October 29, 2018 at 4:41 p.m.
Meier says his campaign is about getting things done
Former teacher promises a full time effort
Meier says his campaign is about getting things done
Meier, the Democratic nominee, is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Rob Swearingen in the Nov. 6 election.
"I'm running because I believe rural voices really matter, not as a part-time sideline but full time all the time," Meier told The Lakeland Times in a recent interview. "Our campaign is about local issues, not outside interests. It's about practical needs, not politics as usual."
And his campaign, Meier says, is not about getting into political arguments.
"It's about getting things done," he says. "We recognize that, before all else, we're friends, we're neighbors, and we're family. And we live in communities, not political parties. That is what our campaign is all about."
Meier is a Wisconsin native, born in Milwaukee into a single-parent family.
"My mother raised four of us essentially by herself, but with help from the extended family and with help from the community as well," he says. "So it was kind of a tough time growing up. I was one of those kids I suppose that today they call an at-risk kid. I could have gone either way. I was doing a lot of running around when I was younger and fortunately for me I ran into some good people, and I ran into some good teachers."
Meier says he went on to serve in the United States Army from 1972 to 1974.
"When I came out of the Army, I used my GI bill to go to college," he says. "I was the first member of my immediate family to graduate from college and then I became a classroom teacher. I served as a classroom teacher for 24 years, 16 of which were in Vilas County, in Phelps."
In Phelps, Meier laughingly says he was "the English Department." After his nearly quarter-century tour as a teacher, Meier took up another public-service endeavor, as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Nicolet Area Technical College.
"I was their service learning coordinator, and then they hired me after that and I served in their Academic Success program for a couple of years before I transitioned out and became a substance abuse counselor," he says. "I went back to school and went through the UW Madison substance abuse program and now I work for a small business. We're essentially a private social service agency, New Horizons - we have two offices, one in St. Germain and one in Rhinelander. And now I'm a candidate for state representative."
Sulfide mining
In general, Meier says, he understands that mining is necessary in the modern world, but he says sulfide mining presents unique problems.
"My general take on mining is that I don't have a problem with it," he says. "I really feel that it is a part of our economic mix up here in the 34th Assembly district. On the other hand, I think sulfide mining is a horse of a different color and particularly sulfide mining in a designated wetland on county forest land."
If it were in an area zoned manufacturing or commercial, that would be another matter, Meier said.
"I think the bigger issue is one of local control," he says. "I see this as comparable to shoreland zoning. I've been to county board meetings, I've been to town board meetings, and I have been to a lot of school board meetings, and I have the utmost respect for our locally elected representatives and what they do, and I think they are one of our greatest natural resources up here."
As such, Meier says, he supports them in this kind of decision making, and he said he really thinks the mining issue in the town of Lynne is one of local control.
"Generally speaking, when we are talking about local control, we're talking about what's closest to where we live," he said, in this case the town, but he says the county should have a role, too.
"I realize that this is on county land, so I think that's where that should be decided rather than having the state come in and decide," he said.
Open records and transparency
If elected, Meier says he would support and lead the fight for legislation that would bring the state legislature under the open-records retention law. The legislature requires a retention of records for seven years for almost all agencies, but exempts itself from the law.
"Not only would I bring the legislation forward, I would go to bat for it," he says. "I'd fight for it. It's easy to take votes on things, but a lot of those votes just don't go anywhere unless you follow up on them."
Ensuring open records and transparency is a huge part of how we conduct our business as a democracy, Meier says.
"I see our campaign as a community-wide conversation, and hope to engage all our stakeholders in that conversation and to be transparent in what we're doing because they need that in order to make those informed decisions that really impact their lives," he says. "They really need that kind of information."
In addition, Meier says, as state representative he would make sure he is engaged with all the communities in the district and with stakeholders, by having regular office hours in addition to a website, email, and phone number and by actually being physically present in the district on a regular basis.
"Our voices really matter, and our folks do feel like they are not being heard, that they are being left out of the conversation," he said.
