Instead of waiting for the candidates to propose a platform, it’s perhaps worth proposing what would benefit Milwaukee’s urban environment. What would an urbanist like to see included in the platform from the new Milwaukee County Executive?

Dedicated funding source for transit

As we’ve advocated for time and time again on this site, the Milwaukee County Transit System needs a dedicated funding source (likely in the form of a sales tax) and should be operated as an authority. It’s time to take the county transit system off the death spiral it’s on and remove the political budget battles that have led to soaring fares and drastically reduced service.

Dedicated funding source for parks and culture

The Milwaukee County Parks System has nearly redefined what it means to “do more with less” over the past ten years. Similar to MCTS, the parks system should be given a dedicated source of funding and be spun off as an authority. The parks should be a place to play football, not used as a political football.

A plan of attack for the Park East or an interest in selling the land to the city

The land opened up by the removal of the Park East Freeway spur has sat empty for over five years now. While it’s unreasonable to think that all of it could have been filled at this point, there should have been more progress made redeveloping the land by this point. The City of Milwaukee has successfully sold their land in the corridor for redevelopment, Milwaukee County has yet to even put all of theirs up for sale. The new County Executive should have a plan for selling off the land, or they should move to sell the land to the city who has more qualified personnel (in the form of the Department of City Development) to get the land developed.

Moving as many county functions as possible to city governments

The new Milwaukee County Executive should seek to move as many services as possible to individual city governments. Due to the pension scandal, it may be cheaper to move plowing and other services to individual cities. This may also reduce the levels of government one has to interact with to move a project forward in Milwaukee County.

Reducing the size of the Milwaukee  County Board

It would be a positive for a candidate to propose reducing the number of Milwaukee County Supervisors as a long-term objective given that other goals are reached. If parks, transit, and culture in addition to other county functions are moved to independent authorities and individual municipalities, there will be less of a need for 19 Supervisors. this will create a costs saving, one that many other urban county governments are already taking advantage of. Reducing the size of the Milwaukee County Board would hopefully increase the quality of candidates for the positions.

Eliminating the position of Milwaukee County Executive

In conjunction with reducing the number of Supervisors, the County Executive should be prepared to replace the position of Milwaukee County Executive with that of a County Administrator. With a reduction in services that are in direct oversight of Milwaukee County, there is no need for the position of Milwaukee County Executive to be as political as it has become. Replacing the elected position with the hiring of a well-qualified administrator will reduce the amount of fighting between the Board and Executive.

In summary, in order to pay for the massive pension funding gap caused by the first scandal, and lately the market’s performance, the county needs a lot of money.  To get that money they’ve issued $400 million in bonds since the start of 2009.  With the proceeds from the issuance of those 6% bonds, they’ll invest in the market at a hope of earning an 8% return.  They’ll then use the excess 2% they hope to earn to pay for the pension liabilities.  That amount of profit as planned is $237 million.

Seems like a good plan, until you consider what happens if things go wrong.  Assuming the stock market performs only at the rate of interest on the bonds, the county will have undertaken a large risk for zero reward.  More catastrophic though, would be for the market to under-perform the interest rate on the bonds.  Milwaukee County will then find itself in a far worse financial situation, with likely no ability to short-term borrow their way out of it.  The county has to do something, but borrowing-and-investing appears to be quite aggressive.

When a plan like this comes around, it’s best to ask yourself the question “if it really is this easy wouldn’t everyone be doing it?” Instead of discussing closing libraries, privatizing the Water Works, and having fewer firefighters per crew, why doesn’t the City of Milwaukee get the free cash it so desperately needs for its $90 million budget hole with pension bonds and investments?  Why don’t we see this as common place for local governments?  Why am I not doing it?

The answer is because it’s extremely risky.

Of course something that looks great on paper, but has a lot of long-term risk is just what a politician can feed on.  County Executive Walker is more than happy to look at this as a fix as he runs for Governor and looks to leave Milwaukee County with its troubles behind.  The Milwaukee County Board seems posed to go along, perhaps because it avoids drastic cuts that will be difficult to stomach (and get re-elected on).

