Photo by Tom Jenz
David Crowley 2023
David Crowley
I met Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley at Downtown’s Pilcrow Coffee Shop. He lit up the room with his big personality, a smile that shines, a voice that commands. He had leader written all over him. When we settled down to coffee, I had his full attention. I wanted to know how this young 37-year-old political leader became the executive of the state’s largest and most diverse county.
Crowley started off behind the eight ball. Growing up in Milwaukee’s inner city, he experienced an unstable childhood. Until the age of 10, he and his brothers were raised in an old house on 23rd and Burleigh. A master electrician, his father had bought the house from the city for a dollar and fixed it up. But both his parents struggled from drug addiction and mental health issues. Crowley said, “There were times when we had no lights and gas or even water in the house.”
When his parents split up, he lived with his father on 22nd and Vine. With his father struggling, young David turned to the streets for support. He said, “You might say I found love within my community.” Eviction notices became part of the family history. They had to keep moving. The house on 22nd and Vine, then another on 24th and Lloyd, then a move to his aunt’s house on 11th and Locust, and finally to 29th and Walnut. But through all this instability, David did learn responsibility. Summers, he did full time lawn maintenance.
You lived on the North Side. How did you end up going Bay View High School on the South Side, and did that high school experience help your development?
I thought I wanted to go into the Navy. The majority of my family members were either in the trades or the military. Every day for four years, I took two different buses from the North Side to get to Bay View High School on the South Side. I learned a lot about the city of Milwaukee by just observing.
What was it like for you, going to Bay View High School? The students were diverse, right?
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It was a real eye opener for me. I was used to interacting with Black kids. You might say I was introduced to Hispanics and white people. Another culture shock was that both my parents eventually remarried and to white people.
In high school, you got involved early on with the youth organization, Urban Underground. How did they help you develop responsibility and character?
Urban Underground literally saved my life. The experience taught me how to love myself, love my community and how to get outside my comfort zone. I learned about oppression like homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism. I blossomed. I became a member of AmeriCorps. My first job out of high school was at Project Return, helping offenders leaving jail or prison, helping them to find housing and jobs, teaching youth their rights.
I understand you have always worked in public service. Describe your career path and how you became the county executive for the Milwaukee County Board.
At Project Return, I got to know the policy makers. Eventually, I became a community organizer and then worked for Safe & Sound as a community partner. Throughout all my jobs, I had to interact with city, county and state government policy makers. They always talked politics, which I found interesting. In 2010, I worked for the Russ Feingold Senate campaign as a statewide African American organizer. I traveled through the state, loved the work, and I happened to be good at it. After Feingold lost the election, I worked for the Democratic Party on the campaign side of things. In 2011, I became a legislative aid for the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. I worked with County Supervisor Nikia Dodd, and this allowed me to be involved with county policy making. When Nikia Dodd became a state senator, she brought me with her to Madison, and I got involved with state policy making. I liked that side of things. I was with Senator Dodd for four years.
When did you get involved in running for office?
In late 2015, I ran for City Council and lost to Willie Wade, but I had made good connections. A month later, I ran for a State Assembly seat and won. At the state capitol, I was able to cultivate relationships on both sides of the aisle. In 2020, I ran for the job I have now, Milwaukee County executive, and was sworn in my front yard on May 4, 2020 during the Covid epidemic.
The Milwaukee County Board has 18 representatives known as supervisors. The board has a $1.37 billion dollar budget for this year. Roughly, how is that money being spent?
Milwaukee County is the nerve system of the public safety continuum. When a person is placed into custody, they enter the county justice system. We have to fund our sheriff’s office, our two jails, and emergency services like from 911 calls. We also fund the county transit system, child support services, and our county parks and trails, which include 14,000 acres of park land. We fund senior, youth and disability services, golf courses and even the airport.
This past year, Milwaukee County’s efforts have focused on these five these issues: 1) investments in behavioral and mental health, 2) public safety, 3) affordable housing, 4) juvenile justice, and 5) transportation. Can you comment on why you are focusing on these issues?
Those five issues address the root causes of what we face today, same issues we faced for decades. If we want to tackle education, childcare issues, and crime, we have to zone in on those efforts. Our goal is to focus on the root causes, not the symptoms. County residents have been asking for more funding on these issues.
How is this agenda set? Like the U.S. President, do you lay out your agenda as county executive for the supervisors to buy into?
It is similar. We present our vision, and the board executes the framework. For instance, in 2020, we suggested racism as a public health issue. The board agreed.
You once stated that your top priority as County Executive has been to tackle affordable housing. Earlier this year, you signed a bill that allocated $2.5 million in Federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to the nonprofit ACTS Housing that provides homeownership programs and existing house acquisitions for future homeowners. Not long ago, I did an article on ACTS Housing Vice President, Dorothy York. Do you work with her to gauge how the $2.5 million is being spent?
Absolutely. There is always accountability when it comes down to how county money is spent. Our county housing division follows up on affordable housing budget plans. We tour the homes that ACTS Housing has rehabbed or purchased. Our goal is to help first time homebuyers get started. The ARPA money is also spent on helping with the homeless crisis. I think of my own upbringing, my family being evicted three times because we did not have the rent money.
What is the function of the county's new Mental Health Emergency Center and where is it located? Will this help some of the mentally ill who are often mired in the jails?
Yes. The Mental Health Emergency Center partners with healthcare providers like Froedtert Hospital, Children’s Hospital, Ascension, and Aurora. It’s a cost sharing model, public and private sectors working together. Institutionalizing people with mental health problems does not get them the help they need. We located the Mental Health Center in the central city on 12th and Vliet to be closer to the general area where 70% of the patients come from.
From my time spent doing articles on both county jails, Downtown and Franklin, I heard that the incarcerated people with mental problems remain in jail because there are not enough mental institutions to take them.
True, and there is the waiting list. Years ago, we were able to have mental care facilities for those people to get the services they need when they are in crisis. To tackle this issue, we need help from the state and federal governments. We can’t do it alone.
In order to curb violence, two years ago, the County Board created the Credible Messengers program. The aim of the program is to have mentors with lived experience in violence, crime, or trauma to work with at-risk youth and provide positive opportunities. I think you committed $500,000 to the program. How does the Credible Messengers program work and who are these mentors?
Credible Messengers provides mentoring for young persons who have had experience with the criminal justice system. We work with nonprofits like the Milwaukee Christian Center or the Running Rebels who provide the mentors. Credible Messengers has been quite successful. More than 70% of those kids who have been mentored have not reoffended. I look at Credible Messengers as an investment. If a young offender ends up at a juvenile home like Lincoln Hills, Milwaukee County has to pay over $100,000 to keep him there. Mentoring can keep him out of trouble.
You and the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors have allocated more than $11 million of pharmaceutical settlement funds for projects aimed at treating the on-going opioid pandemic in Milwaukee County. You stated this money is being used to purchase and install harm reduction vending machines countywide. The machines contain Fentanyl test strips, nasal Narcan, medication deactivation pouches, lock bags and gun locks. Not long ago, I did an article on Tahira Malik of Samad’s House who aid and shelter addicts. She told me the opioid, cocaine and fentanyl epidemic keeps getting worse in the Milwaukee area, and statistics back her up. Besides the vending machines, how is the rest of the $11 million being spent?
The machines have been installed to make sure we reduce the deaths from overdose, that the addicts have access to medications that will save their lives. Since Covid in 2020, Milwaukee County has set records for drug overdose victims. But the County also helps recovering drug addicts by funding Mental Health organizations. That includes money to care for the addicts in our jails. We work with the Department of Health and Human Services who help allocate resources, and the DHS gives us updated reports.
The controversial .04 percent sales tax increase has recently been passed by the County Board. How will that income be allocated?
This tax money is about making sure we can preserve many of our existing services that people rely on such as county parks, senior and mental health services, and our public transit system. We are also making up for bad decisions made more than 20 years ago. This will help us make good decisions for the benefit of people five or ten years from now.
I’ve heard grumbling from inner city residents and street leaders that this four-tenths percent sale tax is regressive, that it hits the lower class the hardest. What do you say to them?
We acknowledge that it can be a regressive tax, but it is more regressive if we have to take away some parks, cut back the transit system, cut senior and mental health services. I’m talking about services that affect our most vulnerable citizens. Remember, tourists and companies pay a big part of this tax.
You are noted for your positive attitude about Milwaukee’s future. You once said, and I quote, “There is an old saying by Confucius, ‘People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.’” How does that apply to Milwaukee’s troubling issues?
Sometimes, people can’t see the whole picture. People easily forget. For instance, we don’t remember when we had a county transit system that got us everywhere, or that we had a mental health service facility that did not have wait lines, or that we once had programs and services for every county park in the Milwaukee area. I see it this way. We have challenges, but these challenges create opportunity for good. Sometimes, you need to bring your own weather to get what you need. I’m trying to make sure I am bringing the sunshine.
