Category Archives: Mayor Tom Barrett

A StreetCar Named “Debt”

Posted by Wonder Woman on

“Billionaire Barrett” set to spend Obama out of Office! $$$$ 95 Million and Counting $$$$

First off we had “Diamond Jim Doyle,” now we have “Billionaire Barrett” who feels Obama does not have enough on his plate and wants to spend Milwaukee and the Federal coiffeurs into the poor house! Once again turning his back to the poor and inner city community he keeps claiming to care about so much and wants to help. Remember the speech Mayor Tom Barrett gave when he lost his bid to Walker for governor? I DO! He promised to refocus on Milwaukee and US, but still here we are with unemployment in the city at its highest. We even top the nation in Black unemployment rates, but we got $$ 60 Million locally for streetcars? You’ve got to be kidding me!

Milwaukee is soon to add a new streetcar to the streets of Milwaukee, hoping for federal funding (which by the way is still you and me footing the bill), the city is hoping you won’t notice that this $95 million streetcar will cause more debt and no jobs or any  travel to jobs for our community. It won’t even bring people to our part of the city to shop or support our businesses! So why should we pay for something that really is designed for white folks entertainment?

First off, as someone mentioned the #30 bus route more than covers most of the proposed route! So why again do we need a streetcar? Will it create an abundance of jobs for Black Milwaukee? NOPE!! However many think they can steam roll this right into existence and so far they are right.

The city would use $54.9 million in federal transit aid, matched by $9.7 million in tax-incremental financing, to build a 2-mile streetcar line from the lower east side to the downtown Amtrak-Greyhound station. Streetcars would run every 10 minutes weekdays and every 15 minutes in the early-morning rush hour with late-night and weekend service, starting in 2013 possibly.

Consultants hired by our friends at the utility companies submitted reports that are completely absurd with their figures. They will have to rip up several streets to remove gas, electric, steam, phone, cable, and other utilities. WE Energies assessed this cost for just their portion as an estimated cost of $45 MILLION DOLLARS!!! AT & T estimated it would cost in the TEN OF THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS to tear up JUST BROADWAY STREET ALONE!!

Some supporters of this project think tax payers should pick up this “utility” expense while we keep TRYING TO SEEK federal support. Mind you again federal support is still YOU AND ME PICKING UP THE TAB!!! Also might I mention Obama is catching hell without adding millions more to a Milwaukee streetcar project? He is busy cutting pork and bloated spending projects why are we asking for more when we should be scaling back?

With no jobs and no Black interests at stake, I am going to have to get in my invisible leer and do some real JustUS league lifesaving. Come on Milwaukee, do we need this right now? Black Milwaukee, can we afford to keep signing onto projects and not get anything in return? For all we have agreed to and supported all we got is a handshake and light bulb. (Those who got them know what I mean).

How about we get Bronzeville fixed up and then we get a train to come and choo choo its way past us first then we can worry about the have’s versus the have-not’s!! ENOUGH, our time for some attention from this mayor and this Common Council is past due and WE NEED HELP NOW!! Not a damn train!!!

As someone commented to me, why not run a bus route in the same exact area and if it does well, meaning staying in the black, not costing us any additional spending, we can move to this silliness.

 

 

Even our own local  “Bruce Wayne,” Chris Abele knows this is some foul mess. Abele said he supported new transit options only if they could be run “sustainably, responsibly and efficiently.”

Abele added that “our proximate focus has to be on the transit system,” which is facing a cut of nearly $7 million a year in state aid. We depend on busses in the inner city and the loss of those services would cripple the Black community. These new streetcars do not get our people to or from any type of job.

Former County Exec Walker once said streetcars would take riders and funding from buses. Reports from other cities like Portland say crime and vandalism also follow streetcars. Some also said it helped bring in business as well.

With this route not traveling past one Black business, or person, what is our stake in it? Seems to me if the East side wants it, let the East side pay for it, we need JOBS and EMPLOYMENT. This choo choo train will not bring anything to us AT ALL except more debt!