The costs from the pension scandal haven’t gone away, and in a year where budgets are bad for every level of government dependant on property taxes, things are real bad for the county. While calls have gone out to dissolve the Milwaukee County government and eliminate the County Executive position, they seem far-fetched.  It’s time though to start small and have serious discussions about off-loading aspects of Milwaukee County to other units of government, existing or new, privitazed or not.  Consolidating services with the City of Milwaukee may provide cost savings for both departments, especially in the areas of information technology.  Any proposal from privitazing the airport to creating a regional transit authority should be investigated thoroughly with the hopes of putting Milwaukee County in a better long-term fiscal position.

The concept sounds good, build an engineering school and business park close to GE Medical and the Medical College of Wisconsin in an effort to expand UWM’s research in the medical field, and there’s no doubt that some research and jobs will come out of this effort, but the bigger picture is that the continued hollowing out of the urban core isn’t good for UWM, the City of Milwaukee, or the region.  That by design this site will inherently have issues with pedestrian access, transit, and forced auto dependence.  That by developing this site natural habitats will be lost, congestion will be created, and additional pollution will be generated.  That this site would further discourage and disenfranchise minorities and limit their ability to attend the school.

Supervisor Lipscomb wasn’t the only board member to see the bigger picture.  In fact Supervisor Weishan did all he could to improve the deal or slow the process to allow time for further improvements to the agreement.  He offered multiple amendments, one which tried to specify the allowable uses for the purpose of encouraging the development to be more mixed-use in design, and another that would have created a scholarship fund for minorities to attend the engineering school.  Both of these amendments attempted to address some of the big picture issues regarding the proposed school location, but received little support from other members of the county board.  He went on to make it entirely clear as to why he felt other members of the board supported the proposal, stating that he felt “the majority of this board has made up their mind that they just want the money.”

As this proposal has been an topic we’ve felt strongly about we do appreciate that Supervisors Dimitrijevic, Larson, Lipscomb, and Weishan voted against this proposal, and do hope UWM works to provide better transit access to the area, creates a facility that respects the Monarch Trail, expands other programs in the city, and finds a way to diminish the environmental impacts of this development.

That said, these plans, although great and preferred, add confusion to the issue and clearly bring up a series of questions that deserve answers.  Why hasn’t this idea been thoroughly investigated by the UWM?  What exactly is UWM proposing to build on the Milwaukee County Grounds?  What is the rush to close on the land acquisition if these plans are a possibility?  There has been a lot of discussion about collaboration and research within the areas of bio-medical research, but what about computer, chemical, civil, construction, and the numerous other fields of engineering will they be staying on the East Side?  At first UWM proposed the land would be used for the “engineering school,” then it was “just graduate students,” still later “just research,” but at the same time the discussion expanded to include a boutique hotel and restaurant.

It appears the “plan” has gone through significant changes from the beginning until now, and more questions have arisen than have been answered, all of which need to be answered and spelled out clearly for the public prior to any approval or land sale.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an excellent series of short articles on the case, the players, and the history that educate you with everything you need to get started.

The first troubled meeting was a special meeting of the Community & Economic Development Committee which was held to take action on the M.O.R.E ordinance.  Because this meeting was held to cover such a controversial and significant ordinance it deserved a special meeting to be held, so that all sides of the issue could be given time to be heard, but Alderman Davis ran the meeting with a strict adherence to time limits, cutting off people regardless if they were making a point or in the middle of wrapping up.  Of course there is only so much time in the day, but on topics that have wide ranging, long running impacts, it would be good to give people a little leeway in speaking their mind and if needed have multiple meetings prior to voting on an issues.  Understand, the value of letting the public be heard, is to encourage the broader conversation, to hear the possible costs and benefits of a proposed change, and simply to insure a fair process was conducted.  The input was limited to the point that there was little discussion on the topic, and almost no questions were asked of those in opposition, which gave the appearance that their concerns were irrelevant to the discussion.  Finally, this special meeting was held the day prior to the Common Council meeting which was to take action on this ordinance.  This meant that there was little time for the press and the public to weigh in on the issue.  This combination of limiting speech and enforcing short time frames eliminated much of the public debate on the topic, which at the time left many questions unanswered.

