{image1}The rap on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was always that he was too nice of a guy. You know, the vision thing. Being a nice guy doesn't necessarily translate into leadership.
In fact, being nice can have the opposite effect. Leaders have to be willing to take a stand and that invariably ticks off somebody.
When Barrett was getting his mayoral feet wet after taking office in April 2004, it seemed like he was going down the nice-guy route too often. He was risking being seen as the mayor-who-formed-task-forces (AKA the mayor who didn't really do anything on issues like sewage overflows and election fraud) and who, when he did take a stand, seemed to take a misguided partisan one (Milwaukee's going to run out of ballots! There is no fraud whatsoever in Milwaukee elections!)
A couple months ago, a local editorial board was still saying Barrett needed to get bolder. Population and economic reports showed Milwaukee as a city in decline. But lately, Barrett seems to be getting the hang of this vision thing.
Vision means selecting a few top issues that you think are important as a leader, formulating a firm stand on them, making those stands known, and then using your position to try to get them done. Whether Barrett will succeed on the execution part of the equation is still an open question in many respects. And there are already whispers of a future challenger: Common Council President Willie Hines is reportedly already considering a mayoral challenge. That speculation is fueled over lingering questions by some in the black community about Barrett, because of the Lisa Artison mess (her husband is a prominent radio host with a bully pulpit of his own) and the remaining Marvin Pratt fallout.
But I first started to notice that the mayor was speaking with a lot more focus when I saw him on the nightly news at an average homicide scene a couple months ago. He was making a statement: Milwaukee has too much violent crime, and we all need to do something about it. I thought it was great to see him standing out there at 10 p.m. because it sent a message. He'd found a priority. There's power in drawing a community line and saying were just not going to accept this problem as an acceptable status quo anymore.
Until Milwaukee deals with the environment that fosters violent crime (almost half of Milwaukee's African-American children live in poverty, and about 1,400 are homeless most days), the city will not reach its true potential. It's good to see the mayor use his bully pulpit to underscore that point rather than just lobbing personal attacks at the police chief (who didn't get sick of that in the Chief Arthur Jones era?).
Barrett's come up with some novel ideas, such as his Summer Jobs Initiative to link unemployed Milwaukee youth with Wisconsin Dells and other employers and his Safe Summer program that, among other things, provides free meals to youth all summer. He also started a first-in-the-nation Homicide Review Commission (Yes, another task force, but a worthy one as long as it's accompanied by action) to dig into the root causes of homicide.
The moves have hardly stopped the violence; homicides are skyrocketing this summer in Milwaukee over last year's totals. But it's a start. The mayor has made it known that he's marshaling his office's resources on this issue -- even going into schools to do so, That, in and of itself, is valuable.
I'd also put these Barrett moves in the vision category.
PabstCity: Plans to convert the old Pabst brewery site into an entertainment and retail complex known as PabstCity. The plan calls for $41 million in public financing, and Barrett has been an extremely vocal supporter and lobbyist for the plan. In fact, his maneuvering on the PabstCity project has been the single issue, in addition to homicide, that most illustrates the changes in Barrett. Of course, whether the plan will succeed remains an open question. But if it does, his fingerprints will be all over it.
Redevelopment: He's also been involved in other economic ventures, such as a plan to move a public works building to the Tower Automotive site, putting the Harley Davidson museum in the Menomonee Valley, and pushing approval of a redevelopment plan for the Park East freeway land.
Downtown casino: A casino downtown? Barrett has been a strong advocate for the idea and traveled to Washington D.C. to investigate the feasibility of something a lot of people think should have happened in the first place.
Lisa Artison: The embattled elections chief hung on for awhile -- and Barrett never admitted to pushing her out the door -- but she's gone. Barrett picked a widely praised successor, police commander Susan Edman. But Republicans would like to see his election reforms go a lot farther, and he's still hurting in those corners from perceptions that he could have done a lot more to ward off potential problems in the first place. Still, he's starting to finally put the controversy behind him.
Education: Crafting a consensus position on education that rewards both public schools and school choice proponents by advocating that the Legislature raise the cap on voucher schools while at the same time allowing Milwaukee Public Schools to count choice students in state aid calculations. Opponents argue linking them was a mistake, but he took a stand that avoided the easy trap of demonizing one side or the other.
Smoking regulation: Not supporting a broad smoking ban. He's made it clear he's lukewarm on the idea, which many think is a misguided priority.
Minimum wage: He pushed for a minimum wage increase.
Cutting bureaucracy: He's pushing reductions in the city's bloated automotive fleet.
Suburban relations: Avoiding heated and counterproductive us vs. them rhetoric with the suburbs.
Campaign promises: Keeping campaign promises, such as pushing a plan to require lobbyist registration and finding private money when aldermen balked at funding audits for the Fire and Police Commission and Department of Public Works.
Budget one. Although Pratt and John Norquist played a role, it did stay within the boundaries of the GOP tax freeze definition and required Barrett vetoes to get there. Budget two, unveiled in September, will be a bigger test.
Whether you agree or disagree with all of them is not the point. They show that Barrett has staked out an agenda and is spending political capital on it. And that's how you get to the vision thing.
Jessica McBride, a former Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter married to Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher -- a Republican candidate for Wisconsin attorney general -- teaches journalism at UW-Milwaukee and writes a blog.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.
 |
Sign up now for a free e-mail election service from WisPolitics.com. Click here. |
