Business Improvement District Board #5 (westown Area) - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Community and Economic Development Committee. I am your chairman, Alderman Russell Stanford II. To my right, furthest right, is Alderman Chambers. To his left is Alderman Dimitrievich. To the furthest left is Alderman Jackson. To his right is Alderman Moore. And we have our trusted staff assistant, Ms. Carmen, here. Thank you for coming down. And we look forward to a productive, Money day. So it's a money day. Let's get started. Number one, 260209, reappointment of Jose Fernando Marino to the business improvement edition number four. Jose, are you available? He has perfect attendance, so he does not have to attend. Alderman Dimitrievich moves for his confirmation. Hearing no objections, so order number 2260210, reappointment of Russell Rossetto to the business improvement district number four by the mayor. Mr. Russell Rossetto, are you available? Does he have perfect attendance? He also has perfect attendance, so he does not have to attend. Alderman Chambers moves for confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Number three, 260211, appointment of Kurt Binzel to the business room, addition number 41. Mr. Kurt Binzel, are you available?

I am.

Excellent, excellent. Let's see here. This is an appointment for you. Why would you like to serve on this bid, Mr. Binzel?

I have an affection for the area that I live in, the Upper East Side of Milwaukee. I moved here in 1987 and fell in love with the city, and I'm honored to have the opportunity to help improve the Business Improvement District.

Awesome, awesome. What's the name of your business?

I work for Shore West Realtors. I'm a realtor.

Okay. All right, and how much is a three-bedroom, two-bed right now in the third automatic district? Anyway, thank you.

Hey, give me a call. I'm happy to help anybody there.

Thank you for your willingness to serve. Let me see if we have any questions by the committee. No questions. All the women, more moves for your confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Number 4, 260172, communication from the Department of City Development, Milwaukee Fire Department, and the Milwaukee Arts Board relating to the Public Artist in Residence Program. Good afternoon. How are you guys?

Good afternoon, Chair Stamper and committee members. My name is Sally Svedek. I am a neighborhood business development specialist with the Department of City Development, and I also serve as staff of the Milwaukee Arts Board. I'm here representing DCD, the Arts Board, and not representing, but I'll be the voice of the fire department as well, reading some information from Chief Lipsky. So I'll start with an introduction to the PAIR program and this specific iteration of the PAIR program. The Public Artists in Residence program is funded through the Milwaukee Arts Board public art funding and through a grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. This is going to be the second iteration, but we're still considering a pilot program as we figure out kind of best practices and really work towards solidifying the future of the program. So the program brings a local artist and an artist liaison to work directly with a city department on a pressing civic issue. And this year, the Fire Department was selected by the Arts Board from a pool of very, very interested and excited city departments, which was very thrilling for me to see a growing, really, pool of excitement from the departments. And so the Fire Department proposed an artist to work on safe housing, which is a foundational issue impacting all Milwaukeeans in all city departments. And again, I'll read some of Chief Lipski's very insightful words. He was and continues to be very passionate about the fire department serving as the host department. So an incredible opportunity awaits the public artist in residence. In alignment with Mayor Johnson's priority focus on housing for 2026, and utilizing the visibility of the Milwaukee Fire Department and its stations and vehicles, a creatively conceived and exhibited work of art would provide an additional lens by highlighting the very human right to not only have affordable housing, but to enjoy safe and survivable housing as well. Indeed, the Fire Department is uniformly positioned as anchors in every neighborhood and centrally immersed in every one of the many diverse communities in Milwaukee. Because the fire department resides on the very margin of success and failure over and over again, they are uniquely positioned to draw attention to the issue of safe and survivable housing. Aside from saving lives, many of the fire department members and staff have training and experience in areas that will be key to the success of this mission, including but not limited to media production, strategic planning, and pulling together multiple departments or agencies for a common mission, as well as a variety of technical and craft-related skills. So the program will officially begin July 1st, and we're excited to introduce to you the PAIR team. So I will let Sarah start by introducing herself.

I'm Sarah Luther. I have been working in Milwaukee as an artist for about 17 years. My work primarily is civic and community focused. So I currently also work at New Line Cafe which is attached to Escuela Verde High School. So I am excited to continue for the last bunch of years all of my work is really focused around our neighborhood in Silver City and I'm excited for this opportunity to kind of expand my reach and go back out into the city and work with different neighborhoods and I really appreciated the pair structure of both learning about different departments, working really closely with the fire department, and then thinking about those fire department buildings as hubs in different neighborhoods. So I'm excited to use that as a way to collaborate with different neighbors, community organizations, other artists in those neighborhoods, and really kind of leverage all of those really cool resources and build some interesting projects for our city.

Excellent.

And I should have mentioned, Sarah is the public artist in residence for this iteration.

Great. Paul? Hello, my name is Paul Druka. I am the liaison for this iteration. I had the honor of writing the evaluation report for the first iteration, and it really kind of brought me in to be a supporter and interested in the potential of the PAIR program for the City of Milwaukee. It's an honor to be working with Sally and Sarah, who I know, who Bring a lot of expertise and passion. So this is going to be a great iteration In the liaison role, I'll be working essentially to support Sarah's effort as the artists and Sally and administration one additional component is as an advocate for the pair program now and looking to the future and I just wanna say on that behalf, we really want additional engagement from everybody. If you, anybody in this room or listening is interested in Milwaukee housing or has a story about the fire department, we are gonna have plenty of opportunities to kind of join in with us, to share stories and to kind of build this project. And so that's part of my role is extending this invitation and I'm happy to follow up with anybody here or please feel free to reach out to me. I think at this point through Sally.

Yes and I'll just mention again anyone in the room committee members and anyone watching at home. You can always reach out to arts board at Milwaukee dot gov and we will get you in connection with the program.

Mr. Chair? Absolutely. Alderman Moore. Thank you so much. Thank you all. This is such a great opportunity. And so the invitation to be able to share, I mean, we have residents all the time that are coming to us with things, and it'll be a great opportunity, if it makes sense, to make those connections. If there could be like a communication, To the counselor can be sent to the city clerk just so that we know who to reach out to and you know Just the form just a memo to us would be awesome. Just so that we can Really share this really great experience and have folks participate Thank you. Thank you. Mr.

Chair, of course. So it sounds like the pair program is a Component of the Milwaukee Arts Board's mission it is.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly All right. So do we have any questions by the committee? I This is excellent. Great presentation. Look forward to July 1st and beyond. Thank you guys for coming down. This is a place on file. Alderman Chambers moves to place us on file. Hearing no objections to order. Thank you so much, Sally. Thank you. Y'all have a good one, all right? You too. Number 5260192, resolution relating to a youth council anti-nicotine scholarship contest. Who is putting this together? Okay. Jackson. Jackson. Alderman Jackson would like to hold this at the call of the chair. We'll bring this up next cycle. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Number six, 260193, resolution relating to an acceptance and funding of a talking book and braille library grant. Please come on up. Good afternoon.

Here we are, Mr. Chairman.

Hey, how are you?

Good. How are you?

Excellent. Excellent. All right. This is pretty standard. How much is the grant this year?

So it'll be just over $1.2 million to run the Whittable program for the next year, starting July 1st.

Okay. Questions by the committee? Hearing none, Alderwoman Demi Dravich moves for adoption. Hearing no objections to order. Thank you. All right, number seven, 260194, resolution relating to an acceptance and funding of the interlibrary loan services grant. So that's why you're still here.

Yes.

All right, how much is this one?

So this one is about $271,000, and it'll also fund the program for the next year starting July 1st.

All right, all right, interlibrary. Okay, all right, any questions by the committee? Hearing none, Alderman Jackson moves for adoption. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Number eight, 260205, substitute resolution relating to the use and allocation of Community Development Block Grant 2026 reprogramming funds. I am the sponsor and looking forward to this conversation. Director Higgins, thank you for coming up. Let's see here. How's everybody? I'm good.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. As you know, this is that time of year to do our Community Development Block Grant reprogramming. Yes, sir. So we have several programs that apply for interest in the project. Okay. And so we can, depending on how you want to do this, I can sort of go through them all and then ask questions afterwards or individually, however you want me to choose to do that.

Yeah. You can do a brief overview, then we'll hear an executive summary or a point from the organizations.

Yeah, so reprogramming is obviously that process of reconciliation of prior year awards. And as we close out during the year, we make these funds available again after we've completed that closeout process. Yes, sir. So what we have on first on attachment A for CDBG reprogramming is youth council reserve. The Youth Council, that funding is set aside by ordinance for them at $80,000. They currently have their RFP out already. Those RFPs are actually due back to them on the 15th, I believe. So they're already soliciting for programs to fund with that $80,000.

Okay, that was Youth Council. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's... Who got the bulk of the money last year from them?

They had four wars. Who was it? Remember who they were? They had four wars. They had Among American Friendship Academy, Silver Spring Neighborhood Center, Walker's Point Youth and Family. and one other, Pathfinders.

Okay, they all got 20,000.

No, they had two years of funding, so they got about 35 each, and plus the youth council keeps some for them, uses some for themselves for a trip that they do to D.C. every year.

and they read the proposals and picked them, correct?

They read, scored everything.

All right, good, excellent. That's good, that's good leadership. All right, keep it going, Mario.

All right, so under the housing category, we have Milwaukee Community Crossroads, that's the former Milwaukee Christian Center.

Yes.

For their youth bills program, the request for $200,000, I recommend the $175,000. Revitalize Milwaukee for accessibility improvements. This is a program they currently work with us on as well. The request of $50,000 and we are recommending $50,000 sure There's Milwaukee community cross I didn't see anybody but I thought they were It's a long-standing program and we yeah, I know I know I wanted them to announce how many youth they were working with see part of my request for everybody here today is

and so you understand what everybody else is doing with young people throughout this summer. I spoke to a lot of you individually, and you all are promoting your program, saying great things, but I want you to say it in conjunction with what other people are doing versus saying it in a way that you may be better than another organization. So in order to do that, you all listen to each other and see how you can support and help each other in working together for our youth this summer. Because it's a together thing. I know it's the money, so it automatically makes you want to compete, but we don't have to compete. We can spread it out and we can work together. And then the organizations that need more money, those organizations will see that reason why they need more money. Because that's what we do. So my goal here today and in the future is y'all call each other and refer each other to each other for the help of our young people. All right? All right. So YouthBuilds is a program training young people in the art of trades. And if an extra youth doesn't receive an application or doesn't enter your program, why don't you refer them to that one? That kind of thing, all right? But I am happy to see everybody, huh?

You're getting good at this.

