I can see my garden from here

I was washing some windows accessible only from the roof, and when I turned around, there was the LipsYard Garden in all it's glory. Cool! So I had Charmaine hand up the camera and I got these shots. This is the main portion of the garden, with the perennials in front, the veggies in the middle, and the raspberries in back.
This is the view to the East. The stone walk connects our yard with our neighbors, Dick and Judy, and Penny.

This is the view to the West, with our corner of Arbor Vitaes.

We take great pride in our garden and yard. Too bad Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker doesn't share our passion for the outdoors. Milwaukee County’s parks system for decades was considered a jewel residents quickly pointed to with pride, but its status has taken a blow with a new national study that ranks it near the bottom of comparable metropolitan systems.

The parks department spends $49 per resident a year on the parks system, compared with the national average of $91. That amount puts Milwaukee in 63rd place out of the 75 largest cities.

The study puts Milwaukee County near the cellar in many park statistics, including the number of playgrounds, swimming pools and recreation centers. Milwaukee County ranked in the bottom 10 out of 75 cities in those categories.

We have done nothing but cut funding for parks for the last seven years. That's the tenure of County Executive Scott Walker. His insistence on budgets that freeze the tax levy are the reason the parks have deteriorated. He wants to outsource park work out, using part time seasonal workers. Only two park agencies in the United States employ fewer regular, full-time workers per capita than Milwaukee County. We employ less than half the national average.

John Lunz, president of Preserve Our Parks, an advocacy group that fights for more funding for Milwaukee parks, said seasonal workers won't provide vital winter maintenance. "Temporary workers can at best put toilet paper in the bathrooms and mow the lawn. If you contract everything out, people won't take ownership."

I'm afraid that's what's happening in a lot of American businesses. Where we used to offer careers, we now just offer jobs. Scott Walker tells us we can't afford to spend more. I would argue we can't afford to spend less.

Nick Halter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes about the parks problem, read his full story HERE.