Local activism, restored homes turn Midtown neighborhood around

Don Timmerman is coming home to the leafy block on N. 21st St. where he spent 27 years giving shelter to homeless people and advocating for peace at Casa Maria Hospitality House. “As soon as you turn onto that block, you know it’s something different,” Timmerman said Thursday as he and his wife, Roberta Thurstin, packed up their house in Park Falls for the move back south. “There are many good things going on in that block.” And in the neighborhood surrounding it, he might have added. Timmerman, a former Catholic priest, and Thurstin left the neighborhood 10 years ago. When they left, the Catholic Worker shelter was in a crisis, and Timmerman was suffering from stress, partly the result of injuries he’d suffered nearby in a holdup three years before. He’s become an Episcopal priest in the time since then, and the couple have continued their peace activism up north. He feels better now, he says, and they want to be closer to family and friends than they were in Park Falls. The neighborhood is feeling better, too, with a strong block watch, more restored homes and a new park. The block watch got a boost four years ago, after 14-year-old Ryan Banks killed 15-year-old Rance Jarvis during a drug deal at N. 24th St. and W. Juneau Ave., and the killing launched Nia Winston Obotette into action. Obotette joined others in mobilizing the Midtown Block Watch, and over the next four years worked with police and neighbors to shut down drug houses, drive back gangs and improve the quality of life in the area from N. 20th to N. 27th, W. State to W. Vliet streets. The group, named for a now-defunct neighborhood association that covered a much wider area of the north side, gained strength. In 2007, the Police Department named it outstanding block watch of the year. Today, what’s now called the Midtown Block Club meets monthly, alternating its meetings in the warmer months with walks around the neighborhood. Rosann Mathias, a close neighbor of Timmerman’s, recently succeeded Obotette as president. Monitoring landlords Mathias wants to continue holding landlords accountable. “We are putting investor owners on notice: Maintain their properties and rent to responsible tenants or get out of our neighborhood,” she says in an e-mail about the area. To the rest of the community, Mathias wants to drive home the appeal of her neighborhood: that it’s close to downtown; has great service from its alderman (Bob Bauman), the police and other city departments; is on the upswing and has big family houses with extremely affordable prices. And that it’s got some other assets. One is Lynden Hill, the block-square park created, at the urging of neighborhood activists and the help of environmental and government groups, in 2006 on the site of the former Misericordia Hospital. It’s one of just five Urban Treehouse sites nationally – places where the National Forest Service runs nature education programs for inner city kids. Another is the Milwaukee High School […]

Cafe at the Plaza welcomes new chef, menu

Nora B’s opens; Cafe Brücke sold; Mr. B’s reopens; brunch at Harvey’s

Johnny V hangs on to Posner Building

Minority construction firm formed

Edgewater Hotel plan secret, suspicious

A Criminal Walks Free

Assistant District Attorney Daniel Gabler is running a throw-back, racially tinged campaign for Milwaukee Circuit judge, attacking judges and defense attorneys for allowing dark, shadowy criminals to walk free. That’s pretty funny since a special prosecutor said Gabler broke the law, yet he’s allowed out on the street to run anyway. Gabler and his opponent, Fox Point Municipal Judge J.D. Watts, appeared at the pre-election forum held by the Community Brainstorming Conference, a monthly gathering of African-American leaders and ordinary folks from Milwaukee’s black community to discuss public issues. Milwaukee Children’s Court Judge Glenn Yamahiro asked Gabler about his attacks on defense attorneys and why he had engaged in race-baiting with an inflammatory campaign flier illustrated with a black shadow representing criminals. Gabler’s response was similar to Richard Pryor’s quick thinking when his wife caught him in bed with another woman: “Are you going to believe me or your lyin’ eyes?” Gabler denied what the audience could see for themselves as the campaign flier circulated around the room. “The truth is I have never spoken in a negative fashion about defense lawyers,” Gabler said. Although his private practice had been in business law, he said he once acted as a defense attorney for a businessman charged with drunken driving. Beyond that, he said: “The notion that I was race-baiting is quite honestly ludicrous. It’s just simply not true.” Boy, you sure could have fooled those reading his flier. The flier, which has been compared to the infamous Willie Horton ad of the first George Bush, is dominated by a scary black shadow and is headlined: “Tired of criminals walking free?” It goes on to describe Gabler’s experience as a prosecutor and to attack his primary opponents, Watts and Ronald Dague, as lawyers who “have a record of defending criminals.” What made the attack on Dague even more dishonest is that Dague, unlike Gabler and Watts, has never worked as a defense attorney. Dague works down the hall from Gabler as an assistant district attorney. In fact, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate whether Gabler’s flier violated campaign laws concluded that the attack on Dague was not only untruthful, but probably illegal as well. The special prosecutor, Kenosha County Assistant District Attorney Richard Ginkowski, said there was enough evidence to charge Gabler with committing a crime, whether Gabler was a liar. In other words, even though there was evidence Gabler had violated the law, he would be allowed to walk free. We thought Gabler was tired of that sort of thing. Based on a Myth Hearing Gabler publicly deny his own campaign literature, I felt compelled to ask a couple of follow-up questions at the community forum. Because my wife, Kit, works in advocacy to try to reform the criminal justice system, I knew the entire premise of Gabler’s flier was based on a myth perpetuated by rightwing radio. Criminals do not walk free in Milwaukee County. Those charged with crimes, particularly violent crimes, go away for a long, long time. […]

250 Plaza office tower goes into receivership

Big donors fueled election

David W. Haddow

Eric Wagner of Diablos Rojos Restaurant Group

Downtown Holiday Inn project is dead

The plans to develop a 160-room Holiday Inn hotel in the Posner building at 152 W. Wisconsin Ave. in downtown Milwaukee are dead. The project was proposed by Milwaukee-based Gabaldon Properties and North Liberty, Iowa-based Kinseth Hospitality Companies. Gabaldon has rescinded its offer to purchase the 100-year-old building, said Johnny Vassallo, the building’s owner and the owner of Mo’s Restaurants. “We just decided, with what is going on in the economy and the credit markets, that the timing was not right to move forward with the project,” said Charles Gabaldon, the owner of Gabaldon Properties. “I don’t want to get into any details.” “I just don’t think (Gabaldon) was able to get the deal together,” Vassallo said. “I’m not really sure why, exactly. It’s hard to get financing right now. I think he tried really hard.” Vassallo said he still hopes to sell the seven-story, 108,000-square-foot building for about $5.8 million. The building has an assessed value of $2.9 million, according to city records. The building’s location at the northwest corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Plankinton Avenue places it right at the heart of downtown, Vassallo said. “It’s right at ground zero for everything that is happening in Milwaukee,” he said. Vassallo said he is in negotiations with three potential buyers: a local developer interested in creating live-work apartments in the building; a Chicago hotel developer; and an Indianapolis hotel developer. He also will consider offers from other potential buyers. As part of any deal, Vassallo’s Mo’s Irish Pub restaurant will remain in the building. If an attractive offer does not come together, Vassallo said he may rekindle his previous plans to develop a hotel in the building. “I always dreamed of doing a ‘Mo-Tel’ there,” he said. In recent months, Vassallo has scaled back his restaurant holdings to focus on his two most successful concepts: Mo’s A Place for Steaks and Mo’s Irish Pub. On Friday he opened a new Mo’s Irish Pub at a lifestyle shopping center in Noblesville, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. That restaurant is based on the highly successful suburban model established at the Wauwatosa Mo’s Irish Pub, Vassallo said.