‘Power to the People’ Over We Energies? Issue Comes to City Hall

Alex Brower and electrical infrastructure. Brower photo from campaign, electrical image in public domain.

It was a major step, but only a small start in the process.

The “Power to the People” campaign, which aims to replace We Energies with a city-owned electric utility, was granted its first public hearing at Milwaukee City Hall on Wednesday.

The three-hour meeting of the city’s otherwise dormant Public Transportation, Utilities and Waterways Review Board included testimony from the American Public Power Association, an attorney analyzing the campaign for Power to the People, a representative of one of the unions working with We Energies, and dozens of advocates.

Ald. Alex Brower, elected in spring 2025, made the creation of a public electric utility the top issue in his campaign. His vision is that by eliminating We Energies’ profit motive from the equation, electricity could be provided at a lower cost. But opponents have raised concerns about reliability issues with creating a new utility and the challenges of operating at a smaller scale.

“This is the start of what I believe will be a serious conversation about how we can transform this city,” said Brower. State law already allows the city to negotiate with We Energies to buy out the municipal distribution system within city boundaries or to start a state-regulated condemnation action to take ownership of the equipment, but many questions remain about the cost and feasibility of the idea. “This is the start of the conversation.”

“There is more interest now than there ever has been,” said Ursula Schryver, vice president of the American Public Power Association. She said examples of large-scale conversions are rare, but it is possible and consumers are increasingly demanding it because of concerns about rising costs, reliability and renewable energy. “There will be lawsuits. There will be PR campaigns. And you have to be prepared for that.”

Ald. Robert Bauman, the committee chair, said he believes the next step is to consider a dedicated task force with representatives of the council and various city departments. He said a request for proposals for a feasibility study could be issued. “And then the council would have to make the hard choice as to how to fund that feasibility study, which could be in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said the alderman.

“Ninety percent of the concern is the political will,” said Brower, encouraging activists to continue to organize around the issue.

Brower called We Energies “one of the worst corporate actors” in Milwaukee, but said the company was welcome to appear at future events. A referendum, required by state law, would enable We Energies to spend to oppose the measure, and Brower said he expected the company to spend heavily. A similar situation played out in Maine in 2023.

Kat Grant, an attorney with Madison-based Pines Bach, detailed for the committee various legal technicalities, potential pitfalls and mitigation measures the city could take. The city, said Grant, would only be able to take ownership of We Energies equipment used solely for the benefit of city customers. An appraisal process overseen by the Public Service Commission and the state court system would determine the price and could take several years. The timing of the referendum would depend on whether the city and We Energies could reach a negotiated price or proceed to a contested appraisal process.

But the vice chair of IBEW Local 2150, which represents the frontline workers maintaining the distribution system, warned the committee that a takeover might not be as easy as described. Sam Rozenberg, a system operations dispatcher and vice chair of IBEW Local 2150’s Unit 5, said the city would face many challenges in setting up a maintenance and operations team once it owns the equipment. “It is not something Milwaukee should gamble on,” he said.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the union announced its opposition to any takeover.

Grant said the union’s concerns about losing collective bargaining protections under Act 10, which strips bargaining rights for most government employees, could be mitigated by creating a third-party entity to operate the system.

Brower said a public owner could also provide better benefits to its workforce. “We want every dispatcher to have a better job, we just want the CEO to not have a job,” he said.

Several Wisconsin communities already own and operate their own electric utilities, including Manitowoc, Cedarburg and Oconomowoc. The City of Milwaukee owns the Milwaukee Water Works, which sells water to Milwaukee and more than a dozen other communities. The water utility generates an annual profit for the city based on its book value.

Schryver said a feasibility study is needed to determine which equipment would be included and what the city’s associated costs would be, but she said it is the norm for a public utility not to own any power generation equipment and instead to purchase power from outside providers via the regional grid. Grant said the city would be able to finance the purchase with revenue bonds, backed by future customer payments, which would not affect the city’s other borrowing capacity.

Over the course of an hour, dozens of speakers, many of whom were self-described Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America members, asked the city to advance a We Energies takeover. Those speaking in the public comment period included state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), Democratic Socialist congressional candidate Amy Donahue and AFSCME Council 47 steward Ian Gunther, a Milwaukee Water Works employee.

“We’re listening. We hear you,” said Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic. Ald. Scott Spiker also attended the hearing.

“This has been an informative public hearing,” said Bauman. “This is an enormously complicated process.”

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