Barrett, Taylor square off Tuesday
Both mayoral candidates grew up in Milwaukee
The two candidates for Milwaukee mayor are battling for the top job in a city where they both grew up and have long been household names.
And with the city and world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, they are headed toward the April 7 election in a moment that has presented significant challenges for government and residents alike.
State Sen. Lena Taylor is challenging Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as he runs for a fifth term at the city’s helm. The two Democrats were elected to their current positions in 2004, with Taylor having been elected to the state Assembly in 2003 and Barrett having previously served in Congress and as a state legislator.
Whoever wins next week will be faced with a host of challenges, among them a significant anticipated jump in the city’s annual pension contribution that could hit services hard, rampant reckless driving in the city and ongoing efforts to combat lead poisoning among Milwaukee children. And the pandemic is likely to make things no easier.
Barrett has presented himself as a unifier under whose tenure the city has seen growth and development and a drop in violent crime. Barrett said in a fifth term he would work to create more
jobs and to continue the decrease in violent crime, in addition to focusing on housing initiatives and support for early childhood education.
And he argues that given the challenges posed by the coronavirus and changes in leadership at other levels of local government, including the county executive’s office, now is not the time for a new executive at the city level.
Barrett’s tenure has also seen disarray in the Health Department and challenges at the Fire and Police Commission, which has oversight responsibility for the city’s Police and Fire Departments.
Taylor said she’s on the front lines with residents and charged that Barrett has overseen “the tale of two cities” in which there are disparate effects on people of color.
She said Barrett has not prioritized the needs of residents, including in development in downtown versus the city’s neighborhoods. Taylor said his administration has lacked urgency in addressing the city’s problems and has mismanaged city government, including its response to the coronavirus and its handling of voting in the April 7 election.
A stone’s throw from home
Both Barrett and Taylor grew up close to where they now live, Barrett on the city’s west side and Taylor on the north.
“At the time I was growing up, what you needed to succeed in Milwaukee was a strong back and a good alarm clock,” Barrett said.
Barrett graduated from college and
law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1984, the state Senate in 1989 and Congress in 1992. He was elected mayor in 2004.
He has run unsuccessfully for governor three times, losing the Democratic primary in 2002 to then-Attorney General Jim Doyle, and losing to Republican Scott Walker in 2010 and again in the 2012 recall election. He had weighed another run against Walker in 2018 but decided against it.
Under Barrett’s tenure, problems in the city’s Health Department have affected services for residents.
The department struggled for months after it came to light that it had failed to provide services for the families of children with lead poisoning, or at least failed to document its efforts. The fallout included the January 2018 resignation of Health Commissioner Bevan Baker.
A criminal investigation was opened into the Health Department and one matter remains open, Kent Lovern, chief deputy district attorney in Milwaukee County, said Tuesday. He did not have a date when that remaining matter would be completed.
Problems in the department also affected other services it provides.
Taylor criticized Barrett over the disarray in the Health Department and its response to the lead crisis, saying it was an example of mismanagement in his administration.
Barrett said he acted quickly when he realized there was a serious problem.
Problems have also surfaced in the city’s Fire and Police Commission, which has seen staff turnover and public resignations. The commission is a powerful civilian oversight body that oversees the Police and Fire Departments. The mayor appoints and the Common Council confirms FPC commissioners and its executive director.
Barrett said he remains supportive of the leadership of FPC Executive Director Griselda Aldrete.
Taylor described Milwaukee as a big city with a small-town mentality and said her experience growing up showed her what can happen for people in Milwaukee when there are supports, opportunity and access.
She said the city’s segregation is part of what has created the disparities in Milwaukee and that growing up in her neighborhood gave her a sense of urgency.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.
Taylor graduated from Rufus King International High School and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and received her law degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.
Taylor was elected to the state Assembly in 2003 and to the state Senate in 2004.
She unsuccessfully challenged Walker in 2008 when he was Milwaukee County executive, but she carried the city in that election by 5,000 votes.
Taylor was one of the Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois in an effort to block a vote on Act 10, the signature measure of Walker’s tenure as governor that limited the power of public employee unions.
