Common Council - Regular Meeting

This meeting of the common council will come to order with the city clerk. Please call the roll.

Alderman Pratt. Pratt. Chambers.

Excused.

Broward. Here. Baumann. Here. Miss Moreland. Here. Cox. Present. Jackson. Here. Zamoripa.

Here.

Taylor? Here.

Fluor? Present.

Bergalis? Present. Spiker? Here. Dmitryevich? Here. Stamper? I'm here. Mister president? Present. 14 members are present. One is excused.

14 members present. One is excused. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance to be followed by a moment of silent meditation. I

pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty justice for all.

Alderman Marina Dmitrievich will present the report of the finance and personnel committee.

The finance and personnel committee recommends one, file two five zero zero zero one. Communication from the mayor relating to the 2026 budget.

We will first consider the amendments approved by the finance and personnel committee, which are the yellow packets, followed by those submitted under the twenty four hour one of settlement packets. These will be followed by any other amendments that may be offered. Substitutes, if germane, may be offered to any amendment. Substitutes must, however, be fully drafted and copied for distribution. The clerk will now read the amendments recommended for adoption by the finance and personnel committee. Please ask for recognition if you wish to discuss any amendment or to request separate action on any amendment.

Amendment one e, DOA, DCD, CCCC, library, police, SPA Miscellaneous, and Capital. In the common council city clerk, add position authority and funding for a policy and administration coordinator. Also, in the common council city clerk, increase funding for eviction free MKE by $100,000 and increase funding for various operating and special purpose accounts consistent with the with the requested budget. In the library, restore sufficient staffing to maintain Sunday hours at two branch libraries, utilizing a new staffing model and expanding Sunday hours at two additional locations midyear. In the police department, create safety and civic commission special fund with 100,000 of funding.

In the wages supplement fund, increase funding to provide a 3% wage increase for general city employees and increasing the residency incentive from 3% to 4%. In the capital budget, add $103,867 of new general obligation borrowing for the city channels

for city channel 25 cameras. In the capital budget, increased funding for

the partnerships in affordable affordable ownership housing and alternative to home ownership initiatives by $800,000. Off Offset these expenditures by eliminating the position authority and funding for the innovation policy analyst in the department of administration, by eliminating the position authority and funding for the business advocacy and job growth job growth liaison in the department of city development by reducing various special purpose accounts, by utilizing $2,160,000 of additional revenue recognized by the controller, and by increasing the property tax levy.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Dmitryevich. Thank

you so much, and good morning to my honorable colleagues. What you have in front of you is a lot of stuff, actually, but I'd like you to pull up one h. Substitute to nope. Okay. That's what I was trying

to figure out.

One j.

It's one j. I'm so sorry about that. That's why I went to triple check. Nope. It's 1 H.

Okay. 1 H is before us, which I am co sponsoring. And just to be clear here, this morning, the finance and personnel committee had a special hearing where we adopted a resolution by Alderman Stamper as well as Alderman Bergelis and many other co sponsors. What that dealt with was the down payment assistance program which has been a very important matter in these budget deliberations. On October 31, the Finance finance and and personnel Personnel Committee moved forward with this omnibus super amendment with the down payment assistance as it was, which was $800,000 from the Milwaukee Common Council, and it was on the tax levy.

Since then there has been great discussion and deliberation and represented in that compromise is a two step process which was approved at Finance and Personnel this morning through legislation and it was essentially creating a new Milwaukee homebuyers fund capital account, and that will have the combined impact when this, hopefully, this substitute is adopted in $1,400,000 for down payment assistance. Also, this amendment that I'm this substitute that I'm putting forward, the result of those two steps together will make this omnibus 8,000 $800,000 less on the tax levy. So we heard, the discussion and the call for both things, which was the full funding as close as possible to 1,400,000.0 for down payment assistance to help create City Of Milwaukee future homeowners, as well as a need to find a compromise in the spending that we put forth. I think this is an effort truly of collaboration and alignment when it comes to housing. I want you to be certain that the only change from what was adopted in the October 31 finance hearing to one h is that down payment assistance portion.

I would also, mister president, when the time is right, speak to the omnibus as a larger item, but I really wanted to make sure that people understood why the substitute is before us. And I now move that amendment one h be before us.

Okay. On the motion for one h being before us.

And I move adoption of one h, mister president.

Okay. The the chair recognizes Alderman Baumann.

You can add me as a co sponsor, please.

Oh, yeah. Thank you.

On the amendment, Alderman Jackson. Thank you,

mister president. Would like to also be added as

a co sponsor. Okay. Let the record reflect sponsor co sponsorship by Alderman Baumann and Alderman Jackson. Chair recognizes Alderman Westmoreland.

Please add me as well. Thank you.

Please add Alderman Westmoreland. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, mister president. Just wanted clarification on what changed with j versus h. Is it just the Not before us. What's before us?

H.

H is before us? Yes. Oh, okay.

We haven't moved that yet. No.

So what are we adding cosponsorship to?

1 H, I think.

1 H was cosponsorship. 1 H.

11 H is before us. You offering j or h all

the moment?

I am offering h. H.

Very good.

Alderman Spiker, h is before us.

Yeah. Okay. So h differs from what then my question is this. So h differs from what past committee only in this, that it has a new line for move down payment assistance funding to this new Milwaukee homebuyers fund, $600,000, and it drops the 800,000 that had been on the levy going to down payment assistance. Are those the two changes?

I'll let the sponsor respond.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay, elderwoman Demetriate. The floor is yours.

Okay. I just wanna do one last check with the city clerk. One h is before us.

Yes.

Okay. So like I mentioned earlier, mister president, I I wanted to speak to the change for my colleagues here because I wanted them to know what the one change is is on down payment assistance. And, again, it was a request both from the administration and colleagues around here to make this change, and it did have the step before us this morning. And it does reduce the effect and the impact of this this omnibus by $800,000. Now let me tell you about why I hope that you'll support it as a whole.

First, based on that compromise, but more so, I believe it creates the city of Milwaukee that we all wanna live in and that our people and our residents expect to. I talked often about the difference between surviving and thriving. That's the kind of city that I want, and I think we can be better. And I think that's the spirit of this amendment before us. It includes very important raises for city workers that were on the front line, not just during the floods when we needed them the most, but every single day, hot and cold, the weather, people in need.

Although it's not a city issue, I'm often moved by county public workers who are even riding buses and helping solve silver alerts and helping children. This is the hard working ethic and good people that make our city better and honestly make it safer every day for all of us. They are the services that our residents depend on and appreciate and deserve. Our residents deserve the best city services, and it doesn't happen on its own. It happens by the best city workers.

And I believe this investment in our city workers that make over 7070% of our city workers live in the city of Milwaukee. An investment in our city workers is an investment in the city of Milwaukee. We know that when workers have a bit more, a couple dollars extra in their pockets, they spend it in the local economy. They go to that neighborhood coffee shop, and they go in that neighborhood store and help make our city stronger. Along that same line, mister president, I feel that I've talked enough about down payment assistance and helping homeowners complete that American dream that is actually under attack, I believe, every day by the federal government, unfortunately, and becoming a future homeowner in the city of Milwaukee.

Hopefully, down the way through the amendment you can see that that better Milwaukee that we want to create includes an investment that this council has, and I want to thank you, has provided time and time again into our Milwaukee public libraries. Please take that trip with me in the city of Milwaukee that we want to create, that we can do better, that includes everybody. That includes your neighborhood library being open as much as possible. The beautiful Martin Luther King Junior Library, the beautiful Mitchell Library, and every library, what would our city look like if every one of those libraries was open maximum hours on the weekends for everybody to enjoy? This gets us a step closer.

We need positive spaces, third spaces for people to come to. Those donation boxes during this food emergency, they were in libraries, and they could have been open on some of those Sundays. There are so many other things here in investment in transforming transformational projects so that this council can bring their great ideas forward in an innovative way. Also, fully funding Eviction Free Milwaukee, which on that same housing spectrum prevents the traumatic costly, both fiscally and morally cost of being evicted. We know we have problems in Milwaukee, and we can rise to the occasion to solve them and build a better Milwaukee for all of us.

I believe that this amendment helps set us on that path in a quicker and faster way, and in an equitable way for everybody. And with that, I ask you to support it and move adoption.

When I say union, you say power. Union. Power. Union.

Power. Great.

Chair recognizes Alderman Burgos.

Thank you, mister chair. I would move to substitute with amendment one j. There's a small correction to the great work we did in finance. One j is circulated. There's an updated cover page that corrects the tax levy impact. One j lowers the tax levy by another $50,000 and does a couple things in the amendment. We correct the amount allocated to the Safety and Civic Commission and also redirect those funds within the police department's budget so that we are not adding the MPD's bottom line Thank but prioritizing that which our community has asked for.

This is just the cover sheet.

We also allocate $50,000 to the LGBT community center. This is all revenue neutral with funding sources in the resolution already and ultimately lowers tax levy by another $50,000. Thank Move adoption of amendment one j.

Okay. Before it's adoption of one j, the chair recognizes Alderman Brower. Alderman Brower. Thank you so much.

Just wanna just really say that I appreciate the work of the leadership of this council and my colleagues, mister president, in putting together this omnibus. I support Uncle Jay, and I'm glad it's before us today. Specifically, I wanna speak to the great opportunity we have to show our city employees that they matter. Our workers of this city make this city run, and there's there should be no question of that. And the way that you show a worker that you appreciate them is with the amount of compensation that you provide them.

There is no other way outside of compensation and benefits that that shows the highest level of appreciation for an employee. Nothing else. No certificates, no pizza parties, only wages and benefits. And what this amendment does is provide what I consider to be meager, but still substantial pay increase for our city's employees, our city's general city employees who have for so many years have not had the pay and benefits that they deserve. And while this amendment doesn't bring them to that point, it's a step in the right direction.

When I ran for this office, my constituents have told me loud and clear that they want high quality city services. The only way that we can get those high quality city services is by having high quality employees, and the way that we have and strengthen our current high quality employees is by compensating them well and in the way they deserve. There's absolutely no question about that. I'm wearing on the floor today, I'm wearing a high vis vest that I got when I did a ride along with our city's DPW. I've done several ride alongs since becoming a member of this body, and I've been really proud to join forestry, signs, electrical services, and sanitation and ride alongs.

And, yes, I did dump garbage carts for six and a half hours in Riverwest, and my ask of my constituents is please do put your cat litter in a

bag before you put it in

your trash. But those employees those employees are doing the work that we need. And if we wanna have the high standard of living that we expect in this country and to fight back against the high standards that's being eroded by our current president, we need to have quality workers and quality work done. And I want to motivate all of those workers that are out there do and they're working right now. They're picking up trash right now.

They're picking up leaves right now. They were picking up leaves overnight that have been raked into the streets. They are they are doing work around the clock. They are making sure that the water gets delivered to us, something that we expect every single day. It is so important that we treat them with dignity and respect.