Well, I've been doing it longer than you, my brother. All right, so let's see here. So congratulations to them. Revitalize Milwaukee, you're all aware of them. Program that helps. build up neighborhoods mostly for elderly people in the community. So y'all refer people for Revitalize Milwaukee. Thank you very much. Please proceed. Wait for it. Any questions by the committee? Hearing none? Yes. All the women? Not yet. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. Large Impact Development Fund.

Large Impact Development Fund for special economic development. As you all are aware, we had depleted this fund to fund the grocery store initiatives and fresh food initiatives a couple months ago. and Alderman Stamper's leadership. He wants to continue to make sure there's something available here in order to be able to answer those types of requests in the future. So we have this here to make this available and whether we sent it out for an RP or partner with another city department or someone in the future to utilize these funds for special ED.

So economic development. Housing, of course, is at the forefront. but if you got a small business or you got something to build up a corridor in the neighborhood, this money's available, all right? Next.

All right, under public service, we have our, so you'll see a common theme here, a lot of youth activity, Obviously considering all of the things that's been happening within the city, so we're gonna be very youth focused. So employ Milwaukee for Camp Rise. And employ Milwaukee for Earn and Learn. I believe there are someone here for Camp Rise and Earn and Learn if you wanna do that now.

Yeah, let's do this. Camp Rise, Earn and Learn, Milwaukee Builds, Safe Zones, Financial Empowerment Center, Job Training and Placement, Safe Summer Sites, Job Training and Placement, and Job Placement, and then Youth Services, Emerging Youth Advisory Council. Committee, please bear with me. I think this is important that we get this together while we got this amount of money. Let me tell you something. This is about a large allocation that we've had in years. We got $3 million. We're gonna spend it on y'all, okay? So I want y'all to come up and do a brief explanation of your program and how others can join and help you and then what you're doing for the community, all right? So let's come up with Camp Rise. Please come up. Camp Rise, are you available? There he is. So come here, let's get ready to ask our questions. This is the time.

Thanks for coming down. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. My name is Romel Greer. I am the, I work for Employment Milwaukee. I am the director of the Camp Rise program. Camp Rise is a program that goes for 10 to 13 year olds through the summer months of June 22nd of August 7th this year. We take 300 participants that attend MPS schools and send them to North Division. We're at North Division where we will be doing different things throughout the summer. So we'll do job readiness training, we will be doing a pre-apprenticeship program where we are working with trying to teach our 12 and 13 year olds in healthcare fields, in manufacturing, and also in, healthcare manufacturing, also into So they'll do a lot of STEM training as well too with MSOE, UWM, things of the sort. Some of the things that we could benefit from other organizations are definitely always referrals and also participation as well too. The program is attempting to grow. Each year we are working with MPS and looking to grow more and more. The biggest thing of what we're looking to do is also put our feelers out there and start to work together. A lot of things throughout the community which we need is that to come out of those silos would help with being able to go to those different organizations and coming to support us as well too. Being able to bring our kids over to certain organizations to be able to hang out, to learn, what's in the community and how they can be a part of that growing and how they can improve the community as well and working together. Excellent, excellent. Any questions for Darrell?

Mr. Chair?

Yes.

Thank you so much. Of course. Rommel, really quick, can you share, I know that there's 300 capacity for Camp Rise. Can you share how many applicants you all receive? Because I know it's definitely more than that. Okay.

Right, we received 650 applicants this year, so it was almost, it was, yeah, it was very difficult to kind of cipher through all of those applications. We did refer those individuals who were not accepted into camp to different organizations and things like that, Boys and Girls Clubs. summer you know we you know we on summer and everything like that so we've always kind of pushed it out into other organizations throughout uh pearls for girls things of the sort so we tried to make sure that we push those out and give them something yeah so give them some direction i really appreciate that because you know there are so many great programs um that we have and i know this one has been very popular yes uh and just the work that it's a testament to the work that you all have been doing

But I'm really glad to hear that you all provided opportunities to say, you know, we're so sorry because of capacity. Yes. You know, we won't be able to serve you. However, here's some options. Absolutely. And that should be just, you know, reflective, Mr. Chair, of what you shared before. You know, we all should be doing that. It's not just a no, but, you know, we can't support you, but here because we have a plethora of youth opportunities here in the city. So thank you and your staff so much for supporting this program.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Congratulations. Thank you, guys. And then we have the General Ernie Lerner. Okay. You're being awarded $250,000. How would you like to spend that money?

I'm Cody from EmployMilwaukee. I oversee the day-to-day operations of the Earn and Learn Community Work Experience Program. It's a work-based learning program where we match youth participants age 14 to 24 with a work experience in the city of Milwaukee where we subsidize the wages 100% for 20 hours a week for seven weeks beginning on June 29th through August. We work with almost every community organization present here at some point we have. But we have over 140 physical worksite locations throughout the city. This year we're serving over 800 kids in the program. We had over 3,000 applicants this year. Unfortunately, there's a pretty big discrepancy there with the amount of funding we have. And we're always looking for more work sites so that we can offer more physical locations for those kids to work because transportation is the biggest issue for participants that we have. So being able to offer a work experience that's within walking distance from their house is kind of an ideal scenario. So we're always looking for new work experiences. And I will also say that The work that we do is to support the community organizations in the city. We're helping subsidize all the work that those organizations are doing in the city. We're just providing that pay as an incentive to bring kids in, keep kids there. So we're partners with everyone we work with. We don't consider it a competition.

How does one become a site? Give us a quick process on that and then let us know how. But yeah, everybody, please provide your information on how we can get a hold of you as well.

Yeah, really you can call the Employee Milwaukee main line and they'll get you to the right person. Okay. But, sorry, what was the other part of the question there?

He was asking how do you become a site? Oh, how do I become a site?

That's right. We basically start the process every year in December. So for 2026, we started the process in December 2025. We do require that even returning work sites fill out a new application every single year. That's just to make sure that we're... having that high standard every single year. And it's a little bit of a competition there to make sure that that standard is high every single year. But there is an application process they have to tell us how many participants they can support, what type of work-based learning experience they're offering. They have to submit a job description. There is a worksite agreement. There's a contract they have to sign with us as we act as the employer of record. They act as a physical worksite. There's insurance limits. We have to physically visit the worksite, things like that. That's a very general overview.

Excellent. Questions by the committee? Mr. Chair. Alderman Moore.

Really quick, Cody. The dollars that you all will be getting, is it already incorporated into, and you said 800 something, but do you have more of an exact number? Exactly.

For this additional funding? I mean, no, because we've extended the offers, but we won't know the actual number of participants until everyone shows up, basically, and seeing how many we have, but...

but just even based on funding. So I know that you all had some dedicated funding already, and I think that was, that number was already set, but these additional dollars would support X number more, right? That's what I'm assuming.

Yeah, it would be about 100 additional youth, and yeah.

So, but it would be, so I can add that to my 800, or is that inclusive of the 800 plus?

That's inclusive of the 800, but this would likely carry over into next year. It's so our orientations for this program are right now, um, like going on as we speak. Um, so, uh, we wouldn't be able to, we would use this funding for next, next summer basically.

Okay. So that's what I wanted to sort of, okay.

So it's not, yeah, exactly.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course. Any other questions? Cody, thank you very much. Thanks. All right. All right. Northcott Neighborhood House Incorporated. Mr. Kearney, I see you in the building. You are being awarded for the Milwaukee Builds and Safe Zones for a total of 300,000. How you doing today, Tony? Got a big day coming up. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Of course. Got a big day coming up. Oh.

Northcott Neighborhood House, as you know, has been around 66 years.

Yes. Providing services to youth and adults. Yes. Our Milwaukee Builds Program is a construction training program.

Tony, I know I introduced you, but I still want you to introduce yourself and your title, please, and your director.

I'm Tony Kearney. I'm Executive Director of Northcott Neighborhood House.

Yes, sir.

The young man to my right is...

Ken Lowry, project director, Northcott Neighborhood House. Yes, sir. Thank you, guys.

So we've been doing Milwaukee Bills for 23 years. We started out building a single house per year. Thanks to this committee, that grew to us doing a block. While we were doing that block, a developer happened to see us, a developer with Gorman and Company. So we've done 19 projects with Gorman and Company and are having discussions with them about project 20. So our individuals who are trained receive a state license for both lead and asbestos and a Home Builders Institute certification in construction with a specialty in one area or another related to construction. We also work with Milwaukee Area Technical College to get them the basics of electronics and plumbing. So they take that class during the time that they have. So we take a semester class and break it down into every day. So we get it done in eight weeks as opposed to 16 weeks. Those individuals then work on the actual projects with those developers. So our work with Gorman and Company, Green Fire and Marist Development, we've helped produce over 1,000 affordable housing units and hope to go on. We train about 50 people per year.

Okay.

So when they're working on those projects, they are receiving RPP wages. So that's the goal of being there because we are then a contractor like everyone else, and we use those dollars to pay them. Until we get them ready, we're using the dollars you provide to help train them, get their licenses, And make it work.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You want to provide Northcott's information?

Also, 78% of the people we've trained over the last decade have been former felons. Our entire construction team is our former felons. So individuals who used to do things in this community they shouldn't do have been rebuilding this community for 23 years.

Excellent.

Now you can reach us at Northcott at 2460 North 6th Street or call 414-372-3770. We are constantly in recruitment mode. We want to get two classes going every year and if we can do a third one, we will. We constantly have the opportunities with the builders and developers so we will continue to take people in. We have not yet in our 23-year history had to turn anyone away.

Excellent. Ken, you wanted to add?

No. Doing a lot of good things, trying to help a lot of people. That's our goal.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Any comments or questions about the committee?

Mr. Chair? Yes, Alderman Moore. I just want to say thank you all for the work that you're doing, and I'm always very peculiar when it comes to language, and so identifying the folks that have been system involved, formerly impacted, but let's be careful how we share out back to our community about the people that you're working with.

Well, we actually want people to know that those people are legitimate. No, no, no. That's not it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's just the term felon, right?

Because they made a mistake before. Yeah. Now they're rebuilding your community. Absolutely.

Absolutely. All the time. All the time. Yeah. Thank you all so much.

I'm actually proud of my team. Yeah. There's not a single person that we wouldn't put up against any supervisor out there with any construction company.

Right. Yeah. It's just humanizing language. That's all. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yeah.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And Alderman Chambers alluded to it. Did you want to announce the big celebration?