Peace Family,

WW

Roll Up!

Posted by Wonder Woman on

 

Roll ‘Em If You Got ‘Em

What happened to Milwaukee’s War on Blunt Wraps and ….

Some time ago Common Council President/Alderman Willie Hines banned the sale of drug paraphernalia by local gas stations, corner stores, and local businesses. Today you can find these products everywhere you turn so I wonder what happened to that ban and why now are blunt wraps and designer drugs in the convenience stores with little to no restrictions on them. Many places you go, you can find someone smoking their swisher sweet blunts right out in public with or sans weed. I thought we were working on stopping the promotion of drug use which included things that imply drug use?

Some of this goes to the fact that in America illegal drugs make up $100 BILLION of our economy. That means if we really made an effort to just say no and stop the sale and use of illegal drugs, our economy would cease to exist. I had heard Frederick Alexander Meade talk about this fact on Earl Ingram’s show. WOW $100 BILLION. This is too much for us common folk to wrap our heads around and certainly too much money to do anything about without getting killed. Most of us have seen the news and media surrounding Mexican borders and the innocent blood being shed for the safe passage of these drugs into our country. Who are we to stop such a powerful industry if our elected can’t? Look what happened to Hillary Clinton when she tried to warn us of the dangers, they put a hit out on her.  None the less we live directly in the results of this drug induced culture every single day. As tax payers we pay in one way or the other and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and other such cults are big business pushers that may or may not help. Who cares, it won’t stop and addiction/recovery are also big business. Why do you think AA and NA have few rivals for all of these years even though there are proven drugs in other countries that are actually helping addicts get the monkey off their backs successfully? To most of us this side of the pond those medicines are not insured and expensive but available for a price.

Getting back to Milwaukee, some of this goes to the fact that police did not deal with the original ban and never really enforced it. It became an afterthought. But Lord forbid you smoke in a bar or restaurant, or talk on a cell while driving, or don’t buckle up and you will end up a feature story on some local news story hidden video series with a big fine, ticket and criminal record.

The rest of this is we simply stopped caring as a community. Honestly we got bigger fish to fry and this should have been a simple task. If you want to own and operate in Milwaukee, your business must not sell blunt wraps and drug paraphernalia. PERIOD! But now I see blunt wraps sold as far as Brookfield, so that tells me we have no chance of stopping it here in the city. Although I still contend it should not be that damn difficult. We have hotlines for everything else under the sun.

So why are we selling blunt wraps and all the fixings for drug use in the inner city?

We still patronize these places because they are convenient. We gave up supporting our own businesses because they were priced out or were bad businesses in terms of customer service or management. The new owners are not of our country or community and could care less about the after effects of their sales. They go off to Mequon or wherever and call it day. They offer a ton of stuff, real cheap prices, and can now take Qwest and WIC and all the government aid you can support any business on. Had some of our businesses lived to see Qwest and WIC programs they might have been able to contend, but now they are gone.

Is it time to revisit the ban and add these items to the list, or should it be okay to sell items we all know are commonly used for drug use and expect the community to rise above this? Our kids are going into these shops and they are not dumb, they know what the stuff is used for and admire it and wait for their turn to participate in this exchange. Should our current mayor take a walk into a corner store and see what all qualifies as a “tobacco product” in Milwaukee? Wouldn’t it be nice to see him in the inner city not for a photo op but for something that is not a direct result of violence or giving/receiving an award but walking around the “hood” to stop and take in the city from our vantage point? Former mayor, John Norquist used to ride the bus A LOT, this mayor, only when a camera is around.

Funny when other communities piped up about stores like Starship and its sales of drug paraphernalia no one disagreed and the stores complied. Seems like the inner city stores operate under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. I think it is far past time to take back our corners!!

 

Peace Family,

WW

Crime Rate Down in Milwaukee? Yeah Sure!!

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Crime Rate Down in Milwaukee? Yeah Sure!!

What’s With (Some of) Our Black Youth and Milwaukee’s New & Growing Black Mob?

