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It was standing room only at the Mitchell Park Domes’ greenhouse annex last Wednesday as Milwaukee County residents offered their concerns about the temporarily shuttered local landmark.
But there was one obvious no-show who should have been listening to his constituents—Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.
Abele apparently was spending the evening out of town with the Boys & Girls Club of America Board of Governors, on which he serves.
His absence was typical of his stint as county executive, as he has dodged almost all public hearings on county affairs, preferring to cut deals in private.
Most notoriously, last summer Abele, behind closed doors, negotiated a deal that forces county taxpayers to pay $80 million for the Bucks arena, yet didn’t show up for any of the public hearings held by the county board, nor did he schedule any of his own. He threw in the sale of Park East land to the majority Bucks owners for $1—again, without explaining to the public why he thought this sweetheart deal was a good one for county taxpayers. As part of the state legislation crafting the deal, the board was cut out of voting on the land sale.
This time around, Abele is putting the future of the landmark Domes in question as he professes to seek community input on up to $75 million in public investment. But he wasn’t at the hearing to actually listen to what the taxpayers have to say.
The Domes have been inspected and repaired in recent years and engineering consultants have warned that they need a long-term maintenance plan as well as short-term repairs.
As the Shepherd detailed two weeks ago, Abele vetoed the County Board of Supervisors’ request for $5 million for parks projects last summer at the same time engineering consultants were warning him about the Domes’ aging infrastructure. Supervisors overrode Abele’s veto and accepted Parks Director John Dargle’s request to use $500,000 of that sum for Domes repairs and long-term planning. Abele disagreed, however, as he didn’t sign Dargle’s request and let it go into effect without his approval.
In February, just a few months after his veto, falling concrete in the Domes forced Abele to shut down all three Domes for the foreseeable future and he announced that their renovation could cost up to $75 million.
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Just as he did with the Bucks arena, with the Domes Abele is continuing his pattern of avoiding his constituents at all costs—at the same time his spokeswoman is claiming he’s interested in hearing from them.
“The county executive looks forward to a productive and engaging dialogue with the community on what they envision for the future of the Domes, and he appreciates that our partners on the County Board are listening to constituents as well,” Abele spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff emailed.
Yet Baldauff wouldn’t say if Abele would hold any public hearings himself.
When pressed for an answer, Baldauff didn’t respond.
Abele is facing a tough re-election battle on April 5. Although Abele outspent his opponent, state Sen. Chris Larson, 20-1 in the February primary, Larson earned more votes in his grassroots, underdog campaign.
Unlike Abele, Larson attended Wednesday’s hearing, testifying about the importance of the Domes to generations of Milwaukeeans, including his own young children.
“If we can find the money for out-of-state billionaires for an arena, I think we can rally around preserving the Domes,” Larson said to much applause.
Abele’s Absence is ‘Disrespectful’
Abele’s absence was a major topic of discussion among the estimated 400 county residents who attended the listening session, a topic rivaled by attendees’ desire to restore their beloved landmark.
Their sentiment was accurately summed up by 10-year-old Arthur Capps, who said, “The Domes is as important as the Milwaukee zoo. It’s like a zoo, except for plants.” Capps received a hearty round of applause.
Abele was represented by Claire Zautke, his director of community relations, who testified about the importance of the Domes to her personally—she’s the daughter of a Domes horticulturalist—and the critical decisions that need to be made about their future. Zautke said she intended to conduct a robust community engagement process with “multiple rounds of meetings” for this once-in-a-generation decision.
“This will certainly be the largest-scale community planning and engagement process that we have had at the county in recent memory, at least certainly in this administration, and we want to make sure that it’s done right,” Zautke said.
According to Baldauff, Zautke has had “conversations” with about a dozen stakeholders and two others—with state Rep. Josh Zepnick (D-Milwaukee), who’s accepted campaign donations from Abele, and Tammy Rivera of the Southside Organizing Committee—are planned.
When Zautke began talking about how important the Domes are to her personally, Board Chair Theo Lipscomb cut her off with sharp words about her boss.
“You’re providing your testimony but really this was an opportunity for the executive, who I invited weeks ago,” Lipscomb said. “So with all due respect, I appreciate your personal experience. I appreciate the fact that the executive doesn’t have such an experience to provide. But the words are a little hollow that he respects the public process and wants the public’s engagement because hundreds of people have shown up tonight and one of the things they wanted was to hear from their county executive about his vision, his commitment.
“I’m going to be here to hear from everyone who wants to speak tonight,” Lipscomb continued. “But I made special effort to make sure that the county executive was going to be able to speak and he never said he wouldn’t. He didn’t respond. Other people were then invited and they found a way to fit it into their schedule. I think it’s disrespectful to them, it’s disrespectful to this board. The county executive has a duty under state law, he’s supposed to show up for such meetings. I think you know that’s part of a lawsuit. In fact we’re going to be in court on Monday and one of the items is the fact that the county executive has a pattern of not showing up for work.”
Lipscomb’s rebuke was met with a hearty round of applause.
Although Lipscomb got a warm reception at the Domes hearing, on Monday Judge William Sosnay dismissed his suit, saying that the county board, not the board chair, had the authority to sue the county executive seeking clarification of the duties of the executive and legislative branches. Lipscomb said the board would immediately refile the suit. Abele, not surprisingly, did not attend Monday’s court hearing. His attorney said he was “busy.”
What’s Next?
Parks Director John Dargle provided an overview of the repairs, funding and challenges surrounding the Domes. He testified that the falling concrete within the Domes is due to their age and not deferred maintenance, although he did say that their “structure is sound.”
Dargle said the Show Dome will be open by the end of April; its repairs would come out of the $500,000 he requested last year, which Abele had declined to support. The repairs to the Arid and Tropical Domes are more complex and would need another round of funding, testified Jeremy Theis, the county’s director of facilities management. The costs would be “quite a bit larger,” he said.
Dargle said he’d submit his request for additional funding for repairs and long-range planning at the March 8 Parks, Environment and Energy Committee meeting, chaired by Supervisor Gerry Broderick.
And Dargle said he was committed to involving the public in discussions about the Domes’ future.
But when Lipscomb pressed Dargle for more details about the administration’s community involvement, Dargle revealed that the administration had been working to hire a consultant via a request for qualifications (RFQ) and a request for proposals (RFP) to determine the Domes’ fate.
“During the time of this whole closure, we were preparing to send out an RFQ/RFP for bringing on a consultant,” Dargle said.
When asked for clarification about the administration’s RFP, Abele’s spokeswoman didn’t respond.
