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The future of the dam at Estabrook Park is a hot topic these days, with environmentalists backing its destruction as advocates fight to save it.
The state has ordered repair work for the dam -- which Milwaukee County has neglected for years -- three times since 1995. Water advocates see this as an opportunity to stop spending money on repairs and have the dam removed.
The County Board will vote on whether to spend $1.4 million to fix the dam, which blocks the Milwaukee River just east of Port Washington Road. If the dam stays in place and is kept permanently closed, the cost would range between $2 million and $2.5 million. One estimate states that the tab for removing the dam would cost about $1.8 million or $2 million.
Folks wanting to keep the dam have rallied around a group called the Milwaukee River Preservation Association. They argue that keeping the dam open or tearing it down would release toxins that have built up behind it.
Another obvious argument is that the homes that line the river upstream from the dam would have a new mudflat and the river's level would drop to the point where homeowners couldn't float boats any more.
The Milwaukee Riverkeeper, behind interim executive director Cheryl Nenn, is leading the argument for removing the dam. The main thrust here is that getting rid of the dam would make the river healthier. Nenn and the Riverkeepers say that no private landowner will have to pay for a sediment clean-up and that the newly-exposed land that comes with the dam opening would have to be cleaned, anyway.
"Milwaukee Riverkeeper believes that removal of the dam would have the greatest positive impacts on flood management, water quality, sediment management, fish and aquatic life, terrestrial wildlife and recreation," Nenn said. "Dam removal will help us reach our vision of restoring the natural and wild aspect of the Milwaukee River."
The arguments echo those made when the North Avenue Dam came down in 1997. Concerns landowners had over sediment were addressed by remediation efforts and a UW-Madison study says land values improve for properties next to a free-flowing stream.
The Parks Committee will consider the repair job on Tuesday. A County Board committee in 2005 voted to take dam demolition out as an option.
Granted: Speaking of the Milwaukee Riverkeeper, the group is in line to get a $10,000 grant towards getting more river quality monitors on the water. The River Network-MillerCoors Watershed Protection Grant contest has selected the Riverkeeper organization as one of eight finalists for the money. There will be four winners. The funding will go toward training and equipping volunteer water monitors to have more trained volunteers in the field collecting data about the rivers.
The group is in line to win based on people going to the official Web site for the contest and voting for the Milwaukee Riverkeeper:
The city is offering the site for $108,000 and is asking for plans that:
- Incorporate open space for the farmer's market and is publicly accessible during daylight hours.
- Contain pedestrian-oriented rather than traffic-generating uses on the ground floor.
- Expand housing opportunities in the area by building residential units on the upper floors, but full commercial occupancy is permitted.
- Provide a minimum of two sustainable or "green" elements with preference to more sustainable elements and / or LEED certification.
The city will not entertain tax-exempt use, seasonal use as the sole year-round use on the ground floor, day-care center, church, social service facility, pawn shop, automobile sales or repair, service station, convenience store, liquor store, cigarette or cigar shop, gun shop, payday or auto-title loan store, fast food restaurant, use that requires a drive-though lane or taverns (unless food service is the major component).
The Pulaski Building was long a source of neighborhood contention when it stood in various stages of disrepair and occupancy for the 1980s and ‘90s. Neighborhood groups came up numerous proposals and argued amongst themselves as to which plan was best. But nothing happened and it was torn down, despite the historic status as a venue once played by Lou Reed.
The city is enticing potential developers with $5,000 per employee for facade improvement, up to $5,000 per employee for first-floor retail and loans from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation.
Deadline for proposals is April 8.
No Inmates Needed: Milwaukee Ald. Bob Donovan isn't a big fan of Gov. Jim Doyle's plan for early inmate release to take pressure off taxpayers and overcrowding facilities.
"I was taken aback," he said when he heard of the proposal. "Earning credits for behaving nicely behind bars does not, in my opinion, translate into automatic good behavior after these inmates are released.
"I wish the governor could promise us that these early release inmates had found the Lord or somehow gotten on the straight and narrow," he continued. "How do we explain to neighborhood residents that the guy who just got busted for running the crack house down the block, where stolen goods from their homes and garages were being traded for crack and where prostitutes and violent gang members started hanging out, should actually still be in prison?"
Needing Something to Do: Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce may be taking a powder from the state Supreme Court, but it is spending its political money on the rest of its agenda. WMC, the state's big business lobby group, has said it will stay off the court race between Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Jefferson County Judge Randy Koschnik, where it had spent millions before, supporting conservative candidates.
But WMC is running radio ads opposing Gov. Jim Doyle's proposal for a combined corporate income tax hike of 11 percent. Doyle said his plan would raise $22.6 million this year and $150.4 million next year. The combined corporate tax strategy taxes income from a business' subsidiaries and other offshoots no matter where they are located.
WMC claims that will make the state less competitive, sort of a mantra of theirs. WMC wants tax relief, less regulation and more tort reform.
Doyle, Evers and DPI: No surprise here. Doyle endorsed Deputy Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers to head the DPI after the April election. The race has become something of a battle between ideologue Rosa Fernandez and Evers, sort of a career administrator. Fernandez is head of a group that advocates for more virtual schools and expansion of the school voucher program.
Evers also received the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO union.
Evers got 89,453 votes -- about 35 percent -- in the five-way February primary about 35 percent. Fernandez finished with 79,548 votes (31 percent). Evers ran eight years ago and lost to Elizabeth Burmaster, who is retiring. He has been deputy secretary since 2001 and was a former Milwaukee Schools administrator.
An avid outdoors person he regularly takes extended paddling trips in the wilderness, preferring the hinterlands of northern Canada and Alaska. After a bet with a bunch of sailors, he paddled across Lake Michigan in a canoe.
He lives in Bay View.
