Once again, it’s time to shake the magic martini shaker and see into the future.  Four or five ought to do it.  If we stare at the olive in the glass long enough, a vision slowly appears.  A vision of things to come, and another refill.  This year, I decided to keep the predictions to the state and local level as much as possible.

As usual, I offer these predictions in no particular order.

1. Scott Walker will be the next governor from Wisconsin, winning approximately 53% of the vote to 46% for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.
2. After the Minnesota Vikings lose to the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, Brett Favre will demand to be traded to the Chicago Bears.
3. Senator Russ Feingold will beat businessman Terence Wall 52%-48%, and GOP observers who had nothing to do with the decision will say the party should have invested more money and effort into unseating Feingold.  Those who do have influence over the amount of money and resources the GOP spends on this race will use the final result to justify not doing anything.
4. All of Wisconsin’s congressmen win re-election except for Steve Kagen and Ron Kind. Dave Obey has a really close call in his re-election race against Sean Duffy.
5. Jim Sensenbrenner increases his margin of victory over the last election even though the Democrats attempt to use the Congressman’s health as an issue.
6. The Milwaukee Brewers will see marginal improvement and not make the playoffs with a record of 83-79.
7. KISS will be elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley will issue a “Hall of Fame” box set and charge Peter Criss and Ace Frehley a “promotion fee” to offset any royalties the two might earn from the box set’s sales
8. Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson will not win re-election.  He will lose to Darryl Enriquez, formerly of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in the general election.  An opinion page columnist in the Waukesha Freeman will refer to it as “the wingtip revolution.”
9. State Representative Mark Gundrum will defeat Judge Rick Congdon.

10.  New Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki will publicly criticize Catholic politicians by name for supporting legalized abortion, domestic partnerships, and embryonic stem cell research.

11.  Science will invent a translator for Ed Garvey’s thoughts.

12.  Despite continuing coverage of his personal scandals, State Representative Scott Newcomer will win the Republican primary in the 33^rd Assembly District.  However, he will get less than 53% of the vote.  The Democratic challenger in November will not be an issue in Newcomer’s re-election.

13.  State Representative Jeff Wood will only be reprimanded by the Assembly.  In May, he will announce himself as rehabilitated, and run for re-election as an independent.  He will lose in November to the Republican.

14.  In an attempt by Louis Fortis to get more advertising revenue, Boris and Doris will review the phone sex numbers in the back of the Crazy Shepherd.

15.  Republicans will regain control of the state senate.  Leah Vukmir will beat Jim Sullivan, Ed “conspiracy theorists are patriots” Thompson will beat Kathleen Vinehout.  Vinehout’s concession speech will be in haiku.

16.  There will be no new changes to drunk driving laws next year in Wisconsin.

17.  There will be no new agreement with the Northwoods Baseball League for building a stadium at Frame Park in Waukesha.

18.  The City and Village of Pewaukee will finally merge.  Waukesha will ask if we can build a pipeline to the lake.  Sheriff Trawicki will be elected mayor.

19.  Wisconsin Right to Life will win their lawsuit to overturn a law publicly funding state Supreme Court races.

20.  Plans will be announced to close the Milwaukee Mile at State Fair Park.

21.  Americans for Prosperity-WI will have more members than WEAC by the November election.

22.  Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton will resign before the end of her term.

23.  JB Van Hollen will easily win re-election as the state’s attorney general with 56% or 57% of the vote over “that DNR guy that hates hunters,” despite not finding any terrorists.  It’ll occur to Democrats after the election that maybe they should find a candidate with experience as a prosecutor.

24.  ELO will see a revival in popularity as the musical “Xanadu” tours the country.  By the end of the year, talks will begin regarding a remake of the movie to try to follow the financial success of Mamma Mia!

25.  The mayor of Milwaukee will not be put in charge of MPS.  Not that anyone is in charge now, except for the inmates.

26.  At least one member of the state legislature will see their career come to a crashing end when their stupid behavior is caught on video taken by someone’s cell phone.

