This week’s Eyes on Milwaukee column explores Herb Kohl’s commitment to a new arena, the idea of another downtown strip club, Northwestern Mutual’s potential new downtown building, and a whole lot more.

The 11th installment of Eyes on Milwaukee focuses on transit, development, and new restaurants. The Downtown Transit Center’s redevelopment is inching closer to reality. The Milwaukee Museum Mile is a new marketing effort for some overlooked museums. Service reductions are coming to the Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha commuter bus service, and the Milwaukee City Clerk is still tweeting, thankfully.

The Milwaukee County Board Task Force on the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority Recommendations, chaired by Supervisor Patricia Jursik, met for the first time on Monday December 29th, 2008. Other members of the task force present at the meeting included Supervisor Chris Larson, Supervisor John Thomas (who arrived late), Thomas Kujawa (formerly of MCTS), and Lloyd Grant (attending on behalf of Ms. Anita Gulotta-Connelly). The goal of the task force is to present recommendations to the Transportation Committee, which will then be presented to the full Milwaukee County Board on February 5th, 2009.

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors held a special meeting of the Committee on Transportation, Public Works and Transit to further discuss the proposed RTA. Supervisors Larson and Jursik hoped to put forward a positive response to the proposed RTA in place of the committee’s overtly negative response that came out of the last committee meeting.

The Milwaukee County Board’s Transportation, Public Works, and Transit Committee, chaired by Supervisor Michael Mayo, held a meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss the recommendations approved by the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority. Julia Taylor, the Governor’s Appointee on the RTA, was on hand to answer questions along with Carl Mueller, the RTA’s PR consultant, and Ken Yunker, who has worked closely with the RTA in his role at SEWRPC.