Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) apparently doesn’t want to be reminded of  the people who will feel the sting of his budget cuts.

It was revealed last week that Walker, who is proposing budget cuts in education and vital social services—many to low-income family programs—ordered removed from the governor’s mansion a painting of three Milwaukee children that the artist says he meant to remind governors how their policies impact children around the state.

In an e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Daniel Bice, artist David Lenz says:

I guess that was a conversation Gov. Walker did not want to have.

This is the second time this year a governor has removed art from a public building. In March, Maine Gov. Paul LaPage  (R) ordered a labor history mural taken down.

Posted: 04/04/2011 02:30:29 AM PDT

A Eureka landlord who lost a small claims lawsuit in October brought by neighbors of one of his rental properties is appealing the ruling and is ready for another trial in the case slated to start Tuesday.

A total of 14 neighbors living in the area surrounding the 200 block of Hillsdale Street in Eureka sued Alan Oliver Ebenstein, of Santa Barbara, each seeking $7,500 and claiming that a marijuana growing operation in one of Ebenstein's rental properties posed a nuisance that he failed to abate.

According to court documents, the neighbors argued that the pungent smell of growing marijuana plants filled the residential neighborhood, that neighbors lived in constant fear of fires from faulty wiring at the property and that armed robbers might mistakenly enter their homes instead of the grow house they claimed everyone knew to be on the block. Property values in the neighborhood decreased due to an increased police presence because of the grow house, they claimed, and neighbors stopped letting their children play in their front yards due to safety concerns.

Meanwhile, records at the Humboldt County Clerk's Office indicate that Ebenstein -- a visiting economics professor at University of California Santa Barbara, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and a former member of the Santa Barbara Board of Education -- may be in some financial trouble.

The records indicate that Ebenstein owns at least five properties in the county -- all purchased between 2005 and 2007 -- and that notices of default have been entered on properties he owns in Eureka, Arcata and Manila, including the Victorian on Hillsdale Street that is at the center of the civil case. One of the properties -- located in the 1300 block of Gibson Street in Eureka -- is scheduled to go up for a trustee's sale Monday.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_17767770?nclick_check=1

non profits hoarding billions!!

time to end their sweet dreams

Leaders of nonprofit organizations across America were stunned by reports this week in the Boston Globe and NPR's Marketplace that the City of Boston would turn its back on the nonprofit cultural, educational, and health care institutions that have played such vital roles in making that city great. What stunned nonprofit leaders nationwide is that Boston sent letters essentially mandating that various nonprofits make "Payments-In-Lieu-Of-Taxes" (PILOTs) to the city based on the value of their property....

The City of Boston is sending letters to 40 major nonprofit organizations formally requesting voluntary payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) of up to 25 percent of what they would otherwise pay if they were not exempt from property taxes. The letters went to universities, hospitals, and cultural institutions. The city expects to increase PILOT payments from the $15 million paid this year to $48 million over a five-year ramp-up period. The amounts being sought are based on a formula developed by a mayoral task force in 2009.

http://www.ecfa.org/Content/Boston-Sends-PILOT-Invoices-to-Nonprofits

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In a very nice piece of investigative reporting, the Pittsburgh POst-Gazette has revealed it obtained internal memos documenting Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield's plans to offshore technical work to India. Never mind that Highmark has a surplus of $3.4 BILLION, and enjoys tax breaks from its "non-profit" status.

Highmark's customers are PENNSYLVANIANS! Its officials/executives making this decision live and raise their families in Pennsylvania. The chairman of its board & CEO Is Dr. Kenneth Melani, who lives with his wife and 2 daughters in Indiana Township, PA - a well-to-do suburb of Pittsburgh. Shame on each and every one of them! They should change their company's name to Low Mark.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10230/1080688-192.stm

But in a grim economy in which the official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, the notion of exporting jobs is getting increasingly hard for Americans to accept. People who question the patriotism of those who want to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, would do better to ask how patriotic are the American executives who send jobs to India and other places at a time like this.