The latest incidents in Milwaukee have gone viral and national. It shows once again a mob “wilding” of youth, mostly Black, looting a gas station on Humboldt and North and injuring a number of people during the July 4th holiday festivities. There is also a new video circulating and several reports that there was “mob-like” behavior at Summerfest last night after a “rap” concert-Wiz Khalifa to be exact.

Down the street and all along Riverwest’s North Avenue there were reports of armed robberies, looting, people hitting others with glass bottles, racial harassment and serious damage to people and property.

When victims called Milwaukee Police, officers did not take official reports, did not prevent further outbreaks and pretty much undermined the entire incident, thus leaving Chief Flynn to clean up the mess. Chief Flynn and Mayor Barrett, for whatever reason, attempted to clean up this “colored mess” by insisting it was an “equal opportunity” wilding incident. “Mob-like” was the term Flynn used.

No Chief Flynn it was a mob, a very dangerous and out of control mob of over 100 or more young Black people!

I am not sure they were angry as some media reports indicated. They seemed quite happy when they were on camera taking entire food displays and merchandise. This is also the 4th recorded incident in the Riverwest area of “mob-like” retaliation against the neighborhood.

So Why the Cover Up?

“He (Flynn) also said it was important to challenge commentary in some blogs and reader comments on news stories that emphasize the race of the victims and suspects.”

Journal Sentinel Online:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/125073199.html

Really? Why let the Black community off the hook? Is this preparation for Elections 2012 for Barrett? Is he looking to secure the Black vote, thinking he is going up against Willie Hines? Well that does not make sense to me because these people do not strike me as potential voters.

We can clearly see, it was in fact Black youth and they attacked many people, but only the white people are recanting stories of Blacks using negative racial terms and phrases. Flynn gave stats that make people think this was not a racially motivated incident. How was it not? Who are you fooling Chief Flynn? Young Black kids out of control again; Summerfest, African World Festival, Mayfair, Juneteenth Day, Riverfest, Tech HS, and the list grows.

Is it because Summerfest and the city festival season is a critical source of revenue for the city and any inclination that people may be in danger would cause the city and namely Summerfest substantial loss financially? Not to mention the power and influence Summerfest has. Hell they got a closed parking garage open for business in a short time. Is it really safe? I wouldn’t park there. But less I digress…

Is it because crime is on an upward spiral and Flynn and Barrett are desperately trying to fool people into thinking Milwaukee is as safe as Mayberry? I would think most people in urban Milwaukee know better and those who live in Riverwest are fighting as much as they can to keep Riverwest a family-friendly neighborhood.

Just days ago police caught 4 suspects in a string of armed robberies in Riverwest.

WISN Chanel 12:

“Four people have been charged in connection to a string of armed robberies in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood.

Prosecutors said the group shot a man who fought back during a robbery at Fratney and Center streets on Sept. 24.”

http://www.wisn.com/news/25508749/detail.html#ixzz1RMCAlwwy

http://www.wisn.com/news/25508749/detail.html

Why are Chief Flynn and Mayor Barrett trying to keep us thinking these attacks on other Milwaukeeans not happening? What isn’t being reported, including reports of violence against our own? If this had been a group of law abiding Blacks, would the same outrage be reported? Would there have been a news conference and community meeting? I do not think so.

So that just leaves us with rising crime, a horrible economy, and the fact that in this most racially segregated community, the city has no clue as to how to solve these problems, no jobs to offer, no hope or change to believe in, no MLK to lead us from self-destruction. But is it their place to solve Black crime alone? Our Black leaders are mostly all for self and refuse to call out these incidents or deal with it, leaving us to deal with this in the streets.

When a white man pulls a gun out on a Black youth and shoots him point blank dead then what will happen? Seems to me this is a sad scenario in the brewing and if I were white and got beat down, I would be looking for a little payback too. However that payback is going to be the blood of an innocent kid and then all hell will break out. Am I wrong?

Are Our Kids Racist?