The second troublesome meeting was held by Milwaukee County with the intention to take public input regarding the proposed land sale of a portion of the Milwaukee County Grounds to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  A large crowd showed up to speak out against the land sale, some members were concerned with saving the Monarch Trail, some felt greenfield development wasn’t desirable, and there were some of us who were there to argue expansion in Wauwatosa isn’t the right choice for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or our region.  The issues with this meeting started with arbitrarily short time limit for individuals to speak, and ended with an even more arbitrary meeting end time.  Around 7:45 pm Supervisor Clark announced the meeting would end at 8 pm and although numerous, if not thirty people, hadn’t had a chance to speak she explained that some of us have to get home to take care of our children.  Further, she explained that concerned citizens could submit their comments in writing.  Although submitting input in writing is important and should definitely be done to insure it is part of the record, this statement attempts to invalidate the purpose of public hearings.  To insure the public is heard.

I understand that nine times out of ten a committee, board, or commission has generally made up their mind regarding an issue prior to the meeting, and taking public input might not be the most pleasant or enjoyable activity of a politicians life, but there is value to giving people the opportunity to speak.  When you truncate, cut off, or limit a person’s speech people feel the process is tainted, or that it is a “done deal.”  I do hope that in the future our public officials keep this in mind and allow the public to be heard.

Supervisor Jursik explained that despite the task force’s work and positive output the Transportation, Public Works and Transit Committee unfortunately rejected the findings.  She expressed her displeasure with the committee’s actions saying “I’ve been very depressed the last few days”.  She then made a strong plea to deny the committee’s rejection so they could then move to take positive action on the task force’s recommendations.  She also referred to a public meeting held on January 13th saying “I was really quite surprised by the consensus of the speakers in terms of regional transit”.

The concerns over governance and control popped up again when Supervisor Coggs stated “my concern is the governance issue wasn’t brought up” and that “I think it needs to be strongly said that we do need representation”.  Supervisor Larson attempted to quell these concerns saying that “we’re trying to issue our opinions on this” and added that “there’s a coalition building and I think Milwaukee County should be part of it”.  He felt Milwaukee County needed to step up as even “the business community is willing to step up”.  He was part of the task force that put forward the recommended response.  Supervisor Thomas added his support to the task force recommendations saying “if we don’t get outside of this room we’ll be talking about this for at least another 30 years”.

The board took an extended lunch to work out an amendment to the task force recommendations to gain majority support from the board.  This amendment added specific governance recommendations, including additional appointees for Milwaukee County and diversity requirements, to the RTA’s configuration.  In the end the board rejected the committee’s action and voted positively in support of the task force’s recommendation with the additional amendment in place.

Speaking in support of laying the resolution over, Supervisor Larson pointed to Milwaukie, Oregon, a town of about 20,000 residents, as an example of city that has been able to move forward with new rail service while Milwaukee, Wisconsin hasn’t been able to move forward because of a lack of action.  He also argued that with the pending federal stimulus package that if Milwaukee County doesn’t find a local funding source it will lose out on millions in federal dollars.

Looking beyond the concerns raised by other board members Supervisor Jursik moved to lay the resolution over.  She argued that the resolution in its current form took such a negative tone and that by laying the resolution over the board could put together a resolution stating Milwaukee County’s position in better terms.  The resolution was laid over on a vote of 7 to 12.

Currently land sales in Milwaukee, be it those executed by the state, county, or city, don’t allow for speculation and restrict developer freedom with the current purchase options/request for proposal process.  The process currently in place is designed to protect the interests of the city and to attempt to create a level playing field for developers.  It succeeds, sort of.

