As we sat in the  Milwaukee County Finance and Audit Committee meeting today, the intern turned and asked me "Aren't they supposed to be listening?"

She'd never been to a county committee meeting before, and I think she was both fascinated and horrified. There were long periods of dull and mostly inaudible reports followed by a stretch of great political theater. That was the part for which we had come.

"These meetings go on all day," I said, trying to be charitable. "Sometimes they just check out for awhile." "They" were the county supervisors on the committee. Another disinterested group was the men reading Wall Street Journals while waiting for their agenda item. Whatever that was, it wasn't mass transportation.

Cutting routes and raising fares was the budget directive. Among the agencies I was with, the scuttlebutt was that county executive Scott Walker was getting citizen calls to restore routes, but not to restore lower fares. I was there to show support for both. Increased fares are a special hardship for people on fixed (or declining) incomes and Paratransit users--people who can't ride the regular buses because of physical impediments.

The meeting turned from cranky discussion of delayed maintenance of county buildings--and the huge remediation costs that are mounting--to electric. Just about everyone was frustrated by the failure to provide good public transportation that would help support the county's ability to reinvigorate itself.

A couple committee members used this item as a platform to deride Scott Walker and his budget. And in a rare show of solidarity, nearly all the supervisors showed up in the audience to support route restoration, including Tosa Supervisors Jim Schmidt and, I think, Lynn DeBruin.

Board Chairman Lee Holloway rose to introduce an amendment to restore the routes.

Then the public had a chance to speak. But it wasn't the Paratransit folks with their wheelchairs and hand-lettered signs who touched those present. It was the parents, teachers, and students of Ronald Wilson Reagan College Preparatory High School who raised the emotion in the room.

This south-side charter school won its certification to operate exclusively on the International Baccalaureate program last year. Students who graduate from such a program enter college anywhere in the world as sophomores. Only a few years old, the school's composite test scores exceed state averages in reading and language arts and approach them in math. It's a huge accomplishment for a Milwaukee school.

Some 70% of students ride the #20 bus to school. It's one of the routes scheduled to be cut. Without transportation, many kids won't be able to attend, and the school's existence will be threatened.

And as a west-side Tosa parent who had to rely on the illusion of public transportation for students, I'll vouch for those who said that the budget offer of one bus in the morning and one at night cuts kids and their parents out of the full life of the school, including extra curriculars and extra help.

Why should we in Wauwatosa care about what happens to kids in Milwaukee or people with disabilities? Why should those of us with personal transportation care about mass transportation? I won't give you the moral answers or the anticrime ones. But the business of transportation isn't just moving goods and people. It's moving the economy by connecting people with jobs, education, and opportunity.

And you can't expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when you've cut off their "feet."

In fairness to Scott Walker, a decent transit system is beyond county resources. It needs a dedicated funding source, as all successful city and regional transit systems have. But until that becomes a possibility, we need to provide affordable transportation to the people who need it most.

We had to leave before the end of the meeting. My guess is the committee accepted Holloway's amendment, Walker will veto the transit budget, and the board will override his veto.

I don't know what will happen with fares. You can call Walker and your supervisor to ask them to hold the line on fares, especially for Paratransit users. It's essential, not a luxury.

Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake” (or brioche, as the case may be) when told the people had no bread. But whoever put the words in her mouth found a great way to show the gap in understanding between the have-a-lots and the have-a-lot-less.

Proposed cuts in transit and hikes in fees in the 2008 Milwaukee County budget sound a lot like telling those who can’t afford or can’t drive cars to ride limos.

A few people in Wauwatosa might be in for an unpleasant surprise. If you live on about 122nd and Cherry, and you ride Transit Plus because you can’t get on a bus without help, you won’t have to worry about the stiff fare increase.

That’s because you’ll no longer be in the service area.

The reduced service area looks like a wildly undifferentiated amoeba with scalloped edges and odd pockets of no coverage. Come to think of it, so does the entire Milwaukee County Transit System map from which the Transit Plus service area is derived.

I’m not sure why Milwaukee County doesn’t “get” the importance of public transportation. Vital communities do, and that’s one reason they are vital. Managers, workers, shoppers, students can get where they need to go to do what they need to do to drive the economy (not to mention their personal lives) without the enormous costs and, yes, hassles of personal vehicles.

If you ask me, parking lots aren’t the most attractive ways to develop a community, and they don’t create a lot of jobs and revenue.

The proposed Milwaukee County budget for 2008 is full of cuts that hurt the poor and the vulnerable. Lack of money isn’t the only problem, although it’s a big one. Political posturing between the county executive and the supervisors is another. Given Scott Walker’s probable support for some kind of regional transit system—the only kind that makes sense--who knows what the transportation budget drama really means?

One thing seems sure, though: worsening transportation isn’t likely to produce cheerful campaign marchers with slogans like “We’re all walkers for Walker,” especially among those who use walkers.

There's an old joke: what letter do all pirate words start with?

"Arrrggghhh!"

Or maybe that should be "grrrrrrr" for greed.

Are you a pirate seizing bounty you haven't earned? Are you greedy?

Imagine this: your old coworker tells you that she just got her pension increased by 25% because of a clause in the agreement that says, well, she can. It’s legal, and you’re eligible, too.

Do you say “Oh, sorry. I can’t do that! It wouldn’t be good for the people of the County. That money belongs to them”?

Or do you say “Oh man. That will really help out with the medical bills and my kid’s tuition!”?

I don’t know about you, but I know what I’d do. I’d take the money with gratitude and relief. I wouldn't see myself as a pirate.

Of course, I wouldn’t be eligible for the kind of “bonus” top officials would get, for some a matter of $30,000 a year. That’s on top of what they were getting before. Interestingly, the ones with the most to gain are those who were responsible for setting up, buying into, and administering the system.

Are they pirates--or entrepreneurs in the great American tradition of cutting your own best deal?

Have we ever asked business management to forgo the old golden parachutes and extravagant bonus/stock option features for the good the company, the employees, or most important, the investors?

Arrrrgggghhhh! Not that I can recall.

Milwaukee County government needs to clean up its pension trainwreck now. Scott Walker’s been talking about doing that for a long time. But the County needs to take care of the rest of its business, too. It’s awfully tempting to concentrate on this and forget the other serious business in health, human services, and infrastructure facing the County in its budget considerations.

It’s time to talk about taxes—not money seized but the dues we pay to live as citizens in a free society that provides individuals and businesses with some of the services they need to succeed. Roads (and safe bridges) to transport goods and people. Public transportation so people can travel economically. Affordable, accessible healthcare for the old, the poor, and the rest of us.

And for that, as well as the temporary legal fees to clean up its current mess, the County needs a raise. (I'm steering clear of the question of the supervisors' salaries--that's another topic!) It’s not a matter of greed, it’s a matter of a little more now or a lot more later.

There's a third alternative, I suppose. Further deterioration and putting more of the costs on those who can least afford them.

Are we greedy or are we willing to pay our way? Pirates or citizens?

Time will tell whether we exhale the ggrrrrr of greed --or exasperation with the ongoing mess--or the aahhhhh of relief in solving a problem that won't go away by yelling about it.