It's so important that we work with their union, the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees. And I was so proud to stand with the leadership of this council as it worked out a compromise with that union. In the spirit of of getting and working together, we have before us this amendment. And so I ask every single person on this body to cast a yes vote for this amendment today, right now. And if any changes are made by the mayor, I ask for those changes to be overwritten as well.

This amendment is crucially important. These raises are crucially important, and I stand with the union in saying that I will not accept anything less. I will not vote for a budget that gives a raise of anything less than the 4% for city employees and the 3% for nonresidents. Thank you so much, mister president.

Thank you.

I say union. You said power. Union. Union. One

j is before us. There being no further discussion, will the city clerk please call the roll.

Mister president.

Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

I have a sub, for I have a sub. I would offer it. It is in writing.

Have we done that?

Yeah. Where where's the sub?

So for the LRB, this would be I don't remember the letter. It would be the more profligate spending one that is the successor to the one I put out on amendment day. It's not the one I just asked you to draft, but the one that's already in existence. One f is being circulated. Thank you.

Hello, miss Piker. Circulate

these to members. Thank you. Thank you, mister president. So I guess I'd like to start here. So one f is what I have offered to be before us.

I'm sure members of finance and a couple others heard my remarks at budget amendment day, but I'd like to extend those remarks slightly for today. So first of all, I wanna say that I am impressed at the effort that the sponsors have put in on this amendment. I believe their heart is absolutely in the right place. I support elements of this such as the extending of library hours for Sunday, the mayor's budget would have cut them for everywhere but central. The omnibus would restore those cuts to two libraries and double down on accessibility of libraries by establishing two more branches.

All to the good, all worthy of our praise. In addition, it would take one of the most well, two of the most important issues that we've dealt with in the past with past ARPA allocations and and other things, down payment assistance, which I'm not going to remark upon anymore because the chair finance has already done so so eloquently. But I would also draw attention to funding eviction free MKE. This would fund it to the tune of a $100,000. We have in the past funded it.

The county just passed the budget where they're funding it for a 100,000. And this is such an important program when you look at folks Hang on. So you're copying on this page. And what pages you're doing? Highlighting.

Sorry. A lot of work to do and only so many people to do it. So the eviction free Milwaukee, obviously, in these times, rents are insane. Housing values are insane. People are lucky to have a place to lie their head at night and have a roof over their head.

If you're evicted, that world comes crumbling down around you. But oftentimes, as we know, you go to court, there's a landlord, they have a lawyer, and you don't, and so you're at a severe disadvantage. The eviction free MKE program supplies those lawyers so you come on as close to as an even playing field as we can manage, and that has had tremendous effects. Tremendous good that that's done. So absolutely support our work on it here.

I also support the innovation district special fund. The work there is truly innovative and needed. And if we're not to fall behind as a city, we have to devote such efforts. Now for the stuff I don't support and why. And this is rectified in my sub, so it it is relevant.

There is no question as Alderman Brower stated so clearly and forcefully that our general city employees are worthy of the raise before us in the chairs h and the vice chairs j. So for folks keeping score, we have the mayor's budget proposed a 2% general city employee raise across the board. The omnibus before us and the one before it or I'm sorry. The omnibus put forward by Alderman Brigales and before him by Alderman Dmitryevich went one better. Actually, it went two better.

Thank you. It said in addition to the 2% general city raise, we're gonna add a 1% beyond that, bringing the total to three. And for those who are city residents, we're going to give a sweetener of a percent. So under what I'm seeking to replace here, there would be a 4% raise if you're a general city employee who lives in the city. And if you live outside the city for some reason, you'll still get a 3% raise.

How could you think that that wasn't something worthy of our time, attention, and efforts? That's just supporting our city employees. And furthermore, the employees we're supporting, 75% of general city employees live right here in the city. So let me say that number again. 75% of general city employees live in the city.

With police and fire for whom I have tremendous respect, those numbers are very different. 38% of sworn police live in our city. So our general city employees double that residency. 42% of sworn fire live in our city. So the general city employee raise not only goes to employees who do great work for the city day in and day out, it also goes to our own residents by and large.

I remarked on this briefly at committee, and I'll do so again today. Act 10 drew a schism that was in no way justifiable. No way justifiable. Any fair minded person who looked at act 10 and said, oh, public safety employees, you're gonna be treated one way, and general city, you're gonna be treated a different way. No fair minded person thought that was a fair distinction.

It was a distinction without a moral compass. But I have a dear friend who always reminds me of a key idea I wanna exploit here, and they they say it in two different ways. Scott, let's play check let's play chess, not checkers, and let's play the river, if you prefer a poker analogy. And all that's meant here is look down the road when we're deciding what path to choose. A four percent raise for general city residents employees likely means that next year the mayor will offer a 0% raise.

It's all but certain. That doesn't doesn't mean we can't then say, nope, that's not good enough. We need another four or we need another two. But the issue is there are going to be budgetary pressures in years ahead that then I fear will put us in a very difficult position. A position of deciding, do we pair employees well?

What they deserve? Not any extra, just what they deserve. But do we do so at the cost of having fewer employees? That is a choice that we will make and be forced to make in three years, let's say, might even be sooner, if we approve the 4% and add to the levy as we do. I have misgivings about that though, besides that concern that we give today what we then have to take away as it were tomorrow.

Because one group that hasn't been at the table speaking loudly is our city residents who aren't employees. If you look at the memo I passed out, and thank you to the LRB, Gunnar, Rosh did excellent work on this memo. Don't blame him. I asked for it. As is probably pretty well known, the average household income here in the city of Milwaukee, somewhere around $5,253,000 dollars.

That's if you're a two parent household with no kids. That's if you're a one parent household with two or three kids. All in the average, a household in Milwaukee, the city brings home gross around $5,253,000. Now look at the memo. We have employees at the city who are doing the day to day work that makes the city home.

And then we have a truly excellent supervisory staff over them. And sometimes we have a supervisory staff yet again over them, and sometimes yet again over them. But that's a discussion for another day. The employees who are exempt, by and large, were taken care of by something called the executive pay plan. In those cases, they got tremendous raises, tremendous raises not very long ago.

So what I would submit is this. If you look at the resident nonelected exempt mean, if you include elected, you'll bring down it somewhat, so I'm excluding electeds. If you look at page one, the first thing that's highlighted there, resident nonelected exempt mean. In 2025, the average there, the mean, was a $115,000. Under the mayor's proposed budget, that mean would rise.

Those folks, your average exempt person would get a little over a 2 k raise. And then under the omnibus as proposed by vice chair and by chair, it would rise further still. It would rise another $2,500 or $2,300 for being fair. So all in all, if some version of this omnibus before us, not before us, but the one that I'm seeking to replace passes, what happens is you get a $4,500 pay raise on average to the exempt city employees. And who's paying for that?

The households whose average is 52 or $53,000. I've said in my discussions of the streetcar, what we have there is a reverse Robin Hood situation. We have that manifested here as well, unfortunately. Not by intent, by trying to do good, trying to do right by our city employees. But in a phrase I borrow from Joe Joe Lieberman, we're feeding we're sowing seed to the horses to feed the birds.

There are some folks, such as the mayor, who will come out of this with a $5,000 pay increase. His chief of staff, who only makes $500 less than him, will also have a $5,000 pay increase. Pick the commissioner of DPW. Pick the commissioner of DCD. Pick the commissioner pick the employee retirement fund director.

Those are all positions that we'll see substantial monetary increases to their salary. And the question I ask is on whose backs. It's the backs of our city taxpayers, some of whom can ill afford it, some of whom are barely making their rent, groceries, their health care, their child care. And now so the commissioner of d VW or the chief of staff to the mayor can get a $5,000 raise, we ask more of them. That is plainly not fair.

What I seek to do is simply this. I do not want to add more to the levy than has been proposed by the mayor for raises, but I think he erred in ways that are multitude. In this budget in general, I fear there's been a lack of imagination. And even his 2% raise, I fear is insufficiently imaginative. What I would propose instead, and I have a later footnote to put it into a commitment on our part, is that whatever raise we settle on, whether it's two percent, whether it's 4%, what have you, We take the portion that goes to the exempt, and we take that money away.

And we don't just pocket it. We could. We could pocket it for the taxpayer and say, here, taxpayer, here you go. But what we could do is increase the raise we give to the civil service, to the classified employees who are doing the day to day work and not the supervisory work, so to speak, in many not the highest level supervisory work. That, I think, is a just approach.

It takes and by the way, if you're looking to the union, the union doesn't represent the exempt people. The union represents the classified classified people. People. So if, as I have always been a friend of AFSCME, a friend of the unions, this would be a way you could take money from those who are not represented, but they're not being represented isn't the key issue. The key issue is they make a lot of money.

They've already been well compensated, and we had an executive pay plan to compensate them even more. Take that money from those who are doing the best in the city and give it to those who are doing not as well. Give it to the sanitation worker. Give it to the snowplow driver. They're the same people.

Give it to the neighborhood and services inspector. Give it to the health care nurse. Give it to those who are truly having the people to people impact our residents are seeing every day. So again, regardless of whether my amendment passes, I would ask us when we consider the footnote to see who is really benefiting and is there a way to make it less on the people who are already doing so well post executive pay plan and more on the people who are doing the day to day work for which the city runs. So with that, I would propose amendment f while j is being while my amendment to a is or j is being drafted.

But it would basically just save the funding for Sunday hours at the library. It would save eviction free MKE. It would save the innovation district special fund. It would save the cameras for channel twenty five so that people can see us so the old ones don't die. And here's what else it would do.

It would lower fees. It would take these fees, which if you've been to a town hall, you'll hear your residents say, not just my taxes are too high, they'll say my fees are too high, and they keep increasing. And what am I getting for it? I get an ever creeping streetlight fee, and my lights are out every other night. What am I paying for?

So by living this and I acknowledge this amendment is austere. It literally just says, these are income sources. They total $2,390,000. And here are our expenses. $1,700,000 worth dollars worth, and they result in lower taxes, lower fees.

And if we followed my advice about the, later footnote to shift the raises from the exempt to the nonexempt, there's even a substantial increase to our general city employee classified wages. So with that, that's my amendment. I'll likely have another one that is a little more realistic, but this is what living with our within our means amounts to. But it's also what spending great attention and care before we spend our taxpayers who are hurting, before we spend their money. We wanna ensure that there is no other choice.

So thank you, mister president.

Chair recognizes alderman Baumann. Is

is this even is this amendment even in order? We're assuming that we're going to certain actions on three separate files we take up later in the meeting regarding the fees. I I get the intent here. It's to reduce the increase in the solid phase well, solid waste fee, reduce the increase in the street lighting fee, and reduce the increase in the snow and ice control fee, but that's not can't do that in this amendment. Correct? That would have to be done later in the meeting, so we're assuming facts not in evidence, basically.

The city clerk will expand on that.

