Operating Engineers join police in ad campaign emphasizing roles in public safety

Wisconsin’s largest road builders’ union is enlisting an odd ally in its push for more support for rebuilding the state’s roads and bridges: the police.

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139 on Tuesday announced the start of an advertising campaign being conducted with the help of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, which represents more than 10,000 law-enforcement officials throughout the state. The campaign — which consists of short radio spots and billboard ads — contends that police and road builders both play a large role in keeping the public safe.

“We are united behind building and protecting safer communities,” Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, says in the groups’ minute-long radio ad.

Terry McGowan, president and business manager of Operating Engineers Local 139, said one goal of the campaign is to make sure both the public and elected officials are aware that it’s not only the police whose work helps make society safer, but also the construction industry. He said people often seem to think that road builders have nothing but their own interests at heart when they push for more public money.

“We need to make sure there is an awareness out there that we are not doing this just to make things looks pretty,” McGowan said.

The idea for an ad campaign with the police association came from a statewide poll that was commissioned by the two groups. The poll was conducted by researchers at St. Norbert College in De Pere and surveyed 400 Wisconsin residents at random between Jan. 27 and Feb. 11.

Of the respondents, 78 percent said that “keeping communities safe” was their top priority and 81 percent said it was very important to have safe roads and bridges.

McGowan said the roles that the police and construction crews play in keeping things safe are often much more tightly intertwined than many might think. Law-enforcement officials, for instance, help to make sure drivers slow down in construction zones to avoid losing control and hitting a worker.

Road builders and others in the industry, meanwhile, help ensure that roads and bridges aren’t in such states of decay that they are dangerous. Even something as simple as filling potholes, McGowan said, can help prevent vehicle crashes and allow the police to spend their time dealing with more serious matters.

McGowan and other industry representatives have said for years that Wisconsin lawmakers will not be able to make needed repairs and improvements to the state’s roads and bridges without eventually raising the state’s gas tax, vehicle-registration fees or some other source of revenue. Rather than take such a step, legislators in Madison largely chose to pay for projects using borrowing, eventually authorizing $850 million worth of new debt for transportation projects. Follow @TDR_WLJDan