27.  Brett Davis will be elected Lt. Governor.  There will be renewed discussion about abolishing the position.

28.  Owen Robinson will be mistaken for me this year.  He’ll point out that I’m much better looking.

29.  No agreement will be made on a proposed RTA for Southeastern Wisconsin this year.

30.  Senator Russ Feingold will be seen at a restaurant on Valentine’s Day with a mirror as his date for the evening.

Bonus prediction: Jupiter will be consumed by black monoliths with the dimensions 1 x 4 x 9. The Monoliths will eventually supply the mass necessary to turn Jupiter into a miniature star. Al Gore will blame global warming.

The plans are on hold until at least 2011. Mayor Larry Nelson said he has conversed with Chad Bauer, who is to build the stadium for a Northwoods League baseball team.

Bauer has not secured financing to build the stadium. Even if he does Nelson said the stadium would not be ready for baseball until 2011. The Common Council has to reapprove an agreement with Bauer in order for the stadium to be built.

“Right now it is a moot point unless he comes up with the financing,” Nelson said. “… The ball is still in Chad’s court to see if he can come up with the investors and the financing.”

Bauer told The Freeman in September that the economic recession led to difficulties in securing financial backing for the project.

Voice messages were left on Bauer’s phone Thursday and Friday. The messages were not returned.

Of course, I reported back in October that it was unlikely anything would happen in time for 2010.

When asked if the delay has made Nelson more skeptical of the proposed stadium and team, Nelson said Bauer “acted in good faith” in renovating the current playing field at Frame Park, “…something he didn’t need to do.”

(Note: Bauer signed the standard parks volunteer form when he renovated the field, and it was not part of any separate agreement with the city.)

City Administrator Lori Luther said that the proposed Northwoods Baseball League team was not part of the budget calculations for next year.

Meanwhile, the Northwoods Baseball League added a 15th city to the list, Willmar, MN.

Willmar joins Alexandria, Brainerd, Duluth, Mankato, Rochester, and St. Cloud as Minnesota cities in the NWL; Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, and Wausau from Wisconsin; Waterloo, Iowa; Battle Creek, Michigan; and Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Chad Bauer is an owner of the Green Bay franchise in the Northwoods Baseball League who had hoped to bring the league to Waukesha.  The plan divided the community as park preservationists, environmentalists, neighbors to the park, and the Waukesha Taxpayers League opposed the planned stadium.

The agreement to build the stadium and play baseball at Frame Park had a contract date of June 1, 2009.  Nelson never signed the agreement after Bauer was unable to come up the necessary financing.  A new agreement would have to be approved by the common council who previously voted overwhelmingly for the proposal.  Nelson had hoped that the agreement could be approved with a June 1, 2010, start.   

However, Bauer has not been able to find the financial backing, blaming the poor economy.

When asked if the delay has made Nelson more skeptical of the proposed stadium and team, Nelson said Bauer “acted in good faith” in renovating the current playing field at Frame Park, “…something he didn’t need to do.”

(Note: Bauer signed the standard parks volunteer form when he renovated the field, and it was not part of any separate agreement with the city.)

City Administrator Lori Luther said that the proposed Northwoods Baseball League team was not part of the budget calculations for next year.

Didn’t we just go through all this?

Governor Doyle’s revenue collectors will also be on hand to present the child a bill for the taxes on the free baseball tickets. They won’t have to slap the babies on the behind to get them crying.

Given the *ahem* now-infamous adventure confessed by one couple during the Frame Park stadium debate, I’m afraid of how the proposed Waukesha team might up the ante. All I ask is please don’t show it on the scoreboard.

A Phoenix Heights resident asked Alderman Hernandez why he voted in favor of the stadium. “That was at a point in the time when I couldn’t go around and knock because I broke my ankle. I had a couple of screws put in so I was laid up for a long time, couldn’t walk or anything. So I was mostly relying on phone calls at my residence as well as e-mails. My plan, of course, before I broke my ankle was to go down to Frame Park, walk through Phoenix Heights, walk through the rest of the district ‘cause this is a bigger issue than – yes, Phoenix Heights is adjacent to this, but it’s also a huge city issue as well so it has to be looked at from that larger spectrum. So from the volume of phone calls and e-mails that I had plus being in law enforcement that of course I track everybody’s phone call and I look everybody up and whatnot so I got a lotta phone calls and e-mails from people saying that they were in my district that weren’t. By the time I completely tallied it up it was basically one and the same. So I had to look at it from the bigger spectrum of the city and not just the neighborhood and this is one of the issues that, of course being a brand new alderman I get thrown in the deep end right off the bat. So you know within, like, two months of being sworn in I got hit the hardest decision that I made and especially being completely limited – my wife was pregnant and she had these really bad migraines so the house was completely dark and I can’t see to do anything and it was the most probably miserable time of my life. So, and, you know, just being stuck on the couch and then since everything that I was remodeling in that room had to go in the rest of my house I could barely take my crutches to the opposite end to go to the bathroom and come back and flop down on the couch. So, unfortunately, I had to strictly rely on just phone calls and e-mails but you know my initial plan before I took that fall was to, you know, walk around like the rest of the aldermen, go down, you know, throughout the district, including Phoenix Heights, {garbled}