Mister chairman, the common council on a regular basis on amendment day does take amendment actions that presuppose subsequent actions. If you do not take those actions, however, it does have downstream consequences.

Okay. That's what I thought. Alright. And just so everybody understands who's watching on TV and in the audience and may not have the papers in front of them, this amendment proposes to go with simply the 2% wage increase for general city employees, eliminating the 3% and the 4%. Yes. You're correct in that? Alright.

Chair recognizes, Alderman Robert.

Mister president, I do have a response to Alderman Bauer's, Baumann's query, if I might.

I think we're good. He got his answer.

Okay. I'll give it when it's my chair.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I guess I had a a similar observation about amendment one f, which is being proposed to substitute amendment one j, that it does not you know, it sticks with the 2%. It sticks with the 2%.

And and all and to the alderman, I would, you know, say that, like, hear you on on having no or a positive effect on the levy. I would share again exactly what I shared at the finance and personnel committee here that in order to run the city that we want, we have to pay for it. I wish there was a way around this. Right? We in the city of Milwaukee, we do not create the currency that's in the hands of Federal Reserve, so we can't just generate money and engage in deficit spending like the feds can.

So we, you know, have to generate income to be able to pay it, to be able to pay we have to generate revenue to be able to pay the expenditures. And I mean, obviously, everybody knows that, but I'm I'm just illustrating that, that, like, if we want to show our employees the value that they deserve, we are gonna have to pay for it. There's no way around it. And for when when we talk about the levy, I'm I'm very sensitive to to what people are being taxed. Because the real question behind the levy and behind the fees is, as I said, the finance personnel committee, where is all the money going?

Where is all the money in this world going? Yeah. The millionaires and billionaires are vacuuming it up right now. They are vacuuming it up and stealing it from the working class. And that's why it's hard for people to pay property taxes and other fees that we assess. That system should change. We should not have millionaires and billionaires in this world. We should have a socialist economy that treats everybody equally and provides for a planned way to of resource distribution, where millionaires millionaires and billionaires cannot just get tax breaks and suck up all the money that's out there, so that a working person can have money to both provide for themselves and pay for services that they deserve. Right? And I'm not even saying that's not the case right now.

The

the residents of this city, I believe, want to see quality services. And they are going to want to see the best possible services that we can manage here, given the constraints that we're all under, given that unfortunately we cannot pass an ordinance in this body to eliminate capitalism here in the city of Milwaukee. Okay? So we have to pay for it. And the the the increase I mean, I'm looking at I'm looking at the numbers here for amendment one j.

The tax rate per 1,000, up in the upper right corner of the document here, the tax rate per 1,000 is an additional 6.3 excuse me, yeah, 6 and a third pennies that it adds to the tax rate per 1,000. And that is real money that people are gonna have to pay. But to the to the to the property taxpayer who would be upset about that, I would say this, that for for 6 and a third pennies per 1,000 of value, we can that everybody that is burdened by everybody in this city, we can show our city workers for once in the last few years that they are valued and that we will give them a cost of living adjustment that isn't even frankly enough, frankly, but that will show them something, that this the bargain that this city has with its employees, that shows them that they are valued so that they can continue to do a great job and continue to lean into the work that they're doing so that it's it's quality work. Quality work comes at a price. It just it just does.

So so I just wanna I just wanna really hit the nail on the head with this with this point that, like, I mean, I understand and I do not wanna see taxes go up, but we but we need to put this on the levy right now. That is our only financial option to be able to provide the raises that we want to provide. And as far as the managers are concerned, yeah, I mean, I'm not, like, I'm not jumping up and down for joy that the highest paid executives in this city are gonna be getting a raise too. But I will argue that there are some managers who are barely above their subordinates as far as pay and as far as workload and also deserve a raise. There are some there are managers that do deserve a raise.

There is

a manager that I'm aware of in one of our departments who makes just a few thousand more than their subordinates, and they will be barely making more than their subordinates once if we if we ex if we take out exempt employees, and they're putting in I'm aware of this employee's putting in sixty to seventy hours a week in one of our departments as a manager to get caught up on work that needs to get done and make sure that the employees are managed well. And so I would argue also that there are managers out there that deserve a raise. And so we should not cut out exempt employees from any one of these any one of these raises. So that, you know, those are those are my arguments. I mean, we have we have amendment one f before us, which amendment one f does not provide for any additional raise beyond what the mayor has proposed of the 2% for general city employees.

And mister president, I

just would ask, so so this

so amendment one f is before us. I would like to object to that amendment. I'd I'd like to object to that substitution. Excuse me. Let me get my Robert's rules correct here. I'd like to object to that substitution, and I would love a roll call on that substitution, please. If possible, if I'm correct in my The the substitute is

is by rule of right, and we will be taking a roll call on it. So Okay. Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Did make you deliberate yourself.

Chair recognizes Alderman Jackson.

Thank you, mister president. I'll just keep it, more simpler than my colleague. I will be not voting for anything less than a 4%.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, mister president. So I passed around a couple of things. One was the, the fees and how they have increased over the years. I did a version of this a while ago. I try to always be fair in my documents, so I show the dollar increase over the years, but also I inflation adjusted as well.

But there have been substantial increases to fees even on an inflation adjusted basis over the years. So everybody focuses on the levy, but when you get that water works bill, which they hate it when you call that, the municipal services bill, you see all these charges. And you're like, how did that happen? Why are they increasing? Well, it's because we increase fees every year.

And there's reasons. I won't deny that. But this amendment at least tries to get some traction on the fees. The other item I passed out is now out of date, but it shows what the average homeowner would see. So we talked about fractions of pennies on thousands of dollars, which is a next meaningless statistic unless you know how does that really affect somebody's bill.

So what I did is I followed what the budget office has done in the past. You look at your average house back in '25 this year, and then you look at what it's looking like for 2026, and you say, hey, if you owned an average house, how much would your property taxes increase if various things happened? So if the mayor's proposed budget passed, it had been said that it would increase your average homeowners property tax bill city only portion. Remember, other MPS, the county, the rest, they're gonna raise your taxes too. It said the city portion for the average homeowner would increase $67 with the new information we have, it's more like $77 And if the omnibus passed, that was being considered, it would be 93.

So an extra 16. That is going to be lowered because of the action taken of taking the 800 off the levy, but it's still real money. It's still going going to a property taxpayer and saying, look, the mayor asked for this much, we're asking for this much more. And if it weren't for the fact that who we're asking in some cases is a property owner who is barely getting by, And don't forget about renters. If I'm a landlord and my property taxes go up, I'm passing it on to my tenant.

I either am doing it in terms of higher rent or I'm doing it in terms of neglect. That's another way things can go. You can say, well, I'm just gonna stop spending money on this place because times are tough. I have to pay more in taxes. So maybe I won't tend to those things that then lead us to have health committee discussions of lead paint, ZND discussions of faulty wiring, all the rest.

So there is a cost even for those who don't pay property taxes directly. So Alderman Bowman's point, we can't this amendment would not lower fees. It can't do it by itself, but would set aside the money to lower fees. And if you say, woah. I've never seen that before.

We're doing it in her original omnibus. We aren't increasing general city salaries by any percent in our action today. All we're doing is setting aside the money in the wages and supplement fund, which that later we can make real by changing the salary ordinance. So not only is what I'm doing ho it's exactly what we're doing elsewhere. So it's it's nothing out of the ordinary.

It's giving us the money to make the cut to fees later. But, again, I understand that this is not likely to pass, and I understand the reason why is from a good place. We wanna reward our city employees for the work they do. But I would just add this. If we truly want to do that for the employees who are in the day to day work, we should not we should not take those who have benefited from the executive pay plan and feather their nest further still.

These are people I like and respect, who do great work for me, but if I were paying for it and I had all the money in the world, I'd say, of course, you deserve it. But we're asking for it from taxpayers who are having very hard times right now. And to if I'm going to turn to one of them and say, I helped increase the mayor's salary, I helped increase the commissioner's salary, I I can't do that in good conscience. So thank you.

Chair recognizes Alderman Dmitryovich.

Thank you, mister President. I just wanted to make sure that people understand while this looks a lot like the original plan that came out of the finance hearing, there are some significant differences. Clearly one being compensation for workers, but also it is not restoring any of the cuts that were made to the common council, and it is not investing in the transformational projects position. And then what I'm not understanding here is the combination of decreasing the administration's increase in municipal fees. The line item that goes with that, because it's a pretty significant amount of money, that or revenue that would be lost.

And, you know, the municipal fee, from my understanding, spreads far across to nonprofits and businesses as well, not just homeowners. But that was one part that I was wondering what the impact was there financially. Thank you, mister president.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Brower. Yeah. Thank you

so much, mister president. And I would just like to say thank you to Alderman Spiker for getting some of the facts about the impact of this in this memo that we received. Yeah. It looks like as the numbers for the average value home of 192,500 Based on the a couple amendments ago, would be the impact would be $93.76. So we're stocking $93 a year to afford the omnibus amendment that we are discussing.

And so I just, you know, just to acknowledge that, and I do appreciate, you know, look at this because that is that's that's a difficult number, but it's outweighed by what we can do to show our employees value, and I intend to defend that number. I intend to defend that number, the the increase. I mean, is like, we're gonna be if we are proposing an increase in the levy, I'm intending to defend it. I think everything in this omnibus is defensible, and is a really, really good idea. I also just wanna

pro you know, just to

shout out Alderman McGellis for for ald amendment one j that funds the Milwaukee LGBT community center for $50,000 too. But to go back to the tax levy issue, like, that's

you know,

things cost money. We have to we have to acknowledge that here in the city of Milwaukee that if we want the kind of services that we deserve, it's gonna come, unfortunately, with a price until we can get more help from the state and more help from the federal government financially. It's just the predicament that we're in. For the constituents and residents that are suffering financially, I'm with you. Like, I my rent may go up because of this. I do

not own a home, but

my rent may go up because of this. We have a phrase in the union world, which is called don't mourn and organize. And I would say for anybody listening out there, we need to band together as a city to demand an economy that works for the 99 and not for the benefit of the richest 1%. And so for any resident out there who's ready to fight back against the high cost of living, please join a union. Please join a community organization that's demanding massive structural systemic change.

Please fight back. That's the answer. When you mourn the levies that we're putting, the levies that we have to unfortunately levy on the people, don't mourn about that. Organize to fight back. Because like I said, the money is being gobbled up right now by the millionaires and billionaires. And if everyone in Milwaukee was able to take action and took action to fight back against that system, we'd have change a lot quicker. Thank you. Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

I did wanna be honest about this memo. So the one that is from mister Reinders, from budget, the one that says what the difference on your tax bill would be. That last number of 93.76 was for budget amendment e, which we've progressed beyond now by virtue of taking the 800 off the levy. So I wanna be transparent that number for city only portion of the property tax that would be increased by the previous two omnibuses is lower than ninety three seventy six. It's not a heck of a lot lower than ninety three seventy six, but it is lower.

