steinbring

From the Article:

A quickly-expanding trail could soon link Milwaukee’s South Side and southern suburbs with Lake Michigan.

The City of Milwaukee and three suburban cities are moving forward on a study of expanding the Powerline Trail. The completed trail would roughly parallel Howard Avenue from S. 104th St. all the way east to Lake Michigan. A northern leg would parallel Interstate 894, running north to the Zoo Interchange and Hank Aaron State Trail.

The central portion of the 10-foot-wide paved trail was recently completed and a second segment is expected to join it later this year.

In 2022, the City of Greenfield opened the $1.5 million first phase between the intersection of S. 99th Street and W. Cold Spring Road and the intersection of S. 60th Street and W. Plainfield Avenue. An on-street segment on W. Cold Spring Road links the three-mile trail with the Oak Leaf Trail just west of S. 104th Street.

A $1.2 million second phase, slated for construction in 2024, will extend the trail east into the city of Milwaukee. The trail will be extended east from S. 60th Street to S. 35th Street, Pondview Park and Zablocki Park. State-administered federal grants are covering most of the construction costs of the first two segments.

A $250,000 study is now about to begin to design a trail extension east of Pondview Park to Lake Michigan and north from the trail’s western terminus toward the Hank Aaron State Trail. Additional efforts could see the trail extended southwest.

From the Article:

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will close its Waukesha campus at the end of the spring 2025 semester.

At a Monday news conference, UW-Milwaukee chancellor Mark Mone cited declining enrollment, shifting demographics and budgetary issues as reasons for the closure, which was made under a directive from Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman.

“Today, higher education is challenged,” Mone said. “We need to make very difficult decisions, to, in every possible hope for opportunity, avoid some of the more consequential types of decisions that we may see in the future.”

Around 550 full-time equivalent students are enrolled at the campus currently according to Mone. The campus closure will impact more than 100 employees and require layoffs of staff and tenured faculty as well.

The university’s Waukesha campus, which used to operate independently of UW-Milwaukee as the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha until 2018, has seen a total enrollment decline of more than 65 percent from 2014 to 2023.

“These are double digit enrollment declines, that make things rather challenging and they’re not unlike other some of the numbers that we’re seeing at other two-year campuses in this state and certainly nationally,” Mone said.

The cost to run the Waukesha campus is the same per student as it is to run the main UW-Milwaukee campus, but students in Waukesha pay half the tuition.

“So that puts us in a very untenable, very difficult situation,” Mone added.

From the Article:

The $148 million project to offer north-south commuter bus service on 27th Street starting in 2028 took a step forward Monday with a route endorsement from a Milwaukee County Board committee.

That 18-mile “Connect 2” route would span almost the entire county, running from Bayshore mall in Glendale to the Ikea store in Oak Creek. The new BRT, or Bus Rapid Transit, service would replace the existing PurpleLine bus route. It would run faster, with more frequent service at stations to be a more practical alternative for commuting workers.

The east-west Connect 1 BRT route between downtown Milwaukee and Wauwatosa began passenger service in June 2023.

Pending additional approvals, construction could begin in 2026 for a start of passenger service in 2028, according to a Monday presentation to the Milwaukee County Board’s Committee on Transportation and Transit. That committee unanimously endorsed the route for the Connect 2 line, sending it to the full County Board for a possible approval on March 21.

County Board approval for that locally preferred route is a necessary step for the BRT to continue its planning and start more detailed engineering work, said David Locher, manager of enhanced transit for the Milwaukee County Transit System. The route can still be changed in the future, and more steps are needed in order to spend federal construction funds, Locher said.

“It’s a milestone to get us on to other milestones,” Locher said.

The bulk of the project’s funding would come through the Federal Transit Administration’s Small Starts grant program. Milwaukee County funding would cover about 20% of the budget.

