South Shore supervisor now faces challengers on 2 flanks
The top 2 vote-getters on Feb. 20 to face off April 3
The Wisconsin Working Families Party and Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele are attempting to influence the outcome of a race for the South Shore county supervisor seat by supporting opposing candidates in a Feb. 20 primary election.
The odd man out in the three-way primary is incumbent District 8 Supervisor David Sartori. He has not attracted support from outside interest groups.
Sartori claims the Wisconsin Working Families Party has targeted him for defeat in the spring election because of his opposition last year to an effort to declare the county a sanctuary for undocumented immigrant workers.
Sartori pointed to fellow Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic, executive director of the independent political organization, as the person who recruited one of his challengers, Steven Shea, to run for the seat. Dimitrijevic was the sponsor of the resolution in 2017.
The Wisconsin Working Families Party has endorsed Shea in the race, said Rebecca Lynch, political director of the party. The third candidate in the race is James Davies.
Dimitrijevic charged that Davies is supported by leadershipMKE.com, an independent political expenditure committee funded by Abele. Such commit-
tees are set up to spend money on campaign messages to boost a single candidate without the cooperation or consent of the candidate.
A flyer promoting the Davies campaign and distributed in South Shore communities states that it was paid for by the group and not authorized by any candidate.
Davies said he was not aware of the flyers until this week when he saw one hanging on the door handle of a home in a neighborhood where he had been knocking on doors to introduce himself to voters.
The Feb. 20 primary in the district will eliminate one candidate in the three-way race. Sartori is seeking reelection to a second term representing Saint Francis, Cudahy and South Milwaukee as well as portions of Oak Creek.
The top two vote-getters on Feb. 20 will face off in the April 3 spring election. All of the 18 County Board supervisory district seats are up for election this spring. There are seven contested races and the only primary is in the South Shore district.
Working Families also endorsed Sparkle Ashley in her bid to unseat incumbent Supervisor Deanna Alexander in District 18, Lynch said.
“There is a need for change on our County Board,” Lynch said in a news release announcing the two endorsements.
The party is not making endorsements in any of the other five contested races for County Board seats.
Shea said Dimitrijevic first asked him more than two years ago to run for the office before Sartori stepped in to run in 2016. Dimitrijevic asked him again last year, he said.
“She wanted someone who would be an effective representative of middleclass residents of the district,” Shea said.
Davies and Shea said they decided to run for the seat because Sartori, in their view, has not been a strong advocate for his constituents on the South Shore and he has not worked together with other supervisors to propose solutions to problems facing the county.
Sartori, of Cudahy, was elected to a two-year term in April 2016. He is open about his age, 75, and is quick to point out he is the oldest supervisor on the board.
One of the issues facing county government that prompted him to run for a second term is the problem of declining state shared revenue payments to the county that are needed to support spending on services, he said.
“We have to mount a united effort to lobby the state Legislature to restore shared revenue” payments to the level of 10 years ago, he said.
Sartori, a retired state probation and parole agent, said he is accessible to district residents since he is in the board offices at the courthouse each weekday even though the job of supervisor is part-time.
Shea, 58, of Cudahy, is an adult education teacher at MATC and a member of the American Federation of Teachers Local 212. The union local’s Committee on Political Education contributed $1,050 to Shea’s campaign.
Shea said he was “grateful” for the Working Families Party endorsement. If voters give him the job, Shea said he would work to protect parks and the lakefront, boost public transit and support other county services.
He strongly opposes a plan to begin collecting parking fees this year at county parks and parkways, Shea said. “Even though I will examine new sources of revenue for our parks, I will make sure they are accessible to all citizens,” Shea said.
Davies, 33, of South Milwaukee, is senior director of operations and planning for Bublr Bikes, a nonprofit bike sharing system in Milwaukee County. He also is treasurer of Growing South Milwaukee, an initiative to establish a community garden in that city.
Davies is attempting to unseat Sartori because he believes the South Shore needs a representative who will promote the area and help attract new employers, he said. The district’s representative should be willing to work collaboratively with other supervisors as well as Abele on a variety of issues, from public safety and preserving county parks to funding public transit.
“People are better off if they can get to work and have options for getting there,” Davies said.
His experience with setting up contracts between Bublr Bikes and the county parks department, bus transit system and House of Correction has given him a first-hand look at the workings of county government, Davies said.