State Rep. Bob Donovan
Press Release

Mayor Barrett: Secure Our Neighborhoods, Fix Our Streets, and Enough with Your Damned Streetcar

Aldermen urge citizens to voice their opposition to the streetcar by saying “Enough is Enough!’ Joint statement from Alderman Bob Donovan and Alderman Mark A. Borkowski May 6, 2019

By - May 6th, 2019 09:01 am

To our friends and neighbors throughout Milwaukee who will never know a moment’s benefit from the Milwaukee Streetcar, please know that we hear you and share your frustration with an administration that has chosen to ignore you.

We have heard you as you drove over streets left unmaintained and riddled with potholes even though the streets beneath Mayor Barrett‘s Folly seem peculiarly well paved and plowed.

We have heard you as you wondered how a City with a budget of over a billion dollars could not find enough money to fund the repaving of even one alley in 2019 — not even one — but could conjure resources sufficient to lay track onto the very same streets from which trolleys were taken a generation ago.

We have shared your ever-growing concern as our police department has been starved of resources, deprived of police officers, and prevented from stemming what we all know to be a growing problem of fear, crime, and disorder throughout the City.

We have seen, as you have seen, fire stations “browned out”, libraries close ever earlier, and street lamps go out for want of staff; all while “The Hop” clanks half-empty through the darkness.

And now the Mayor wants to expand a system that is not complete, that he cannot prove anyone rides, and that no one but him seems to want to pay for.

Not one expansion, not two, but three.

What madness is this?

More to the point, what do any of us that care for the well-being of the City have left but our obligation to resist?

Knowing the certainty of opposition to this proposal, the Mayor is doing everything in his power to push this expansion through the Common Council as quickly as is possible.

You cannot let him.

Note we said you cannot let him. Our voices and our votes have been and will remain set against this absurdity. The other members of the Common Council — our colleagues — must know you agree with us.

Call them, write them, e-mail them (their phone and email information is listed below). If you have never contacted your council member before, do so now. If you have contacted him or her before, do it again.

This is where the Milwaukee Streetcar must stop. To be direct, only you can make that so.

And we will stand with you.

1st District – Ald. Ashanti Hamilton, 414-286-2228 (ahamil@milwaukee.gov)
2nd District – Ald. Cavalier Johnson, 414-286-3777 (cavalier.johnson2@milwaukee.gov)
3rd District – Ald. Nik Kovac, 414-286-3447 (nkovac@milwaukee.gov)
4th District – Ald. Robert Bauman, 414-286-2886 (rjbauma@milwaukee.gov)
5th District – Ald. Nikiya Dodd, 414-286-3870 (ALD05@milwaukee.gov)
6th District – Ald. Milele Coggs, 414-286-8640 (mcoggs@milwaukee.gov)
7th District – Ald. Khalif Rainey, 414-286-2863 (Khalif.rainey@milwaukee.gov)
9th District – Ald. Chantia Lewis, 414-286-2868 (Chantia.lewis@milwaukee.gov)
10th District – Ald. Michael Murphy, 414-286-2074 (mmurph@milwaukee.gov)
12th District – Ald. José Pérez, 414-286-2861 (joseG.perez@milwaukee.gov)
13th District – Ald. Terry Witkowski, 414-286-8537 (twitko@milwaukee.gov)
14th District – Ald. Tony Zielinski, 414-286-2873 (tzieli@milwaukee.gov)
15th District – Ald. Russell Stamper, 414-286-3771 (Russell.stamperII@milwaukee.gov)

Mayor Tom Barrett
c/o Mayor’s Office, City Hall
200 E. Wells St. Rm. 201
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 286-2200
Mayor@milwaukee.gov

Mail for Common Council:
Ald. (name)
c/o Office of the Common Council/City Clerk
200 E. Wells St. Rm. 205
Milwaukee, WI 53202

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.

More about the Milwaukee Streetcar

For more project details, including the project timeline, financing, route and possible extensions, see our extensive past coverage.

Read more about Milwaukee Streetcar here

7 thoughts on “Mayor Barrett: Secure Our Neighborhoods, Fix Our Streets, and Enough with Your Damned Streetcar”

  1. Gregg Mulry says:

    I wish Mr. Donovan would vet over his bias and learn more about how a streetcar benefits a city. I know that may be too much to ask. He’s as tenacious in his view as an anti-vaxxer.

  2. blurondo says:

    The primary cause of Milwaukee’s urban ills was having an enemy of the city in the governor’s chair for the last 8 years.

  3. Thomas Martinsen says:

    I second the first 2 posts. It is good news that Donovan is retiring from his pubic office. It would be better news if he could retire from the public forum. His knee-jerk, reactionary biting and moaning promotes cynicism at a time in history when we need idealism.

  4. Barbara Richards says:

    The Donovan mentality is why we do not have an equitable transit system in MKE. Had we not argued in the 1990’s over the Federal money perhaps we could now have a system that serves MKE in an equitable way. There is much pressure to look good for the DNC. If that also means that the equity button gets pushed as it seems to be up at the old Sears store we may really have something to show the DNC, and our neighbors in this city.

  5. Thomas Martinsen says:

    Yes, Barbara Richards, now is the time to push the “equitable transit button” to give access to the heart of our city to citizens from Bronzeville and Walker’s Point. A few more steps after that could result in our city’s public transportation system returning to the first class status it enjoyed in earlier years.

  6. Thomas Martinsen says:

    The likes of lame duck Donovan care only about a fantasy of convenience for their cars in a city too densely populated for cars and convenience to fit together. Face it, car lovers: you need either to leave your cars at the edge of town and take public transportation in the city or to pay a fee for overcrowding our city street with your behemoths..

  7. Steven Midthun says:

    I may “never know a moment’s benefit from” a municipal golf course, marina, swat team, forester, or anti-graffiti team, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t. There’s a reason we didn’t vote Donovan in for mayor, and he’s making it clear every day as he spills his sour grapes all over the floor as he leaves. Perhaps we could shave his pension to pave his alley?!?

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