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This morning, the Milwaukee Common Council voted 9-6 to approve the streetcar—not much of a surprise there.
What is more surprising is that the opposition ended with a whimper, not a bang.
The trio of major streetcar opponents—Bob Donovan, Joe Davis and Tony Zielinski—once again attempted to halt the project’s approval this morning. But they had run out of minority maneuvers in the council and failed to stop the vote.
But where was the petition drive that was going to halt the project?
Petition circulators were threatening to dump 31,000 signatures in City Hall in advance of today’s vote.
Obviously that didn’t happen.
They’ve extended their deadline so that they can take the full 60 days to collect the signatures.
My bet: It doesn’t happen.
I agree with Ald. Bob Bauman and other streetcar advocates that the opposition to the streetcar was never about the streetcar itself. Rather, it was about collecting the names and contact information of conservative Milwaukee voters to advance the political ambitions of the three aldermen next spring. It was a way for the aldermen to show the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity that they’ll do anything to curry favor with deep-pocketed conservative donors.
We’ll see how well that works out next spring.
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Regarding the streetcar, I think it’ll move forward with perhaps a little more fuss but nothing fatal.
I’m sure that the petition supporters will file suit in court to stop the project. But their failure to gum up the works this week is an admission that their cause is a weak one. If they had dropped off the petitions today, they could have had a somewhat decent argument that their petition should be treated seriously. But now, with petitions to be submitted long after the vote, if they actually do submit anything, their case is rather hopeless.
Another wrinkle is the Joint Review Board, a rather obscure panel that vets tax incremental financing (TIF) proposals. In December’s debate, the anti-streetcar aldermen raised the issue of the JRB’s approval of this project. Rather curious, don’t you think? I think they will try to get to the members of the JRB to reject or question the TIFs for the streetcar project. Again, I don’t think this will stop the streetcar. But I do think it’ll allow the aldermen to continue proving to the anti-streetcar crowd that they are willing to work hard for their campaign donations.
Although the anti-streetcar folks lost today and will lose in court if they decide to file suit, expect it to be a rallying cry for them in the next year. Whether anyone is listening is another matter.
