Senior Viewpoint
Dick Steinberg has resided in the city of Brookfield for 35 years. He served 34 years as municipal judge and has been an attorney for 50 years. He enjoys tennis, golf, biking and creative writing, which includes legal issues, sports, government and people.
He'd love to hear from you. Click here to send him an e-mail.
Driving Distractions
In the current issue of the AAA magazine presumably only sent to members, of which I am, a titled feature "Driving Distractions" is on page 19.
Mobile Police Computers
The headline journal/sentinel story "Mobile Computers allowing police to issue more tickets", is somewhat of a surprise to judges and lawyers who had no advance notice, unless published in special topic publications. The issuance of multiple citations is presumably based on an actual traffic violation which was not intended by the police officer. That raises the issue of probable cause and other constitutional rights.
The article was absent of examples of the types of violations generated by the computers, but more important the article states that the state Division of Motor Vehicles,i,e., Department of Transportation/DOT , got the software free by way of a federal grant.
Traditional Memorial Day
Memorial Day has different meanings to military families and to citizen families. Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in the nation's service, i.e., the military. During the Civil War there was decorating of the graves, reading of poetry, military exercises and singing of hymns to honor the dead from both sides of the conflict.
My Oh My Milwaukee
Having grown up living in Milwaukee for one-half of my life my memory of government is that of a German-Socialist government that was very frugal and oriented to the working people. Milwaukee was always rated as one of the cleanest and crime free cities of it's size, and had a reputation for an honest government.
My oh my Milwaukee, how times have changed. The county pension fund debacle, criminals taking over the streets, public officials convicted of various crimes and now, the use of local and state funds for personal use.
City of Brookfield Budget for 2009-2010
As expected, it is time for the city fathers to gather and exchange ideas on how to resolve the predicted budget crisis. They are already leading you to believe that the shortfall is totally unexpected because the federal and state governments did not give them advance notice and caused the dilemma.
But, every taxpayer had notice over the past 2 years, or more, that the economy was fragile, while our local government leaders rested on a false sense of security.
