Endorsements

Mayor of Milwaukee

Reelect: Mayor Cavalier (Chevy) Johnson

The Shepherd Express enthusiastically endorses the reelection of Mayor Cavalier Johnson. He’s a bright, dedicated, serious minded and high energy person who is willing to take on all the challenges of a large American city. Cavalier grew up in a lower income Milwaukee household in Milwaukee’s central city where he had to deal with street violence, different schools almost every year and periods of food insecurity. Despite these challenges, he was able to attend Bay View High School where he worked hard and excelled and ended up earning a degree from UW-Madison. He knows the city well and understands the problems facing average Milwaukeeans. Mayor Johnson has taken on the difficult issues like crime and reckless driving. We see his biggest accomplishment being able to work with the Republican majorities in the state legislature to get state legislation to enable Milwaukee to get on a more solid fiscal path. Milwaukee needs four more years of Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

Please Vote for Mayor Cavalier Johnson.

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Milwaukee City Attorney

Elect: Evan Goyke for Milwaukee City Attorney

The Shepherd Express enthusiastically endorses attorney Evan Goyke for the position of Milwaukee City Attorney. Evan started his legal career as a public defender and in 2012 was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly. Even though the Democrats were in the minority during his whole time in the Assembly, Goyke served as one of the just two Democratic Assembly people on the powerful Joint Finance Committee. He is a very strong leader. We are excited that Goyke is running for city attorney because the current city attorney who was elected four years ago has unfortunately managed to severely damage the City Attorney’s Office. Since the current city attorney was elected in 2020, he managed to take an office that quietly and competently dealt with all the legal issues affecting the City of Milwaukee and create an unmitigated disaster. He managed to drive out most of the very experienced and dedicated attorneys who had institutional memories. We need a competent leader like Attorney Evan Goyke to restore the City Attorney’s office to the effective city legal office it was for decades.

Please Vote for Evan Goyke.

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City of Milwaukee Comptroller

Elect: Bill Christianson for City of Milwaukee Comptroller

The Shepherd Express supports Bill Christianson for the City Comptroller. Bill is currently the Deputy City Comptroller. He has a master’s degree in public administration and has a total of 14 years’ experience in public finance, much of it in the city budget office. Christianson was born and raised in Milwaukee and is the son of a Milwaukee fire fighter and a Milwaukee Public School teacher. Three of his main goals if he is elected is: 1) Improve the City’s Bond Rating, 2) Build on the current transparency initiative with Open Checkbook so anyone can see every expenditure the city makes, and 3) Advocate for financial responsibility so our current financial problems are not pushed on to future generations.

Please Vote for Bill Christianson.

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3rd District City of Milwaukee Alderman

Reelect Jonathan Brostoff as Third District Alderman

The Shepherd Express strongly endorses Jonathan Brostoff for his reelection for Milwaukee’s Third Aldermanic District. Prior to getting elected to the Milwaukee City Council, Jonathan served four terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly. In the Common Council Jonathan was one of the leaders on the Climate and Equity Plan that dealt with a number of environmental policies like limiting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy. If reelected, Brostoff plans to work on policies that improve our public libraries and continue his efforts to protect the environment.

Please Vote for Jonathan Brostoff.

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4th District City of Milwaukee Alderman

Reelect Bob Bauman as Fourth District Alderman

The Shepherd Express enthusiastically endorses Alderman Bob Bauman for reelection as the Milwaukee’s Fourth district alderman. Bob is an attorney and without question one of the smartest members of the city council. He has also been one of the most productive and most responsive alderpersons focused on improving the lives of the people in his district and the rest of the city.  He has been focusing on trying to make our streets safer for drivers, bikers and pedestrians. He authored several traffic calming ordinances including the ordinance that created the traffic calming speed bumps. That ordinance enabled residents to petition to have a speed bump created on their street where the city and the residents on that street share the costs of building the speed bump and thereby making their neighborhood safer.

