Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin

Original Air Date: September 21, 2006

Patty Loew:

Hello, and welcome to "In Wisconsin." I'm Patty Loew. This week, follow the twists and turns involved in the story of this threatened species. Will environmentalists and developers reconcile conflicting interests? Meet a couple who look forward to retirement, only to now discover they may lose everything.

Reporter:

How long can you hold on?

Man:

How long are we going to live?

Loew:

And join this UW professor as he tries to inspire a group often written off by society. We'll also take you on a drive down one of the beautiful Rustic Roads found in Wisconsin.

Loew:

Let's say you have an animal that's scarce enough to be added to the state's threatened species list. It's a challenge in itself to recover a species, but now, up the ante and imagine that the species is only found in the most developed, and developing, area of the state. JoAnne Garrett reports.

JoAnne Garrett:

Southeastern Wisconsin. It's an explosion of development, expanding ever outward from Milwaukee. It's a veritable chorus of construction. And it's creating jobs, housing, and adding to the tax base of communities like this one, New Berlin. That's part of this story. There's another part. It can be found in some of the last patches of southeastern Wisconsin that haven't been developed.

Josh Kapfer:

Nothing.

Garrett:

But not easily.

Kapfer:

Nothing in that one.

Garrett:

Josh Kapfer is an independent herpetologist, a snake guy, on contract conducting a study for the Department of Natural Resources. He's looking.

Kapfer:

A toad.

Garrett:

On some of these last patches for a snake.

Kapfer:

On to the next fence which hopefully will not disappoint.

Garrett:

The object of his pursuit is called the Butler's Garter Snake. It's on the state's threatened species list, and though this herpetologist beats the bushes --

Kapfer:

Watch out for that mud there. It's slick.

Garrett:

And rids his trap with more common creatures.

Kapfer:

Rodents.

Garrett:

The snake proves rare, even on a site that has been designated as prime habitat for the butlers.

Kapfer:

We're almost through 30 of the traps right now, and we haven't caught a butlers yet.

Garrett:

Fortunately for us, and for you, the viewer, he saved this guy caught in a trap the previous day.

Kapfer:

This is a butler's garter snake. This is the snake in question.

Garrett:

Nonpoisonous, the butler grows up to 18 inches, and unfortunately in Wisconsin, it seems to live only in the southeast. And no, you can't move them. Scientists believe that they won't thrive in other parts of the state.

Kapfer:

Basically it's being pushed into smaller and smaller areas, and now those areas are being completely eliminated. And so that's really the issue.

Garrett:

The story starts nearly 10 years ago. George Meyer, former head of the D.N.R., now president of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

George Meyer:

In 1997 some of the leading herpetologists petitioned the Department of Natural Resources and asked that the butlers be included on the State's threatened species list.

Garrett:

It's hard enough to recover a species that lives in a relatively wild place. It's really tough in a more urban environment, which brings us back to New Berlin and their city center project. It's a mixed use development begun in the late 1990s and originally backed by the city and two developers and home to the butlers garter snake.

Greg Kessler:

The overall development is around 75 acres.

Garrett:

Greg Kessler is a community development analyst in the city department and was intimately involved in the city center and planning for and around the snake.

Kessler:

We were sort of finding our way.

Garrett:

It was early in the process, and there were problems. The biggest was where to site this road.

Kessler:

It's like when you go through the alternative analysis, can the road go here, go there? And it took about two, two and a half years, all because of the snake.

Garrett:

And they lost time and one of their developers.

Kessler:

So we struggled, and at that time the developer, the LLC that was in the northern portion here, wept bankrupt. The carrying costs on this particular development and the land values here in Waukesha County, the carrying costs are quite extensive. So I think it was incredibly frustrating from the city's perspective.

Garrett:

Other communities echoed New Berlin's concerns, and in 2004 the legislature got involved.

Meyer:

The joint review for administrative rules was approached by the builders in the state in southeastern Wisconsin saying, this is causing us major problems.

Garrett:

In response, the DNR came up with a recovery plan. Snake habitat was divided into three tiers, and the lower quality, tier one and tier two sites, could be freely developed, no restrictions. Kapfer and others felt that was a huge concession.

Kapfer:

That's really unprecedented for a threatened species, to say look, you can develop what turns out to be thousands of acres of butler habitat.