“Shaina Perry remembers the punch to her face, blood streaming from a cut over her eye, her backpack with her asthma inhaler, debit card and cellphone stolen, and then the laughter.

“They just said ‘Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,’ ” said Perry, 22, who was attacked at Kilbourn Reservoir Park over the Fourth of July weekend.”

Journal Sentinel Online:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/125027704.html

All across the country there is a new uprising of young people of non-Caucasian persuasion who are using social networking and other methods to meet and cause more harm than good. When is the last time you heard a news story about teens meeting up to clean a neighborhood or read to kids in the Black community? It is happening but that does not make a newscast. But this story does! And the whole city is watching to see how WE respond to it and make it better. They gave up on us a long time ago and now only hope to contain us and they are not inclined to give a hand up so now what do we do?

First, we need to be honest and say yes this issue must be addressed internally. Tom Barrett and Ed Flynn are not going to change anything for our people. They can help though.

Secondly, why are our kids attacking whites and tearing up white areas? For us older folks, there was a time when you did not enter certain parts of the city for fear of police brutality or worse white people. Now kids do not have any fear they just move about the city as if they own it. With conceal and Carry Laws in effect, they are armed again and best to prepare our kids to know that they may be staring down the barrel of a 44 mag Dirty Harry style.

In this latest attack whites reported their attackers were laughing at the blood dripping on their white faces and all types of nonsense. Have we raised racist kids and what kid thinks causing harm to innocent people is okay? Whose kids are these and other than Jason Fields who is on the front line to reverse this trend?

Well…

We have said all we can say, we have read all we can stomach and now it’s time for action. My fear is that the motivation for change will be in reaction to an action causing a real race war that has long been stirring in Milwaukee. Will it come to that to make change here in Milwaukee?

Willie, Ashanti, Lena, Tamara, Spencer, Barb, etc…where you at? We need you to be here and present.

Some of our Black elected are doing it every day; David, Milele and Jason. They are on the front lines, they need our support! There are other tired souls who never get recognition nor require it but they are waiting for those with power to come to their aide.

Peace Family,

WW

Raw Camera Footage:

http://www.jsonline.com/general/37714089.html?bcpid=23739055001&bctid=1039117824001

Chief Flynn Press Conference:

http://www.jsonline.com/general/37714089.html?bcpid=23739055001&bctid=1039444202001

http://www.620wtmj.com/podcasts/news/newstogo/125071234.html

Cease Fire Sabbath Sunday: Innovative Way to Fight Crime or a Waste of Time?

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Cease Fire Sabbath Sunday: Innovative Way to Fight Crime or a Waste of Time?

For seven years the mayor and several important staff members including District Attorney John Chisholm, embark on the inner city and other “trouble” spots to preach non-violence to THE CHOIR!!!!

Again our dear mayor misses the mark. Why in the hell are you going into churches when you should be on the streets with this message? Why do you think the very same people who deplore this violence have any more power than you do to stop it? The people you ought to be talking to are walking on the streets, riding in cars (like the street was I-94), and loitering at the gas station, ALL OF THIS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH!! Why not start there? Are you afraid to visit your neighborhoods at night Mayor Barrett? Possibly take in the sights at Bronzeville and see the progress? Stop by a housing project maybe? Although with elections not far off, I am sure we will be seeing you more and more as 2012 gets closer.

Well welcome to our world! Where have you been? The only difference between the church folks, pastors, and neighborhood organizations is that you have security detail and a MPD Chief in your back pocket so why not walk the streets of high crime areas instead of going to extreme safe zones like churches? They’re already preaching that message, been doing it for years. Why not visit gas stations, liquor stores, neighborhood porches where groups of people are hanging, or young people walking aimlessly about, and any other place that is “questionable” and then tell THEM your message if you truly want to get the “good news” to the “right” people! Being mayor is not a Sunday morning, 9-5 job. We need to see you at night, here battling with us, standing next to us.