Bauman is also a leader in creating more housing units in lower income neighborhoods. For example, his Homes MKE program is responsible for completely renovating over 150 vacant or foreclosed older homes that were foreclosed by the city. Rather than tearing these old buildings down and creating a vacant lot that will probably stay a vacant lot, many of these old buildings are structurally sound buildings that can become wonderful family homes in the central city neighborhoods with less than $100,000 in renovation.

We need Alderman Bauman to continue his excellent work for the citizens of Milwaukee.

Please vote to reelect Alderman Bob Bauman.

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11th District City of Milwaukee Alderman

Elect Peter Burgelis

The Shepherd Express endorses Peter Burgelis for 11th District alderman. Currently, Peter is serving as an elected Milwaukee County supervisor and wants to take his successes and experience on the county board to the common council. We strongly support that. As a county supervisor, Burgelis has actively supported both big and small efforts that affect our everyday lives. On the large issues, he strongly supported the largest property tax cut the county has ever passed, cutting the county portion of the property taxes by 6.77%. But there are also the small issues the very directly affect our quality of life and Burgelis focuses on those also. For example, he improved Lyons Park by working to return the picnic tables and basketball hoops to the park and successfully added a new playground into the budget. He has the skills and experience to be a very good alderman.

Please vote for Peter Burgelis.

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Milwaukee County Executive

Reelect David Crowley as Milwaukee County Executive

The Shepherd Express enthusiastically endorses David Crowley for reelection as Milwaukee County Executive. David has done an excellent job in his first term as county executive and deserves to be reelected. We are very fortunate to finally have a county executive who cares about the county and who cares about the residents of our county and is in this elected position for all the right reasons. Crowley has been working on basically every area under county government. He has taken advantage of every new federal program that developed under President Biden’s numerous pieces of major legislation. For example, he used monies from the American Rescue Plan Act passed in May 2022 to build affordable lower income housing. Currently over 110 homes for lower income families have been built. Probably the most important and probably the most difficult thing that Crowley did was to go to Madison and work with the Republican legislators, who are often very critical of Milwaukee, but control both chambers of the legislature, to pass legislation that enabled Milwaukee County to get itself on a fiscally sustainable path going forward. We need David Crowley to continue as our county executive.

Please vote to reelect David Crowley.

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Milwaukee County Comptroller

Elect Liz Sumner as Milwaukee County Comptroller

The Shepherd Express endorses Liz Sumner for the position of Milwaukee County Comptroller. She was born and raised in Milwaukee, graduated from Marquette University and then received a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Chicago with a concentration in finance. She created a boutique woman’s clothing store 16 years ago that is still flourishing so she understands what it takes to run a small business. As county comptroller, she wants to make the office more efficient, strategic, and modern. Her plan starts with three immediate goals: 1) implement new technologies that continue to save time and money, 2) work with the various county department administrators to help them improve all levels of their services to improve the lives of our county citizens, and 3) expand the transparency of county finances.

Please Vote for Liz Sumner.

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Milwaukee County Supervisor District 3

Reelect: Sheldon Wasserman

The Shepherd Express strongly endorses Sheldon Wasserman for reelection as a Milwaukee Supervisor. For the last several years he has been chair of the County Board’s Parks Committee and has worked very hard to continue to improve our parks and deal with the massive-deferred maintenance that is necessary to maintain and improve what is a nationally recognized as an excellent urban park system.

He led the efforts to study why McKinley Beach had to be closed last year due to riptides. The report came up with a solution that the Parks Committee implemented and the McKinley Beach will be re-opened this summer. Wasserman is also making sure that the Downer Avenue bus route is heading downtown again as it had done for many years.

If reelected, Wasserman will continue to focus on our park system and cultural institutions. Presently he is trying to open more swimming pools and the only thing that is holding back the opening of more pools is a lack of lifeguards. We need more lifeguards. As we all know, maintaining the park system is not cheap so Sheldon is constantly looking for revenue enhancements to bring in money for the parks that is not from the tax rolls. One very successful enhancement that has grown over the past several years is the popular Beer Gardens in many of our parks.