Yes, we're about to have the 55th annual Juneteenth Day celebration on June 19th. We just had our Miss Juneteenth pageant. So there is a Mr. Juneteenth these days over the past five years. We have a Mr. Juneteenth. They were just crowned on Saturday and will be introduced to the community this Friday. And they will also be on the... Council stage there and opening ceremonies at Summerfest Yes, and we appreciate the 23 years that you guys have supported this mission, yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you A lot of years You said 55 minus 23

No, you supported us for Milwaukee Bills 23 years.

Oh, you talking about that? Yeah. I thought you were talking about Juneteenth.

No.

Okay, all right.

Juneteenth has been here since 71.

Thank you, Tony, man. I appreciate y'all coming down. Congratulations. Next, we have... RiverWorks Development Corporation for Financial Empowerment Center. You are being awarded $250,000. Mr. Darrell, how you doing today? Doing good, sir. All right, tell us about the financial program.

Daryl Johnson, Executive Director of Railworks Development Corporation. Thank you, committee members and Mr. Chair. We've been in partnership with the City of Milwaukee for almost two years with the Financial Apartment Center. It actually started through Cities for Financial Apartment. which is a program that was started by Bloomberg in New York, and they have about 30-something sites throughout the United States. So we were fortunate to team up with the city of Milwaukee, and the city of Milwaukee offers this service to anybody who lives in the city of Milwaukee as a free public service to get financial counseling.

Excellent.

And so we have about five certified counselors, and what we also do is provide wraparound services. We are one of the largest vital sites now within the city of Milwaukee. We also oversee the anti-displacement program within the city of Milwaukee. So we have a number of programs within the financial clinic. Sure. How would one connect with you? We're located at 518 East Concordia, right on the corner of Concordia and Houghton Street, where the former Kohl's store used to be. And so we have a parking lot right there. And like I said, we have a meeting room space. One of the things I also want to mention, we've been nominated for many awards for our legacy planning. Okay, congratulations. Working with older adults, and so hopefully we'll win that award because I think I have outstanding staff that works hard. One other story, we had an individual who was one of our first clients through the program. She just recently passed away, but her family was well prepared on how to handle her legacy. Wow.

All right, man, that's good. Do we have any questions by the committee? All right, hearing none, thank you for coming down. Thank you. Appreciate it. Congratulations. You're welcome. It's just an open door process.

We have a soft side site. We're at Hunger Task Force, so we're working with Hunger Task Force. I thought you were tired, man. I'm waiting for you.

Hey, but there's an open process. It's just call you and you can get signed up.

Yeah, just come into the office. Our phone number is 414-906-9650, and we can help you out. Or you can just stop in the office. Or you can do it online. We're also on the city website.

Okay, so you guys, I'm gonna put together a database and just pass it out to everybody. So you'll have a face today, but then you'll have a database of information that you guys can refer to, okay? Yeah. Thanks, Darrell, appreciate you. You're welcome. All right, next we have Rebirth Milwaukee for job training and placement for 45,000. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

How are you?

I am well.

Tell us about Rebirth, Wisconsin.

My name is Shireta Lane. I am the president and CEO of Rebirth Milwaukee, which is a local non-profit new to Milwaukee. We offer wraparound services to the underserved population seeking resources and services and navigation to sustainable life. We also offer training in pre-apprenticeship construction, which is nationally and state certified by the Department of Workforce Development. Our individuals receive a host of credentials once they complete our program. We have been in this space for, the organization itself has been around since February. However, we've offered these services through the Social Development Commission previously prior to closing. So this program is a replica of the Absolute Advantage program, which was highly recognized in the city of Milwaukee for the work that we've done. the individuals that we placed and trained. We maintain a high retention rate. We work with reputable employers, contractors, and made a huge impact for the city of Milwaukee.

Awesome, awesome, and how would one get ahold of you or connect with you?

Sure, we are located at 2979 North 30th Street. Okay. Our phone number is 414-698-8904.

Thank you so much. We have any questions by committee? Alderman Jackson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Mario for following up on this. I made the connection, but you never told me that you got it done, so thank you.

Thank you both.

Awesome. All right, thank you for coming down. Congratulations. Next we have Safe and Sound and the Public Services Safe Summer Sites. You guys are being awarded $500,000. So Safe and Sound is in conjunction with Director Devin coming up, NPS and Milwaukee County. Aziz, you representing?

Yes, sir.

All right, all right, all right. All right, so I introduce ourselves. Let's talk about these summer sites and $500,000 being awarded to you. Director, you want to start?

Hello.

Hey.

Director of the Department of Community Wellness and Safety, Karen Tyler.

Hey, Karen.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Aziz Abdullah. I'm one of the co-founders at InPower. We're a marketing and engagement company based in Milwaukee area in the Harambee neighborhood.

David Muhammad, Deputy Director, Department of Health and Human Services, Milwaukee County.

Yes, sir.

Bridget Whitaker, Executive Director of Safe and South.

All right. Who would like to start about these sites and how you're going to? contribute to the youth development this summer.

Chair and committee members, we have a brief presentation. It won't take more than five minutes. Take your time. But this is a collaborative effort with Milwaukee County, City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools, Safe and Sound, Children's Hospital, and the Greater Milwaukee Urban League within power. and a host of different collaborative partners. This project is in response to the need to activate neighborhood-based sites, serve young people in extended hours, and respond to the social and cultural needs of youth in our community. And it does include an economic development angle with about 900 youth served and 150 people employed. So Aziz Abdullah will take us through the presentation. Yes, sir.

Again, thank you for the opportunity. So really last summer, this work started as a continued response to what we've been working on alongside the county for the last three years through an initiative called Healing for Our Youth. And one of the things that we identify with a lot of our young people during the summertime is there's a ton of programming happening during the day. But once we hit about 6 o'clock and into the evening, You know, just by nature of our ecosystem and infrastructure, there's not a lot of places to go in the evening as well as on Saturdays. And then we want to be able to push on Sundays connecting to, you know, whether it's faith or just family time and really trying to reinstitute the culture of the way Sundays used to be when I used to go to Big Mama's house. Yeah. And so the problem that we're really trying to solve is really that at hand. And so in addition to that, one of the things that we also did over the last year is we surveyed 597 young people. And again, you all have access to this on the record. But the two things I really want to call out, one, is that 69% of the people that we surveyed said they don't feel safe in the neighborhood. And yesterday I had an opportunity to drive around 24th and Burleigh and also had a conversation with the institution there because we want to stand up. That is one of the locations. And you can identify within the tapestry of the area why young people may not feel comfortable going outside based on the activities that are taking place. And so when we think about this, along with the fact that nearly half of our young people we surveyed talked about the normalization and the culture of gun violence, we need to create spaces to be able to go and feel seen, feel comfortable, and to be able to express joy in ways that are culturally relevant. So a safe summer site, the way to think about it is place-based locations and high-impact neighborhoods across the city of Milwaukee that create an opportunity for young people to come in, participate, really up into that point of curfew, which in the city of Milwaukee is 11 o'clock. So these are going to operate from 5.30 to 10.30 p.m., Monday through Friday, as well as on Saturday. And so the opportunity here is really important. just reinforcing some of the points that were brought up earlier, not only creating those spaces, but also addressing the opportunity for connection to basic needs. Once you establish a relationship with a young person or the family that's engaging with you, then we can start to uncover some of the other opportunities and program necessities that exist where some of our people may be slipping through the cracks who might not be getting the information that's being published through these bodies and through some of the other efforts that exist. And so aside from it being a safe space for young people, we also see this as a 10-week initiative to better connect families throughout the city of Milwaukee as well. I just had a few case studies, you know, because folks, you know, a lot of times see work that gets published in the community and don't know the collaboration that went behind it. But for Eviction Free MKE Art Institution collaborated with Legal Aid Society, we ran the field campaign branding and built that out. Last two years ago, we ran the Neighbor to Neighbor Initiative. We employed 50 people and did a 50,000 door knock campaign, really elevating the needs around housing and the digital divide. We also are looking at this through the lens of a public health response, which was some of the work that we carried via Healthy MKE. And then this model is really a 10x to what we did last summer through an initiative called Grinding the Glory that we ran out of the King Center where we were able to have and host 150 people at one time. And so what we're really excited about and kind of what was called out earlier is the collaboration that you see existing here. uh... not only from a human resource capacity i'll speak to some of the existing investment that's already been made but i also think when we look at our public school spaces and the mps wrecking the twilight centers you know they've made the commitment to extend ninety minutes uh... as a as a result of this and To me, that is a catalyst in this opportunity. One of the downfalls and one of the gaps that we're feeling, though, is that those centers close on August 6th. So for that last four weeks in the summer, we're going to be activating other locations to kind of fill the gap that young people would traditionally see during that time period.

Aziz, what are those times?

Everything throughout the summer is Monday through Saturday, 5.30 to 10.30. We've also published the locations of some of the sites that we've already had conversations around. So these include those Twilight Center locations, but they also include some of our partners who were even here today via Uncom. And we also have some other partners that we want to be able to have conversations with as we activate locations. Feel free to cut me off at any point.

Yeah, I got a question. All the same. So we got 14 sites? Is that 14? That's 14 currently listed.

So I hear and I appreciate the presentation and I'm looking at the times, right? But one thing that's popping out to me is like, and correct me if I'm wrong, MPS already hosts the Twilight Centers. They're over at, what, about 8 o'clock or something like that. That goes on. We're adding an additional two to three hours in addition to that with this funding. But there are other programs, and the reason why I'm asking, because I see one of them is Brother Von Mays here with Conforce, and he got the Wii locked in. And what I can attest to, because I went to go see one myself, um last year and maybe von need to come up here and talk a little bit more about his project or his program that people don't know um is i think last year it was at missing peace like i think it was the day before my back to school festival and i went and just sat there and just watching i delivered some backpacks for the kids that was there was about 70 kids there after midnight like where they got like food they got sleeping necessities and like these cat these kids were just they were safe, they were secure, they were just like full of energy and doing that. I guess the question I have for you is these is, are you working with them if they wanted the partners that working in far as making sure they do it that they keep trying to some would you think as well and also seen that he's asking for funding the stuff and i feel like this this right into that model with other locations because not all kids are going to be comfortable going to in a p s school dog other kids are going to be comfortable going to on-com location they gotta go to where's a fair who can bring something that will catch their attention i mean they had PlayStation 5, an Xbox there, they had Dancing Conference, Big Frank, they had all those people.

Laptop giveaways.

