Supervisors Waste $300,000

Rendering of rebuilt McKinley Flushing Channel. Collins Engineers Inc.

All actions have consequences, but not all have price tags.

Unfortunately, for three supervisors, their actions a year ago have a financial cost that can be calculated: approximately $300,000.

There is a historic channel in McKinley Marina owned by Milwaukee County Parks, bounded on three sides by concrete walls, and it is falling apart. The piece of infrastructure called the McKinley Flushing Channel acts as both a sea wall and a retaining wall for nearby McKinley Park. It’s a popular fishing spot, and the Milwaukee Yacht Club uses the channel for boat access.

Four years ago, Parks determined that it needed to rebuild the channel walls. The project was designed and the department sought construction funding in the 2023 budget. But supervisors cannibalized the funding during the budget process to spread small amounts of money around projects in their districts. Later, another supervisor convinced his colleagues to stall the project, questioning both its design and its cost.

In September this year, the board advanced the project, finally releasing funding for it. But having dithered on the decision for a year, it’s now $300,000 more expensive than it was a year ago; and it hasn’t even gone out to bid yet.

Supervisors Deanna Alexander and Ryan Clancy worked together to siphon funding from the project during the 2023 budget process. The supervisors led an effort at the eleventh hour to carve up a handful of budget allocations vetted and assembled by the board’s budget committee in order to spread money around their districts and others. Afterward, supervisors moved what was left of the channel project funding into an account and requested a menu of cheaper options, including the possibility of filling the channel in.

A few months later, Parks returned to the board seeking release of the funds. While not an exciting piece of infrastructure, it was beginning to fail and parks had already spent $300,000 designing a fix.

This time, Sup. Peter Burgelis led the effort to scuttle the project. The supervisor asserted that it was being “overbuilt” and demanded cheaper alternatives for the project.

An array of construction alternatives were considered during the design process that parks had to pay for. And filling in the channel was a non-starter for the department, given that it would disrupt the business of a long-term tenant, the Milwaukee Yacht Club. Additionally, filling in the lakebed would trigger the state’s Public Trust Doctrine and involve the state Department of Natural Resources for permitting and approval. And finally, Parks estimated that it would likely cost roughly just as much or more to fill it in as to rebuild it.

The project Parks has in mind would use modern construction techniques on the old sea-wall and ensure the infrastructure lasts. So while not the cheapest, engineers considered it “the most cost-effective, lowest maintenance, long-term solution,” according to a design report.

In September, Burgelis questioned Parks staff as to why they hadn’t filled in the depressions and sinkholes that were forming around the sea wall. Sarah Toomsen, director of planning and development, explained that soil had been added to the holes and that reconstruction would solve the problem now and in the future.

After the board finally released the initial construction funding for the project in September, County Executive David Crowley once again included the rest of the funding in his recommended budget.

The sea wall is only the most recent example of the board disrupting the work of Parks at the expense of taxpayers. In June, the board approved a road project it had put the kibosh on only two years earlier. The difference then was that the county had a state grant to cover the full reconstruction of the road. This summer the board approved a short-term fix that that would be paid for entirely by county taxpayers.

Sup. Shawn Rolland was one of a few supervisors pushing back against stalling the flushing channel project. “Nothing is getting less expensive. Inflation is what it is,” he told them in January 2023. Sup. Liz Sumner, chair of the Finance Committee, also opposed the move.

Their warnings were prescient. During a meeting in September, Sumner tallied up the cost of delaying. “I see,” she said. “It cost an additional $300,000 to put this off.”

Update: A previous version of this story noted that the Milwaukee Yacht Club was planning to invest $4.5 million in the docks at McKinley Marina. A representative of the club said the project is no longer moving forward at this time.