Garrett:

But the DNR felt that the snake needed 65 tier three sites, high quality habitat, and only 31 of those are on public lands. On the remaining tier three sites, developers could develop, but they would have to make concessions, employ snake mitigation techniques that might involve burning prairies to restore habitat, or installing fencing, or sometimes it might involve much more. Gary Casper is a herpetologist and an expert on butlers garter snakes.

Gary Casper:

Right here we see a graphic example of snake habitat being bisected by a new road. This was a snake habitat that was a tier three classification.

Garrett:

Here, they modified a water conveyance pipe so that it can also serve as a wildlife tunnel. Light at the end of the tunnel for the snakes to slither toward and rocks on the ground to slither over. It's sometimes called a connecting corridor, and it's part of a trend in our developing world.

Casper:

These kinds of wildlife tunnels have been used on a number of highway projects throughout the world. The leaders have been the Florida Department of Transportation that's built tunnels for cougars and tortoises.

Garrett:

But cougars and tortoises have a few more champions, a bit more charisma than snakes.

Kapfer:

It's one of the reasons why this groups of animals have been so understudied.

Garrett:

July of 2006, a new twist. The butlers was back in the headlines. The same committee, the joint committee for the review of administrative rules, voted to suspend the snake's status as a threatened species by October 1, unless the DNR complied with a list of changes drafted by the committee. It was an unprecedented turn.

Meyer:

This would be the first time that an animal was taken off either a state or federal threatened and endangered species list for nonscientific reasons, for economic or political reasons.

Garrett:

Turn again, it was pointed out that if the snake loses its state protection and its numbers continue to decline, another character enters the story, the feds.

Meyer:

I've been on conference calls with four or five of the top experts on butlers in the United States. They are to a person gravely concerned about the future of this species, and clearly believe it could be put on the federal list legitimately.

Garrett:

And if the butlers goes on the federal list, rules about the snake could get even tougher.

Meyer:

No one wants to do that. We should try to solve our own problems in our state.

Garrett:

And they may have. In yet another turn, developers, the DNR, and environmentalists, have met over the last month to create a kind of a business plan for the snake that they hope to present to the committee.

Kessler:

It's never been about whether we should preserve the state in a habitat. Of course, we should. It's threatened species in the state. The question is the process. There wasn't predictability.

Meyer:

Candidly, I think the development industry is in a legitimate position. Is this going to take 20 years, are we going to have to deal with it, or is it five years or three years or whatever?

Garrett:

The next turn is up to the committee in this story of the butlers garter snake.

Meyer:

It's a process which often isn't the most attractive kind of story, but really behind the scenes that's what, in fact, saves species, people with good will coming together with resource to say this is a problem. Let's solve it.

Loew:

As for the next chapter in the story of the butlers garter snake, the ball is now in the court of the legislative committee. The group of developers and environmentalists and DNR officials that created the plan mentioned in JoAnne's report hope their proposal will be considered by the committee. We'll let you know what happens.

Loew:

It's time for this week's "What's the Plan?" report, where we ask the candidates for governor to address some of the issues facing Wisconsin citizens. This week, Frederica Freyberg introduces us to a retired couple with an uncertain future. Many of us look forward to retirement. And certainly all of us hope to be financially secure when we retire. Well, despite putting away a nestegg, this couple found that rising taxes may lower the boom on their plan for the sunset years.

Don Brockman:

It seems unfair. You've saved your money for years so that you can stay in your house for those extra few years.

Frederica Freyberg:

But Diane and Don Brockman don't know how much longer they can afford to stay in the house they built 42 years ago. The home they raised six children in, home to so many memories over the years. The Brockmans built their house for $19,000. Similar ones in their neighborhood on Madison's east side are now valued in the $200,000 range.

Freyberg:

How long can you hold on?

Don Brockman:

How long are we going to live?

Freyberg:

The problem for this couple? Paying their property taxes on a fixed income, an income they say that since they retired five years ago averages about $26,000 a year. Their 2005 property tax bill came in at nearly $4,300, $4,275.03 to be exact.

Diane Brockman:

A sixth of our income is going for our taxes. So what are we living on if we have to spend a sixth of our income? What are we going to live on?

Freyberg:

Accord to tax records, over the past five years the bill has jumped more than $300, but last year the Brockman's actually paid less than the year before by $30. They say it's still a big number, a number that's taking a big bite out of their retirement years.

Diane Brockman:

I don't like seeing my money being spent on taxes, when I'd like to be out traveling and doing different things and going places, but you'd have to limit what you do.