You know, and they're doing it, you know, saying, they're doing it, you know, out of the kindness of their heart and also with the connections that he had. I don't see NPS Rec bringing those people there. And I'm not diminishing it. I don't see the county of us even bringing those people there as far as doing that. Just be honest. We're just the funders, you know. So I guess what I'm looking for is... I feel like they should be just as integral involved. And I look at, you see, show like all the partners and I don't see them on there. And that's a, that, that hurts me because the work that this brother does and his people, you know, is just as important as you just as important as Mr. Muhammad, Bridget, myself, Karen, or anybody else in this. And I think we all need to just to the chair's point, um, of, the reason why he bring everyone together is to see what other people are doing and let's not reinvent the wheel but let's work together right and i think that this is a perfect opportunity far as doing that so i guess what i'm looking for from you is a commitment to ensuring that they are brought in as a community partner they are brought in as someone that is artery you know with the summer site because if we're going to talk about safe summer sites he can drive the kids here or anybody. I'm not even just focusing on him, but like find other organizations. Um, you know, I just brought him up cause I seen it firsthand for myself more than once.

Um, so I know I said a lot, so if I can have an opportunity to respond. So, um, for the sake of time, I've been driving a little bit fast. Um, The commentary underneath those logos is a representation of over 50 partners involved in the work. And I don't want to speak for the brother, but I will say the laptops provided for that evening, for that event, they came from us. And we've been in communication and supporting everything that Vaughn Mays does. So I just, in addition to this, and I'll maybe jump to this, one of the other strategies that we have is called Community Peace Pop-Up and Adaptive. The adaptive is exactly the lock-in model, which we wouldn't ever implement without Vaughn Mays at the table. So just to specifically call him out, but I also have brothers and sisters from the Turners. All of those organizations really become the vehicle that are implemented. So the way to look at this is we have anchor institution locations that we do want to institute some culture around. So recognizing that what you just said from the MPS standpoint, While that is a reality, we need to address that reality. Where this enrichment line item is coming from is we need music studios inside of those places. We need PS3 and PS5 setups with TVs and monitors. We need to be able to show movies and culturally responsive activities in all of the spaces that have been institutions and really have the sustainability that's going to exist beyond, you know, kind of this summer. And hopefully we have a way to be able to continue to do some of these pieces. But exactly to your point, that adaptive and reactive approach is really to address exactly what you're talking about with this lock-in model. And, for example, when we think about the meadows, you know, in the hundreds area, there's not really – anything out there and so when we think about those locations those are where we need to be adaptive reactive think about how we activate parks and other you know responsive strategies so um i just wanted to acknowledge that that consideration is definitely forefront yeah what is our furthest

northern community-based organization.

Probably Madison, to his point.

You talking about organization or you talking about location as far as this program? Well, both, really. I mean, Madison is the furthest. That's in my district off of any person, florist. But the organization, as far as the northwest side, I mean, you've got African-American Roundtable. Roundtable. Probably, yeah. African American Roundtable, Safer Sound, go out to District 4.

How far do you go north?

All the way to the Milwaukee Police District 4.

We have Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. But there's a desert. There's a lack of youth programming.

I'm currently looking for some NSPs to activate over there.

That's the area that's always, we struggle with, right?

We struggle with that in the neighborhood area for a community-based organization. Yeah, and I'll put a button on this, Mr. Chair, and I'll thank you for the brevity. Sure. You know, the reason why I, again, you know, as I said, you know, Farr is doing that because, you know, to your point during your presentation, you know, you're saying, like, we've got the gap going to, like, 1030, but, like, after to, like, midnight and to everything like that, I think that's where he come in. So when I look at the use of funds and, you know, as far as this, I feel like that need to be shifted a little bit, and I know, like, the fund, this is not necessarily set in stone, but, like, it could be like this. I feel like that need to be shifted a little bit, Farr asked to, help maybe the turners will open up the turner hall for, you know, a lock-in. I know. So, you know, but, you know, I'm just thinking, like, if we're going to put, you know, our money where our mouth is, you know, we've got to continue to deliver and be willing to, you know, adapt. Like, you know, I know the work you do. I'm very appreciative of the work you do. Um, you know, but I think, you know, we can't, you know, leave out, you know, Vaughn or Miss Farina Brooks, you know, for what she does, you know, with her organization. And, you know, I know Travis got Travis Hope out there on the south side and, and, you know, Raquel Allman over there, like they do a lot of like the integral work. And I think that we need to be real intentional when we activate them because they are the, I look at them, they are the micro where we are the macro, right? 100%. We've seen things from a bird-eye view. They've seen it from the ground level. And I feel that when we do this, it can't just be so cookie-cutter slash commercialized. I'm not accusing you of doing that or anything like that. So I just think that when I look at this, and I know the work that... Natalia Renteria is doing that missing piece. Like, I would want her location to be one of those locations that is being activated.

For all the folks you named, just text them and say, did Aziz talk to you? Oh, I know you did.

I'm not seeing this right here. So when I see the presentation, I'm looking at this. It's like, this is already set. This is everything like this. And I know there's some wiggle room, but, like, how much wiggle room? Because it's like, you know, if we're going to approve this, I'm like, well – you are approved, this is what we presented to you, and this is how we're going to move, and it's like, okay, well, this person getting shorted as far as doing this when they're doing a lot of the work, and I don't want that to happen. I got you. So it's just, you know, let's be real intentional and just make sure that, you know, if we are adding some more, I definitely would like to see, you know, like Missing Peace and, like, you know, Five Star. I'm just thinking of the location that he had those locked in stuff. I think for Juneteenth, it's somewhere near Clark or something. M-O-K. So, you know, so I just want, you know, those – places being supported to the fullest potential to ensure that these babies are being safe. You know, we got, you know, earn and learn and camp rise and everything of that nature. But for those who ain't doing that, for those who are accustomed to a certain way and we can get the, you know, the ears to the, I don't want Sherman Park to be in another war zone. I don't want Carmen Park. I don't want to see in my district a 15-year-old dancing on top of a police car getting chased by police. That just happened two weeks ago. You know, I don't want that. So I just want us to ensure that, you know, we're doing what we can to tap into those ground level people that are touching the ground level from, you know, while we are up at the bird's eye view. I want us to be real intentional as far as this. And I think this is the way doing it. I just think we need to tweak this a little bit. That's just for me. I got it for myself. So thank you, Mr.

Chair. I really thank you. I appreciate that. Order woman, Demetrius.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Could you go back a slide that had the map of the locations? Okay, so, okay, not every one of those is a current MPS Twilight, correct? Correct. Okay, but almost every one of the schools is. Correct. Okay, so where I'm going with that is, From 1 to 14, is every one of those going to be open every day till 11 p.m.?

No, ma'am.

Okay.

So for the first through August 6th, Monday through Friday, we're leveraging the existing infrastructure with Twilight. Okay. So those are all going to be open from 530 to 1030, Monday through Friday through August 6th. And that's six of the Twilight centers and then three midnight basketballs. I feel like that part was already announced, right? Like, cause I feel like I heard about that. Okay. But the, the, I think the differentiator is they're open later than they originally were.

Cause currently it was like in sections, right? So now, cause like for the one that's in my district, the Bayview high school, that'll be Monday through Friday till 11 PM.

10.30. We need to transition. I'm sorry, I don't want to get out of my head.

I can think about curfew. Now you said curfew. So 10.30, Monday through Friday, but you're still trying to work out the weekend situation.

So Saturdays is where that adaptive model and rotating location is going to be. Okay, okay.

And I did see that some select Twilight areas will also have laundry services. Yep. Which I thought was excellent. That's awesome. Just fantastic meeting people where they're at. Before we go on, I just want to say I think this is exceptional. Also, I've been meaning to talk to you about your work on literacy. And I think maybe next year we can do additional work on that. That's a passion I have. I've been talking to leadership. We've got to get people in the doors. Then, as you were stating, once we have people, our neighbors, in the doors, we can work neighbor by neighbor to see what people need, right? I'd love to do more work on that, and I'd love to see, there's a few libraries in here, as you know, that have Sunday hours.

Mm-hmm.

WHICH ARE ALSO, LIKE, THEY COULD FILL IN SOME, LIKE, WHEN I'M LOOKING AT THE MAP, THERE'S JUST A FEW. I WISH IT WAS EVERYONE, BUT WE'LL LEAVE THAT. NOT ALL MY COLLEAGUES YELLING AT ME YET. BUT, LIKE, THERE'S A COUPLE IN THERE THAT COULD FILL IN SOME OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL DESERTS AS WELL, AND ON A SUNDAY, BECAUSE THEY'RE OPEN FROM 1 TO 5 NOW. OKAY. SO I WOULD LIKE YOU TO LOOK AT THAT AS WELL.

ABSOLUTELY.

I MEAN, TO ME, THIS IS A LOT, LIKE, I THINK IT WAS CALLED, THE OLD SCHOOL MODEL WAS CALLED, LIKE, LIGHTS ON, WHERE WE DON'T HAVE TO REINVENT NEW SPACES. WE JUST NEED TO PROGRAM AND UTILIZE WHAT WE GOT Superintendent Caselli has sent this committee a letter of support, which means a lot to me. And I really appreciate the partnership. And the chairman was talking earlier on, and I want to add on to that. To me, you were talking about collaboration. And when we collaborate, we have collective impact. It's not really anybody's one responsibility. It's all of our responsibility. And I think this is lovely. I think that we are seeing, I just want to speak this into the record real quick. a massive divestment from our city and we have left young people with like no options. It's just, I just want to be the one that says that, is that, and I have young people that I'm trying to raise, like if you want to do something with your family or not, even on your own, all we see are signs that are no youth included. You can't go to a mall. You can't go to a movie theater. You can't go anywhere, you know? And now even these entertainment facilities are like banning people because So at a time when there's massive divestment, I like that we're stepping up and showing that we're worth it, that our neighbors, our children are worth it, and that this is really a historic investment. Yeah. And so I just, I think it's wonderful. I wish it was every day. I wish it was every day until 11 o'clock, you know, and midnight, and I guess what will it look like when we're at that level, even outside, honestly, even outside of summer. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is a step in that direction, but I think that those spaces, kind of what we call the third space, right? We talked about that when we talked about libraries. What does that look like when we really invest in it? So I thank all of you for your work, and I do want to talk to you about some literacy stuff.

