Wisconsin's million-dollar Web designers depict Minneapolis skyline

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, our fair state has hired a Connecticut Web design firm to design the website for our Wisconsin Campaign Finance Information System.

We are reportedly paying them the proverbial “one million dollars.”

For me, a Wisconsin-based Web designer, that would work out to more than eight man-years, so it’s very encouraging to know there is Web design work out there.

State Sen. Jeff Plale, the Democrat representing Milwaukee’s lakefront and South Side as well as Cudahy, South Milwaukee, and Oak Creek, noticed that this new website sports a photo of our Capitol in Madison — next to the skyline of Minneapolis:

“I’m looking at that thinking, what the heck?” Plale said Monday. “I don’t think a lot of Minnesota legislators care about our Government Accountability Board, but who knows?

The Journal Sentinel includes an explanation from Joe Singh, executive vice president of PCC Technology Group, the company designing the site. It seems the Minneapolis photo is merely a placeholder which is being used until the “local, CT based technology firm” can locate a copyright-free image of the Madison skyline.

This story has now made national news.

I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition this morning on WUWM, and Renee Montagne asked the same question that had occurred to me:

Couldn’t you just use a camera?