Milwaukee is facing a critical moment. A moment in time that requires action of its citizens.Currently the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is in negotiations with Milwaukee County to acquire land at the County Research Park with the intention of building a new engineering school. Although UWM's ambitious plan to grow the university has value and promise its choice of location in Wauwatosa will have long term negative impacts on the city, the students, and the region. By locating the new school in Wauwatosa it will add congestion, promote costly freeway expansion, make higher education less affordable, put additional burdens on students, increase pollution, and encourage sprawl.
Locating UWM's new engineering campus within the city has numerous benefits for the students and the city. By locating within the city, students will have better access to mass transit and shorter distances to travel. By locating within the city, students who have gone to undergraduate school at UWM and wish to go on to graduated school won't need to move out of their homes to be close to campus. By locating within the city, students will have better access to internship opportunities at Fortune 500 companies such as JCI and Rockwell. By locating within the city, Milwaukee keeps 300 college graduates who will spur development, support local business, add eyes on the street, innovate, live and work. Keeping UWM within Milwaukee helps the students to help the city.
If UWM expands in Wauwatosa the students and Milwaukee will receive all of the negatives and none of the positives. Now some may say our moment has passed and our opportunity lost, but as citizens and taxpayers we can have a voice. So I encourage you to ask your elected officials to work with the city, to find a location downtown, in the Park East, or on the Eastside. I encourage you to ask them to "Say No to UW-Tosa... And Say Yes to UW-Milwaukee!"
It is time for action...
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
City of Milwaukee Elected Officials
Mayor Tom Barrett - mayor@milwaukee.gov
Common Council President Willie L. Hines, Jr. - 15th District Alderman - whines@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Ashanti Hamilton - 1st District Alderman - ahamil@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Joe Davis - 2nd District Alderman - jldavis@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Michael S. D'Amato - 3rd District Alderman - mdamat@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Robert J. Bauman - 4th District Alderman - rjbauma@milwaukee.gov
Alderman James A. Bohl, Jr. - 5th District Alderman - jbohl@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Michael McGee, Jr. - 6th District Alderman - mmcgee@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Willie C. Wade - 7th District Alderman - wwade@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Robert G. Donovan - 8th District Alderman - rdonov@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Robert W. Puente - 9th District Alderman - rpuent@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Michael J. Murphy - 10th District Alderman - mmurph@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Joe Dudzik -11th District Alderman - jdudzi@milwaukee.gov
Alderman James N. Witkowiak - 12th District Alderman - jwitko@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Terry L. Witkowski - 13th District Alderman - twitko@milwaukee.gov
Alderman Tony Zielinski -14th District Alderman - tzieli@milwaukee.gov
Milwaukee County Elected Officials
County Executive Scott Walker - countyexec@milwcnty.com
Supervisor James White, 1st District - James.White@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Toni Clark, 2nd District - tclark@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Gerry Broderick, 3rd District - gbroderick@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic, 4th District - mdimitrijevic@milwcnty.com
Chairman Lee Holloway, 5th District - lholloway@milwcnty.com
Chairman Lee Holloway, 5th District - lholloway@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Joseph Rice, 6th District - jrice@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Michael Mayo, Sr., 7th District - mmayo@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Patricia Jursik, 8th District - patricia.jursik@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Paul Cesarz, 9th District - pcesarz@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs-Jones, 10th District - ecoggs-jones@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Mark Borkowski, 11th District - mborkowski@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Mark Borkowski, 11th District - mborkowski@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Peggy West, 12th District - pwest@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Willie Johnson, Jr., 13th District - wjohnson@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Richard Nyklewicz, Jr., 14th District - rnyklewicz@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Lynne De Bruin, 15th District - ldebruin@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Lynne De Bruin, 15th District - ldebruin@milwcnty.com
Supervisor John Weishan, Jr., 16th District - jweishan@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Dan Devine, 17th District - ddevine@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Roger Quindel, 18th District - rquindel@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Jim Luigi Schmitt, 19th District - jschmitt@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Dan Devine, 17th District - ddevine@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Roger Quindel, 18th District - rquindel@milwcnty.com
Supervisor Jim Luigi Schmitt, 19th District - jschmitt@milwcnty.com
5 comments:
The development and redevelopment of the city, especially the expansion of UWM, should happen within city limits. It's doubly interestin to me to find this blog when I'm preparing to stage my run for the county board. The 14th district seat on the south side is opening up after 32 years of being held by the incumbent, so I'm going to give it my best shot.
