Board Approves Harley Park Deal

Highland Park. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

The Milwaukee County Board approved a deal Thursday that will see the Harley-Davidson Foundation provide $350,000 for improvements and maintenance of Highland Park in exchange for renaming it Harley Park.

Harley-Davidson will give the Milwaukee County Parks Foundation $250,000 for improvements to the park and another $100,000 for maintenance over the next decade. The 3.4-acre park sits in between the Harley-Davidson and Molson Coors corporate campuses.

Milwaukee County Parks will retain ownership and control of the park. James Tarantino, Parks deputy director, previously said, “Basically, everything would remain status quo, except for the name of the park and the improvements that would be coming.”

The motorcycle company plans to redevelop several surface parking lots adjacent to Highland Park into a large community park and events space called “The Hub.” Because of its location, cut off from the nearby residential neighborhoods, Highland Park sees most of its traffic from employees at the two corporate campuses. Harley-Davidson expressed an interest in bringing the park back up to snuff to keep the public area consistent with “The Hub.” Tarantino said Parks is coordinating improvements at the future Harley Park with the company so as not to duplicate anything it is planning for “The Hub.”

“Highland Park was in need of maintenance that frankly, the Parks Department could not spare the resources to update,” said Sup. Peter Burgelis, whose district includes Highland Park.

Some supervisors expressed concern about naming a public park for a corporation, including some that voted for the proposal. Burgelis said he wholeheartedly supported the name change, adding that he didn’t think the Harley deal set a precedent “because I don’t know of any other corporate entity or corporate neighbor in Milwaukee or Milwaukee County that has the same impact to our community as Harley Davidson does.”

The board voted in favor of Harley Park and accepting the funds 15-2 with supervisors Ryan Clancy and Juan Miguel Martinez voting against.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s past coverage here.

Board Accepts Grant to Redevelop Juvenile Justice Center

The board approved the acceptance of a $28.3 million grant from the state that will fund the redevelopment of the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center and the expansion of a program that offers an alternative to traditional incarceration for youth that would otherwise end up in state-run juvenile prisons.

The grant is the end result of a process that began with the passage of 2017 Act 185. The legislation was an attempt to overhaul the state’s youth justice facilities and build out a system that would allow more youth to serve sentences closer to their communities and outside of state-run youth prisons like Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake.

The board approved accepting the funding 14-3, with supervisors Tony Staskunas, Clancy and Miguel Martinez voting against

Read Urban Milwaukee’s recent coverage here.

Sherman Park

Following the board’s actions Thursday, a new project aimed at making a number of improvements to Sherman Park will receive nearly $1 million from the county’s allocation of federal funding under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The board voted to commit approximately $962,000 toward the project, covering the development of a new splash pad, redevelopment of a former basketball court, and improvements to pathways and lighting throughout the park.

The project is being led by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. It’s called “Reimagining Sherman Park” and in total it budgets more than $2 million for 13 individual projects throughout the park.

Read Urban Milwaukee’s recent coverage here.

Opioid Settlement

The board approved a historic settlement Thursday for Milwaukee County and the State of Wisconsin.

Negotiations recently wrapped on a second settlement in a lawsuit brought against opioid manufacturers and distributors. Milwaukee County joined dozens of counties and municipalities from around the state and country in bringing the suit.

This latest $45.3 million settlement from a group of opioid distributors nearly doubles the amount the county has received, bringing the total to approximately $101 million. It represents the largest recovery by a municipality in Wisconsin history. The board voted unanimously to accept the settlement.

In 2021, the county settled for $56 million with a group of pharmaceutical producers. This latest settlement, reached after two years of negotiating, was with a group of opioid distributors: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Allergan Finance, LLC, Walgreen Co., Walmart, Inc., CVS Health Corporation and CVS Pharmacy, Inc.

Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun told supervisors at Thursday’s board meeting that this is only the second settlement from this lawsuit, and there will likely be more. Additionally, the county is also involved in two other lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic. One against the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin; and another against McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm that worked as an advisor to Purdue.

Daun told the board that she has “never, ever seen anything like the facts that I have seen in these cases,” despite a 20-plus career in law.

“They knew they were killing people, and they tried and successfully created marketing campaigns to push larger dosages to more people who didn’t need them, knowing that people would die,” she said. “They are criminals, all of them, and not a single one of them has gone to jail. The best we can get is money.”

Read Urban Milwaukee’s recent coverage here.