In December, Milwaukee Alderman Willie Wade announced he would step down from his position representing the District 7 on the Milwaukee Common Council, which encompasses the near North Side, including the Century City Business Park. Five candidates have jumped into the primary to succeed Wade, which will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 16. The candidates spoke with the Shepherd about their plans for the district.
Michael Bonds
Longtime Sherman Park homeowner Michael Bonds is an associate professor of educational policy and community studies and chair of that department at UW-Milwaukee. He’s also the president of the board of directors of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Bonds had worked for Mayor John Norquist and as a budget analyst for the Milwaukee Common Council.
Bonds said he’s running for alderman because he wants to focus on issues that are beyond the scope of the MPS board, such as poverty, unemployment, racial segregation, job loss, crime and the unequal distribution of resources Downtown, while neighborhoods get shortchanged.
“A lot of times, from a school board perspective, everything gets blamed on the school when there are broader issues in this community that nobody wants to talk about,” Bonds said.
Bonds said the city needed to do a better job of recruiting new businesses. “I think we’ve really got to push for a better marketing approach and we’ve got to get creative and try new programs to attract and retain businesses,” Bonds said.
He said he’d like to boost funding for community organizations that build up neighborhoods instead of focusing on Downtown development.
“We lost a lot of community-based organizations over the past few decades and a lot of that was based on the city taking more and more money for the community and using it for Downtown purposes,” Bonds said.
He said he’d push to establish a standing committee on education because the city has taken on a larger role in schools, including disposing of unused MPS buildings and overseeing charter schools. He said he wanted the city’s charter schools to become more accountable for their outcomes.
“I think the whole discussion on schools should be on quality, not quantity,” Bonds said.
|
|
Bonds’ campaign website is currently under development.
David Crowley
David Crowley is on leave from his position as the policy director for state Sen. Nikiya Harris Dodd (D-Milwaukee). He said he’s running for alderman because the city needs a change in leadership.
“We have a lot of great fighters when it comes to state politics but right now we don’t have anyone fighting for our communities when it comes down to local politics,” Crowley said.
Crowley would like to create safe houses throughout the city to become community hubs. His plan is to work with nonprofits to fix up foreclosed homes, then offer community resources in them.
“The safe houses are a hub that people can go to, a one-stop shop for everyone in the community,” he said.
Crowley said he’d like to bring high-paying jobs to the district, specifically by incentivizing businesses to hire city residents, supporting job-training programs and growing the health care and technology sectors.
“A lot of the employers in those fields hire both folks who have college degrees but also high school diplomas,” Crowley said. “They also are good paying jobs.”
Crowley said he’d like to improve the quality of the city’s day care centers by providing more training and education opportunities for employees. Added investment would pay off in the long run, he said.
“We can instill a better foundation of learning in our kids before they actually reach school age, which will help alleviate a lot of social problems we have in the school system,” Crowley said.
Crowley said he’d also like to invest in the city’s health department, so that more residents can access health care, especially mental health and substance abuse programs.
“If we can get the public health department to build something in the Century City park, to expand some of their services and partner with other community health organizations, to really tackle the issue of mental health and alcohol and drug abuse, I think we’ll be breaking down a lot of the individual barriers to employment and to education,” Crowley said.
For more information about David Crowley, go to dc4mke.com.
Randy Jones
Randy Jones is a physical education director at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee and has taken on a part-time job driving a school bus to pay for his campaign expenses. He jumped into the race in April 2015, before Wade announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election, because, he said, “People were upset and wanted to make a change but no one was willing to run against the current alderman.”
If elected, he said he would donate 20% of his salary to the district. “If you don’t have people who will sacrifice for the district then we will be in the same position that we are in now,” Jones said.
His top concern is addressing the foreclosed and abandoned houses in the district. He is a leader with Common Ground, the grassroots advocacy organization that helped to secure a $30 million settlement from Nationstar Mortgage LLC to address the city’s foreclosure crisis. Nationstar’s board chair is Bucks co-owner Wesley Edens.