Freyberg:

The Brockmans say they'd like to see a new law to reduce the property tax burden for retirees living on fixed incomes. But to tie property taxes to income, we're told, would require a change in the state constitution. That's an unlikely change that in any case wouldn't come soon enough to ease the Brockman's burden.

Diane Brockman:

I think that we eventually will end up selling our home and probably renting just to avoid the taxes.

Freyberg:

Taxes, and especially property taxes, are a hot button political issue. With that in mind, we asked the candidates for governor, "What's the plan?" when it comes to property taxes in Wisconsin? Incumbent democratic candidate Jim Doyle.

Jim Doyle:

I signed into law the tightest property tax limits in the history of the state. And on an average home property taxes raised went up less than 1% last year, and in the coming December, the increase will be even less than that, likely to be a 0% increase. And that's done by making sure that the state is stepping in and helping to fund more of the local services. So that's why 2/3 funding for schools are so important.

Freyberg:

Jim Doyle says he also wants to further reduce property taxes by giving incentives to local governments if they lower their costs through efficiencies, like consolidation of services. Republican candidate for governor Mark green.

Mark Green:

The truth of the matter is taxes are taking up more of your income today than they were four years ago. And as a result of the governor's veto of the property tax freeze not once, but twice, but three times, your property tax is $600 million higher. The property tax burden is driving seniors out of their homes. It's driving young people out of the state. We have to lower the tax burden.

Freyberg:

Mark Green says he wants to root out state government waste starting by spending less on information technology contracts. Wisconsin Green Party candidate Nelson Eisman favors universal health care and fully funded education, including college tuition. He has this to say about property taxes.

Nelson Eisman:

I have great news for the people of Wisconsin. I'm eliminating the property tax on your primary residence. Gone. How will we pay for the programs that I describe? By going back to an idea that Bob La Follette brought to the state when he was a third-party candidate 30 years ago. We need a progressive income tax.

Freyberg:

Nelson Eisman says anyone earning over $250,000 would pay a 10% premium on their income tax.

Eisman:

Anybody here vote for that? Could I have a straw poll right here in my back yard? Come on. Get them up!

Freyberg:

Theatrics aside, we took the candidate's plan to an expert on taxing and spending. Dale Knapp is a researcher for the Wisconsin taxpayer's alliance. Knapp says Doyle's plan works in the short run by relying on shifting of funds.

Knapp:

The big change came in school districts, where we added significant school aid. And you combine that with the revenue caps that are already in place, and school levies went down a half a percent, and school levies are 40% of your property tax bill. And so that was what really kept the overall number in check. There was a price we had to pay, in that we took money from the transportation fund to fund that. And now we're finding that the transportation fund really is underfunded. And so, you know, there was a price we had to pay for that freeze.

Freyberg:

Green favors freezes like those proposed in the republican legislature referred to as the taxpayer bill of rights, or TABOR.

Knapp:

Even under the strictest TABOR that we saw, taxes would have still gone up. Much slower, but they would have still gone up. Some people think that the only way we can really limit property taxes is by the state imposing limits on local governments. That goes against years and years of really the philosophy of local control in the state.

Freyberg:

Knapp says this on Green's plan to root out wasteful government spending.

Knapp:

There's probably less of that at the state level than there was several years ago, so it's a way probably to generate some dollars, but it's not going to be -- I don't think it's going to be significant dollars.

Freyberg:

And then the expert comes to the Nelson Eisman idea for property taxes.

Eisman:

Gone.

Knapp:

To get rid of the property tax completely is going to be a problem. I don't know how you're going to fund local governments. And again, if you start thinking about the state funding local governments, you know, then you have a problem, in terms of local governments, it's not our money. We're not accountable for raising the money so that you have an accountability issue.

Freyberg:

As for Eisman's idea of taxing the rich at a premium, he says they'll leave the state.

Knapp:

You're going to lose more of the top earners. And those are the kinds of people that ultimately end up investing in small businesses, investing in new research, etc. And so I think it would be detrimental to lose that. So having already one of the highest income taxes in the country and then bumping that up I think would cause other problems.

Freyberg:

One problem Don and Diane Brockman have is a feeling that government isn't accountable for their hard-earned money.

Don Brockman:

It's so easy spending somebody else's money.

Loew:

You can find out more about the candidates by logging on to Wisconsinvote.org, our online election year resource.

Loew:

Our final report this week is about second chances. UW Oshkosh professor Steven Richards is dedicated to the idea that higher education may be a root to turning your life around. Reporter Andy Soth reported that his passion is because of a life-changing experience of his own.

Andy Soth:

About four miles from the UW-Oshkosh campus is the Oshkosh Correctional Institution, but for these inmates it must seem a world apart.

Steven Richards:

You've seen a lot of guys leave this prison and they come back.

Soth:

Criminology professor Steven Richards is trying to bridge that cap.

Richards:

I want you to understand that this program, which is inviting convicts to college, is our way of inviting you upon leaving prison to go to the university.

Soth:

Richards has started this pilot program, a non-credit introduction to college taught by senior UW-Oshkosh criminal science majors.

Lindsay Ejnik:

I'm surprised at how at ease I feel in here. I thought there would be more of a tension between me and my classmates, but there really isn't.

Dustin Ellwitz:

The fact that they just want to help so much and that they're doing as much as they are to help, you know, get the ball going is exciting.

Daniel Sword:

So many people just spend so much time on nonsense, or how they're going to do this when they get out. And really all you hear coming out of their mouth is how they're going to come right back here. So to find some sort of stimulating conversation, what are your real dreams? What would you really like when you get out of here? We don't get a lot of that.

Richards:

You've got to plan a new future. When you get out of here go to a university.

Soth:

Richards believes higher education is the best way to keep convicts from returning to prison. It is, in fact, his life story.

Richards:

When I look back over my life, I'm not surprised I'm a professor. I'm more surprised that I had that detour.

Soth:

Raised in a Milwaukee orphanage, Richards graduated from high school in 1969 and enrolled at UW-Madison.

Richards:

During the days of rage, the anti-war demonstrations. We thought we could change the world, and maybe in some ways we did. At least for myself, it provided detours, and I think I sort of departed from the mainstream.

Soth:

The departure included dealing marijuana. Eventually Richards was caught up in a federal sting operation, charged with conspiracy to buy.

Richards:

I was convicted of distributing marijuana. I pled not guilty, had a jury trial, an appellate case, then a Supreme Court case. I pled not guilty, but I'm not innocent. I mean, I was involved.

Soth:

Richards received a nine-year sentence doing time at several federal prisons.

Richards:

So it was a shock for me to see beatings and death, to see gun towers shooting people, to see suicides.

Soth:

At that time parole was more commonly granted.

Richards:

So I walked out after three years and was okay, but if I had been there eight or nine, no. No.

Soth:

Instead, he spent those years after prison earning a doctorate in criminology.

Richards:

It would be a lot easier for me to have gotten a Ph.D. in English or chemistry, you know, and never have to talk about it again. But because I teach courses in corrections, I have to. Just to be honest, I have to.

Richards:

So when they read the felony question, they're looking right at you.

Soth:

Richards has brought that same honesty to his field leading a movement called "Convict Criminology."

Richards:

The Convict Criminology group is now something like three dozen ex-cons right now.

Soth:

It brings the prisoners' perspective, and it also encourages convicts to consider higher education.

Richards:

Upon serving their time, paying their debt to society, we would want them when they walk out of prison to have a fair chance to make it, to rejoin us in the community, and one of the ways to do that is to go to college.

Dustin Ellwitz:

Just to know that you don't have to go straight to construction when you get out. You don't have to be a janitor. You can be a college professor and be a felon.

Richards:

But you want to read serious books, college level material. And I know it's hard. I mean, I had to do the same thing. It's hard.

Jesse Rasmussen:

Oh, I know there's a lot more possibilities now. I mean, thanks to them, my whole world is instead of being small now, instead of being on parole now, I have a lot more roads to take that can better my future.

Daniel Sword:

I try to stay focused in that way. Education is the only thing that's going to keep me from coming back here.

Soth:

Instilling that hope is what drives Richards' work as a convict criminologist.

Richards:

I've met people in maximum security prisons who became friends, and people who I still think of, and I wonder if they're still alive, if they ever -- if they ever got out. There are some nights when I see their faces, I see the cell block, I see 500 men in cages. And if they read something I write, or they see me on TV, they might remember me, and they might remember that there is a way out, that there is a life after prison.

Loew:

You can find out more about the convict criminology program by logging on to our Web site at wpt.org/inwisconsin. Information on all of this week's reports can also be found there. That's our program for this week. For "In Wisconsin," I'm Patty Loew. See you next time.