Meier says he will work to change that, and to improve the tone and quality of civic dialogue. He pointed to former Gov. Tommy Thompson's new book, "Tommy: My Journey of a Lifetime," as inspiration.
"He looks at the current state of our civic conversations and he just can't recognize us anymore," Meier said. "That we are not really talking with each other. My whole approach has been to engage in conversations, to get the stakeholders around the table, and to listen to each other. And I approach things in a collaborative and bipartisan way."
It's important to look to the future, Meier said, rather than finger point about the past.
"In terms of our total conversation as a body politic, my approach is, rather than looking back and trying to assign blame, what I've been taught is to accept responsibility for the future, and I really believe in that," he said. "I believe in paying it forward, not passing it forward, and passing it forward is what we've been doing. You can see it with roads. We have no 'there' there in terms of a long-term strategic comprehensive plan to finance our transportation system."
Transportation and schools
As far as funding roads, Meier embraces the Fix It Coalition's call for transportation sustainability.
"Our current governor did commission a study in 2011," he said. "It's called 'Keep Wisconsin Moving.' It had a statewide bipartisan coalition of stakeholders, experts in transportation policy, and that was the report that came out of those conversations and that group. It came out in 2013, I think. Everybody was on board. They were ready to move forward with this, and it is a comprehensive, common-sense approach to funding our roads and our transportation system."
The core of the plan is looking at ways to actually pay for roads in a fiscally responsible way, Meier said.
"In other words, pay it forward, not pass it forward," he said. "A gas tax increase is part of the mix because we got rid of indexing in 2006. There's open road tolls. There's just this whole wonderful toolbox of approaches to a sustainable policy of funding transportation in Wisconsin. But it got shelved. It's been there ever since."
The Keep Wisconsin Moving report released in 2013 offered the following recommendations: Raise the state motor fuel tax by five cents per gallon; adopt a new mileage-based registration fee for passenger cars and light trucks of approximately one cent per mile traveled; increase annual registration fees for commercial vehicles by 73 percent; increase the fee for an eight-year driver license by $20; and eliminate the sales tax exemption on the trade-in value of a vehicle.
Beyond that report, a model resolution for local governments pushed by the Just Fix It coalition calls for "a sustainable solution: one that includes a responsible level of bonding and adjusts our user fees to adequately and sustainably fund Wisconsin's transportation system."
"We're talking about the Transportation Development Association, the Wisconsin Counties Association, Wisconsin Towns Association, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities," Meier says of the Just Fix It coalition. "They are all on board with this and they are just waiting, but in our current legislative climate nobody wants to make those hard decisions."
It's just kick the can forward, Meier said.
"We're incurring this debt and it is not sustainable," he said. "These are Band-Aids. You see this flurry of construction every summer but essentially what we are doing is just putting Band-Aids on, and we really need to fix the system."
When new revenue for roads is generated, Meier emphasized, it will not get his vote unless a substantial sum of the new money is distributed to counties, towns, and other local road maintenance and construction.
School funding is another thorny issue. Meier said Act 10 was presented as a way to fix public education and funding public education, but he said we had all heard that before.
"You may remember when the lottery was first presented to us," he said. "That was going to fix public education. We've had all these silver bullet approaches to fixing public education and we're still having these conversations."
Every two years we go into a horse-trading mode where we pit one interest group off the other, Meier says.
"My sense is that, looking at public education, we have a comparable situation with what is going on with transportation," he said. "As a classroom teacher in Phelps, we had to go to referendum early, and while I was in the district we did it five times and our referenda passed each of those times."
Meier said he recognized early on that that was not sustainable for the Phelps' district because they were considered to be a property-rich and income-poor district.
"So we were really penalized with the current funding formula," he said. "So I became involved in a statewide bipartisan coalition of rural stakeholders and we got sparsity aid back in 2007 and it's been there ever since, supporting our rural schools - tens of millions of dollars in support for our rural schools."