There has long been speculation that she would run for mayor.
Taylor was also on the powerful state Joint Finance Committee but was removed from the committee in 2018 after a Senate human resources investigation determined she bullied staff and retaliated against an employee for using family and medical leave. At the time, she called her removal from the committee a “political lynching,” defended her legislative record and pushed back against her removal.
In 2018, she was cited for disorderly conduct for berating a Wells Fargo bank teller. The teller and witnesses told a Milwaukee police officer that she called the bank teller a “house (N-word)” after a dispute over depositing an $825 check, according to a police report.
She pleaded no contest to the charge and paid a $195 fine.
Asked what residents should make of these incidents, Taylor said the incidents are not fairly balanced against her long record of working on behalf of constituents. She also said residents should be more concerned about Barrett’s administration.
Barrett highlights investment in city, Taylor calls for urgency
Barrett highlighted investment in the city and dropping violent crime numbers and said he’d want to put an emphasis on early childhood education in a fifth term. He also said one of the key issues facing the city is its fiscal relationship with the State of Wisconsin.
Taylor criticized what she said was a lack of urgency on Barrett’s part to address key issues facing residents, including the lead crisis. She also said development has been overrepresented in downtown to the exclusion of neighborhoods.
Barrett pointed to development activity outside downtown, such as in the Menomonee Valley, Walker’s Point and up King Drive in addition to city investment in the Century City Business Park on the north side.
He said his administration had invested millions in cleaning up the Century City site and worked to encourage business leaders to invest.
In 2009, the Common Council and Barrett approved borrowing $15.6 million to create Century City and used the funds to purchase the site, tear down most of the buildings and perform environmental cleanup, among other improvements. But the site has struggled to attract development to help pay down the amount the city borrowed.
Last month, Barrett and the Common Council approved allocating $13.4 million for a public bailout of the Century City Business Park tax incremental financing district using funds from three overperforming city tax financing districts.
Barrett said the administration has faced challenges, citing the effort to bring Strauss Brands LLC to Century City. Strauss had planned to relocate its meat processing operations from Franklin to Century City but dropped those plans after meeting community resistance from residents who said a slaughterhouse was a bad fit for the neighborhood.
He said business leaders ran into “a buzz saw based on politics to keep the jobs out.”
“No matter what the push back is, my goal is to create more family-supporting jobs in the neighborhoods, close to where the people who need the jobs live,” he said.
Barrett also said while parts of the city have done well economically, there remains too much poverty, housing instability and crime in some neighborhoods.
Taylor accused Barrett of being out of ideas and out of touch with residents.
“What will he do in the next four years that he hasn’t done in the last 16?” she asked. “We deserve better.”
She argued that those most hurt are people of color.
Barrett said he is committed to unifying residents and making sure every part of the city succeeds.
City response to coronavirus
Whoever wins will be charged with overseeing the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials have declared a health emergency in response to the coronavirus, closing nonessential businesses and ordering residents to stay inside except for required outings.
In the midst of the crisis, and with changes in other levels of government, Barrett argued that this is not the time for a change in leadership in the city.
“I don’t think we can afford to have another tumultuous and seismic jolt at this time,” he said.
Taylor countered that it is time for a change and criticized the speed with which the city has worked to combat the virus.
“The response to coronavirus is truly the tale of two cities,” she said, referencing the disproportionate number of confirmed cases in the city’s African American community.
She said the system that creates health disparities in Milwaukee is broken and that that’s been highlighted in the pandemic.
She called for having hundreds of credible messengers reaching out to the community about the virus in addition to measures including using city properties for drive-throughs for assessing residents for the coronavirus.
She also criticized the decision to close the three early in-person voting locations and not reopen the location at Midtown Center on the city’s north side as one of the drop-off sites where residents could return absentee ballots.
“The first thing they did was disenfranchise people,” she said.
City officials said the closure of the in-person early voting sites resulted from the inability to maintain sufficient staffing due to the coronavirus. Days after the closures, the city Election Commission announced the opening of sites at four Milwaukee Public Library locations and the Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building where residents could return absentee ballots and get help with the voter registration process.