So I don't wanna, you know, I I don't wanna mislead members in any way. So I I do have another amendment, and I can put it forward, that would restore the cuts to the city clerk's office and the rest. But if people are committed to the 4%, they're committed to the 4%, and I don't wanna waste people's times. I would just caution us that we will have a day of reckoning if we do this, and I would hate for us to be heroes today and villains tomorrow because of a bleaker financial future that we've helped in some measure to create. So thank you.

Before us is one f. There being no further discussion, will the clerk please call the roll.

On the on the adoption of amendment one f.

Mister president, I will withdraw the amendment. Oops.

It's okay. The amendment is withdraw. Before us is one j. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mister president.

Alderman Spiker.

I have an amendment.

Come

on. This is a serious amendment. This is a serious amendment.

That's why I speak to it.

So I'll tell you what it is. So may we pass out m? M. M is going to be just like j except one thing. So so m basically says j was gonna pass. It is gonna pass. How about this tweak? And again, can support it, cannot support it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I should just say so what I I think I've made this clear. What I care most about is this body. I don't care the most about even the people I care about, other members and even about myself with respect to this body. So rather than make people take a vote on one f when it's clear what the will of the body is, I chose to withdraw Because I don't want you going before people and saying, oh, I had an opportunity to do Exxon fees and I didn't, or I had an opportunity to reduce the Levin. That's that's playing games, and I don't wanna put members.

I needed to make my point, but I don't wanna put members in that position because I understand the intents of the omnibus. What's before us now in m is just like j except one thing. It deals with our $250,000 hole that I would argue the mayor put in his own budget. So you will recall that in the mayor's proposed budget, he raises the vehicle registration fee, also known as the wheel tax, the city portion of it, another $10. So you wanna talk about a regressive tax, it's a regressive fee because I pay that whether I make $10,000 or $500,000 or a million dollars.

As long as I register my car, I pay that vehicle registration fee. I pay that wheel tax. The mayor's proposed budget would say you're gonna pay $10 more. But it that in itself is bad, but it gets worse. So when the mayor drew up his budget, he assumes things that never have been true, which is that we will be a nice little counsel and vote for this and as soon as he tells us instead of following our normal process.

Our normal process has us make those decisions today, not make those decisions a week or two weeks or what have you ago. But instead of writing his budget so as to close So what that creates is if we pass it, the vehicle registration fee at the $10 recommended level today, there will be a $250,000 hole in this budget due to when the state can basically ramp this up for us. We won't be able to start at January 1. It'll be later. And while we wait for that money to come in, we have a hole in our budget.

The mayor knew this, and he knew that if we followed our normal processes, there would be this $250,000 hole. So here's what you might expect a leader to do at this point. Say, okay. I'm going to write my budget to deal with that $250,000 gap in some way. That's what leadership is.

A different path was chosen. Instead he said, I'm gonna propose or I'm gonna assume in my budget that you're gonna be a nice little counsel and like a week or two ago approve this as is. And if you don't, well, I'm gonna point the finger at you and say you created a $250,000 hole in the budget. Woah. That was not very smart of you counsel. But this is a game. And it's a game I think we should refuse to play. So we have two realistic options here. One is to take from the tax stabilization fund another $250,000. Here's the problem with that.

That is a fund that we were a little more reluctant as to how much money we took out of it this year, but it's one of our very most important piggy banks, and we're going to need it in the future. So if we take 250,000 from it this year, we're gonna have less to take from it next year and the next year. So that is why I would prefer not to take from our piggy bank. What's an alternative? It's one not everybody may like, but it makes fiscal sense.

If we delay the 4% in the three either 3% if you're nonresident or the 4% if you're resident, if we delay that one pay period, which includes part of '25, so one pay period extending into '26 a bit, if we delay it one pay period, we close that $250,000 gap. So this is a very serious amendment I'm putting forward to say, let's not take it out of the piggy bank. Let's have a de minimis, minimal adjustment to when the raise goes forward, delay it a pay period, which would then just be a portion of January. So that's my proposal. That's what's proposed in one m, and I would urge that we do it so that we can close the mayor's gap.

Let me repeat that again. The mayor's $250,000 gap with a method that it is fiscally responsible and that does not force us to draw down a diminishing piggy bank. Thank you.

Chair recognizes Alderman Pratt.

Thank you. I was on to speak to the omnibus, so I don't know if I should wait till

Okay. On the motion, Alderman Bergelas.

Thank you, mister chair. I urge my colleagues to oppose this. This is not a full 4%, so I cannot support this amendment.

Thank you. On the omnibus Well,

what number is this again? One m.

Okay. This is one m. On one m?

Mister president, just super briefly, it was said it's not a 4%. I would wager that it's a 3.99% or a 3.98%. Thank you. Okay.

No more discussion on one m with the clerk. Please call the roll.

Alderman Pratt.

Aye.

Brower? No. Baumann? No. Miss Morland? No. Cogs? Jackson? No.

Zanrebo? I'm sorry. I didn't

hear alder Cogs' vote. Alderman Cogs is recorded as no.

Okay. Thank you, mister president.

Jackson is no. Zamoripo. No. Taylor.

No. Moore.

No. Bergelis? No. Spiker? Aye. Dmitryevich? No. Stamper? No. Mister president? No. Two ayes, 12 nos, one excused.

12 ayes, two nos.

12 no.

No. I'm sorry. 12 nos, two ayes, one excused. The amendment fails. We are back to one j.

Chair recognizes alderman Spiker.

Last one. Promise. So this one is one n, which we'll pass out. It totally deals with just one position in the entire budget. That position is the innovation position that was cut in the omnibus, and it would not restore funding. It would restore position authority because as people may remember what had happened is that the finance committee said, you shouldn't fill that position. Thank you. And it was decided from the mayor's side, we don't care that you said that. We're gonna fill it anyway. And how did they do that?

Well, the easy to abuse auxiliary resource program finds positions floating in the sky and brings them down to earth and puts people on them. That is something I can't support, use of that position over the council's will. But here's the thing. We have a one man shop right now in the division of innovation, director of innovation in the form of Jim Boll. We have an excellent Harvard Kennedy School grad who is a Bloomberg fellow who is having her fellowship paid for by the Bloomberg Foundation.

Those are the only two people we have to drive innovation in the city. This budget, through the omnibus that's going to be before us,

would

create and then, I guess actually, the one that is before us creates a policy let's see if I can get the title right. Policy and administration person in the city policy and administration coordinator in the city clerk's office. So, basically, we're saying, look. We have a policy role to play here at the city, and we need a position to help drive that. So whether it's the setting up of partnerships that leads to further tech hubs or other creative ideas, we need somebody doing that work.

This isn't all the administrations. The amendment before us, though, would add a position authority and not funding on the administration side for somebody to work under director Boll. Why do I think that's so important? As great as he knows city government, he's been in the city government forever. As great as our Kennedy School intern or not intern, fellow, give her the respect she deserves, man, She is new to city government.

It would sure be nice if we had somebody who had some private sector experience, who had experience in other levels of government, say federal or state, who understood that we do have an inertial bureaucracy, which all bureaucracies have to some extent, and to drive forward from the administration side changes therein. We can push against the rope from our side. We can come up with ideas and institute them onesie, twosie, or we can have folks on the administration side who are charged with disrupting their own system, finding efficiencies, but also finding partnerships, host of other ways. So even though I think it was a grievous overstepping of one's authority for them to fill the position when we said no, the position is important enough that I think it warrants coming into being. And the big old DOA, it's your problem to find the funding for it.

If you agree it's so important, you will. So that's the changes proposed in one my last amendment to the Omni. Thank you.

Thank you. No further discussion before us. One n, roll call, please.

On the adoption of amendment one n. Aldwoman Pratt?

No.

Brower? No. Baumann? No. Bushmoreland? No.

Cogs? No. Jackson? No. Zamadipa?

Aye.

Taylor?

No.

Moore?

Aldwoman Moore? Aye. Aye. Berg Ellis. No. Spiker. Aye. Dimitriovich. No. Stamper. No. Mister president. No.

Mister chair, I'm sorry. Mister president, my vote please rerecord my vote as a no.

Let the record reflect Alderman Moore's vote as a no. Therefore,

two ayes, 12 noes, one excused.

12 ayes, two no, one excused. The amendment fails. Back to one j. Sorry.

Can I who was excused?

Chamberlain. Oh,

can you read that one more time for me, please? Excuse me.

12 ayes or 12 no's, two ayes, one excuse.

Thank you.

Before us is one j. Chair recognizes Alderman Jackson.

Thank you, mister president. To the sponsor of supporting this community center, did we just do an action in CED for this committee?

Was I think the question this is for a workforce development and mental health program that they're trying to get up and running. The ask was actually for quite a bit more than $50,000. But given the funding sources identified in omnibus, the reallocation from the Civic Commission, this is levy neutral and a great investment for our community.

Oh, I'm not opposed to what you move with money. I'm always against putting more money in a police budget. But if we just did an action for this community service community center already, would they be a means of, I guess, forego money in the future? Or this is almost like double dipping if I looked at it like that.

There is a separate program, for project queue for youth, that is supported by CED and CDBG funding.

Is it still with the same community center?

The same organization with different programming.

What would be the total then from the city of Milwaukee to this organization?

I believe the CDBG is thirty, twenty thousand a year.

Thank

you. Okay. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Yeah. I wasn't gonna ask any questions, but Alderman Jackson just raised wasn't aware there's CDPG funding to the same organization for a different program. So, I mean, I even felt this with Eviction Free MKE, which I believe is another extremely worthy program. When it was ARPA dollars, that was one thing. If it's city dollars, then when times are tough, we're going to need to provide city services first and foremost, and we won't as many worthy nonprofits as there are out there, we are not gonna be in a position to give money to them outside of the normal CDBG process.

So I guess my question for the sponsor is, was the funding for this program sought through CDBG? And was the answer no?

Thank you for the question. This is a new program.

So to Alderman Jackson's question was how much is given as a whole, but again, if we could hit him with CDBG funding, rather not have the extra 50, that would be again 50 more we could get off the levy.

Amendment one j takes 50,000 off the levy.

Would then the last question. Would the sponsor be amenable to a friendly amendment? No. That would I already know it's not gonna be friendly. But yeah. Okay. So my concern I guess I won't be supporting Jay, well, for multiple reasons. But one of my concerns with Jay is if we can fund something through CDBG, should always go there first before we go to Levy. So thank you.

Chair recognizes all Alderperson Samalipa.

Thank you. I wanted to add some context. I'm slightly offended by some of the questions I just heard today around the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center. But I'll start with Spiker's Alderman Spiker's questions first. Yes. I did go to CDBG to see if we could get a greater allocation than the $30,000 that was allocated to them this year for youth work. And that the answer is essentially no. It would mean taking from other existing nonprofit organizations that are also depending on their funding. So I chose not to go that route. I had hoped to be a part of the omnibus.

I was shut out of that process. I went to Alderman Berg Ellis, spoke with him about it. He has put together this substitute that I hope will pass today that gives a $50,000 allocation to the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center. When I attended virtually the committee that the finance committee last week Friday, Alderman Jackson and Alderman Bergelis advocated for an additional $30,000 plus for a community program or organization that's doing food justice work. And this is on top of the $100,000 allocation they were already getting in the budget, but nobody scoffed at that.

It passed pretty easily, if I'm not mistaken, unanimously, maybe four to four to one. There was no sneezing at giving that program or organization an over $30,000 more on top of the $100,000 that they were getting in the mayor's budget proposal. But here, Alderman Jackson calls it double dipping. I take great umbrage to that. Thank you, mister president.

Chair recognizes Alderman Stamper.

Yeah. As a chair, just wanna give the rec give you guys the stats. Last year and this year, they do request funding, and the the the CED committee funds the LGBT community center at 30,000 a year. So 30,000 last year and 30,000 this year. Those are the facts.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So before us is one j. Chair recognizes alderwoman Pratt.

Thank you. I do wanna say thank you to the authors of the omnibus. I was not part of it, and I'm I will be supporting you. I'm happy to see that they didn't do like normal and put all their pet projects in there. So I will be able to support this one.

But I will say that one thing that does give me pause, and while I support live extended library hours on Sunday, I'm the daughter of a librarian and two retired ASME members, I think it's disingenuous to speak about the dignity of work and the support of workers while we're tripling the workload on library workers who we haven't even spoken to, and that needs to be done, and it should have been done on the front end. I also think that we missed a real opportunity here to seeing what's going on in the world, which all of us have referenced, where we are not going to and not to pick on anyone's things, but innovate or be clean or eviction free our way out of hunger that's coming,

and that we should

have made a priority for that as well. So thank you.

Thank you. Before us is one j. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Yeah. Super briefly on eviction free MKE was sort of an outlier for me in that why are we giving a 100,000 if we don't have ARPA money to do it, it, and if we don't have CDPG funds to do it, whether it's eligible or not. Here, the the crucial factor for me was doubling our money as it were, because the count I've worked with Jack Eckeladd. I know Alder Brower did as well for this worthy program so that by our doing a 100, they are also doing a 100. So we're getting a $200,000 investment as it were for the price of one. So thank you.

Thank you. Chair recognizes alderperson Samariba.

Yes. In line with what I observed in finance committee on October 31, I would like to be able to record my objection objection to to specific specific items items in in the the omnibus.

K.

I would like to record my objection to the elimination of the innovation and policy analysts within DOA.

Is it all, Alderman Berson? Yes. Okay. Let the record reflect your objection to the innovation. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, mister president. I guess if we're moving towards a vote, I am not gonna separate the question, but I wanna be recorded as a yes on certain items. Okay. I them? Okay. I'd like to be recorded as a yes on increasing funding for Sunday hours at the library. The lines impacted by that. I'd like to be recorded as a yes on move down payment assistance funding to the Milwaukee Homebuyer Fund for 600,000 of revenue. I'd like to be recorded as yes on that. And I would also like to be recorded as a yes on the fund eviction free MKE and the create an innovation district special fund.

And so that my support is balanced by revenues on the other side, I would also like to be recorded as a yes on the eliminate one business advocacy and job growth liaison, eliminate one position of innovative innovation policy analyst and DOA understanding that my previous amendment there failed. And also the new revenue sources of water works, school resource officer, and municipal services payments day date. So with that, I believe the revenue I'm supporting covers the expenditures I'm also supporting. So thank you.

Thank you. So record it. One before us is one j. I see no further lights. Would the the clerk please call the roll?

On the adoption of amendment one j, Aldwoman Pratt.

Aye. Brower. Aye. Solidarity. Baumann. Aye. Westmoreland. Aye. Cox. Aye.

Jackson? Aye. Zamoripa?

Aye. Taylor? Aye.

Boor? Aye. Bergalis? Aye. Spiker? No. Dimitriavich? Aye. Stamper? Aye. Mister president?

Aye. 13 ayes, one no, one excused.

13 ayes, one no, one excused. The clerk, please continue.

Mister chair.

Chair recognizes alder prisons Hamaripa.

Yeah. Have a point of order. I I can't celebrate too much in this omnibus. We did lay off one existing city worker. Thank you.

The next item before you is amended for, officer We of the

don't have the authority to lay out. We eliminated a position, just to be clear. Thank you.

As a position As a offered

by Alderman Spiker, Department of Administration, Office of Equity and Inclusion. Move the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

Alderman Samaripa.

I'm sorry if Alderman Spiker always insists on having the last word. I'm simply making a point of order. It is an existing city worker whose job is eliminated. Correct? Now he doesn't want the last word. The answer is correct. So an existing city worker will no longer have a job.

The clerk please continue.

Amendment four, offered by Alderman Spiker, Department of Administration, Office of Equity and Inclusion. Move the Office of Equity and Inclusion out of the Department of Administration and create a Department of Equity and Inclusion. Amendment 11, offered by Alderman Spiker, department of administration, office of community wellness and safety, move the office of community wellness and safety out of the department of administration and create a department of community wellness and safety. Amendment 12, offered by alderwoman Cogs, department of administration. Insert a footnote, directing that the department of administration, examine city and county purchasing opportunities for potential collaborations.

Amendment 13, offered by alderwoman Dmitryevich, department of administration, budget and management division, insert a footnote requiring the budget director to notify the common council by July 31 of each year of any intended increase in the vehicle registration fee to include only nine months of revenue in the proposed executive budget. Amendment 14 offered by Alderman Bergelis, Department of Administration, Budget and Management Division, insert a footnote directing the depart the Budget and Management Division of the Department of Administration to explore the feasibility of fund clerk. Alderman Cox?

Yes. I would like to be recording oppositions to item four and eleven, consistent with my voting committee.

K. Let the record reflect four and eleven. Objection by Alderman Cox. Please continue.

Amendment 14 offered by Alderman Bergalis, Department of Administration, Budget and Management Division. Insert a footnote directing the Budget and Management Division of the Department of Administration to explore the feasibility of funding fire apparatus using sales tax proceeds. Amendment 15, offered by alderwoman Cogs, department of administration, common council city clerk. Insert a footnote, directing the intergovernmental relations division of the department of administration and the government relations staff in the legislative affairs division to lobby the Wisconsin department of transportation to incorporate vision zero into its driver's education curriculum. Amendment 16, alderwoman Cogs, department of administration, information technology management division.

Insert a footnote directing the information and techno division of the department of administration to annually report on application usage. Amendment 17 offered by alderwoman Cogs, department of administration, information technology and management division, insert a footnote directing the information technology management division of the department of administration to work with all departments to create a master list of all city controlled social media pages. Amendment 18 offered by Alderman Bergelis, office of the city attorney. Insert a footnote directing the city attorney to track staff hours for the Milwaukee Public Schools related services and pursue a memorandum of understanding with the Milwaukee Public Schools, establishing the city to bill for those enabling the city to bill for those hours. Amendment 19 b, offered by Alderman Spiker, Department of City Development, add one associate planet planner position authority to the Department of City Development.

Amendment 20, offered by president Perez, department of city development, common council city clerk, increase the common council city clerk's general office operating account by $4,000 and increase the department of city development general office operating account by $4,000. The intent of this amendment is to increase funding for mailings by the zoning neighborhoods and development committee and the city planning commission. 21, offered by Alderman Berglis.

The chair recognizes Alderman Cox.

To be consistent with my vote at committee, I will ask to be noted in opposition.

Two. 20. 20. Let the record reflect. Known by Alderman Cox in '20.

Please continue. Amendment 21 offered by Alderman Bergalis, Department of City Development. Insert a footnote directing the Department of City Development to study the feasibility of creating an employee down payment assistance program. 22 offered by Alderman Bergalis, Department of City Development, insert a footnote directing the Department of City Development to formalize the funding proposal and allocation approval process for affordable housing projects related to tax increment district closeouts to allow for affordable housing loan guarantees to partner agencies. 23 offered by Alderman Stamper, Department of City Development, insert a footnote directing the Department of City Development to study the feasibility of creating a business development and training center.

Amendment 25 a offered by Alderman Chambers, treasurer, department of public works operations, special purpose account, board of zoning appeals, add $75,000 or $70,000, forgive me, to the city treasurer to restore the mailing of printed tax receipts, offset by increasing the personal cost adjustment in the Department of Public Works operations division by $50,000 and by decreasing the board of zoning appeals budget by $20,000. Insert a footnote in the office of the city treasurer directing that beginning in 2027, the city's method of tax receipt delivery will be the same method of property tax payment.

Chair recognizes alderman Spiker. Did you finish that?

I did not. Okay. Please finish. The footnote is informational only. It is necessary for the common council to adopt legislation to implement the intent of the footnote. Chair, I recognize alder, miss Piker. Okay.

Mister president, for '25 a, I would, submit a sub. I understand they got the sponsorship of the sub wrong, so they're going to have to correct that. So I would just ask that that one be held for a moment later in the meeting when we can get that. And then I want separate action on that item. Thank you.

Okay. Well, we'll we will hold that until we have the sub the the correct sub. You wanna continue?

Amendment 26 offered by president Perez, common council city clerk, add position authority for an administrative services coordinator in the office of the common council city clerk. 27 a, alderwoman Moore, common council city clerk. In the common council city clerk, create the office of youth engagement to facilitate youth and intern activities at position authority, FTE, and funding for two positions for nine partially offset the funding by operating account reductions in the Department of City Development and increasing the personal cost adjustment in the Department of Public Works Infrastructure Services Division. Amendment 30 a, Alderman Chambers, common council city clerk, 20,000 to the common council city clerk, other services operating account for the legislative affairs division travel. Add a footnote directing the department of public works to study the feasibility of using city fleet vehicles for in state travel.

Footnotes are informational only. The common council must adopt legislation to implement the intent.

Chair recognizes Alderman Brower. Yeah. Thank you so much, mister president.

I well, I had a would like to discuss. I I wanna make sure I get my procedural points here right. Had a couple questions for the author of item number 18, the footnote directing the city attorney to track staff hours for MPS. I'd like to register against that. I can speak to that. I first just want to appreciate the amendment author just discussing some of the fair thinking on some of the advantages for the city, and I had some comments I wanted to offer as well. That's in order.

Okay. You I believe you can do so now.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. So I'll just say that I think this you know, our services to the to the school district is an opportunity for us. Providing that service for free is an opportunity of of the this is related to the city attorney being also the council for Milwaukee Public Schools,

for those that

are listening in, and we have provided that for free. This amendment will explore the possibility of track or direct them to track the hours and, know, pursue MOU with the school district regarding billing the school district for those hours. And I would generally be I I'd like to register in opposition to this, and I'm I'm opposed to that on the grounds of just wanting to see us do everything we can to support Milwaukee Public Schools. And if we have built into our budget right now, baked in right now, providing those services I'm not opposed to tracking, but the idea of asking MPS to pay for that, we have baked into our budget right now, the ability to provide that for free for the school districts helps out the school districts bottom line and make sure that they can focus as much as possible delivery on services to our youth and children. But I I would love to hear some thoughts from the sponsor as well because I you know, this this relationship that we have with the district, regarding our city attorney's office being their council as well is worth exploring and discussing.