Please Vote for Sheldon Wasserman.

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Milwaukee County Supervisor District 4

Elect: John (Jack) Eckblad

 The Shepherd Express endorses Jack Eckblad for Milwaukee County Supervisor District 4. For the past 15 years he has been a community organizer with some significant victories under his belt. Some of these victories have been in some very red areas like West Bend. He attributes his successes to being a very enthusiastic, progressive and effective bridge builder. In a non-partisan body like the Milwaukee County Board, his skill set as a bridge builder would be very useful. If elected, he wants to 1) work to put our Milwaukee County Parks on a more sustainable economic course which recognizes the value, for example, of the revenue generating efforts like our beer gardens, 2) work to strengthen our public transit system which is essential to enable many lower income people to get to their job, and 3) Make sure that the recently passed provision to have an Independent Audit of the county jail gets implemented in a fair, honest and effective manner. When we have a death in the county jail, it hurts the trust we need in all levels of our government.

Please Vote for John (Jack) Eckblad

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Milwaukee County Supervisor District 12

Reelect: Juan Miguel Martinez

The Shepherd Express strongly endorses Juan Miguel Martinez for reelection to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.

The Shepherd endorsed Juan Miguel in his first election, and we are not at all disappointed with his work and his record as a county supervisor. He has a good list of accomplishments in his first term, but most importantly is his concern for his constituents and his constant effort to try to improve their lives. He is in the job for the right reasons, to improve the lives and opportunities for the people of Milwaukee County.

Among his accomplishments are addressing the safety concerns of the people who use our buses. He worked to establish a task force that involved all the major players including the Transit Union, the transit users and, of course, his fellow supervisors. On a more local level, he passed legislation that created a trail using part of the Jackson Park drive while also leaving a part of the drive for local traffic. Very creative. He helped the county receive a $200,000 grant to remove the various invasive species from Mitchell Park lagoon, and he worked to establish a Friends group for the Mitchell Park/Clarke Square.

Please vote for Juan Miguel so he can continue his good work to support his community.

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Milwaukee County Supervisor District 14

Reelect: Caroline Gomez-Tom

The Shepherd Express enthusiastically endorses Caroline Gomez-Tom for Milwaukee County Supervisor District 14. Caroline won a special election nine months ago and is the newest addition to the county board, but that hasn’t stopped her from having some important successes in her first year in office. A social worker by training, Gomez-Tom focuses on issues that directly affect her constituents’ daily lives. For example, when she learned that many of her constituents were prevented from dealing with county government because many of the public facing information on the county’s website or literature were not multilingual. She introduced a resolution to correct this and successfully worked with her colleagues and passed this resolution unanimously. She also got funding to upgrade and repair several issues in the parks in her district. If she is reelected, she wants to continue her work with the homeless population but wants to see if she can get things done preemptively so the county can prevent the family from becoming homeless. Also, her district currently has very low voter participation and local government participation and she wants to help improve participation.

Please vote for Caroline Gomez-Tom.

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Milwaukee County Supervisor District 18

Elect: Brandon Williford

brandon@brandonformkecounty.org

This election, voters on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side have a chance to replace the most regressive member of the County Board with a young, active progressive. Readers may know Deana Alexander due to some of her more nefarious hits, including outright lying about her previous political opponent being a criminal using disgusting mailers, or, in the wake of the racial justice movement, she mocked the murder of Eric Garner by police. She’s also used her office for personal gain.

Suffice it to say, it will be a huge gain for our entire community to finally have someone in this district fighting for their neighbors instead of stumping for the MAGA extremists on talk radio.

A lifelong Milwaukee resident, Brandon Williford is a MPS graduate and a Healthcare Policy Organizer for Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He founded a nonprofit to help improve the academic and social conditions of minority students and became the youngest ever board member of the Milwaukee Turners. Williford is running because he understands the issues that matter most. He believes that when the community works together, every resident has a chance to lead a more fulfilling life. As a supervisor, Williford will devote his energy to expanding senior services, investing in parks, and expanding public transportation infrastructure.

