Not long ago, Messrs. Telfer, Knight, and Clapper met in Whitewater with Reed Hall, so-called CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, to ‘celebrate’ another round of public money in the service of crony capitalism. These gentlemen must have thought – somehow – that all this would look grand and spectacular, that it would be met with local acclaim. They could not have been more wrong. Their supposed success is nothing of the kind; they’ve foolishly tried to promote a failed – yet still failing – agency.
Consider how things are going at the WEDC:
A high-ranking executive at the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. tendered, then rescinded, his resignation late last month, but not before leveling a withering criticism of the agency’s second-in-command, a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker.
Lee Swindall, vice president of business and industry development, in a resignation letter submitted Aug. 25, criticized his boss, WEDC chief operations officer Ryan Murray, as “lacking either the talent or experience” to function in his position and “causing deep and lasting harm” to the organization.
“Murray confuses rigid control with stability and sound management,” Swindall wrote to WEDC CEO Reed Hall.
“What he is producing instead is instability, opposition and resentment in WEDC,” Swindall wrote.
“This state of growing unrest,” he continued, “will corrode the ability of the agency to perform and reach goals, not secure it. Ryan Murray is too committed to his own consolidated power to either notice or care about the swelling discontent in WEDC. It will likely be his undoing, and I fear, WEDC will share this fate, as well.”
Everything about the WEDC, actually, is a ‘deep and lasting harm.’
If Whitewater’s local notables thought – as a matter of policy – that the WEDC’s business and market manipulation was a good idea, then they’re ignorant of good policy, ignorant of sound economics, and in the sway of a low ideology.
If, instead, they thought that, regardless of policy, they’d hit upon a public-relations triumph, then they’re ignorant of how normal and reasonable people actually perceive the WEDC. It’s a deceptive and manipulative clown-show.
As with a carrier of tuberculosis, it’s best not to get too close to the WEDC. That these local gentlemen thought it might be a good idea to offer Reed Hall a passionate embrace, so to speak, isn’t merely their private risk; support of these schemes shows a lack of public judgment as policy or public-relations.
Previously at FW on the WEDC:
- At WEDC-Sponsored Tech Festival, Local Company Announces a Move to Ohio
- WEDC Update (subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs to other countries)
- Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes)
- The Truth About the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
- WEDC Board Offers Millions to Subsidize Job Cuts