“You can’t have a community when you only have three houses on the block because you tore the rest of them down or had them boarded up,” Jones said. “And storefronts are vacant but people want to start businesses. Let’s give them a hand.”
Jones said he would like to keep the youth engaged in productive activities such as helping seniors and disabled residents with yard work, car repairs or technology issues. He said adding a 24-hour or extended-hour youth facility and a satellite alderman’s office in the district would help to foster community.
“If we don’t take care of our youth then the cycle is going to repeat,” Jones said. “We need to do something to ensure that our young people are engaged and just to believe in the community and give them hope. Happy people don’t kill people. Happy people don’t commit crime. So we need to bring in hope and not be so selfish.”
To learn more, go to the Facebook page for Randy R. Jones Candidate for the 7th Aldermanic District of Milwaukee WI.
Khalif Rainey
Khalif Rainey is a Milwaukee County supervisor representing the county’s District 2. Prior to that, for eight years he provided constituent services for Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and was an intern for Alderman Ashanti Hamilton.
Rainey said he’s running because Alderman Wade asked him to do so.
“I’m honored that Alderman Wade found me worthy to be his successor,” Rainey said. “I was content being a county supervisor but I want to respond to his call to service.”
He said he’d also like the ability to work in a fully functioning legislative branch of local government. In 2014, Act 14 severely cut Milwaukee County supervisors’ oversight of county government.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to actually operate within a body of government that doesn’t have the limitations of Act 14, which was imposed on the county supervisors,” Rainey said. “I think I was able to be effective despite that but I can only imagine what I could do without those limitations.”
At the county, Rainey launched the Office of African-American Affairs. He asked Wade to sponsor the same office at the city and also convinced state Rep. Leon Young and state Sen. Lena Taylor, both Milwaukee Democrats, to introduce it at the state level.
“Hopefully that will result in three offices protecting the entire African American population of Wisconsin and will act in concert to reverse the statistics” showing that Milwaukee is one of the worst places for African American employment, he said.
Rainey also launched the effort to include minority impact statements for proposals up for a vote at the county and voter registration efforts.
He said he’d build on Wade’s efforts to redevelop Century City and provide jobs for district residents.
“I think that could become with a little bit of innovation a hub for job creation on the North Side,” Rainey said. “I’m interested in looking at how we can create something that is a model for the entire city on how to bring jobs to a distressed part of the community.”
To learn more, go to the Facebook page for Khalif Rainey for 7th District Alderman.
Vivian Redd-Fehr
Vivian Redd-Fehr had a long career in real estate but now works as an insurance agent. She’s a longtime district resident and was spurred to run because she wants to address the neighborhood’s challenges and improve residents’ quality of life.
“The unemployment rate and poverty are going up and you have a lot of crime going up,” Redd-Fehr said. “As a result of that there are a lot of things that are happening that are really creating a lot of passion in me to jump into this race.”
Her top issue is crime, especially crime committed by juveniles, but she said it’s an issue that will require long-term solutions.
“What we need to do is to look at the core of the problem,” Redd-Fehr said. “Not every child is bad that does bad things. Children are influenced and they are influenced by their environment and having a lack of something.”
She was the victim of crime recently when her car was stolen while campaigning. She said the theft changed the way she thinks about crime, not just personally but as a widespread problem.
“As I knock on doors I’m hearing that individually people know that there is crime because they are victims but they really don’t know of the extent of the crime,” Redd-Fehr said.
She said she’d like to attract more big businesses to the district to create faster job growth.
“A way to bring in industry is to be bold when we are talking to companies about relocating or expanding into the Milwaukee area about how we would help them to locate into our area,” Redd-Fehr said. “Not to give them a bunch of ideas about how we can tax them or how we can make it harder for them. Of course we know that the mom and pop stores and things like that create the most jobs. But creating an influx of jobs, that comes from larger industry. I think that we should be a little softer on their pockets if they want to locate into our area.”
To learn more about Vivian Redd-Fehr, go to reddfehr4district7.com.
