redistribute wealth from people that produce it and give it to those who don't. The US is becoming France.
    Local government and complicit in the scheme as well including out new mayor.

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  9. This guy has it right.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2p91dvm6M

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  10. I'd rather see 100K spent on police cameras than 200K spent on nonsense "student/parent" needs which translates into giving minorities yet more perks/programs. Just tellin' it like it is, and you know it is true. Stop being so GD PC!!!!! Thanks Obama, for NOTHING!!!!!

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  11. Let's all be honest and serious. Education is good for nothing unless there are jobs. Create jobs, then worry about education and health.

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  12. In the 19th century, several European nations came to the Caribean to block the ports of several island nations that owed them cash and hadn't paid... what's China going to do?

    Pentagon 2009-2010 Budget near One trillion dollars every year, not a peep.... but a civilian-based program borrows cash and all hell breaks out... How about carving the Pent budget by 90 percent?

    FOLLOW DEMOCRACY -(well, our way at least)-

    Give up the colonial wet dreams, let people around the world determine their fates/economies/governments be it: communism, capitalism, Socialism, autocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, fiefdom... whatever... that's Democracy.. the people choose, not the power elite via the military, police, mercenary security forces, lawyers, bankers, and corporations.

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  13. $25k for a text recognition camera? Isn't there an app for that? How about not lining up cops on side roads off Washington ave and make them cruise the neighborhoods they are parking NPAV vehicles. We seem to want to automate methods to fight real crime (drugs, violence, gangs) while throwing more man power at those crimes that actually generate revenue (speeders).

    What is the goal of our police department? To break even from a budget standpoint or, to make our community safer?

    Maybe we need to invest in some citizen policing technolgy, like college campuses have. Emergency phones scattered in at risk neighborhoods.
    Police are civil servants and we should voice our opinions on how we think they should do their jobs to best serve our community.

    $25k cameras seems irresponsible in my opinion.

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  14. Anon 11:59 PM = Uneducated tool.

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  15. Oink - oink!

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  16. Spend, spend, spend = DEMOCRATS

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  17. HOW MUCH FOR SEX ED? address the physical, intellectual, and emotional needs of the students.
    I understand they are teaching "Fisting" in sex ed now.
    I'm going to take the Joe Biden,the dems and obamas lead and spend spend spend. I am no longer a capitalist. I'm going to max out all my credit cards, default on both my cars and stop paying my mortgage. It's the only way I can become a socialist. Wears my food stamps, heating asst, rent asst and all the rest of my free-bees. I want them and I want them now. If you don't give them to me because I'm white then your a bigot.

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  18. 10:09-They have to teach that, it helps you understand what the government is doing to you!

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  19. We have the same thing going on at the state level. Can you believe this? Copy and paste this link.

    http://www.620wtmj.com/shows/charliesykes

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  20. Lovely, a multi-million dollar rest stop. Incredible

    http://www.620wtmj.com/shows/charliesykes

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  21. I'm going to be LOL and am glad all those plate scammers will now be revealed real quick with the HIGH TECH PLATE SCANNING CAMERAS.

    $500k for gateway's ? gateway gotten a bit big for its britches ? LOLz.

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