But again, Meier said, like the roads, it was only intended to be a Band-Aid - to get to a place where a new funding formula could be devised.
"And that is where I think we really are right now," he said. "I think both candidates for governor recognize that. Our current governor has a commission that is working on that right now, and our current superintendent of public instruction has what is known as the fair funding proposal and the whole point is that we need to get off our reliance on property taxes."
Meier said the two big flaws of the current school funding formula is its over-reliance on property taxes and its over-reliance on categorical aids.
Meier said he had not seen what Walker's commission is recommending, but he has reviewed Tony Evers's fair funding plan.
"What I would support as state representative is that we have a base of support for our students and that we get to a place where we are not constantly having to go to referendum because on Nov. 6 there are going to be $1.6 billion worth of referenda," he said. "That's a property tax. So I would like to take a look at what is going on here, and then I would vote for something that would support our folks up here."
Rural infrastructure and the economy
When it comes to economic development, Meier says there are two critical components: transportation and broadband.
"Transportation is a huge piece of the hardware that we need," he said. "Tourism, manufacturing, education - it's how we get to work. It's how we get to our medical appointments. It's how our goods and services get into our community. It's how we plug into the greater economy."
And it's the same thing with broadband, Meier said.
"That's another big piece of the hardware that we need to plug into," he said. "My sense is, were we to have real robust, reliable, and reasonably rated broadband up here, it would be a game changer for our communities."
Yet we just keep waiting. Meier said.
"The joke is that back in 2011 broadband was promised to us and some of our families started to download their family albums and they're still waiting for those downloads to complete," he said. "Good things have been happening, but relative to what's been happening with our neighbors in Michigan and Minnesota, and in Iowa, we've been investing millions of dollars in rural broadband connectivity. On the other hand, they've been investing tens of millions of dollars. And if you want to use the metaphor of the information superhighway, they are looking in their rear view mirror at us right now."
What's more, Meier said, there is every indication that the so-called network that we are putting together will be obsolete by the time it is finished.
Again, Meier said, getting broadband done for everyone once and for all would be a game changer for the region - for boosting middle-class jobs and for curbing the outmigration of our kids.
Other issues
Meier says he would support legislation to allow concealed carry of a firearm without a permit.
"I support the 2nd Amendment," he said. "I feel very comfortable with firearms as a veteran of the U.S. Army. I feel safe with guns in my house. My wife and I both own guns. Neither of us of us hunt anymore, but hunting is a big tradition in our house. Our sons do."
Meier says that, though he has never felt the need to carry a concealed weapon, he understands it.
"I think that where we need to proceed there is with common sense," he said.
Meier says that, in the Northwoods, when it comes to firearms, it's part of the culture.
"When it comes to guns up here, we have a long tradition of having them," he said. "It's part of who we are, and I think our relationship to guns is different than it is in other places. One size doesn't fit all, and that's true with gun policy. For us up here in the Northwoods, if there is an issue with firearms, generally it's related to suicide, not homicide."
Meier says he does not support legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.
"I'll just be straight up, as a substance abuse counselor, I have a real problem with that," he said. "It's generally sold as one of these silver bullet things for our economy. We're going to get all these benefits and jobs. But whenever I hear something that sounds too good to be true, it usually turns out to be too good to be true."
As such, he said, the state needs to use great caution when considering legalization.
"On the medical marijuana piece, there are 30 states with legislation on the books," he said. "Michigan has it, Illinois has it, Minnesota has it, and there is a growing body of evidence showing that there are actual medicinal benefits to controlled prescription cannabis use. So I think we can take a look at that."
Meier said public service is an integral part of his life and much of that calling he says he owes to an early teacher and influencer.
"A lot of it has to do with early and positive influences in my life, particularly Sister Milo," he said. "It took a while for me to get it, but she taught me that to whom much is given, much is expected in return. I have tried to live that lesson, and that is why I got into public service."
Richard Moore is the author of The New Bossism of the American Left and can be reached at www.rmmoore1.com.
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