We'll let the record reflect your renewal on '18. Honorable Guelis? Sure.

Thank you, mister president. Appreciate the questions. We had a pretty, thorough discussion in committee about this, but happy to, give a a recap. State statute requires the city of Milwaukee to be legal counsel for the school district. The school district also just had a referendum pass, and their property tax levy has surpassed the property tax levy for the entire city of Milwaukee on homeowners tax bills.

There is nothing in state statute that requires us requires the city to provide legal services at no cost. We don't give any city department a blank check for their needs, especially another city department that has a tax levy that's bigger than our entire citywide tax levy on property taxes. Everyone wants to support NPS. State statute requires us to provide these legal services, but the department has been asking for additional staff and additional assistant city attorneys since I got to this building. We don't have funding for to to to correct the workload so that our city attorneys aren't overworked, so that they can handle priorities from all council members from the from the entire city, plus MPS.

If MPS were to pay for their legal services, we could high up we could allocate more resources to the department, have better staff, reduce work workloads, and provide a better product to defend the city as a whole. So the first step in that process would be to start to track hours that the city attorney's office devotes to MPS. And then should there be a need to develop an MOU to bill for those hours. Not to say that we can't bill them a dollar an hour or whatever nominal legal rate. Thank you, mister president.

Thank you. Chair recognizes all the women in Mitravich.

Thank you so much, mister president. I was the no vote on 18 in committee and would like to stay consistent opposing 18.

Let the record reflect. Thank you. Chair or city clerk, if you please continue. Chair Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Oh, there it is. 25B is now prepared, I'm told.

Okay. Let us go back to 25B.

Just to give context, and I do want to be respectful here because the sponsor is unable to be here for very important reasons, so I want to make sure I honor him. This is our annual, well, do we hand out paper receipts or not discussion, which we've had at least the last two or three years. I guess three years now. So there is a piece of paper that Jarrett passed out with more highlighting and a big number that says thirty four point six percent. So what this is, this current practice is when you pay your property taxes, no matter how you pay them, you get a paper receipt.

Of course, you get mailed a paper property tax bill, but you also get mailed a receipt. And apparently, that totals to, like, 70,000 a year in the mailing of paper receipts. And Jared and I were like, woah. We don't want paper receipts because we pay digitally, and why would we want a paper receipt? I I have it right there. I can print it if I want to. I have

a printer

too. But I realized not everybody's in that same boat. So I did ask, the deputy treasurer to come up with a list, which is reflected in this table. So if everybody has the table, it says 34.6%. So a lot of folks pay through their escrow agents so that your bank takes care of it basically. And there you have digital communications with them. So you don't need a paper receipt on top of it. If you mail to the bank lockbox, I could see why you might want a paper receipt. That's 21%. That's the biggest number for people who realistically would, want or need a receipt.

If you pay online, again, same situation, don't necessarily need a paper receipt. If you place it in the dropbox, sure, maybe you want a paper receipt. If you mail it to the office or you get a lock box reject, sure, maybe you want a paper receipt. If you do an electronic fund payment, no. And if you're in person, they'll give you the receipt right there so you don't have to mail it to them.

So by my lights, what that means is that of the 100% we mail paper receipts to now, a good 65% probably don't even want it. I then propose that we add up those who realistically might want it. That's 35% by my lights if you add those lines. And then instead of giving the treasurer 70,000 to mail them to everybody, we give them, I guess, the amendment says 25,000, I believe. Yep.

25,000, which more than covers the 35% who potentially do want them. We can direct the treasurer to give paper receipts. There's some question about there whether there's a state law that actually requires us to give paper receipts or not to those who ask. So, again, hopefully, don't have to direct the city treasurer this way, but we could say, hey. If somebody asks for it, please give it to them.

And even if they don't ask for it, if they basically mail it to you, mail them something back that's paper. But beyond that, it seems like a waste of money to spend that extra $25.70 $45,000 to just mail people a receipt who don't want it. And if this amendment passes, then there's 45,000 extra money that's out there for budget amendments. So thank you.

Chair recognizes Alderman Jackson. Thank you,

mister president. I remember this fight last year because I was just trying to carve out the 7th District representing the most so one of the earlier senior populations in the city of Milwaukee. I I will support this, but I will go a step farther at it and just to opt out for those that may not want one. But this is a healthy compromise. Thank you.

Chair recognizes Alderman Brugellis. Alright. Thank you, mister chair. Unfortunately, escrow agents do not provide a receipt to their orgogies. When your bank sends a portion of your escrow account to the city, the bank gets a wire receipt, but there is no receipt from the city that is forwarded on to that homeowner.

This is a thoughtful option, but in practicality it's not going to work if you have a lien on your home and want that receipt for your property tax bill for your for your income tax bill. Thank you, mister president.

It recognizes alder miss Biker.

Yeah. On that point, so thank you. This is why we need a wide range of backgrounds for folks who serve on the council. So alder Bergalis giving his banking background is pointing out an important fact. I think I wasn't sufficiently clear.

I still have a loan on my house, and I don't want a paper receipt. Because when I when I my bank pays for it, then I go online, and if I want one, I print one. And if I don't, I don't. So if you are savvy enough that your bank takes care of it through this means, then again, you could still call the treasurer's office and say, well, I still want a receipt, but it wouldn't be automatically mailed to you as it were. So I understand the point, but at least for some people, maybe all people, maybe the vast majority, if your bank's taking care of it, you have means then to come in and see that verification online.

If people are really worried about it, I would direct the treasurer again to either follow state law, which I'm not sure whether it encompasses us or not. Oh, right. And basically just do the right thing. When somebody calls in and wants a receipt, you send it to them. But that's more of an opt in procedure than an opt out. I would still mail the paper receipts to everybody who mails it to you, but then for the rest, the the humane thing to do is if somebody wants one, you send them one. So thank you.

Thank you. No further discussion before us is 25 b. Will the clerk please call the roll?

On the adoption of twenty five b, Alderman Pratt.

No. Okay.

Brower.

Excused. Alderman Brower.

25, Alderman Brower.

Have seen.

Aye.

Bowman. No. Westmoreland, though. Cogs.

No. Jackson. No. Zamoriba.

Aye. Taylor? No.

Moore?

No.

Bergelis? Spiker? Hi. Dimitriovich?

No. Stamper? No. Mister president. No. Three ayes, 11 nos, one excused.

Three ayes, 11 nos, one excused. Please chair recognizes Alderman Demetriovich.

Thank you. Just a quick question though. I so on twenty five a though, which would now be before us, I was one of the no votes due to the attachment to the elimination of funding for BOSA. That's all that's left now before us?

Yes it is.

Mr. President, on that, I do want to be honest here. I went to after we had that meeting I went to Alder Chambers and Alder Dmitryevich voted no for the same reason I voted no initially, which is irrespective of what you think of the mailing out of receipts, BOSA should not be part of the funding source because that is something legislation we passed a year ago to expand the radius of BOSA mailings and to also make sure property tenants got it, not just property owners. So when alder Chambers took that funding source, I complained rather loudly in saying, look, we passed this and now you're taking money out, and Boza doesn't know for sure whether they'll have enough funds to cover it. Alder Chambers, as much as we might fight, is a gentleman, And he said, well, then just find another source.

So, we did say, we could do the personal cost adjustment for DCD. So if I might try the LRB's patience and have a sub prepared that would have that funding source go away from BOSA and go to the personal cost adjustment, that's in keeping with Alder Chambers' gracious accommodation of my concern, Alder Dmitryovich's concern about not shorting Boza.

Chair recognizes Alder Woman Cox.

As a member of the finance committee, I too sat through those debates. My only concern with what the source that we consider is as we sat and I understand and respect the concerns of both auto Audrowwoman Demetrevich and Spiker. The head of BOSA sat in front of us and agreed and said based upon her projections, she believes she could still mail out similar to, you know, what she has done this year. While, yes, no one can predict in totality what the new year will bring, she sat in front of us. Out of her best estimates, she believes that they using this amount for something else would likely not put her in a position where she wouldn't be able to mail.

My concern is to use a different source and to not have had the benefit of discussion with that department about what using this source has, the impact it has on their department, while the other department that's already on there has said that they're okay with it puts us in a in another position, and that's that's just challenging for me. So, I mean, I don't know what the will of the body is, but whatever the concerns about BOSA, the fact is that the person that leads BOSA came to the table and was amenable onto this amendment as it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair recognizes alderman Spiker.

Yeah. There are two inaccuracies in that testimony, and I'll ask folks to if they're not sure, text is scar. But what happened was, first of all, DPW did not say come to the table and say, oh, you're messing with our PCA. We're okay with that. They commissioner Kruschke came and said, don't do that. That's dangerous. We might have to hold vacancies, maybe it'll hit us for snow. We don't know that it will, but it's a risk I'm unwilling to take as commissioner. Anybody whose PCA you touch is going to say the same thing. Any department head is going to say that.

The question is, are the funds so de minimis, in this case $20,000, that it would have any sort of impact? Again, I can't this is why, I mean, I really respect Alderman Chambers for this. What we can't do as a body is go in and say, hey, I know you found this funding source this year, but because it's not the end of the year yet, we think you should take this risk that you're gonna run out. That's not cool. The member who sponsors it, the body that passes it, should be the one who decides on the risk they're willing to take, not a would be borrower of those funds.

And just to be very clear about was what miss Garr said, because we talked with her after as well, but at the table she said, if you, as it were, put a gun to my head and said, you gonna run on it or not? I think we should be okay, but we don't even have one year of mailing results to know what's gonna happen. And if I had two or three years, I might be way more comfortable in you slicing off 20,000. Right now, it's a risk, and I can't tell you definitively that we won't run out of money, in which case we'll have to contingently borrow. So I wanna be clear on those two facts.

One, it's extremely bad form to take a funding source like this, and Alderman Chambers was very clear and very kind about acknowledging that. And two, the executive director of the board of zoning appeals did not say that, no worries. Why are you even wondering about this? There's no way we have so much money. We're not gonna run out. That was it was if I had two or three more years, two or three years to look at, I could have the comfort.

I see.

But I don't. So there. Thank you.

Chair recognizes all the women Cox.

For clarity and transparency, I was there are, I guess, two sources in this amendment. I spoke only to one, and I stand by what I said, what stated. And reasonable folks can disagree and can interpret what was stated with its own value, and I respect that. What I do not respect is my actual words being stated to be incorrect or in some ways dishonest or disingenuous. And even if alderman chambers doesn't doesn't object to it, the thought that bad form is had when attempts are made to talk directly with departments to see if they are okay with the source, and they say they are, and are willing to testify committee and say they are, is off as well.

