Local Governments Pay the Price for a Nation’s New Vigilance

The events of Sept. 11 have made Americans open to bigger government. President Bush, elected on a platform of reducing government, has declared that “government faces a new era” in which it “must do more.”

But Sept. 11 ultimately could leave most communities with less.

In and around this city of 70,000, the signs are small but as sure as a cold wind off Lake Winnebago. One county is closing nutrition sites for the elderly and group homes for the disabled. Another county has cut money for school trips and wetland tours. There will be longer waits for court dates and driver’s licenses. And that’s before the state, which sends most of its money to local governments and schools, figures out how to close a $1.3-billion budget hole.

The cuts illustrate an unintended consequence of the nation’s war on terrorism: the shrinking of services at the state and local levels. Sept. 11 has not sparked an expansion of government, but rather a transfer of resources to defense. That has created pressure for cuts in areas not related to protection--a push heightened by the recession, which itself was deepened by the terrorist attacks.

This pressure falls most heavily not on Washington, D.C., but on America’s 19,372 cities and 3,043 counties--even a place like Appleton, where residents pride themselves on living in a self-sufficient city, sheltered from change. People here still revere long-dead native sons (most notably Harry Houdini and Joseph R. McCarthy), root for the same football team that entertained their great grandparents (the Green Bay Packers) and work in paper mills, dairy farms and insurance companies that have survived for generations.

A thousand miles from ground zero, Sept. 11 has shaken municipal government in ways small but fundamental. War, after all, has long been the job of the federal government. But local governments haven’t had this much responsibility for the common defense since Indians roamed the frontier.

Since Sept. 11, cities and counties have rapidly and somewhat awkwardly adapted. Police departments are behaving like intelligence agencies, interviewing foreigners and surveying the infrastructure for weaknesses that might be exploited by the enemy. Local governments are appointing liaisons to neighboring agencies--like diplomats who negotiate regional treaties in the event of an attack. Hazardous material teams have become front-line soldiers, responding to the smallest hints of bioterrorism.

The new security and public health costs--defense budgets in practice if not in name--are expected to total as much as $4 billion for state governments and $3 billion for localities by the end of this year. These obligations have left city councils and county supervisors facing a dilemma once reserved for those in Congress: If we spend more money on defense, where do we cut?

“If you’re a city or a town, you can’t wait for the federal government, you can’t wait for Tom Ridge,” says University of Wisconsin professor Donald F. Kettl, referring to Bush’s recently appointed director of homeland security. “If you’re the mayor of Appleton, you’re the real Tom Ridge anyway.”

‘What Better Place to Create Fear?’

On the morning of Sept. 11, the mayor of Appleton, Tim Hanna, made lunches for his two school-age children and went to the meeting of a local arts board.

Fifteen minutes in, the phone rang with the bad news.

For the first time in his life, the mayor, a 44-year-old Appleton native, entertained the thought that his city could soon be under attack.

“What better place to create fear than the safest city in the country?” he recalls thinking.

Appleton averages one homicide every other year. Safety and peace breed growth, and this city has had a century and a half of it, interrupted only by war.

In Appleton, as elsewhere, the peril of attack historically focused government resources on protection at the expense of development. It took years of war and failed treaties with Wisconsin’s tribes before a village could begin to grow on the banks of the Fox River in the early 1850s.

During the Civil War, tighter government control of the river stymied commerce; the area’s central institution, Lawrence College, nearly went out of business.

During World War II, local air raid systems and the emergency food and housing corps gobbled up local government dollars. Schools, bridges and a hospital were put on hold until money flowed again in the postwar years.

As Hanna drove his Buick LeSabre back to City Hall on Sept. 11, homeland defense became the focus of area government for the first time in more than 50 years.

City and county officials stepped up security at potential targets. They temporarily shut parking around City Hall to deter car bombers. Courthouses in Calumet and Winnebago counties began using metal detectors for the first time. The new water treatment plant got round-the-clock police protection.

And Appleton police Lt. Rudy Nyman found himself with a brand new assignment.

Before Sept. 11, Nyman had been Appleton’s “operations coordinator.” He supervised traffic and towing, ran a “crime prevention through environmental design” initiative and organized special events, including the Largest Flag Day Parade in America. But in early October, he was told to form plans for defending Appleton from terrorist attack. The mayor now introduces Nyman as “chief of homeland security.”

