Don't blame me - blame Shakespeare. Or Dick the Butcher if you're character-driven. Some days it seems like a reasonable sentiment. Let's compare and contrast two news stories that have passed over my desk in the last day or so. They're related both to my little neck of the woods and the state as a whole.
From the Eau Claire Leader Telegram re: the last Menomonie City Council Meeting:
Approved Knaack’s appointment of the law firm Weld Riley, which has offices in Eau Claire, Menomonie and Black River Falls, for general legal counsel. John Behling will serve primarily as city attorney. Weber Law Office of River Falls will serve as the prosecution for traffic court issues. Allyson Baier will serve as the primary lawyer for that portion. City attorney Ken Schofield retired.
I had actually been wondering who the city attorney would be after Ken Schofield's retirement. Now we know the answer. But somehow that name John Behling sounds --- familiar.
At almost the same time an article appears in the Cap Times about the confidence vote and tenure laws at UW Madison. Why yes - the same John Behling who helped write the tenure law, and who is Vice President of the Board of Regents, is now the city attorney in Menomonie. To make life even more interesting, he has also spent much of the last several years representing frac sand companies. All this in the part of the state that has been ground zero from frac sand development. He has been an expert attorney in environmental issues, representing EOG Resources, Kraemer Mining and Materials, and (but of course) Menards.
Menomonie has a whole lot of environmental issues to solve. I really don't understand how we could not have found an attorney who is not so firmly in bed with the wrong side of so many issues.