The current request for proposal (RFP) process involving publicly-held land works by announcing a request for development proposals, judging the replies, and granting a time-limited purchase option for the land to the winning party.  The system is not without flaws.  Submitting the proposals is burdensome for developers and requires a clear picture for the use of all of the land in the parcel before ownership is even granted.  If a developer wins the option to purchase the land, there is very little control on their execution of the proposal.  The option contracts also are often structured as such that the time component is virtually meaningless as they are frequently extended to avoid having to restart the process.  The final large problem is that the process is slow and does not allow a market to form around the land as it would for private land.

The Changes

Applying more market principles to the RFP process might speed the transition from public and vacant to private and developed for publicly-held parcels.

The first of such adjustments should be to allow speculators into the market.  With the current process, developers are effectively the only parties that can buy parcels with a requirement that a proposal be submitted first.  By regulating the use of land with zoning the desired use can be created flexibly after the sale of the land.  Zoning codes would need to become more detailed to include explicit minimums (and potentially maximums) along with use types to ensure that any development of the land benefits the area around it.

The second of such adjustments should be to make the public land more closely mimic the properties or private property before it is developed.  Currently the RFP process requires land to frequently be bought as a single parcel, with no flexibility to sell portions to others.  Speculators should be able to obtain a contract for a plot of land at auction and have the ability to parcel it out to others to develop.  Parceling of large blocks of land could be done after the contract was obtained, not before as is currently required.

The third adjustment to the RFP process should be to enhance the time-limited option contracts currently created.  Allowing speculators into the market has the danger of creating parcels that remain undeveloped for years, and a safe guard is needed.  To encourage the ultimate goal of getting the land developed, contracts should be granted with yearly fees that grow annually.

A per square foot cost can be assigned to the land, so if a specular wishes to sell or develop a portion of a parcel they may.  When the land is ultimately developed, the portion used should be paid for in full, instead of just the option cost.  However, the amount paid on the option could be applied towards the cost of the land.  This would allow higher option prices to be charged, while further enticing development the longer a parcel is held (coupled with the higher option costs each year).  The price paid on the option will be able to exceed the actual cost of the land, encouraging the land to be developed or to let the contract lapse.

If a contract owner wishes to exit their obligations of the growing annual payments, they can simply sell their contract to another party or notify the land-holding agency that they wish to release their remaining contract options.  This would allow partial development (to corresponding zoning codes) of a parcel, while not forcing other portions to remain undeveloped.  To prevent the building of a structure by a developer and the failure to build any landscaping on small portions of the land remaining (which would then be released back to the government unit undeveloped), the contract would have to stipulate a minimum divided parcel size.

The Intended Effects

How would this change Milwaukee as it is now?  In the past ten years the largest example of the RFP process has been the reclaimed land from the former Park East Freeway spur.  While small border parcels are being infilled, almost all of the land that has come under the ownership of the county has remained undeveloped.  Why?  Simply the lots are too big.

By allowing speculators to buy the land at auction without proposals (but with strict zoning codes) and affording them the flexibility to sell smaller parcels, much of the land may have been developed already. Furthermore, the escalating annual payments would have begun to push developers like RSC & Associates off their block of land, opening it up to the market again.

Developers like Robert Ruvin, who win RFP option contracts, then struggle (or fail) to actually develop the land would be given options to reasonably scale back their projects by using less land (at less cost).

The state of Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) will soon begin selling the parcels used during construction of the Marquette Interchange.  Allowing them to use a more market-based approach would allow them to sell options on the land to private interests, begin to see a revenue stream immediately, and have private interests searching for developers.

If you’re questioning the possibly that such a plan allowing subdividing would work, look no further than the former Pabst Brewery.  The Brewery Project stewarded by Joseph Zilber has successfully parceled off buildings that will create an entirely new neighborhood.