As president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR), I want you to now that we invited the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Frank Busalacchi, to speak to our members on Halloween, Wednesday, Oct. 31, to stress the importance of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee (KRM) rail project and its economic impact on southeastern Wisconsin and the state.
To Small Business Times executive editor Steve Jagler, thanks for your leadership on this issue. As you know, the major employers within the region are quite concerned about this regional issue and the lack of leadership among local politicians within Milwaukee County and the state legislature will definitely come back to "haunt" them. They think that saying "no" to any new tax increases is what is good for the region, and they are dead wrong.
Most large employers know that in order to compete for the best young workers, they need to create linkages between their community and the major attractions within Chicago and Milwaukee, such as Summerfest, the arts, pro sports, universities, technical colleges, the lakes, hunting and fishing, etc.
This is a regional issue that the Milwaukee 7 has been behind, but the local newspapers other than the Small Business Times have not really understood its wisdom. In fact, the entire Milwaukee 7 effort is still operating within a vacuum as long as the local newspapers misunderstand its importance to link and market the region as part of one of the largest mega markets within the USA.
If we were in Denver, Miami or other markets that understand the importance of promoting the greater metro area, we would be responding to surveys that each of the publications would put out questioning the costs/benefits of sharing all of our public services, such as sewer, water, police, fire, public works, highway maintenance, planning, engineering, assessments, mass transit, etc. In addition, we would be reading how their readers are responding to these important surveys.
When I was in grad school at UWM’s Department of Urban Affairs in the 1970s, we learned that this was how the Miami Herald and the Denver Post and many other major metro areas got its citizenry excited about regionalization. Why are we taxpayers within the region paying for three transit administrations to operate what could be a single regional mass transit authority?
And this is only one way to reducing taxes – by becoming much more cost effective with what we are currently spending as a region. You would think this is obvious, but parochialism has paralyzed our newspapers leaders.
I don’t think they haven’t even considered how other major metropolitan publications have played major roles in regionalizing many of community services to make them less costly and more efficient for local taxpayers.
You may ask, "What is the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors?" It is the leading commercial real estate designation/association in the industry, due to its requirements: (1) seven years experience; 2) an acceptable volume of commissions; 3) two educational seminars; 4) two letters of recommendation from competing SIORs (members outside of the applicant’s brokerage); 5) becoming active within their local SIOR Chapter; 6) subscribing to a higher code of cooperative conduct and professional ethics; 7) taking continued education; and 8) paying annual dues.
I am proud and very privileged and honored to be its current president. If you can attend our luncheon with Frank Busalacchi this Wednesday at the Milwaukee Yacht Club, be my personal guest.
Robert Gintoft is senior vice president of NAI MLG Commercial in Brookfield and is president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR). He can be reached at (262) 797-9400.