Mr. Chair, I agree. Yeah, sure. Hold on one more. Yeah, I just wanted to thank my colleague for just some of her words, and Aziz, I know that you're not finished with the presentation, but I just want to remind folks that, you know, we want to add all this stuff on, and everything costs money. So when you talk about this massive divestment in young people, we have to understand that we have to have this is and I was ecstatic about this plan. I was a little bit hurt when some of my funding didn't go through for like earn and learn and some of the things that we wanted for the summer. But when this came through, I was just like, yes, This is an opportunity and a moment. This is what collaboration looks like. What you all have brought to the table, and let me just say, this is a drop in the bucket. of the work that is being done, but what needs to be done. As the alderman talks about investment, we can easily double, triple this to make sure that in every neighborhood there are support services so that young people don't have to go far, but it costs money. to have those libraries open, it costs money. We're really trying to impact young people, especially the hard to reach young people that isn't going to go into a library or a school, but there's the alternatives and there's the options. That's the start of this. This is going to be a training ground for this sort of collaboration to say, you know what, we tried it this summer, we need more partners, we need more money, we need to have more of a bigger impact for next year. Because summer is just one of those times where young people, they just have time. And what are we encouraging them to do with that time? There should be an array and a plethora of things especially that off-peak hours. That's the part that I'm more so interested in. Because you're right, Marina, the bowling alleys, the skating rinks, the malls, right? They're not attracting our young people because they have so many restrictions on them. What are we doing as a city? So I just want to say, and again, Aziz, I know you weren't finished with it. I just want to remind people that we want to do more. But it also is going to cost money for us to do more. So this is an opportunity for us to look at how we center young people and what it is that we talk about. You know, let's start having these conversations now for next year and how the city, you know, as I'm sitting here at the table, what are the investments that we're going to make to say we care about the young people that were serving in this city. We're going to prioritize them and we do that by putting our dollars where it's most impactful. So I'm really excited about this opportunity and hope that we can double it for next year. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

All right. Um, how does one become a partner with you or a collaborator?

So right now the vehicle for convening has been the VR fast, which is that collective infrastructure, the violence response, public health and safety team, which is a ecosystem of, of partners, which I think was really the foundation for bringing a lot of these relationships together. So those meetings are every other Thursday, um, hosted virtually and then that thrive on. Um, additionally, the, The other piece I want to bring up is the advertising campaign tied to this is not going to be exclusive to Safe Summer Sites. So while that is a vehicle that we want to promote, every program who sat up here at the table that has capacity for more, we want young people to be a part of amplifying storytelling, developing the content to talk about what is, you hear the word apprenticeship, but not everybody maybe understands what that means. You hear, you know, some of the other programs that exist, and so we want to create context around that. So we'll be promoting, and on Tuesday when we announce kind of, you know, the host for this, Tap In MKE will kind of be the platform where folks can submit information about programs that they have, talk about ways that they want to get involved, and then that's what we'll be using to amplify this with our young people.

Got it. That's good. Karma, you got all that? Could you send me that at least? Yes, sir. That contact piece. Thank you guys so much. Congratulations on this 500,000. We expect great things and great collaboration. Mr. Chair? Yes.

I will ask that prior to PALSL that we have a conversation and add a couple locations to this list and organizations. As far as you know, before moving forward. So we can we can link up in office or anything like that. So

Mr. Chair. Should he reach out to you, Aziz? Are we saying that he wants them to be added? I mean, again, our commitment is, you know, the 500,000, which, again, I mean, I know you all have a comprehensive model of connecting with other partners. That is just every single partner wasn't initially listed in here. So I just want to be careful about that. you know, what the request is because I know that in the plan itself, there is some, you know, the folks that weren't, you know, missing people, like they're incorporated into the plan. So I just want to be careful of making that request without making sure this gets moved forward.

I am being careful, but I'm making a specific request.

I think y'all making the same point, but what'd you say?

I am making a specific request for the specific thing that I specifically said. So if one person, if a colleague feel a different way, that's fine, but I'm asking for a specific thing that I made clear during my commentary. Okay.

You guys have an issue with that?

Can I understand what the request is a little bit more?

Alderman Chambers, please repeat your request.

I'm specifically asking that the locked-in MKE be incorporated as an integral part, not just one of 50. And I'm asking that locations that locked-ins have been incorporated be one of the, if we need to increase it, from 14 to 16 locations, that's fine. I'm asking specifically for those to be incorporated. If we add Turner Hall for that too, and they willing to do it, that's fine as well, but I'm asking that specifically for that to be incorporated.

Thank you, Alderman Chambers. Director?

Yeah, that's amenable to us. Got you. To have calm force, missing peace, and many of those whom we have been in communication with, just to ensure that it's formalized into the game plan. But those conversations have happened and we don't have a problem with that.

Sounds good to me. You satisfied with that, Alderman Chambers?

Absolutely, thank you, Director Muhammad.

Thank you, thank you. Congratulations, you guys, thank you so much. Appreciate y'all coming down.

Thank you, I'm excited.

All right, all right. Next, we have the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. And they are being awarded for job training and placement for a total of $100,000. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. How are you today?

Wonderful. How are you?

Good. Thank you for coming down to join this important discussion. Thank you. Please introduce yourself for the record.

Sure.

Devin Hudson, Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. Ashley Campbell, Silver Spring Neighborhood Center.

Awesome. So what you guys do? I know what you do, but tell us what you do.

Over in the city of West Lawn. You know what we do over in the city of West Lawn. Oh, yeah.

I love you guys over there.

We hope over there. Yeah, the center is always busy, as you know. It's a full-service center. We're comprehensive wraparound services with an early childhood center. with a food pantry that expands, continues to expand and grow. We're really trying to incorporate more. You know the food desert that's over there, so we're working to incorporate more of the healthy food options and working with the gardens and some healthy cooking and bringing in different people that way. And then we have our youth program, which is, Silver Spring's always been known for its youth programming, so we do have to have representation on that part. And then, of course, our workforce development program. So that's what we're here for today is to talk about that and the deepening of that. We've ran for about the last 15 years a pretty traditional workforce program. It was a numbers game. You put people in and out. You get them some soft skills training. You get them some case management. But there's no longevity in terms of them getting secure jobs. It's kind of the partners will use the labor at that time and then the people are right back into the cycle. So over the last 18 months, we've had an opportunity with the Focus on Energy Board. to move into the green space, the clean energy space. And right now we're creating a roadmap for other nonprofits that we present to the Focus on Energy Board in August that if other nonprofits come into this clean energy space, how do they work with those vendors? How do they work with places like the Focus on Energy? And so we've now created this model. So what does that mean for us? We now want to do more of the trade awareness training. And so we've moved into that space and we're working with the TTAB program We work for building principles. We're doing, currently we're doing BPI training, or well, certification. I gotta get these terms right. We're doing BPI certification that will allow people, they'll have that skill, and they'll be able to go into these jobs, at least at an entry level. And then we continue to sign on employer partners. But what we're finding a need for is one, we do have to develop in full transparency a more recruitment, a robust recruitment model. So we're working to develop that. That's where the youth are kind of coming in. is how can we reach into the high schools for kids that are not thinking about higher ed? How do we get them into these training programs? We'll continue to work in the manufacturing and in healthcare as we traditionally do. We're strong in those areas and so we'll continue to do that and then we wanna add more case management because we're finding people in workforce, it's a lot of intensive support that's needed. From case management to the training to the retention and then the conversation of working with the employer partners. That's a whole nother language. and getting employer partners to sign on. Our program offers stipends, not only to the participants, to the employer partners as well, to add to the salaries of the people as well. So we wanna keep that model going.

Excellent, excellent. Have you guys applied for block grant before?

For what?

For block grant.

Yeah, we have. We've had NSP. Historically, Silver Spring has been part of Black Grand Funding. More on the youth side of it. Workforce is the first time for us.

Sure. All right. Hello. Hi. Did you want to say something about your leadership with the youth program?

I've been at the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center for six years. I typically serve 11 through 18 year olds for our youth social development program. So we are starting summer camp June 22nd. We've had a lot of walk-ins with orientations and tours come up. So a lot of people are coming in. So we do a lot of fun stuff. So we advise for a lot of people to sign their kids up. We go camping. We take the kids out of town. We do zip lining, a little bit of everything. We do job trainings for the kids. We actually hire a lot of kids on who complete our job training program. Some of them get the opportunity to work for me from sixth, I mean, eighth grade. No, yeah, eighth grade to twelfth grade. So we are able to retain a lot of our kids, too, while also building that rapport with their parents to give them additional services they need throughout the day. We also have a really amazing basketball program. So that starts at six-year-olds all the way to 18-year-olds as well who are interested in that AAU and going to college in basketball. So we tie a lot of programming into that as well.

And you got a brand new basketball gym, don't you? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Any questions by the committee? Alderman Chambers. Of course.

A product of the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. You know, I just want to, you know, thank Director Hudson and her staff for an amazing partnership, an amazing commitment not only to the Westline Garden Residence, but also to um, the Haven was in the nearby, um, Northwest side and also in Milwaukee, because a lot of people have benefited. Um, and as a young lady stated, you know, NBA players have, you know, Brent came from the, um, the Spartan AAU program. I can name Dwight bikes. You got Deontay Garrett. I can name a couple more, um, that, you know, started from the Spartan AAU program and made it all the way to the NBA and college and never in above. So, um, I just want to, you know, continue to thank, you know, continue to thank them for their leadership and their continued partnership and benefit. And, you know, just I'm just elated to help them in any way I can. And they are a true pillar in the second district. So thank you.

Excellent, excellent. Yes, Alderwoman Moore. Thank you. Of course.

Devin, I know that we were only able to provide you half the request for each of the program areas that you applied for. Will you all still be able to have the capacity to support to provide the support that had already been planned? Or does this diminish or sort of diminish the number of people that you'd be able to serve with the support that we've provided?

It doesn't diminish the number. No, not at all. In fact, it's manageable. You know, you don't. I'm one that's cautious. I don't like to overcommit. Sure. I think this keeps us in a comfortable space. We do have other funding sources. Awesome. So that will allow us to continue and not... reduce our numbers. Thank you. We don't have to reduce our numbers.

Excellent. Mr. Chair. Sure. Just to speak to that Alderman Moore, very good question. We'll be having our RFP cycle and this job training and placement is one of those eligible activities and we've lost some groups in this area over the last couple years so this should be a good opportunity for them. Excellent. Thank you.

It's a tough space.

Yeah.

I ain't going to lie.

It's the attendance is what I hear.

Well, that's it. The attendance and getting people the, you know, the commitment. And it has to be an individual thing. You can have the best program set up and in place for individuals. But if they don't have that commitment within themselves. that's what becomes a challenge. And so that's why I say there's that intensive coaching and training. And then you, you have to talk to the employers. It's a lot of convincing the employers. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Like it's a cycle. It's a vicious cycle. So, and you want to keep integrity into the program, you know, making sure that you have, that you're delivering what you say and that the people are being supported in the way that you say that you're going to support them. But the employer, that's, that's the tricky piece because the employers, as we know, they, you know, you know, Yeah, you have to kind of pivot their thinking, so. Good stuff.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you both so much.