At this point he was interrupted by Marty Larson asking about the Alderman’s ability to walk, at which point another resident offered to get Hernandez a scooter.

Global warming has hit Waukesha.
Alderman Tortomasi said the “coldest January” caused nine water main breaks, and two in February. If you see water cascading down Arcadian or bubbling up on Broadway, call the city. And if you see water turning into steam, call Batman.

Dinner and a meeting.
February 17th at 5:00 PM the Common Council will be meeting at the Park & Rec building to go over the strategic plan. The Common Council will have dinner, and then after the meeting the whole gang will head to the council chambers. The mayor assures me it will be an inexpensive affair.

The public has to bring their own food and drink.

Lori Luther performance evaluation time.
The mayor distributed a form to Common Council members asking for input as he prepares the one-year performance evaluation for the city administrator. I for one welcome our evil genius galactic overlord.

Lights, camera, action.
Next Common Council meeting we get to see movies from the BID. Bring popcorn.

It’s for the children.
The $1.5 million dollar expansion of the children’s wing of the Taj Ma Larry library is out to bid.

Talking baseball.
The fight over the zoning for Frame Park stadium may have ended yesterday, but the issue is not necessarily dead. As the mayor pointed out to me this evening, Chad Bauer is going to have to demonstrate that he has the financial backing to build his stadium before the Common Council will approve the project going forward.

Unfortunately, we can’t go rip out the survey sticks. Bummer.

See? And Alderman Vitale thought I picked a boring meeting to attend.

Waukesha’s Big Eight:
1. The Flood. How often does a city emergency come up where a city handles it well?
2. The Great Lakes Water Compact passes, complete with a process for Waukesha to apply for a diversion. Speaking of water, you can never have enough. Where do we stick the $50 million straw?
3. Todd Gray becomes Waukesha Schools Superintendent. Already we’re seeing the changes. But do we have to have four-year-old kindergarten? Gray has ended talk of referendums and has moved the debate to reforms.
4. The great Frame Park baseball stadium debate. Compared to other cities, when we argue, we argue nicely. Unfortunately, the home team lost. But I predict we have not heard the last of some of the people involved in the argument, and this city will be better for it.
5. Bill Kramer defeating Ruth Page Jones after her squeaker victory over Steve Schmuki. It’s official. The seat is mostly safe for Republicans, especially if the Republican works hard to keep it.
6. The passing of Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus. An institution.
7. Chris Lufter steps down as head of the Waukesha Taxpayers League. Great work is done by great people.
8. Evil genius Lori Luther takes over as the new city administrator. She sends the other guy to funerals, ribbon cuttings, and to buy lunch occasionally.

Wisconsin’s Big Eight:
1. The Flood. Governor goes golfing with contributors while parts of the state are washed away. Lake Delton still recovering. Golf course got free advertising.
2. Hillary Clinton bypasses the Wisconsin primary. What? Is she lactose intolerant?
3. The state assembly falls to the Democrats. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
4. Judge Gableman defeats Justice Louis Butler. State Supreme Court race still stirs political rancor and sets the stage for the Koschnick – Abrahamson battle.
5. Great Lakes Water Compact passes. I know some on the right disagreed, but a generation from now we’ll be thankful it passed.
6. Rose Fernandez leads coalition of virtual school parents and teachers to Madison. WEAC, Democrats back down and virtual schools are saved.
7. General Motors announces closure of Janesville plant. Ripple effects just beginning. Look at Paul Ryan’s support for the auto bailout.
8. Tommy Thompson’s presidential ambitions end in the cornfields of Iowa. I never did understand the logic behind his campaign.