And the fact that an amendment is asking to be prepared to take money from a department that we haven't consulted and that we do not have the opportunity to hear from here today, that's bad form. Today, we will make many decisions, some of which we will agree with and some of which we will not. But one thing we should not do is begin to insult one another based upon statements made, nor should statements about the truthfulness of what folks are saying unless it is a blatant lie, which I stand on the fact that what I said was accurate. Interpretations might be different. Private conversations might have been different.

But I I challenge anybody to roll back that tape and listen to what was said. It is never my intention to mislead or dishonor the words of workers as they come before us. It is only to share the information as it was shared with me. I interpreted it in a certain way. Other members, based on their concerns and their projections, may interpret differently, but what was stated was stated.

And that is all that I wanted to share with other members as we all have to deliberate about this question and future questions. But let's not begin to insult or question the integrity or honesty of one another. Thank you.

Thank you. Before us is 25 a.

Mister president, I just wanna clarify I'm not at all questioning the integrity of the person who probably has the most integrity on this floor, including myself. I was questioning memory. That's different. But I understand the point. I can understand how the two may be confused with each other. And at the end of the day, we'll just have to look at the tape, but there's no question of whether there's any I do not believe for two seconds that there's an integrity issue here. Not for two seconds. So thank you.

Could the city clerk please continue? Well,

I do have a point of order. So I guess on twenty five a, again, was no I was a no. And is there not a sub not being provided now? I realize the other sub failed.

We don't have a sub in front of us. The record will reflect your vote no as you were in committee. So that that will happen. I don't see a sub in front of us to continue with a 25 c or anything else.

Okay. But as a point of order, if you this would only refer to a few people. If you were a no in finance, you you don't you must call it out to remain a no. Otherwise, you change to a

yes. Correct.

The city clerk has informed me that you have to vote again.

Right. Okay. So, again, if there are items that I voted no on in finance and I remain silent here, I become a yes. I'm talking about myself in first person.

Yes.

City Clerk, can you please?

Right. If I don't

call Is it your desire to be recorded as opposing 25 a? Yes.

Okay. But I wanna yes. But wait. No. No. No. Hold on one I want to be clear there are a couple other items throughout this that I was a no. And I saw my colleague, Alderman Cox, did the same thing, that if I want to remain a no, I have to call it out. It's not automatic. Correct. Okay. So on this matter, I was withholding that because I didn't know what was happening with subs, but I happen to be a no on that sub. Okay. So on this one, for now, since there are no other subs on 25 a, I don't wish to be a no. Right.

I will I was I was just waiting to see what happened. But I wanna ask one last point of information. Throughout this 100 and items or so. If something else pops up, you can go back and correct that if need be, right, while it's kinda live?

Yes.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. I'm just I'm hoping maybe something else will will come to twenty five a. But as of now, please record me as a yes on '25 a, which would be a change from finance. Thank you for that courtesy.

Thank you.

Amendment 37, offer by

Mister president, I'd like to be recorded as a no on twenty five a. I'm not gonna bother drafting anything if there aren't three nos, though, and objections. So Okay.

Let the record reflect. Alderman Spreinker is a no on '25 a. City clerk.

Amendment 37 offered by Alderman Cogs, comma, counsel, city clerk. Insert a footnote directing the city clerk to engage the youth council to promote internship and apprenticeship opportunities. 38 b offered Baldwin Spiker, controller, add $40,000 of funding to the controller's office operating budget to acquire a third party vendor management company for bank account verification services to prevent fraud, offset by increasing the controller's personal cost adjustment. 39, offered by alderman Cox, controller, insert a footnote directing the controller to develop a fund balance policy and report it to the common council. 41, offered by alderman Chambers, controller, add a footnote directing the controller to provide a monthly expenditure report for all department special funds and special purpose accounts.

42, offered by Alderman Bergalis, department of employer relations, add a footnote directing the department of employer relations to adopt updated employee uniform standards designed to promote professionalism, safety, and pride in public service. 43, offered by Alderman Bergelis, Department of Employer Relations, insert a footnote directing the Department of Employer Relations to report regularly on chronically vacant positions. 47, offered by Alderman Jackson, Department of Administration, Department of Employer Relations, Fire and Person Fire and Police Commission, Health. In the health department, increased funding for the Healthy Food Establishment Special Fund by thirty two thirty two thousand eight hundred dollars, offset expenditure by reducing various operating accounts in the Department of Administration, Department of Employer Relations, and the Fire and Police Commission.

Chair recognizes Alderman Jackson.

Thank you, mister president. I would like to offer an amendment to switch up to a footnote that will change my acts for the funding to I would admit the footnote that says Milwaukee Health Department will work with the common council to fund programs that are working with folks that are affected by the store closures in the inner city of Milwaukee. Thank you.

You have you have that in writing?

They were doing. Well, I guess we can hold till it's ready. They have it.

It's being prepared, so we'll come back to it If the city clerk can continue.

57 or, forgive me, 51, Aldwoman Dimitrijevich, municipal court, special purpose account miscellaneous. Add position authority FTEs and funding to the municipal court o and m budget for internal court alternative services program. The intent of this amendment is to utilize the municipal court intervention program, special purpose account s one five five, funding funding to fully cover cost increases and insert a footnote directing the municipal court chief court administrator to report program metrics to the council quarterly. 55, Alderman Bergalis, Department of Neighborhood Services, at a footnote directing the Department of Neighborhood Services to explore the legality of publicly posting properties with active DNS orders pending reinspection and to implement allowed posting activities. 56, Alderman Bergelis, Department of Neighborhood Services, add a footnote directing the Department of Neighborhood Services commissioner to work with the Department of City Development to develop code revisions to allow the reconstruction of a one and two residential structure or ancillary structures with the approval of the abutting property owners and the local common council member.

57, Alderman Stamper, Department of Neighborhood Services, add a footnote directing the Department of Neighborhood Services to explore increasing the fee for expedited permits to the level of full cost recovery. 63, older woman Dimitrijevich, Port, insert a footnote directing the municipal port director and staff to explore options for improving transit connections to the new South Shore cruise dock. 65, Alderman Cogs, port, insert a footnote directing the port director to report annually to the common council. 66, Alderman Bergelis, Department of Public Works Administration, insert a footnote directing the Department of Public Works to work with the information technology and management division in the Department of Administration to add a tree planting request option to the MKE mobile action app.

Chair recognizes alderman Cox. Thank

you, mister president. I will ask to be recorded in opposition to item 47, consistent with my vote at committee. And I have a secondary question. For item 42 on the spreadsheet, it says the the vote was three to two, but on the yellow sheet, it says five o. I just wanted to know what the accurate count was from committee.

Okay. First, let's get you recorded as of now on 47. And then do we have an the accurate vote count for 42? Alder Wacogs? Yeah.

Answer

is three to two.

So is it a reason, am I miss Solid, that the yellow sheet says five o? There's some cyclism?

My yellow sheet has three two.

For 42, is that it?

Mine says five. Am I looking at this room? Yellow

book is incorrect. The page is incorrect,

but the spreadsheet is correct? Okay.

Table of contents.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Chair recognizes. All the women, Demetrijevich.

Yes. Thank you, mister president. I'm I had it noted. I wanna make sure I didn't miss it. Did you get to 72 yet, mister clerk? Nope. Not

yet? No.

Okay. Mister president.

I'll hold. I touched a button too soon. Excuse me.

Chair chair recognizes Alderman Moore.

Thank you. Not sure if my little clicker is working here. I also want it to be recorded as a no to item number 47 as well. That the record reflect

no on item 47 for Alderman Moore. Thank you. Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, mister president. Wasn't paying sufficient attention here. For items that add money to the levy, I'm gonna be a no on. So I will be a no on unless I missed an alternative funding source that was found. So I will be a no on number 20, number 27 a, unless there was a sub to take it off the levy. Number 30 a, unless there was a sub to take it off the levy. 34, same story. And then there's no more levy. So thank you.

Okay. Your objections are recorded.

Thank you.

City Clerk can continue.

Amendment 69, Aldwoman Cogs, Department of Public Works Administration insert a footnote directing the Department of Public Works to create a friendly way to find information about construction projects and public facing department activities in this user friendly way. Amendment 70, Alderman Cogs, Department of Public Works Administration, insert a footnote directing the Department of Public Works to develop a plan for incentivizing workers to report illegal dumping and other deleterious activities. 71, Alderman Cogs, Department of Public Works Administration, insert a footnote, directing the Department of Public Works to coordinate drop off and pickup routes with schools. 72, Alderman Spiker, Department of Public Works Administration. Insert a footnote directing the commissioner of Public Works to create a plan for implementing the collection of fares on the streetcar.

73, Alderman Chambers, Department of Public Works Administration, insert a footnote directing the commissioner of public works to identify the location and develop a cost estimate for a third self help location.

Chair recognizes Alderman Demetraevich.

Record me as a no on 72 consistent with my vote in finance. Thank you.

Okay. So record it. Chair recognizes Alderman Baumann.

Record me as a no on 72 as well. I speak to this briefly? Please. I mean, this is a waste of time, basically. I mean, the plan will show that collecting fares cost more than the revenue that will be generated because of the cost of enforcement.

Could you please use your microphone, please?

So that's that's it.

Okay. Chair recognizes Alderman Brower.

Thank you so much, mister president. I also you know, I'm interested in in, you know, exploring this, but in the end, like, if this is if what Alderman Blumman is is saying is correct, it's just gonna show that it'll that there will not be cost effectiveness to collecting fares. I would love to have the streetcar continue in its same manner. Fareless, I'd like to also be recorded in opposition. Okay. You have

three noes. We can do a roll call. On that motion, on the roll call, Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, mister president. First, I'd wanna thank Alder Cox for a cosponsorship of this. However you feel about the streetcar, right now we are not able to do a transfer from the parking fund. If we implement fares, we eat into that 4,200,000.0 net cost, So every year, that's 4,200,000.0 we can't use to expand libraries or buy fire trucks or fire engines, you know, a host of things, lower fees, lower vehicle registrations thing. So that 4,200,000.0 a year is right now coming out of our hide and is paid for by parking tickets.

So to say that, well, we know fare boxes are gonna be a failure. That's what the commissioner said at committee. And I said, well, thank you twenty twenty commissioner for giving the response you gave me in 2020 when you were Jeff Polinsky. But, like, it's 2025, man. We're not gonna talk about putting, like, metal fare boxes and things.

And, like, it's gonna be a QR code or something. We'll look at what other cities will do. And this isn't saying we're gonna do it. Again, a footnote is just a commitment to a further resolution coming to pass. So when we put forward that resolution, I hope we won't resist the idea of at least looking at whether there's another way to collect money from those who can pay it.