Alderman Jackson has some comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have attended the TAP program, the graduation, and that was great. Yeah, same here. As I push the trades and I'm a tradesman myself, I'm a metallurgist by trade, so I do appreciate the graduation. I was there and I'm looking forward to the next cycle.

Yeah, awesome.

Thank you. Thank you guys. All right, and last but definitely, Not least, we have $200,000 awarded to our Emerging Youth Advisory Council. I have the pleasure of being on that council, but I am also joined by the chairman of that council, Alderman and President Perez. Perez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I have to just congratulate y'all coalescing with Mario and his shop around these tough decisions to make. But when you think about the amount of reprogramming dollars that are made available, And I think you couldn't have a better demonstration or commitment to young people than all the funds that have been allocated, letting them know we care about them and that we want to see it moving in the right direction. And I didn't say much on the safe summer sites, but as my kids were younger, we always went to you know all the high schools figuring out where to roller skate and have fun at them and so we're we're looking forward to the enhancement of those services with extra hours and and to be more deliberate about that and with the emerging youth advisory council we've been very strategic about creating opportunities for youth serving agencies and being innovative about it that aren't Right now, you know, connected to the block rent that are smaller shops that are doing innovative things, working with young people has been a clearinghouse for that. And traditionally, prior to reconstituting this, the blackmail achievement would annually. get $300,000 for funding for those creative ways. And I think that with creating those opportunities for organizations that aren't currently connected and the use of reprogramming to do exactly that through the Youth Achievement Advisory Council is great. And we're covering STEM through Biker Fest. When you look at boat works, you're looking at an introduction of potential trades, building boats. And with the kinship that we're doing, they're actually without one hundred fifty dollar match there they're matching that with uh... with their matching the one fifty with another hundred and they're looking at uh... the goal is to to really they're committed to do to connect with two hundred and fifty youth this summer and we're kicking it off this friday and including uh... so you have stem you've kind of the trades uh... but now with with the project kinship now you have an opportunity for civil engagement and they get our young people excited about serving in any type of leadership role. So we're just super excited about doing that this summer. I invite everyone on Saturday to come out to Causey Park for the kickoff because it's about the Milwaukee love and showing your love for Milwaukee. And I'm really proud that we've been talking about data, data collection, and this entire, all these projects are talking about how do we collect data with young people and do it in a way that we can use it to make better decisions and influence our policy moving forward. So just looking forward to that. And there are some representatives here. Yeah, from Kinship couldn't make it. She's out of town. Right.

But we have other folks here. Sure. You want to give us the information for Kosciuszko Park on Saturday?

Yes. It is the Milwaukee Love Summer Kickback. And it starts from 11 to 3 at the center. So we want to make sure that people are there. There's not only are we... documenting everyone that comes through, talking about those needs and assessments. We got health and wellness resources, resources and programs, signups, active play, creative art activities. We got skill building workshops and we have several partners from navigators to folks like Educators Credit Union, and that the summer program has a very robust list of partners they're working with from True School and so many other folks. So that's what we're looking forward to on Saturday to kick off the summer program.

Excellent. Excellent, man. That's great news. This is a great event for this Saturday. So what organizations are here? You said?

Biker Fest is here for sure.

Okay. Where is she? Come on up.

I think she's on the board.

Oh, she's on the board? Okay, okay. The engineer's here from Biker Fest. Oh yeah, oh yeah, what's up? How you doing? Thanks for coming. And then we have one more, you said project, which one is here?

I think Boat Works is either on the board.

Boat Works, yeah.

Are they here?

All right, man, please introduce yourself. You have the floor.

Hi, I apologize for the work attire, but my name is LaBelle Mobato. I'm the program facilitator for Biker Fest MKE. So we run two programs. Our smart tech program, which deals specifically with STEAM, and teaching kids how to build motorcycles, and then our sliders program, which actually teaches kids how to take the motorcycles they build and race them. So with the funding here, we're looking to expand our reach from eight kids to 16 kids. It is very, time and very costly to keep the bikes going, racing, and to facilitate this. So we are looking for help with other programs, along with space, because we are doing something different than the traditional sport of basketball, football, things like that. This is something that's not available. in milwaukee um these kids do not have a racetrack to just go and practice so we do uh you know we we do our best to make this happen hey uh press um what did what do we have the city do partner with barkerfest oh yeah yeah we got innovative with this whole lot

You mean with the tow lot? Yeah. And then the bikes, yeah. So the tow lot sees a lot of motorcycles that are either scrapped or potentially sold. And we partnered with DPW. And Peter Knox was very helpful with us. We've got to give him a shout out to them. Streamline.

Thank you, Peter.

The minimal cost of the bikes. Yeah. to Biker Fest, so the best we could do is just the title, paying for the title transfer, so it's one thing for a sale, it's another title for a scrap, but we helped get them some funds to get them started, and then they could use the bikes to rebuild them, so it's part of the STEAM training for all the young people, and then potentially race them, and then we also cleared through the resolution that at some point in time, they could potentially sell some of those bikes to then create revenue for the program. How's that going?

It's going well. We're excited to take on more kids. We're going to be at Juneteenth, so we'll be doing a showcase there. And, you know, we're working with a bunch of partners, MSOE right now. We're looking to expand, hopefully get MATC and other colleges on board on the STEAM side. And, yeah.

Thank you. That was awesome. All the women more.

Really quick, can you give me the age range?

So seven to 16 right now. Oh, seven. Seven. Seven. That's awesome. We teach kids that don't even, some kids don't even know how to ride bicycles.

Yeah. Not right.

And they get in. That's awesome.

Hold on, Mr. Chair. Hold on. And then really quick, how many young people with this support, how many young people will you be able to serve?

So we'd be doubling. So it'd be, we'd be going from eight to 16.

Okay. That's awesome. And then, um, for this particular program for the summer, um, can you give me like, Oh, it's Monday through Friday or it's four days is three days from this time to this time.

So it's kind of divided into two separate programs. So right now we're taking in, uh, applications are open for, for new, uh, new kids. We do have a wait list. So we'll be choosing from the wait list and then, uh, you know, people will drop out, things like that. Okay, sure. So, most of that will be outdoors, since we have, you know, great weather. And I believe we work with, uh... the boys and girls club to then expand that uh... so the kids not all the kids jump on the dirt bikes right away of course it's a small uh... it's a step up program so they start on e-bikes so we work with uh... stasics to uh... basically teach them the basics of riding throttle maneuvering the motorcycles at this point until they switch over to motorcycles and then from then on we have a practice facility that we do practices on Sundays in Random Lake and then some of the kids are racing usually Saturdays would be race day for them.

Got it.

So yeah, so the e-bikes, it gives us more opportunity to practice on the e-bikes. The dirt bike's not so much as it's pretty frowned upon to be racing in city limits. So that's kind of where we struggle, where we need to get more space or maybe even get a space here so that we could offer this as an everyday thing.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of course. Thank you. Appreciate you coming down. The program is excellent. We're here to support. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And the other representative is on the boat works. Are you there?

Yes, we're here. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon to you. Thank you for showing up. Let us know how your program is going to help you this summer.

Well, I'm Bill Nimke, Executive Director at All Hands Boat Works. I'm also on the call with Crystal Meisel, our Community Partnerships Manager. You know, we've been around now doing our work for more than 13 years, serving young people in the Milwaukee area from age 10 through young adulthood, 22, 23 years old. And we're excited that this block grant funding would enable us to fuel expanded participation for approximately 60 or more youth across four different program areas of ours. So this would be above and beyond what we currently serve.

Gotcha. Excellent, excellent. This is all great news. Congratulations on your award. We look forward to great things in the community. So thank you for coming. So you all, that concludes our allocation of $3 million. We spent every dollar on the youth this cycle and we are hopeful of progress. So thank you to all the organizations. Thank you all for coming down. Thank you to your department, Mario, for helping us put this together strategically and best fit. We have from seven-year-olds all the way up to...

uh grown adults that have an opportunity to work this summer get some skills this summer and be productive this summer so yeah mr chair we can always use more but this is what we have all the women more yeah i just you know want to say um that we understand that the need is really great mario probably received more applications than he can fund and this says a lot especially when we think about support services really really focusing on summer for young people And this is where our philanthropic partners, our businesses, these are ways for us to really engage and come together to be able to have a strategic approach to be able to support young people. We know that the dollars are limited. We get it. We understand that. But I love that in some of these things where partners came together to collaboratively do something that is going to be an even greater impact. And so I know that, again, dollars are limited, but for those organizations that are doing summer work, we wanna continue to encourage you, support you, because at this moment, we need all hands on deck. Every single last one of our young people should be doing something this summer. There's no reason why. that they should not be engaged in something this summer. So it's going to be our responsibility, you know, whether as government, as community partners, as parents, to share out information. There's so much great work that's going on. Let's make sure that all of our young people are engaged. But, man, thank you, partners, for all the work that you all continue to do. I know it's definitely out of love.

All right, thank you, all the women, and thank you. Thank you, Mario. And your staff.

Mr. Chair, it definitely felt like a youth day, so I made sure I brought my grandson. How you doing? Hi. He's visiting me from Atlanta. Yes, welcome. What's his name? His name is Carter.

Carter. Yes, he's a granddaddy.

Welcome to Milwaukee. Welcome to the Community Economic Development Committee.

Yes, welcome, welcome.

All right, let's thank you guys with that. Oh, Mr. Chair, can I co-sponsor item number eight with you, please? Sure, sure. Alderwoman Moore is requesting co-sponsorship. And with that, Alderwoman Moore moves for confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you. Thank you. Excellent, excellent. Okay, we are on to our next agenda item. Number nine, this is a substitute resolution relating to the use and allocation of the Home Investment Partnership 2026 reprogramming funds. Director Higgins.

uh... good afternoon chairman uh... similar to the community development grants i'm sorry uh... community black grant allocation uh... this is the home uh... reprogramming file yes and home is uh... exclusively used for housing uh... uh... projects uh... so we generally are looking at anything from owner occupied housing to uh... home buyer and or and or uh... large rental projects so today we have about six allocations that we're looking at for affordable rental. First one is KG Development Group. This is a 31 unit project on 50th off of Lisbon. It's a supportive housing project and the request was $500,000. They have a pretty big shortfall in their project and the county has has secured some of that shortfall, and they were requesting from us as well. So we have a $300,000 recommendation for that project.

All right. We do have a representative from KG Development. The actual KG is here.

I think I'm the only one to say that. Okay, okay.