Please Vote for Brandon Williford for Milwaukee County Board, District 18.

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Circuit Court Judge

Elect Rochelle Johnson-Bent

The Shepherd Express endorses Rochelle Johnson-Bent for Circuit Court judge. She has over a decade of successful legal experience and would bring that wealth of knowledge to the bench. Importantly, her legal experience includes a variety of legal fields. We were particularly impressed with her work representing minors and the mentally incapacitated clients in family court including cases over custody and placement, restraining orders and child support. Johnson-Bent has also worked on criminal, civil, and small claims cases.

Please vote for Rochelle Johnson-Bent.

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Constitutional Amendments: Vote No

There are two state constitutional amendments on the April 2 ballot. Constitutional amendments are created by the legislature. They must pass both houses of the legislature in two consecutive sessions. The governor does not have a voice in the creation of a constitutional amendment. Both of amendments on the ballot concern our elections. Currently as you know, the Republicans have strong control of both chambers of the legislature and have had this control since 2011. The agenda of the Republicans clearly has been to try to limit voting in every way they can and also to make it more difficult to vote. If you think we should be encouraging all qualified citizens to vote and get them as engaged in the process as much as possible, we strongly encourage you to vote no on both constitutional amendments. 

The first one prohibits philanthropic foundations from donating money to enable the election officials to carry out their official functions. This is especially important for lower income areas. PLEASE VOTE NO

The second constitutional amendment makes it more difficult for the voters to improve the voting process by changing some laws. This makes all the reactionary changes that the Republicans have made to our election laws more difficult to correct. PLEASE VOTE NO.

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Vote YES on Milwaukee Public Schools Referendum

Milwaukee Public School children have been getting shortchanged in their educations. Former Governor Scott Walker declared war on teachers and education. Unfortunately, we had a former governor who did not respect education and he himself failed to graduate from college. As governor, Walker signed several bills that directly and indirectly cut spending for students throughout the state with Milwaukee getting hit very hard.

For example, in the 1980s, the state provided over 60 of the costs for special education. Today it is 32%, a little more than half. Over those same 40 years, the national rightwing anti-public education groups along with Milwaukee’s rightwing Bradley Foundation decided to use Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a testing ground for what they called school choice, which essentially took money from the Milwaukee Public Schools and gave it to local private schools but did not provide adequate standards for those private schools. As a result, many inner city children were deprived of being taught by qualified teachers. This school choice program was viewed by many educators as a failure, but that didn’t stop them.

Today you still have the rightwing groups like the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce continuing to try to starve Milwaukee public education while they are complaining that graduates are not coming to the workforce adequately trained. 

Our children need a fair chance.

Please vote YES for our schools.

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Reelect Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy 

Bryan Kennedy was first elected mayor in 2015 and has done such an excellent job as mayor that this current election is the first time that he has had a challenger since he was first elected. If he is reelected this year, Mayor Kennedy said it would be his last term, but he wants this last term to finish the things he started. Kennedy has focused on economic development and further developed the strong business community in Glendale including helping Bayshore when it faced foreclosure. With Kennedy’s help, Bayshore is still a successful shopping center and residential center at a time when other shopping centers are going out of business. 

When a community has a strong property tax paying business presence, it keeps the tax rate lower for residential housing. For example, when Kennedy came into office, 40% of property tax revenues came from business. Today it is almost 50% coming from business. That has enabled Glendale to see its residential property tax rate actually decline. He was also very successful on his efforts at strengthening public safety. He has been supportive of the police and oversaw a decease in the crime rate. Last year, for example, violent crime in Glendale dropped 7% and auto thefts dropped 65%.

Mayor Bryan Kennedy definitely deserves to be reelected.

Please vote to reelect Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy