SDC Appoints Vincent Bobot Interim CEO

The Social Development Commission has appointed commissioner Vincent Bobot to serve as the troubled agency’s interim CEO.

The decision came at the Board of Commissioners meeting on Wednesday, according to SDC’s attorney William Sulton. It’s the latest development during a week in which NNS learned that SDC is selling its main office and warehouse for about $3 million.

Bobot is an attorney with a general practice, Bobot Law Office. He is serving his third term as an elected commissioner on the SDC Board of Commissioners and is also on the SD Properties board.

“Our goal is to try to preserve and keep SDC running,” Bobot said Friday. “A lot of work lies ahead of us to accomplish that task.”

Bobot said he started the position immediately on Wednesday by making several phone calls.

Commissioners nominated Bobot for the position at the board meeting and asked if he would accept the role, which he said he would on the condition that he would not accept payment, he said.

The commissioners then voted to install him as interim CEO.

A long history with the agency

Sulton said that while he was not present for the board’s discussion and vote on the interim CEO role, members explained that they viewed Bobot as the best choice because of his long history of working with SDC and community stakeholders.

“He has a lot of internal knowledge of SDC,” Sulton said.

The SDC Board of Commissioners met virtually on Wednesday evening, spending most of the meeting in closed session.

Bobot said he plans to work about 30 hours a week as SDC’s interim CEO.

“I guess the simplest way to put it is I’ve given up my free time to help people in poverty,” Bobot said.

“And I discussed it with my family and they agreed that it’s something that I need to do.”

Bobot ran for Milwaukee city attorney in the April 2020 primary election, a race that pitted him against Tearman Spencer and long-time incumbent City Attorney Grant Langley. Spencer won the election but the embattled city attorney was unseated in the April 2024 primary by state Rep. Evan Goyke after serving just one term.

Bobot represented former Wisconsin Senator Lena Taylor in a case brought against her by the City Attorney’s Office in 2018 for allegedly using racial slurs in a dispute with a Wells Fargo bank teller.

Taylor pleaded not guilty in Milwaukee Municipal Court to a $195 civil citation. Taylor was appointed to be a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge by Gov. Tony Evers in January.

Bobot previously worked in the Milwaukee Police Department, as assistant city attorney for the City of Milwaukee City Attorney’s Office, as a municipal and presiding judge in Milwaukee Municipal Court, and ran for mayor of Milwaukee.

Bobot plans to stay in his roles on the SDC and SD Properties boards.

“Whatever we do, we’re going to try to do it in a responsible manner that benefits the people of Milwaukee County,” he said.

The board is continuing to take steps to pay former employees who are owed paychecks, gain funding and reorganize the agency.

Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.