Nyman’s first task was defining potential targets. He talked with city planners and crisscrossed town with a video camera, filming city buildings. Where could a terrorist attack do the most damage? He worked his way past the obvious targets, such as large gathering places, and gradually added railroad facilities, highways and most government buildings. So far the list has more than 100 sites.

“No city, including Appleton, has everything it needs to defend itself from this kind of threat,” he says. “The scope of this--all the potential threats--is larger, and it requires a change in thinking.”

‘A Lot of Things Will Be Put Aside’

For 42 years, a bust of Sen. Joseph McCarthy stood in the main foyer of the county office building, in the middle of his hometown. Periodic efforts to remove the statue had been blocked by McCarthy fans, some of whom still hold memorial services at his grave. But two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Outagamie County Board of Supervisors agreed to move the bust to the local historical society. The vote was 22 to 14 but free of past rancor. Now the county had more pressing concerns.

The absence of contentious debate reflected a new urgency in a community shaped by its skepticism of large government and nurtured by industries that wanted less from the rulers, not more.

Today’s leading political figure in the region, Republican Rep. Mark Green, says his perspective has changed too.

Elected in 1998 on pledges to wreck “the temple of big government,” Green has, since Sept. 11, supported a greater federal role in airport security, additional farm inspectors, new money for defense and broader authority for federal prosecutors.

He also has seen a cherished initiative moved off the agenda. Green and his mentor, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, now U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, had been active in a movement to give states and localities greater flexibility and control over federal dollars.

Today, while emphasizing his conservatism is unchanged, Green is focused on other battles.

“The fundamental aim of government now is to win this war and protect people,” Green says. “A lot of things will be pushed aside to meet that goal.”

After Sept. 11, local governments--rather than having greater freedom to shape social programs, as Green wanted--found themselves with new obligations and fewer resources.

To interview 5,000 young Middle Eastern men about terrorism, the Justice Department relied on police departments around the country. An hour east of Appleton, the Manitowoc County sheriff is spending $2,000 a day in overtime to provide 24-hour protection for the Point Beach nuclear power plant.

Across the region, the cost of vigilance is mounting. Security upgrades at courthouses total more than $800,000. With federal officials urging citizens to call 911 when anthrax contamination is suspected, Appleton area police officers and sheriffs have collected as many as 30 bags of suspicious powder a week and sent them to a state lab for testing. Cost to taxpayers? A thousand dollars per bag.

“There are a lot of new costs, and governments are going to have to find a way to handle them,” says Hanna.

Sometimes, federal action adds confusion as well as cost. Mark DeBruin, director of health and human services for Outagamie County, recently received a phone call at home from a sheriff’s dispatcher.

She told him that, in light of another anti-terrorism alert from the FBI, the county was now on “high alert.”

“What does that mean?” DeBruin asked the dispatcher.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

‘Guidance and Information’

Since spring, Jeff Mulder had watched eagerly as the glass-and-metal curves of the new Outagamie County Regional Airport took shape, a graceful architectural vision designed to evoke thoughts of the Fox River while accommodating more flights.

Today, Mulder views the $12-million expansion as a drain on the suddenly struggling airport he oversees.

Since Sept. 11, commercial flights have dropped from 31 to 27 daily. Revenues fell with them. To stave off further cancellations, Mulder granted airlines a break on landing fees, costing the county $40,000. The airport lost more than $30,000 in parking fees because new federal rules kept cars 300 feet from terminals.

Much of the airport’s cash is tied up in the expansion. The facility is supposed to bring in enough income to cover its costs, but county officials fear they could lose money next year and be forced to rely on taxpayers to make up the deficit.

“People don’t always understand that there’s a relationship between greater security and lower revenues,” Mulder says.

Mulder holds out hope for assistance from higher levels of government, but he is one of the few officials in Appleton to do so. The Bush administration has tried to limit domestic spending in response to the terrorist attacks to an initial outlay of $40 billion this budget year, part of which will go to help New York. Efforts by Senate Democrats to provide more direct aid to states and localities have been dismissed by the White House as “likely to permanently expand the size and scope of the federal government.”

“From where we sit, most of what the federal government is doing, when you get right down to it, falls under the heading of guidance and information,” says Dr. John Toussaint, president of ThedaCare, which runs two local hospitals. “There’s really no escaping the fact that in a situation like this, the new costs and burdens will fall to the local level.”

Localities can’t expect direct help from states, either. Thirty-six states, including Wisconsin, face a combined shortfall of $40 billion, a figure that the National Governors Assn. predicts could reach $50 billion, or 10% of all state revenues, by early next year. That picture is far bleaker than during the 1990 recession.

In Wisconsin, the two-year budget approved in August depended on a 3% increase in revenue from state sales and income taxes. Since Sept. 11, revenues actually have declined 1%, according to the governor. With the deficit approaching $1.3 billion, the state imposed a hiring freeze in October and announced it would close some motor vehicle offices. Deeper cuts are expected in January, when the state will have a more accurate sense of revenue.

“We’re in awful shape,” says Gov. Scott McCallum. “Everything is on the table as far as cuts are concerned. . . . The important thing is to make sure that everybody shares equally.”

‘Taking Care of Now’

Not everyone in the Appleton area is hurting. John Bergstrom, a native who is one of the Midwest’s largest car dealers, chartered a plane to take friends and neighbors to New York for a weekend of shopping, answering Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s call for visitors to boost the city’s spirits and economy.

Wary of larger government, Bergstrom says Sept. 11 has affected his thinking but not shaken his conviction. He wants the government to do more but not grow.

“I want the government at all levels to be much more focused in anti-terrorist endeavors than they’ve been,” he says. “And I’m willing to give up other things the government does to pay for that.

“Governments are looking at what kinds of new spending and new debt they’ll have to take on. What programs don’t we need to do? You see a similar examination going on in business and across the society. There’s definitely a realignment of what’s important.”

That realignment will become more pronounced next year when cities and school districts feel state cuts. The state’s budget woes will probably translate into less school construction and fewer new computers and art classes. Cities could fare even worse; some in Madison have raised the prospect of eliminating state aid to cities.

That will almost certainly require adjustments in recently approved budgets. Appleton and its three area counties set their 2002 budgets in the weeks before Thanksgiving.

Outagamie County, the largest of the three, made most of its trims in social services. It is closing three nutrition sites for the elderly and has shut two of its 14 group homes for the developmentally disabled. Other counties have cut naturalists and eliminated new building projects.

For the most part, northeast Wisconsin governments are trying to avoid draconian measures, though some think that’s just postponing the inevitable. All three counties and the city of Appleton rejected sharp cuts in areas such as libraries, parks and transportation, as well as proposed tax increases.

Outagamie County’s executive, citing new security costs since Sept. 11, proposed a new half-cent county sales tax but was voted down by the county board of supervisors.

“We’re taking care of now,” Hanna says. “The longer this war lasts, the larger the effects.”

‘This Could Be Good’

In the host of new pressures on cities, Hanna sees opportunities.

On a recent night, 19 people--representing three towns, three counties and two hospitals--gathered in the mayor’s conference room, six floors above Houdini Plaza in downtown Appleton. Their task was to come up with a regional plan for a bioterrorist attack.

What would happen, these men and women wondered, if the workers at the office park off U.S. 41 were stricken with smallpox? What if someone were to poison the drinking water? Could mass quarantines be done without worrying about where people live? And, finally, where in the federal government could they turn for help?

Melody Bockenfeld, the public health manager for Outagamie County, which includes most of Appleton, shakes her head.

“We are really on our own,” she says.

That realization, reached in cities and states across the county, has sparked cooperation. Five Pacific Northwest states and three Canadian provinces are putting together a joint plan for how to respond to an attack. So are the governors of North and South Carolina. Around Appleton, officials from neighboring cities and counties have been meeting more often than ever before.

The cooperation has other benefits. Appleton city and county law enforcement authorities are talking about sharing office space. Two neighboring towns, Menasha and Neenah, are combining their municipal courts and fire departments. Outagamie and Calumet counties are planning the first joint jail in the state.

“Look, this is terrible and strange to say after such a tragedy, but this could be good,” says Hanna. “There is more pressure and more uncertainty in local government than ever before. Maybe this is an opportunity for real change.”

At a recent follow-up meeting of county and city health officials, the group completed a set of procedures for responding to anthrax, smallpox or other similar forms of bioterrorism.

Then the discussion turned to communication.

If northeast Wisconsin were attacked, who should update the public? Should state or federal officials assume that responsibility?

After a few minutes, somebody brought up New York City and Giuliani, and the matter was quickly settled: This war is being fought locally. The mayor should do the talking.

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Times staff writer Richard Simon in Washington contributed to this report.