The condition of the Mitchell Park Domes has been on the county’s radar for years and engineers have been inspecting and repairing it on a regular basis. But additional funds for the Domes—and parks infrastructure in general—have been caught up in battles between the austerity-minded Walker and Abele administrations and a county board trying to address the backlog of parks repairs. Here’s a recent timeline of the struggle to address the condition of the Domes:
- Dec. 16, 2006: Graef USA does a limited inspection of the Domes after an explosion at the Falk Corp., located a half a mile from the Domes, and finds no significant structural damage.
- 2008: The Parks Department estimates the county has $275.6 million in accumulated deferred repairs and maintenance.
- Oct. 10, 2008: Hired in 2006, Graef reports on its study of the Show Dome and lower level façade, which Abele is now relying on to provide an estimate for the current repairs or replacement of all three Domes. This 2008 study offers five renovation options and cost estimates, ranging from $4 million to, at the very high end, $18 million to repair or replace the Show Dome only. It estimates that the lower-level façade could be repaired for $100,000 or totally reconstructed for $450,000.
- November 2008: Milwaukee County voters approve an advisory referendum backing a one-cent sales tax increase to be dedicated to the parks, transit and other county services. The state fails to approve the advisory referendum, so it doesn’t go into effect.
- November 2008: The Domes debut their new $500,000 LED lighting system, underwritten with private donations. Other renovations and upgrades were made to the Domes.
- April 2009: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates release a report on post-Falk explosion damage to the Domes. Although roughly 750 glass panes were cracked due to the explosion and replaced, the engineers found no structural damage to the Domes as a result of the explosion.
- December 2009: The county’s audit department issues a report, “A Tale of Two Systems: Three Decades of Declining Resources Leave Milwaukee County Parks Reflecting the Best and Worst of Times.” It estimates that the parks has more than $200 million in deferred maintenance, which “overwhelms available resources, and is rising.”
- June 25, 2010: Jared Kellner dies and two others are seriously injured when a piece of the concrete façade on the O’Donnell Park parking lot falls. The tragedy spurs renewed interest in addressing the county’s deferred maintenance.
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- October 2010: Milwaukee County’s audit department issues “Milwaukee County Needs to Commit to a Preventive Repair & Maintenance Program to Ensure Public Safety.” The review of the county’s then-underused database of repair projects finds the Mitchell Park Domes need $57,000 of repairs, just $7,000 of which are deemed high-priority.
- Dec. 28, 2010: Walker leaves office and is replaced on an acting basis by Board Chair Lee Holloway, who appointed Marvin Pratt to be interim county executive.
- April 2011: Abele is elected county executive to fill out the remainder of Walker’s term.
- Spring 2012: Parks Director Sue Black introduces a comprehensive $75 million five-year capital plan to address deferred maintenance in the parks.
- April 2012: Abele is elected to a full term as county executive.
- June 15, 2012: Abele vetoes his own parks director’s plan, saying it would commit the county to parks investments at the expense of other projects. “This is exactly the type of isolated decision-making that can quickly snowball and create real fiscal problems,” he wrote.
- June 22, 2012: Supervisors fail to override Abele’s veto and Black’s plan is scuttled.
- Aug. 16, 2012: Abele fires Sue Black without a specific explanation privately or publicly.
- Sept. 10, 2013: Graef reports on a recent inspection and finds some deteriorating concrete and recommends additional inspections “to determine the extent and types of repairs required to make the Domes safe for employee and visitor occupancy.”
- Nov. 25, 2013: Parks Director John Dargle Jr. requests $200,000 for Graef to inspect and stabilize the Tropical Dome’s precast concrete structure.
- Jan. 19, 2014: County Board approves Dargle’s $200,000 request and Abele signs it.
- Jan. 9, 2015: Graef report released on inspections and repairs on the three Domes. “Preservation of the primary concrete space frame structure is still possible, because no significant section loss of steel reinforcing or embedded plates was observed. … Future inspections, at arm’s length, should be conducted at regular intervals, perhaps every 2 to 3 years, until repairs may justify longer periods between inspections. It is imperative that the moisture issues related to the glazing system at the Domes be addressed if the buildings are to remain in operation and in a safe condition for the staff and visiting public.”
- May 15, 2015: Report issued from Graef on falling debris in the Domes, which concludes, “It is our recommendation that the Domes continue to be monitored. … It is advisable that both a short-term and a long-term plan be developed that will prevent or capture falling debris. At this time, based on evidence presented, it does not appear that the dome structure presents an imminent threat or poses a danger to the general public or Milwaukee County Parks Department workers.”
- July 3, 2015: The state Joint Finance Committee, co-chaired by state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), approves on a party-line vote a last-minute, catch-all amendment that includes an Abele-backed provision that would give him the power to sell off county land without approval by the board. The request is whittled back by the Legislature, which grants Abele the power to sell off land that isn’t zoned as park land without a vote by the board. (Mitchell Park is zoned park land, but 43 other county parks are not and lose their protection from sale or lease without board approval or public vetting.)
- July 15, 2015: The County Board adopts a resolution appropriating $7.5 million from the debt service reserve, which includes $5 million for parks infrastructure projects that aren’t eligible for general obligation bond financing.
- July 28, 2015: Graef issues a report on its continuing inspections of the Domes’ falling concrete. It concludes, “It is imperative that the moisture issues related to the glazing system at the Domes be addressed if the buildings are to remain in operation and in a safe condition for the staff and visiting public.”
- July 28, 2015: Abele vetoes the $7.5 million board resolution which includes $5 million for parks repairs. “Milwaukee County cannot afford to see the hard-won fiscal progress the county had made be so easily reversed by flippant and irresponsible decision-making on the part of the Board,” Abele wrote in his veto message. Supervisors override Abele’s veto.
- Aug. 25, 2015: After Abele refuses to act on supervisors’ $7.5 million resolution, County Corporation Counsel Paul Bargren writes a memo stating that Abele must implement the board’s policies.
- September 2015: As part of the county board’s policy to use the $5 million in infrastructure funding, Dargle asks for $500,000 for a Domes long-range planning study. The request will fund “a long-range plan for deteriorating conditions and installing netting for public safety.” The board approves Dargle’s request, but Abele doesn’t sign it and it’s approved without his support.
- Feb. 5, 2016: Abele closes the Domes for the weekend based on safety concerns. They’re then closed for the foreseeable future.
- Feb. 8, 2016: Abele holds a press conference to announce that renovations to the Domes could reach $75 million. He promises to include the public in the discussion on the Domes’ future, but doesn’t announce the dates of any listening sessions. A two-page letter from Graef on its Jan. 29 visual assessment of the Desert Dome concludes, “Overall in the areas that we were able to reach from ladders, we did not see any substantial change in the condition of the concrete structure. The Domes are old structures that are showing the effects of their age. They will continue to deteriorate unless major renovations are completed. Until that work is performed, we feel the most cost-effective way to reduce the possibility of injury from falling debris is to install protective netting in the areas where concrete pieces and chips have been known to originate.”
- Feb. 10, 2016: The Board of Supervisors announces a listening session on the future of the Domes to be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at the greenhouse annex at the Domes. The board’s Committee on Parks, Energy and the Environment is slated to receive a report on the Domes from the Abele administration on March 8.