I'd like to meet with you in the next few weeks if that's possible to get your take on these issues. Drop me a line if you will, jhaas -atmark- wisconsinite -dot- net. Thanks!
Jason Haas
how do you propose to deal with East Side and Riverwest area anti-development attitudes? Despite the central city--Hines' 15th district--being far and away the location of the most city development in recent years, there is a loud if not sizable anti-development and anti-UWM/student element in the 3rd District.
Dave, you have been watching the Downer issue, what do you think about this? It has all been wrapped up now, with Peter Kovac, one of the plaintiffs against the City, declaring that those on HPC who were claimed to have scrubbed minutes and held closed meetings in violation of open records law were in fact "heroes" (Kovac's description) which I suppose has to do with the fact that they worked out changes to the development plan that accommodated Kovac's concerns despite the project already passing through the Common Council.
So it looks like Kovac complained so much, the mayor had the HPC work out some changes with the developer, which violates the whole process since the project was already approved in a form that had passed through the relevant committees and full council. The HPC meetings judge Lamelas criticized were all in Kovac's favor, but he is suing the City because of the clumsy way they were handled. In the recent ZND "redo" of the DPD modifications that are in Kovac's favor, Kovac first defended the "heroes" on the HPC committee and later quoted Lamelas saying how they conducted their meetings (to get changes Kovac wanted) was "totalitarian."
This week the ZND let Kovac ramble (again) about all this for well over 20 minutes, and much of that time he spent on strange points about how the developer did make changes to accommodate him (Kovac) but these changes (in Kovac's view) save the developer money anyway (despite having the project held up so long), so it's not as if the developer is a good guy. Kovac finds this important and relevant information, apparently.
See the whole thing here:
http://cctv25.milwaukee.gov:8080/ramgen/tv25-home-pg/zd/znd021408.rm?usehostname
The ongoing issue with Kovac's lawsuit and the fact that it pressured the ZND into reviewing and reaffirming its former decision creates a dangerous precedent as Mr. Hagopian and Ald. Murphy noted at the meeting. (See video link above.) As noted by the attorneys for the city and the developer, Kovac essentially wants his property rights to mean that an adjacent property owner (the developer) cannot exercise his rights without Kovac's say-so. And now that a judge has allowed a precedent to exist for a judicial review of City committees and council decisions on zoning and development, it is conceivable that anyone could now seek a legal/judicial review as a kind of referendum on development that trumps property owner's rights and the City's authority on development issues.
Anon>
First regarding UWM, this specific post's idea is to expand in downtown... Bauman's district I believe. Secondly *I* do also believe in a bigger UWM and yes that is a scary thing but for Milwaukee to be stronger as a city we must have a larger stronger UWM. All sorts of research points to this need. Thirdly I believe it is a "loud" but not truly sizable anti-development element. Fourth students are citizens too maybe they should be further engaged in the public process.
As far as Downer I think I responded on my other site. But again I think the redevelopment of Downer Ave is a good thing. And that we live in the City not the suburbs. I look forward to the completion of this project.
I feel very confident that those meetings and the outcomes were held to help Kovac and in fact did. We mistakes made... maybe but to paint it as shady is ridiculous. The DCD staffers have nothing to gain at all from these projects and were in fact going well beyond the regular process to do additionally changes for Kovac.
So those are my thoughts... hope I made a little sense.
This is great info to know.
The 235, acres is currently off Watertown plank road is the flight rosting area for the Monarch Butterflies on there way to Mexico. Barbara Agnew and Myself are actuveky heading a griup of concerncitizens to save the Monarch Trail. We are asking that the pending sales of this land be halter. We have started a writing campain to elected officials and Senator Feingold
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