Certainly, those who come for the ethnic fest, for summer fest, and the rest, they can't pay, like, a few bucks to ride it, and then that would defray the costs of running the thing. So even if you don't believe we should get rid of it, I should think that we all might wanna look at the idea of how we can diminish the cost of it and thereby increase the odds of a future transfer to the general fund. Thank you.

Chair recognizes Aldwoman Cox.

Thank you, mister chair. I support this footnote. I think that there is nothing wrong with examining what is possible and given technology and the many ways that the potential for some fees, whether it is full able to fully pay for it or not. Just looking at what it what it could look like is something that as time goes on and as the hop states longer, that it's important that we do. Whether we vote to actually initiate fees, looking at the feasibility and the ways in which to do it is something that I think we as a council will then have to decide.

But first, there has to be an examination. And part of the reason I support it is because public works commissioner was talking about the machines on the on the hop. Well, we all know that there are apps and there are a million other things that don't necessitate a machine. And so is it a more a less financially taxing way that we could be collecting something? Having them study that is important. Having said that, and although I will vote here today in support of that, and I believe that is a study that needs to be done, I wanna make sure that I am not listed as I've chosen not to be listed as a cosmo.

K. Thank you. The record will reflect that. Chair recognizes Alderman Baumann.

I I agree with Alderman Cox to a point. It would be interesting to at least have the Department of Public Works examine the feasibility and cost effectiveness of implementing a fair policy, but that's not what this says. This says this amendment has a footnote directing the commissioner of public works to create a plan for implementing the collection affairs on the Hop streetcar. That's different than exploring its feasibility and its trade offs and its cost of implementation. So that's my point.

I mean, if if we're talking about just feasibility, yeah, information is always useful. We could do that by resolution at public works next cycle, for that matter. I mean, that's relatively straightforward. But this says to create a plan, which is directing them to start collecting fares once they have the plan.

No. I don't.

And I think that's out of order. And there's a factually incorrect statement here under the background, paragraph three, collecting fares from riders of the hop would reduce the net cost of the streetcar. There's no proof of that. And it may very well increase the net cost of streetcar operations. So that's my reason for opposing 72. It's basically the semantics and semantics are important because someone will come at come at to the commissioner and say, well, where's your plan to start collecting fares? This language gives him no option or us no option to say it's not gonna be feasible. It's not gonna be cost effective.

Thank you. Chair recognizes alderwoman Moore.

This is on a different subject.

Okay. Well I can wait.

We'll get

back to you. Yes. Chair recognizes alderman Cox.

Question for the clerk. Would any would any implementation of a fair program for the hop have to be voted on and approved by the council?

Yes.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

Yeah. That's the critical point. Until we do something, nothing happens. This is a footnote. It does nothing but remind me to do something in the future. So I welcome Alder Baumann's cooperation on drafting of a good resolution later, and we can work that out then. But I think the intent is fairly clear. Commissioner, get imaginative in how you can conduct fair collection and defray the cost of your streetcar. Just let's be creative here. And I'm not gonna just rely on him. You can bet your bottom dollar. I'm gonna ask the LRB to work with me to come up with inventive ideas or our new position in policy and administration. Maybe that as well. Thank you.

Chair recognizes alderman Brower. Yeah. Thank you

so much, mister president. Just I wanna just bring some some stuff out here. I, you know, I still remain opposed to this, and I will, you know, make I will cast a no vote on this when it comes here, but it probably will pass. It's not, like, a terrible idea to begin exploring this. I just want to note that if we I think it's worth considering everybody's consideration that if we move to a system, we're probably looking at not like a turnstile system collection, but a what they use in Portland, Oregon, which is an honor system based collection of fares where you purchase a ticket, and then what happens at that point if you don't have turnstiles and gated entry to the public transport system, and you have to do an honor system like the what they call the the Tri Med Fairs in Portland, Oregon, where you just walk on.

What you have to then do is hire enforcement agents to walk up and down the trains at various times and ask to see tickets, and then when no ticket is presented, then issue a citation. And then, so there could be that cost may be the cost of hiring enforcement to go up, you know, into the train cars and ask for a ticket to be presented may outweigh the cost of actually collecting the fare. And what we'll also have is a bunch of people in front of if we do it like they do in Portland, Oregon, where you have your citation for not paying for a fare, then we will have a bunch of, you know, courts that are clogged with people not paying their fares. You know? So that's a potential thing we need to consider too, and I think it'll be considered if we if we look at a plan.

So just wanted to note that. Thank you.

Okay. We do have three noes. There's no more lights on this item. I would ask the city clerk for roll call.

On the adoption of amendment 72. Alderman Pratt.

Aye.

Brower. No. Baumann. No. Westmoreland. Aye. Cogs. Aye.

Jackson? Aye. Zamoripa?

Aye. Taylor? No.

Moore? Aye. Bergalis? Spiker? Aye. Dmitryovich? No. Stamper? Aye. Mister president? Aye. Nine ayes, five nos, one excused. Mister clerk?

No to aye, please.

Regalis has requested no to aye.

Therefore, 10 ayes, four nos, one excused.

10 ayes, four nos, one excused. Please continue. Alderwoman Moore, you had another item.

Yes, mister president. For item number 27 a, I have an amendment noted as 27 b. I don't know if we have copies that were shared, with everyone, in regards to, the cost for the positions, for the youth engagement, positions. I Do

you have that amendment ready, alder Woman Moore?

Yes. Should I wait until copies are provided?

Well, you can speak on it while they're passing it on if you

don't Perfect. Thank you so much. And just, again, thank the LRB team for their immense and incredible support during this time. But just looking to move the amount off of the levy, and sorry, DPW. Love you so much. I will still work on, you know, fundraising, but currently right now those positions will be placed on the personal cost adjustment. I got one. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. I see no further lights on 27 B if you've had a chance to look at it. Roll call, please. Oh, excuse me. Chair recognizes Alderman Berghelis.

Thank you, mister chair. Please add me as a cosponsor for 27 B.

Let the record reflect cosponsorship. Chair recognizes Alderman Westmoreland. Thank you. Please add

me as well.

Let the record reflect Alderman Westmoreland cosponsorship. No more lights. Roll call, please.

On the adoption of 27 b, Alderman Pratt.

Aye.

Brower. Aye. Baumann. Aye. Westmoreland. Aye. Cogs.

Aye. Jackson. Aye.

Zamoripa. Aye. Taylor. Aye.

Boor. Aye. Bergelis. Aye. Spiker. Aye. Dmitryevich. Aye. Stamper. Aye. Mister president? Aye. 14 ayes, one excused.

14 ayes, one excused. Please continue, city clerk.

Amendment 74 offered by Alderman Chambers, Department of Public Works Administration, insert a footnote directing commissioner of public works to develop a plan for replacing all remaining streetlight series conduits in 2027 and report the plan to the council by 04/01/2026. 75, alderwoman Taylor, department of public works administration, insert a footnote directing the commissioner of public works to develop and present to the common council a pilot program and costs for alley plowing. 76 a, offered by Alderman Cogs, Department of Public Works, Infrastructure Services Division. In the Department of Public Works, Infrastructure Services Division, create an in house sidewalk repair crew, offset with an equal reduction reduction to the personal cost adjustment. 78, Alderman Cogs, Department of Public Works operations, insert a footnote directing forestry services to develop and present to the common council a pilot program for alternative innovative uses for the city's urban wood, beyond partnership with the Kettle Moraine hardwoods.

89, alderwoman Cogs, board of zoning appeals, add a footnote directing the board of zoning appeals annually to provide the common counsel with a report on applications filed and granted. 95, Alderman Bergellis, Capital. The intent of this amendment is to add $800,000 in new borrowing to the fire department for major capital equipment by reducing borrowing for infrastructure, municipal services building, new construction in the department of public works by 4,000,000, and increasing general obligation borrowing by $4,000,000.

Correction, mister, clerk.

Chair recognizes all member Gellis.

I believe I believe there was a a typo in in what in your script. This adds 8,000,000, not 800,000.

Oh, well, there it is. 8 let me then reread because that's not insubstantial. Thank you. The intent of this amendment is to add $8,000,000 in new borrowing to the fire department for major capital equipment by reducing borrowing for infrastructure municipal services building, new construction in the department of public works by 4,000,000, and increasing general obligation borrowing by 4,000,000. Thank you.

The chair recognizes. Alderman Cox. Consistent with my vote at committee, I will

be I will ask to be noted in opposition to 95.

Let the record reflect your no. Chair recognizes Alderman Baumann. Also a no. Let the record reflect Alderman Baumann and o one ninety five. Correct? Yes. Chair recognizes Alderman Westmoreland.

Please add me as a cosponsor for '95.

Let the record reflect cosponsorship by Alderman Westmoreland '95. Chair recognizes Alderman Jackson.

Thank you, mister president. Please add me as a cosponsor as well.

Alderman Jackson, cosponsor '95. Chair recognizes Alderman Moore.

Thank you, mister president. Please also add me as a cosponsor.

Let the record reflect cosponsorship for '95. Alderman Moore, chair recognizes Alderman Spiker.

No. So that we can have separate discussion.

Let the record reflect Alderman Spiker's a no. That's three for a roll call vote. Chair recognizes Alderman Brugellis.

Thank you very much, mister president. Our firefighters cannot be expected to protect the city with engines and ladder trucks that are well beyond their maximum recommended service life. Replacing aging apparatus is not a wish to have. It is essential to ensuring reliable emergency response in every neighborhood throughout the city. We've seen in the last couple weeks some media coverage of fire trucks responding to emergency calls for service that have broken down.

I hold right now a photograph from archives I found on eBay of a Milwaukee fire department tow truck from the nineteen forties. I hate to think that we have to buy a a fire truck, a fire department tow truck so that we can have an engine respond to an emergency call for service. A $10,000,000 allocation gives the Milwaukee Fire Department resources to put safe, dependable equipment into service, and it helps prevent avoidable failures. That put both residents and firefighters at risk. Looking beautiful.

Make no mistake. We have more work ahead to rebuild a fleet that has been underfunded for years, if not decades. Today's action will be a significant step toward restoring this level of readiness that our residents expect and deserve. We have 43 frontline engines and trucks in service in the city of Milwaukee. Their maximum age is 15 years.

That tells me, quick math, we should be replacing no less than three heavy equipment pieces of equipment each year just to maintain. We've only the city of Milwaukee has replaced more than three pieces of heavy equipment once in the last ten years. We've celebrated and cut ribbons and clapped when we've reopened firehouses across the city that were cut from previous administrations. That's a good thing. That puts more firefighters closer to our residents in neighborhoods, but we never added new equipment for those reopened fire stations.

This reverses a trend of underinvestment in fire department and is by no means sufficient to restore the fleet to where it needs to be,

but this is a good

step forward that we will certainly need to continue next year and after. Thank you, mister president.

Thank you. Okay. We have three noes, so we can do your roll. Chair chair recognizes alderman Taylor. Thank