The mayoral agendas of the Milwaukee Business Journal 40 Under 40 leaders range from a playful order for “orange whips” to the mundane separation of sewers.
Milwaukee deputy city attorney Danielle Bergner started down the humorous path, noting the constriction within the question: What would be your priority if you were mayor for a day?
“My answer would have been orange whip, orange whip, orange whip, because what else can you do in a day,” she said.
“But if I have a week or more, the focus would be developing a strategy to break down the invisible wall that exists around the city of Milwaukee, and to really pull together the people across all political jurisdictions and political lines to really put together a comprehensive strategy to deal with the issues, not just as city issues, but as regional issues,” Bergner said.
That answer addressed one of the problems discussed at length by the group at a recent 40 Under 40 roundtable held at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee: the economic and racial segregation in the metropolitan area. The divide also shows up in the lack of regional support for the proposed arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and other initiatives.
On those counts, