BIDEN'S 4-ACRE DELAWARE ESTATE

[Dear Reader --
We seem to hear much about the presidential candidates' homes, and the Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team reckoned we should also give you the poop for their Number Twos' homes. Here, in the first installment, we learn about Joe Biden's 4-acre estate on Barley Mill Road in Wilmington, Delaware, which he purchased from a developer who apparently didn't make a penny on the deal. And -- when will they make the final inspection on that air conditioner? -- Ed.]

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld..com

By Michael Horne

PERMIT STILL OPEN FOR 2004 A/C WORK AT BIDEN HOME

“Awaiting Final Inspection,” According to Government Records

The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team has discovered an open permit dating to 2004 for air conditioning work done at the residence of Delaware Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Jospeh Robinette Biden, Jr.

According to official records of New Castle County, Delaware, Est. 1673,[Motto: “The First County in the First State”] Permit 200411927, issued on September 10^th, 2004 is still awaiting a “final inspection,” and its status is “incomplete.” It is one of a number of permits issued for the residence of Biden, who is known to be furiously attached to the dwelling, to which he commutes daily via Amtrak when Congress is in session.

For example, a residential addition permit issued in 2000 for the home at 1209 Barley Mill Road in unincorporated Greenville, lists “homeowner” as the contractor, suggesting Biden is a home improvement type of the sort not seen in upper government circles since it was revealed that Colin Powell fixed his own plumbing when he was Secretary of State. Two other permits for expansions were let to contracting companies. One was for the construction of a second residence on the property for Biden’s aged mother, Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan Biden, 91. She lives in a 22 foot wide home with 3 bedrooms and two baths among 1900 square feet of habitable area. Vinyl siding and an asphalt roof shelter her within her rooms of drywall, built on a basement-less slab.

DEVELOPER SELLS TO BIDEN AT HIS ORIGINAL COST

County property records indicate that Joe and Jill Biden purchased Parcel 0702900052 in March, 1996 for $350,000 from previous owner Keith D. Stoltz, a real estate developer and Biden supporter. That was the very same price Stoltz paid for it five years previously, from an owner who himself had purchased it for $450,000 in 1979. There may have been some subdividing going on in the intervening years.

The 10-room, 6,850 square foot manor home where the Senator and his wife live was built of stucco in 1998, and has 21 plumbing fixtures among its 4-1/2 baths, kitchen and laundry room. You could comfortably drop a couple of Ma Biden’s cottages side-by-side in the spacious first level, which includes a family room. The full basement is 25 per cent finished, as is the attic of the two-story mansion.

The entire parcel of over 4 acres is valued at $81,700 for the land and another $444,000 for its improvements, for a total valuation of $525,700 for the purposes of the Delaware tax authorities.

Biden’s property taxes, due September 30^th, 2008, (somebody remind him!) amount to $3,072 for general county purposes and another $9,273 for the Red Clay School District. Of that, $120.96 goes to pay for the school crossing guard.

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FIRST PLACE TAKES ANOTHER HIT

CITY USED COMPLETED PROJECT NUMBERS TO SET DISTRICT'S START VALUE

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

There is more bad news for First Place on the River, the Scott Fergus development that went into receivership in January and led to the developer's $80 million bankruptcy filing. [See comprehensive Milwaukeeworld report here.]
An article by Rich Kirchen in the Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee on August 15th, 2008, said another $18.2 million would be needed to complete the building, on top of the $6.6 already spent since the receivership on the 152 unit condominium. Kirchen said 35 units have closed in the project at 106 W. Seeboth Pl., with 32 of them closing since the receivership action.
The development received over $4 million funding for a riverwalk and street improvements at the site.
The Periodic Report required of all Tax Incremental Financing Districts gave First Place a base value of $56.1 million as of 2007, when TID 68 [Fifth Ward - First Place] was created. This was an error on somebody's part, since the Term Sheet for the project prepared by S.B. Friedman of Chicago estimated the base value would only be $28 million, due to its partially completed nature at the time. ($56 million was to be the finished project number.) Friedman also warned that the building must be "fully sold by September 2008" for its financial projections to work. September is coming up, and the place isn't even completed, not to mention fully sold!
So the Department of City Development had to go to the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee today, Thursday, August 21st, 2008 with Amendment #1 to the tax district, explaining that "this error has resulted in the 2007 base value being significantly greater than the corrected 2008 value of $32 million, consequently creating no increment for the TID to amortize its debt."
Curiously, however, the periodic report for the district's condition as of 12/31/07, noted the project went into receivership in February 2008, but added "48 occupancy units [permits?] were issued," which does not square with the numbers in the Kirchen article. (But who knows? In May, 2007, Fergus told Tom Daykin of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had already sold 89 units.) The periodic report also calls the project a "115 unit condominium project," and is apparently a sloppy bit of work all around.

WOW! DISTRIBUTOR BUYS MILLER BRANDS

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

Miller Brands-Milwaukee, LLC, local distributor of Miller products including Foster's, Leinenkugel's and Pilsner Urquell, will be bought by Beer Capitol according to industry sources.
The Madrigano family, owners of Beer Capitol and W.O.W. Distributing has been consolidating its control over much beer distribution in the state, and recently purchased Beloit Beverage from the Morello family. This consolidation has led to logistic and economic efficiencies, perhaps at the risk of loss of competition.
Only rival distributor Beechwood Distributors, Inc., which carries Budweiser and other brands and the much smaller General Beer Distributors with no major brands, remain in this market. Beechwood has been particularly aggressive now that Miller Beer is no longer considered a local brand, thus removing much sales resistance that existed for St. Louis beer in these parts.
Aldo Madrigano, the head of W.O.W., was named Chairman of the National Beer Wholesalers Association on October, 2007, as we noted here.
The NBWA considers itself to be the "guardian of the 21st Amendment," which repealed Prohibition and established the three-tier [Producer - Wholesaler - Retailer] distribution system for alcoholic beverages.
Beer distributors operate with exclusive arrangements with brewers in their geographic areas. Their contracts with brewers are virtually perpetual, and they usually mark up their product 30 per cent. Brewers who seek new distributors must pay damages to their old distributors.
To call beer distributing is a racket would be an insult to organized crime. It is so much more!
Neither Madrigano or Steve Johnson of Miller Brands returned a call asking for comment by press time.

BUTLER TAPPED TO HEAD ALCOHOL TASK FORCE
It was announced this afternoon, Tuesday, August 19th, 2008, that Common Council President Willie Hines, Jr. has appointed former Wisconsin Supreme court Justice Louis B. Butler, Jr. to head the city's Alcoholic Beverages Licensing Task Force to study possible improvements in the granting of liquor licenses here. Hines created the panel in the wake of former Ald. Michael McGee's conviction in Federal Court on extortion and bribery charges related to the granting of licenses in his 6th aldermanic district.
And all along I was counting on former aldermen Marvin Pratt or Fred Gordon to get the job!
--Michael Horne

RIBBON CUTTING, STATUE UNVEILING DOMINATE CITY SOCIAL CALENDAR

WHERE THE FREEWAY ENDS

The photo above shows the "unsightly heap of gray concrete" (foreground) of the original construction of the Marquette Interchange. Beyond are the stylized, sculptural columns and blue spans of the reconstructed interchange, to be dedicated by the governor on Tuesday. The photograph was taken looking west from N. Water St., the project's terminus.

To the left, modern and attractively painted bridge supports. To the right, the old, cylindrical unpainted columns. These will remain, and are not scheduled to be painted. (Photos by Michael Horne)

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne


Tuesday, August 19th, 2008, is shaping up as a notable one on Milwaukee's social calendar. The first event, at 9 a.m., will feature Hon. Jim Doyle, Governor of Wisconsin, who will deliver a "special announcement" about the Marquette Interchange Project. He is expected to announce that the project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday, August 17th, wrote that the "aesthetically pleasing" highway is "no longer an unsightly heap of gray concrete viewed from Marquette University."
However, the view from N. Water Street, where the elevated freeway divides downtown from the Historic Third Ward, it is still an unsightly heap of gray concrete. That's because the project's boundary was at the east bank of the Milwaukee River. The existing elevated freeway to the east was not reconstructed, ostensibly since it was not constructed until many years after the original highway was built, and is still in Jim-dandy shape.
That may be, but you think the state could have used some of its budgetary savings to slap some paint on the stretch from the river to the Hoan Bridge so that the downtown portion of the highway matches the new portion, at least chromatically.
The governor's gig will be at N. 2nd St. and E. Clybourn Ave. Workers from Karl's Party Rentals have spent much of the day Monday erecting a white tent on the location for the occasion. Crews were also dispatched to mow the grass at the site, raising a hearty dust cloud, and trimming nary a blade suffering in the blazing sun and scorched earth. You don't have to mow in a drought! They must have borrowed some county parks workers for that project!

FONZ SCULPTURE TO BE UNVEILED
Also, Tuesday, August 19th is the unveiling of the Bronze Fonz, Milwaukee's tribute to the Henry Winkler character on the sitcom Happy Days, set in Milwaukee. That event will be on the Milwaukee River's east bank, south of E. Wells. St. Milwaukeeworld will cover both events live.
--Michael Horne

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!


Breadsmith opened its stand in the Milwaukee Public Market on Tuesday. Also the River Pulse project by artist - musician Ray Chi will be unveiled Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 6 p.m. at the east end of the Holton Marsupial Bridge. The rain-or-shine event, (it's held under the Holton Viaduct) will feature Chi's multimedia presentation in which a "sonde" or sensor submerged in the Milwaukee River transmits information about the condition of the water at that location.
Such data is usually conveyed in a graph or table, and has no more allure than a spreadsheet, but Chi cleverly presents the temperature, flow, turbidity and other readings utilizing light, color, intensity, pulsation and other effects. These, in their ever-changing glory, are projected onto the wall at the east end of the viaduct at N. Water St. just south of E. Pearson St. The demonstration will be conducted as part of the monthly meeting of the Brady Street Area Association, convening at the site for the evening. Custard will be served.
--Michael Horne