Anthony Casey, thank you for coming down. Thank you for continuing to help build the city of Milwaukee. How will this funding help you?

Yes, no, thank you again, Common Council. Yeah, we're set to complete 2436 North 50th Street, actually July 24th, 31 affordable units with eight set aside as permanent supportive housing. By the project being an adaptive reuse, there was a lot of additional unforeseen conditions that we didn't expect, like... possible additional asbestos you know the third floor that wasn't discovered doing testing some of the things with the elevator with the new building code updates we had to do some other upgrades that we I guess at the time of the permitting process we wasn't aware of so just more foreseen conditions with the inspectors that we had to upgrade some of the elevator stuff some asthma shafts for the Historical Society So we just had some unexpected costs that wasn't expected during pre-development, pre-design, pre-construction when we met with these different departments and it just kind of led to some cost overruns. We have, the contractor Catalyst Construction have ate some of the costs as well. We ate some of the costs also before reaching out to the city and the county to see if they can help with any of the remaining funds. So we wanted to make sure that we were a part of that, trying to fill that kind of cost overruns. uh excited to you know get this uh project completed uh it's the first one wisconsin to combine you know permanent houses with crisis units with affordable units so i'm really excited about that and hopefully you know we can move forward with uh you know closing this gap awesome excellent any questions for mr k g all right thank you man congratulations all right um

Director?

Next project with Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing production home buyer. So pretty straightforward with the type of project and product we get from Habitat. Sure. They can speak to their program.

Yes. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Hey, thanks for coming down.

Thanks for having me.

So you were awarded $500,000. Please let us know how you vote. Oh, wait a minute. I'm the wrong guy. I'm the wrong guy.

I know I went from 9 to 10, but not here.

Oh. I turned and looked. So that number was too high.

So they didn't recognize that $500,000. All right. Well, sorry about that. Are you from Milwaukee?

Yes, you are.

All right. So thanks for coming down. And you guys are doing great things, building houses all over the city. So let us know how this will assist you in your development.

Can I have your name? Sure. Beth Van Gorp. I'm the Director of Advocacy and Government Relations at Milwaukee Habitat. A few years ago we made a bold goal to double our production to 40 homes a year. And so that was supposed to happen by 2028 and this year we will build 40 homes. So this will help us to reach that very bold goal. And right now we're planning for 10 homes. two in your district, Alderman Stamper, and then the remainder in Harambee and Amani. The Amani homes are in Alderman Cogg's district. So we're very appreciative and excited to be able to continue to build stability in Milwaukee.

Excellent. So 40 homes is 40 new homeowners. Yes.

Awesome.

Thank you so much. You guys continue the great work. Yeah, thank you so much.

It's so good to see all of you.

Thanks for coming down. Congratulations on your award. All right, next we have, let's see, we have Milwaukee Community Crossroads. I don't know if they're here. We spoke about them earlier. Are they available? No. Tell them we said thank you. We know all the great work they're doing on the South Side and the North Side. Please give them our regard and tell them our congratulations. North Star Companies is being awarded $500,000. North Star Companies. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

All right, all right. This is for the Austin Commons. You are being awarded $500,000. Please let us know how this will help your development.

Yeah, this is proposing a hundred. I'm sorry. Brandon Mathieu with Northern Star Companies.

Tyler Sheeran with Commonwealth Companies.

Yeah, so this is redevelopment of three long vacant homes into 100 affordable housing units. The money will close a significant gap that we've experienced. The site is a dirty site. There are some constraints with fitting 100 units on that parcel, and this goes a ton of distance in bringing the ends together for our project budget.

Okay. What's the total budget?

Total budget is roughly, I think currently 33.3 million in that vicinity. So it's up there. It's a moving target in some instances with geopolitical issues and things of that nature. But we are very close and we plan to have a shovel in the ground at the end of this July.

Does this get you there?

This, along with another resource that we are hopeful to receive, tax incremental financing, it will bring us home. Okay. Okay. You have some comments?

No, I will just say, I mean, kudos to Brennan for putting this deal together. He had just approached Commonwealth to really kind of help him and provide additional capacity. So that's the role that I'm serving and our team is serving.

Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Do we have any comments about the committee?

Yeah, I'll just say one thing.

Order woman.

Thank you so much. Of course. Nice to see you all again. Thank you for all the meetings we've had. We'll be having a third neighborhood meeting on this as we work to find the best plan for the neighborhood. So for anyone listening, and then the TIF proposal that's in front of us, That TIF proposal has been introduced into the system legislatively. It won't be available in time for zoning this cycle, because we're gonna have the third meeting, but it would be up for public debate at zoning likely in July. So just for anyone who's watching, and who continues to come to the meetings and continues to have questions, this is one step in that direction. I mean, it's clear that doing affordable housing, needing this type of assistance, that makes sense, right? I get that. But the larger TIF question and neighborhood involvement, we're still working on. So just for anybody listening to understand, this can be kind of an overwhelming process with timing and different funding sources. And there's been some changes along the way, but there'll be a third meeting, and the TIF will be considered likely at zoning in July.

All right. Any other questions or comments by committee? All right, Brenda, congratulations, man. Thank you for coming down. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, next we have Rural Enterprises for Affordable Housing Rental, the KIN. They are being awarded $400,000. We have a representative.

I thought Brandon was supposed to be available, but I know he had some later on commitments, so I don't know if he had to leave just because of the timing of everything.

All right, I believe the president spoke with him. Okay.

We're good.

All right, we're in support. Tell him congratulations. And last but definitely not least, we have Layton Boulevard West Neighbors Affordable Housing Production Home Buyer Program. Are they available, Mario?

I thought they would be too. Were they here? I didn't see Joanna today.

All right. Well, please let Via know we appreciate their support, their progress and support in the community. Thank them for their home ownership programs. Please give them our regards and congratulations. With that, that is a $2.7 million allocated for affordable housing and home ownership. alderman jackson moves for adoption hearing no objections so ordered thank you now we are moving on to item number 10 260207 substitute resolution relative to the allocation of funding from the home art funds to the fund the housing affordable where i said that one already uh karma usually correct me oh no i didn't did i do this one you didn't no no i didn't do that one okay Number 10, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you. So substitute resolution relative to the allocation of the funding from the home ARPA funds to fund affordable housing.

Mario? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sure. So the home ARPA allocation, we received those funds and well, the council approved that plan. back in 2024. We've made some allocations from HomeArts to some supportive housing projects so far. Right now, our biggest concentration as of late has been trying to get the non-congregate shelter a part of our plan together. When we first started this, we really did think that we were gonna do a larger 60 unit building for non-congregate shelter. maybe an old hotel or something like that. I think once we started down the process of looking for, you know, having worked with a realtor to try to get that done, it just wasn't feasible to try to find the building type that really worked. Hotels had already started back operating. outside of COVID, outside of the pandemic, because we were renting out hotels during the pandemic to house people. So we sort of missed the opportunity to use one of those facilities if they would have wanted to sell. And just the sheer concentration, we also went through the, sort of process where a lot of permanent fully permanent supportive housing projects failed you know we had a failure by a developer from Chicago that had four or five properties here Heartland housing you probably recall them and we also realized that having that type of density in permanent supportive housing in one building if it goes bad, we lose 60 units of housing, or whatever, or shelter, or permanent supportive housing. So we went back to the drawing board and we looked at, my team looked at doing this in smaller projects. Things that were easily more sustainable, and then even if they did go bad, you don't have to lose 60 units at one time and um if they fit better into neighborhoods into other spaces having them small things like that so we have a non-congregate shelter application that we sent out an rfp uh back earlier this year and we have respondents from about nine different uh projects three of the projects we want to move forward with um Milwaukee County, that's the Hillview project. They own a building on the south side. They already were operating that building for some permanent supportive stuff. We used it during warming for a couple years, we used it for warming, and now they're rehabbing that to do some permanent supportive housing on the third floor and looking to do the second floor as a non-curriculum shelter.

Where is that, Mario?

Hillview is, oh man, I want to have it on here. 25, tell me. Where?

Yes. She said South 21st area. South 12th. South 12th. Okay. Yeah, and I've spoken with them. By what, though? Like name something. It's sort of in the middle of a block.

It's off Mitchell, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's off Mitchell. Okay. And so, yeah, they've been using this building for this type of service, but it hasn't been rehabbed. So a non-conjunctive shelter really does demand that they – basically four walls and at least a bathroom. So very different than congregate shelter where people are sleeping next to each other. Some of our most vulnerable and hard to place citizens that are on the streets or living on the street. they won't go into those shelter spaces like that unless it's like sometimes extreme cold or something like that. That's the only time you can get them into congregate shelter. So these spaces help us deal with some of those populations, help us deal with domestic violence, people who are maybe being unhoused because of domestic violence issues and things like that. So Hillview is one of those, there'll be 11 units plus some supportive space. The county was requesting the two million. We talked to them and told them we probably wouldn't get there, but 1.4 million to help build out the units. and to help build out some of that supportive services space. So that one would have 24 hour supportive services there. That's great. That's amazing. Wisconsin Community Services, Capuchin Apartments, We have two projects we're working with them on. Now, staff from Wisconsin Community Services couldn't be here today. They have a employee recognition day that they're doing, so pretty much all their staff was dealing with that. I do have developers here, though, that are working with them on the project, so we want them to speak to it. But same type of scenario. Capuchin Apartments used to be operated by Heartland Housing. They left, another developer sort of took over the space temporarily and now WCS is gonna be taking that space. Eight of the units in that particular building will also be non-congregate shelter. The rest of the building will be still permanent supportive housing and it'll be the clientele that WCS works with.

Excellent, who's the developer?

The Capuchin, is that?

Come on up. Since you're way, way in the back. But I see you, Ms. Arium, the developer. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Thanks for coming down. Thank you for having us.

I'm a fan of WCS. You want to tell us what you're developing?

Yeah, hi everybody. I am Cassette, the owner and operator of AK Developments and we collaborated closely with WCS from a service perspective. As Mario reiterated, housing our most vulnerable population is not always a box filler type of situation. So along with the city, Mario's department, we got really creative with what housing looks like and then being intentional about having other income producing residents in the same environment so that we're creating the flexibility. So we got two sites, one in Atkinson and then as well as Tamarack. So we have two different automatic districts that we're also working closely with to address the homelessness but also to really intentionally be making sure that everybody has income producing opportunities along their journey of healing.

Excellent. Any questions for Erin? Mr. Chair.

I just want to specifically say, especially when we're working with our unhoused population, that it's not just providing them a place to stay. It's a big part of it, but the supportive services, so those partnerships are so critically important. I just want to thank you for the work that you're doing and that you continue to do. Let's hope that we can continue to expand on models such as this that provides leverage to really support our unhoused population. So thank you.