The line would run primarily on 27th Street, with 64 stations serving 32 destinations. Those include a stop at 27th Street and Drexel Avenue outside the Franklin office campus that Northwestern Mutual intends to close and eventually sell as it moves those 2,000 jobs to downtown Milwaukee in 2027.

That announcement came about a year ago. The planning for the north-south Connect 2 line began in 2020.

County Board Supervisor Patti Logsdon asked about the impact of Northwestern Mutual’s move on the anticipated route.

“I’m sure that’s got to have a big effect on the ridership,” she said.

Locher said that even without Northwestern Mutual employees, “the ridership continues to be very strong.” The existing PurpleLine, like the proposed Connect 2, goes south to Ikea.

“Our commitment has always been to invest where the ridership is the highest,” he said. “At the outset of the study, yes, there was that NML component with their campus on the south end. There were even early discussions of maybe it could route through there. Front-door service.”

From the Article:

A cherished liquor store that's been on Milwaukee's east side since 1934 is embarking on a new journey with new ownership.

"This has been a long time in the making," said Sarah Zimmerman.

Tonit Calaway and Sarah Zimmerman, of Boss Babes, Inc., have recently acquired Downer Wine & Spirits.

"Tonit and I are both attorneys and so we come from a legal background," explained Zimmerman.

Both women are longtime residents of the Downer Avenue neighborhood. Zimmerman said she and her husband moved to the area nearly 17 years ago.

"We've been coming here as customers ever since we started living here," she added.

When the friends heard brothers Mark and Steve Nord were selling their store after about 18 years, they had to jump in on the opportunity.

"Downer Avenue thrives when it's bustling, when all the storefronts are full, and we really wanted to contribute to keeping that going. We didn't want to see another vacant spot," Zimmerman said.

For 90 years, this wine and liquor store has been at this exact location under similar names and different ownership, all while still maintaining their diverse selection.

Manager Michael Morris has been working at the liquor store since 2006.

"We try to have some of the best beer and wine and liquor that's available out there," he told CBS 58 News.

Morris said it's no surprise many customers, like Zimmerman and Calaway, always come back.

"We try everything that comes into the store and make sure that everything's great, so that you can pick anything out and it's going to be a quality good product," he added.

Zimmerman said the essence of the neighborhood staple will remain intact under new ownership.

From the Article:

Wisconsin taxpayers paid millions for the Talgo trainsets, but will need to spend even more on a plane ticket if they ever want to ride them.

Instead of welcoming passengers traveling between Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison, the Badger-colored trainsets are ferrying passengers in Lagos, Nigeria.

The first 17 miles of Lagos’ planned 23-mile Red Line opened to passengers on Feb. 29. The line is the second commuter rail line in Africa’s largest urban center, which boasts a population of greater than 21 million. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who initiated the project more than two decades ago as governor of the city-state, attended the much-anticipated opening.

“This is the dream realized,” said Tinubu. But it certainly wasn’t Wisconsin’s dream.

In 2010, then-governor-elect Scott Walker refused a $823 million federal grant to build an Amtrak Hiawatha Service extension to Madison and plan an extension to Minneapolis, but the state was still on the hook to pay for the trainsets ordered in 2009 by predecessor Jim Doyle. Rather than invest in a maintenance facility to put the trainsets into use on the existing line, Walker and the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature had the state default on the contract. Talgo, which assembled the trains in a facility in Milwaukee’s Century City business park, sued in 2012 as the trainsets were completed and the equipment was placed into storage for a decade.

From the Article:

Two lawsuits seeking to kick former President Donald Trump off Wisconsin ballots were dismissed this week in the wake of a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, justices rejected an attempt to disqualify Trump from the Colorado primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The unanimous Supreme Court decision came a day before Super Tuesday primary elections happening in Colorado and other states.

It also ended similar attempts to knock Trump off the ballot in Wisconsin, prompting Dane County judges to dismiss two lawsuits Monday.

One suit was filed in January by Kirk Bangstad, a liberal activist and owner of Minocqua Brewing Company. The other was filed in August by John Anthony Castro, a Texas resident and longshot Republican candidate who’s filed similar challenges across the country.

The legal arguments for disqualifying Trump pointed to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which bars anyone who’s previously taken the oath of office from holding public office if they’ve engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.

But this week, a majority of justices concluded that Congress, rather than the states, is responsible for enforcing that provision against federal officeholders and candidates.

From the Article:

A little over five months since the Downer Theatre unexpectedly closed, the organization behind the annual Milwaukee Film Festival said it will assume operations of the movie theater next month, starting with the 2024 running of the film festival followed by regular movie showings afterward.

The Downer Theatre, at 2589 N. Downer Ave., was the city's oldest operating theater when it closed in September 2023. It was operated by Landmark Theatres, and the building is owned by Bridge33 Capital LLC of Seattle, which owns 61,000 square feet of building spaces on both sides of Downer Avenue, which house businesses including Cafe Hollander, Stone Creek Coffee and Boswell Book Co.

In a press release, Milwaukee Film did not disclose the nature of its business arrangement with the theater, whether it is being purchased or leased. An organization representative did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

The 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival is scheduled for April 11 through April 25 and will include screenings at the Downer Theatre, Milwaukee Film’s Oriental Theatre, and two other local theaters, the Avalon Theater and the Times Cinema. The festival will revive the Downer starting April 12.

Susan Mikulay, chair of Milwaukee Film’s board of directors, said the Downer has been a cornerstone of Milwaukee's cinematic and cultural scene since its opening in 1915. After the closure, Milwaukee Film made its interest in the theater public.

"Our mission has always been to make cinematic experiences possible for as many people as possible, and expanding our footprint in this way is a key next step in doing that,” Mikulay said in a press release.

Beginning April 26, the Downer will offer a year-round program of first-run independent, foreign and documentary films, curated by Milwaukee Film's programming team.

“Our being able to reopen the Downer this spring is a significant occasion for our organization as well as for the neighborhood,” said Cara Ogburn, artistic director at Milwaukee Film. “When the Downer closed last year, it meant that many films could not show on screens in our city. Adding these two screens to our footprint will allow us to better serve our community with high-quality films year-round.”

The Downer will become the second former Landmark Theatre to be acquired by Milwaukee Film. In 2017, the organization took control of the Oriental Theatre on Milwaukee's east side and embarked on a multiyear, multimillion-dollar restoration project. At that time, the organization also publicly expressed its interest in the Downer Theater.

From the Article:

Ethan Hawke – four-time Oscar-nominee, noted Rihanna appreciator and silver fox – is on his way to Milwaukee. Hawke will be in town for two screenings of his new film, Wildcat, on Saturday, May 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 19 at 2 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre.

Wildcat, which Hawke directed and co-wrote, stars his daughter, Maya Hawke, as Flannery O’Connor, the mid-20th-century author of A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Everything That Rises Must Converge and more. The film follows the legendary Southern Gothic writer at the age of 24, when she was diagnosed with lupus (a disease that would eventually take her life). The diagnosis inspires her to explore her Catholic faith and her belief in the power of art, as she begins to compose her greatest stories.

From the Article:

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signed legislation Wednesday providing $500,000 for park projects and workforce spending.

The funding, although just a small piece of the overall Milwaukee County Parks budget for 2024, was made possible by the new 0.4% countywide sales tax that went into effect in January.

The new sales tax came thanks to a lobbying effort by the city and county for legislative authority from the state to generate additional revenue and reform the pension systems that were dragging on the budgets of both governments. The additional revenue provided the county with the first budget surplus in decades.

“And what that means is that rather than determining what cuts will be least harmful to this community, it gave us an opportunity to look at what investments can we actually make to deploy the most beneficial investments for all of our residents within Milwaukee County,” County Executive Crowley said during the signing event at Tiefenthaler Park.