 

Secondly, I offer this as a question for you to ask yourself. In the past 2 years Milwaukee has reported a surge of crime, but yet all the Cease Fire Sabbath reports referred to crime rates in Milwaukee as low. The MPD has excuse after excuse for their “fuzzy math.” So I ask who’s zooming who here? Either crime is up and you’re fudging numbers which puts us at risk, or you can prove how safe it is by doing some night time mayoring and preaching to the masses.

 

It is bad enough that Milwaukee media did not cover the current North side rapist story very well. No warnings from Chief Flynn or press releases from the mayor warning our women to take extra precautions during the rapist’s months of terror, no profile of typical activity, nada. It was a “page 15” story until the guy got caught. So you will excuse me if I don’t trust this mayor on crime. Watch your back out here family!

For more on that story:

http://lindsayheights.fox6now.com/news/news/milwaukee-police-expected-announce-arrest-north-side-rapist/66752

 

For more on the Cease Fire Sabbath Day:

http://www.communityjournal.net/?p=1462

Mayor Barrett preaches gospel of non-violence at pre-Cease-Fire Sunday breakfast.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett addressed a gathering of the city’s faith-based community, community-based leaders and law enforcement Thursday, May 13 during the annual Ceasefire Sabbath breakfast he hosted at St. Martin de Porres Congregation, 128 W. Burleigh. The breakfast, which gives the mayor and faith leaders an opportunity to exchange ideas on how to strengthen their partnership in addressing violence, especially gun violence, was held before the “Cease Fire Sabbath” May 15 and 16 in which the mayor and members of his staff visit churches, synagogues and mosques all over the city and preach non-violence and peaceful co-existence. The Ceasefire Sabbath is the brainchild of Mayor Barrett that enlists leaders in the faith community to preach sermons stressing peace and the rejection of violence to solve problems; as well as extend a hand to those whose lives have been affected by violence.

http://www.communityjournal.net/?p=1462

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnT6W_jqma8

Peace Family,

WW

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Whatever Happened To Bronzeville?

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Whatever Happened To Bronzeville?

The mayor renigs on his promise to our community!

Some weeks ago Mayor Barrett announced that he was leading a team of business and community leaders to rethink Wisconsin Avenue, to aide businesses in that immediate area and help the area become more economically viable as well as appeasing to the eye. Well that is all swell, but seems the mayor forgot about a project he was going to revitalize in his campaigning for mayor, help prosper and redevelop. What happened to developing Bronzeville dear mayor?

THE BRONZEVILLE DISTRICT

“The Bronzeville Cultural and Entertainment District is a City of Milwaukee redevelopment initiative inspired by Milwaukee’s original Bronzeville District of the early to mid 1900’s.

The heart of the original Bronzeville neighborhood was along Walnut Street between King Drive and 12th Street. By the 1930s, the number of African American-owned businesses in this area exceeded all other areas of the city – with the highest concentration between 6th and 9th Streets.”

  More about Bronzeville history

  http://city.milwaukee.gov/Bronzeville/History.htm

Some years later Bronzeville is still sitting here with little development for the African American community, Black businesses, local tenants and those who had high hopes for a new era with lofty dreams of infusing past memories of a rich past with the new semantics of life in an urban setting.

It’s 2012 and Bronzeville is a shell of what it should be by now, what we were promised it would be restored to. It is not entirely the mayor’s fault. In order to build anything in our community and make it flourish, we must assist in the process. We have seen many businesses come and go and come and go and …a vicious cycle of bad business deals, lack of community support or involvement, horrible communication from the Mayor’s office and lack of support (when is the last time you saw him there shopping, patronizing, visiting?), and the appearance from the media stories that this is still a rough neighborhood and just plain ignorance. Ignoring the businesses we do have in Bronzeville, ignoring the Alderwoman fighting to promote and plan (Milele Coggs District #6), ignoring the area, ignoring the project, ignoring US!!

(A quick little history lesson: Mayor Hoan, for which the bridge is named, had a great part in the destruction of Bronzeville and “Little Africa” by adding the I-94 corridor. Yet we honor this man as a great mayor. Mayor Barrett has the opportunity to right this gross wrong and make a powerful stance against the segregation we seem to never be able to shake off.)