Of course. And it addresses a lot of other economic mechanisms that we get to tackle as well. So we appreciate all the opportunity. And working closely with Mario and his team has been amazing, to say the least.

Thank you. Kudos. Congratulations.

He's like the awkward moment.

He knows I don't do that very well.

He doesn't take compliments very well, I think.

Congratulations, man. Keep up the good work. Ariane, thank you so much. Of course. We look forward to more.

Thank you, guys.

Good work in the community, all right? Thank you for coming down. Next, we have Milwaukee Development Corporation. They're being awarded $1.1 million. Another housing, affordable housing production. Your turn.

And just so we're clear, this is a permanent supportive housing development? Yeah, so primarily seniors. With all of the work that we do around homelessness right now, the senior population has been a growing population of people that we're starting to see on the streets. They were in our warming shelters over the winter, so we're trying to make sure we attack that particular population as well. Oh, yeah.

Thank you for coming down. Thanks for having me back up here again. I'm Pat O'Brien, president of the Milwaukee Development Corps and Milwaukee Urban Strategic Investment Corps. We've been a non-profit city catalytic community-based developer for 51 years in the city, do a number of things, have moved into the housing in the last 5, 7, 10 years. That's where the need is, that's where the market is, and we're working on this project, 2711 West Wells Street, which is the old county campus buildings, so we're taking two of the three buildings, turning them into 124 one and two bedroom senior housing units for low income and disadvantaged population. Been working with Mario and he's able to give us, so we're able to dedicate 11 units to the unhoused population and if we get another grant, we may be able to more than double that and also work on some people that are with permanent disabilities, both mental and physical, and it's senior housing. So we're taking a building that's been vacant for over 10 years and trying to reproduce it into something that's, activate the building into something that, as we all know, is a huge community need. And we have supportive services internally. Jewish Family Services is providing those internally. We have some space on the first floor of one of the buildings to provide outward facing community services. If we could find somebody that would be interested in that, we could offer that to them at below market rents and pay for 25 or 50% of their capital costs to move in. But we have to do that while we're constructing the building.

How many units will be available on this one?

124 total units. One and two bedroom.

I have a question on that real quick.

Is of the hundred and twenty four how many are affordable.

They're all affordable.

Oh, 100%?

30, 50, 80.

All affordable. Different scale, though, of course. Yes, and the permanent supportive are below 30% AMI. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Awesome. All right, well, keep up the great work. Thank you for coming down.

Thank you. Appreciate your support and work in the community. Pat O'Brien. Pat O'Brien.

Thank you.

Pat, thanks for coming down. You have a good day. Thank you. All right, Mario, good work. We have all the allocations out with that. Did you have any closing comments, or are we going to move to the next subject?

I'm actually done. You're done? Yeah, yeah.

I appreciate you, man. I know you've been working hard these last couple months, you and your staff. Thank you all so much, and we just want to show our appreciation.

Thank you. It's a big thunderstorm out here.

What did you say?

It's a big thunderstorm out here. So we might want to start getting out of here.

So with that, Alderman Moore moves for adoption. Hearing no objections or order. Appreciate you, bro. Thank you. All right. Number 11-260-222. Resolution declaring Beat Street Fall Festival to be an official city. event and authorizing acceptance and exponential of contributions for this purpose. Sponsored by Alderwoman Dimitrovich. What we got going on, Alderwoman?

Thank you. Well, I know you already know. Yes, I do. Because you do know. So I'll just move adoption. Bye, Carter. Bye. If you haven't heard of Beat Street, it's put on by Cactus Club plus organization. And there's groups from African American Roundtable, Diverse and Resilient, Lit, the Library, Queer Zine Archive Project. I mean, there's a whole list here. And it's just a really amazing one day street festival that includes worldwide music and just a really inclusive inviting space for everybody. Um, so I did need to move in this direction to continue to unlock support. Um, and, and they did make a proposal, which I'll be presenting, but I had to take care of this step first. So, and thanks for the prior support, but it's a really cool, um, festival, mostly on Wentworth Avenue in the Bayview neighborhood. Thank you.

You're great things. I got to get that. Oh yeah. This year.

Yes.

All right. Well, excellent. Thank you. All the women warm was for adoption here in objection. So, or thank you so much. Number 12, two, six, zero. 230 resolution relating to the declaring the Granville MKE pop-up kid fun day as an official city event. Alderwoman Taylor, are you there? Talk to her. All right, Alderman Jemavich holds this at the call of the chair. No objection. So order number 13, 260231, an ordinance relating to the membership of the sister city committee sponsored by me. Tony, please come up. This is all about you and visit Milwaukee today. I've been chairing this committee for eight to 10 years. We're also always looking for innovative ideas, partnerships, and way to expand ourselves globally. Tony has been at the last, year meeting or less but we welcomed him there he's provided great insight and updates for visit and the city as a whole and this is a perfect partnership to help us grow this is the city's committee tony please let us know why we need to have visit milwaukee and um What kind of partners should we look forward to?

Yeah, Tony Snow Rodriguez. I'm the Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion at Visit Milwaukee. Yes. Chairman Stamper, members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be here today. I'm here on behalf of Visit Milwaukee to express our support for having a representative serve on the Sister Cities Committee. Yes. Visit Milwaukee works already aligns closely with the committee's mission. We promote Milwaukee's ethnic and international and cultural festivals. We host international delegations that come and visit here. We participate in global partnerships like Great Lakes USA. and help showcase Milwaukee to visitors from around the world. So we have those connections. I've had the opportunity to regularly attend the committee meetings and have seen firsthand the value of the relationship and cultural connections fostered through your work with Sister Cities. So formal representation of Visit Milwaukee would strengthen the collaboration and help connect sister cities efforts with tourism cultural exchange and international engagement opportunities before finished act you know and it's interesting how we just had that session on community block grants which included many events like Biker Fest, which we are actually supporting and helping promote and working with Venetia Simpson there. And I hear about the Beat Festival, the Cactus Club. You know, these are all entities that we work with, but I just want to remind the committee that we have an events calendar that's designed for the community. And it's called, and you can link to it at visitmilwaukee.org slash community. So we have our leisure travel calendar that people from maybe fifty miles plus tune into to look for things to do and locals tune into it as well but you know there are events right here in our community that i think are so important to our community whether it's a business event so if a business is hosting something like a networking event or or uh... there are galas there are sessions they can put it in this calendar. Also, when they're planning, they can look out and see what's happening. So maybe they don't, although we can host, you know, Milwaukee's huge. We can host several events. But if you want to be a little strategic, take a look at the calendar. Visit milwaukee.org forward slash community. So I was hearing several events, including President Perez and his event coming up. So I need to get a copy of his flyers to make sure that we're getting it out there. And then Once it's in the calendar, then we're able to see it and then able to promote it through our networks and our socialization of all of this. So I'm just looking forward to the continued collaboration. I can't thank Common Council enough and the city and our partnership and our engagement. And, of course, Chair, your role on Visit Milwaukee's Board of Directors, and we appreciate that service as well.

We welcome you wholeheartedly, and you guys continue to do great work.

promoting our beautiful city yeah all the women more no i just wanted to amplify tony what you just shared about the community calendar because i keep forgetting that that is such a beautiful space for um when we're looking for something to do or even our neighborhoods you know those that are doing the the concerts you know i have concert on the green at indris park and Washington Park Wednesdays, you know, that are coming up. And so it is an absolutely amazing place where folks can just dump information to see what's going on and pick and choose, you know what I mean? There's so much to do, particularly in summer, here in the city of Milwaukee. And Visit Milwaukee is that place. The other ask that I have for you, Tony, if you can send the council just a reminder to say, hey, please share this with your neighborhood groups that when they're having their concert series or their events, that this is a place for them to place the information or look when they're planning something, right? So if you can just remember to just send us a memo so that we're aware of it and that we can just share it back out to our neighborhood partners. But thank you for that reminder because I keep forgetting, but I won't anymore. Thank you.

Thank you. And you know there's nothing too big or too small that we can't share. I love that. Thank you. We have 191 neighborhoods. Is it weekly or monthly? So the calendar is living and live. The newsletter I get. Oh, the newsletter. You get an events newsletter weekly. It's packed. It's packed, yeah. Yeah, Peggy's Insights, our CEO's Insights every Friday is packed with information. We also have our leisure travel newsletter that goes out, several newsletters. But importantly, it's something that people can access 24-7. You can upload 24-7. Nothing's too small. Nothing's too big. Everything is important in Milwaukee.

Thank you for the amazing work you all do, Tony. Thank you.

Thank you for the amazing work you do. Thank you. You know, it's a collaboration. It's synergy. That's it.

That's it. I love it. Tony, welcome to the board. I'll see you at the next Sister Cities meeting on this side.

Absolutely.

Are you a representative? He's a chair. Of the Sister Cities?

Yes. So yeah, we're just putting some together for the auction for the national conference, which is in DC this year. So we're putting a Milwaukee fun pack together for Al who's a member. And so we'll be sharing that information. And that's another way we can help promote Milwaukee to our sister cities peers.

Yes. All right. Glad to have you all. Thank you. More moves for your passage. Hearing no objections. So congratulations, Tony.

Appreciate you.

Welcome aboard. All right. Next, we have 14-260-234 resolution rescinding. Coming comes with file number 250855 and designating certain city of Milwaukee events and initiatives as eligible for contributions. What we're doing is open it up for more. alderman to have more opportunity for city events and receive funding for it. Um, kind of like what you was talking about when you first got elected. Now this is kind of like doing that. Um, a lot of people want to support us. We want to make sure we ethical. So we'll have to go through the right channels. So thank you for that idea. Our ultimate Jackson moves for adoption hearing no objections. So ordered last, but definitely not. These have we found all the woman, Tyler, did we, All right, this is one of her programs. You guys know about it?

Move approval.

All right, Alderman Jackson moves approval for Alderman Taylor. Hearing no objections, so ordered. That concludes.

That would be item 12, right?

That is item 12. Yeah, sorry about that. Alderman Jackson moves for adoption. Approval. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Jackson. Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. I said Jackson, didn't I? You did. Thank you. Okay. The following file may be placed on file as no longer needed. Number 15-241-501, communication related to the 2005 activities of the Central Cities Committee. Hearing no objections or order. You guys, thank you for today. I enjoyed the conversation. Good. I enjoyed the allocation of funds.

Having put it on file.

All the more places that are on file. Okay. With that, meeting is adjourned. Have an excellent day. Absolutely.