The Milwaukee County Board earmarked the funding in the 2024 budget and asked Milwaukee County Parks to return to them with a plan to spend the money. Parks developed a list of ideas it’s calling “high-impact” projects, which the department can implement quickly and be recognized by county residents this year.

Tiefenthaler Park in Midtown received one of the larger allocations in the package: $100,000. Parks will use the funding to turn a wading pool into a splash pad and upgrade lighting and pathways throughout the park. The upgrades are intended to enhance the upgrades already made at the park by the Kellogg Peak Initiative, which essentially turned a park pavilion into a community center.

From the Article:

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) has operated battery electric buses for less than a year, and in light of a spotty first nine months and changing “market realities,” officials are planning to only purchase clean-diesel buses in the near term.

Top transportation officials have been suggested in recent months that ordering new BEBs is not a good idea for the county. One of the primary reasons is that there aren’t any manufacturers in the U.S. market officials trust. The BEB manufacturer MCTS purchased the county’s first BEBs from left the U.S. market in 2023 and isn’t accepting new orders. And on top of it all, the technology has not proven itself reliable and the buses are incredibly expensive.

Officials from MCTS and the Milwaukee County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) will go before the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors in March seeking changes to the county policy for battery electric buses and fleet replacement.

Officials are proposing that the county continue to replace aging buses with new clean-diesel buses. Additionally, transitioning to an alternative fuel source bus will be paused until “these vehicles are further tested, easily available, determined to be fiscally sustainable and have the appropriate infrastructure deployed within Milwaukee,” according to the draft policy.

This would tweak the county’s existing policy, which only held off on transitioning the fleet from diesel to battery electric until the end of a BEB pilot program, which was the implementation of 11 BEBs along the Connect 1 bus rapid transit line.

From the Article:

A bipartisan effort to unlock federal funding to expand electric vehicle charging stations in Wisconsin is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Last week, the state Assembly passed two bills involving electric vehicles in its hectic final session of the year.

One would exempt electric vehicle charging stations from being regulated as utilities. The other would authorize the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to establish and fund an EV infrastructure program. Both bills passed the Assembly last week on near unanimous votes.

The funding bill is now on its way to Gov. Tony Evers, while the other heads back to the Senate because of a Republican amendment.

The changes were required to unlock around $78 million in federal funds to build out a state electric vehicle charging network.

Environmental advocates cheered the development.

“We’re really excited about the bill passing the Assembly with such broad bipartisan support. It’s not something that we often see in the Legislature,” said Emma Heins, policy manager for the nonprofit Electrification Coalition. “This is a great demonstration that EVs really extend beyond traditional party lines and they’re just a great transportation option for a lot of people across the state.”

EV charging stations must charge customers by the amount of electricity used, also known as a kilowatt-hour. In Wisconsin, current state law allows only regulated utilities to charge per kilowatt-hour. That’s why an exemption is necessary.

Republicans amended the bill that would exempt EV chargers from being regulated as utilities.

The amendment would ban local governments from requiring private developers to install electric vehicle charging stations as a condition of receiving a building permit. A City of Madison ordinance requires some multi-family residential buildings and commercial developments to install EV chargers at a small number of parking spots.

From the Article:

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is proposing a compromise to GOP lawmakers that would provide $125 million to help local governments and landowners address PFAS pollution.

The request comes as Evers has all but promised to veto a Republican bill that passed the Legislature to address contamination from so-called forever chemicals known as PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Last week, the Republican-controlled Assembly voted 62-35 to pass the bill along party lines. The Senate passed the legislation in November.
Evers has signaled concerns with provisions in the GOP plan that would limit the authority of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to test for and clean up the chemicals. The governor called those a “poison pill” that gives polluters a free pass.

“In Wisconsin, if someone pollutes our water, property, and natural resources, Wisconsinites expect them to pay to clean it up. That’s just common sense,” Evers said in a statement. “I’m not signing a bill that lets polluters off the hook for cleaning up their contamination and asks Wisconsin taxpayers to foot the bill. No way.”