I am sure some will say look at all the new housing projects. Yep more condos and I don’t see too many of us affording them!! But they sure do look pretty. The low income developments will also be nice once completed, if they are well built. How long will they stay nice? Can we get good management teams to manage them well? Can we make people respect their new living space and not tear it down like so many housing projects before? Recently the news and neighbors have brought to light more and more horror stories about low-income residential developments and the lack of effort on the part of developers to use quality material, build properly within code, and the need for oversight. The developers get the government handout off the top in some cases and then use cheap parts and spotty workmanship for the infrastructure. I also hear and have witnessed complaints about new housing developments, mostly white owned with some minority contractors, but that’s for another day! And if I am wrong, please correct me!!

That still leaves those residents with few businesses to shop. They might be feeling insecure if they watch local TV which depicts the area as violent and hardly ever shows Bronzeville in a good light except for maybe MLK day or Juneteenth day. Some months ago someone was shot right in front of a store and that was plastered all over the local media. I have tried to find positive pieces about the district to counteract the bad, but it is hard to do unless you live there, which I do. You can see good versus evil daily, but with a MIA mayor, the evil seems to grab more of

a stake in the district despite the efforts of Coggs and a few other dedicated soldiers to save this piece of US!

We can see out and out blight on the main thoroughfare of North and MLK! An abandoned looking building housing an closed Walgreens, a Time Warner Cable Payment Center and a one-stop shop. Might as well add a Cricket, a smoke shop, and a fried chicken outlet! Currently Bronzeville is an empty vision for the entertainment piece it once was; the cornerstone of Bronzeville!! At a glance, it is still ghetto heaven and I do expect much more Mayor Barrett starting with you! You can fix Wisconsin Avenue once your promise and obligation to us has been fulfilled!!!

Education-wise we do have St. Marcus Lutheran School anchoring down the community with its higher standards of education, superior emphasis on religious and African American educational needs, and its own personal commitment to the community. Many of the staff are anchored in the area, buying homes, putting their social justice into action!

 But then we have a handful of closed schools (MPS mostly), as well as schools that look like jails. They need a cosmetic upgrade as well as a caring staff. This is where our governor fits in. We must not let him take away the residency requirement. If it’s good enough to work in, it’s good enough to live in! He also needs to commit to this project with state funding and seek federal assistance. He’s on the hook too! Creating a new and powerful tax base helps the entire state as well as Milwaukee!

Sadly the patron saint of the street, MLK’s statue is hiding along his namesake drive. Symbolic of the way the area is a hiding jewel ready to be made over and brought back to its historic glory days.

Family before we let this mayor and his administration off the hook to go and remake other parts of the city we need to get our elected back on board with Bronzeville. If black elected could bring a whole state to its collective knees, (Taylor, Coggs, Grigsby, etc…) they certainly can redirect some attention to Bronzeville too!

For more information on the area please visit

http://city.milwaukee.gov/Bronzeville

The most recent good news from Bronzeville was just released right before posting:

“Two more projects have been proposed for the Bronzeville African-American Cultural Arts and Entertainment District.”

“We have made steady progress in cultivating the Bronzeville area as a cultural and entertainment district that honors a rich history in our community. In the present, however, development in this area and on Historic Dr. Martin Luther King Dr. means more stable neighborhoods, increased economic viability and more jobs for residents,” Ald. Miele Coggs said.”

http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/bronzevilledevelomentplans.html

Here is a story about the efforts from Urban Milwaukee:

http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2010/07/21/bronzeville-takes-a-small-step-forward/

Please also take a moment to write the mayor and the governor too! Tell them in order for segregation and black unemployment and other cultural issues to begin repairing is by starting here in Bronzeville and moving on up! Invest in us and not in more lake front condos for a change!! Time to make the whole city look beautiful! Also please thank Alderwoman Coggs for staying steadfast on this project. She keeps it front and center, but she cannot do it alone and she needs more support for this project from the community!

Peace Family,

WW

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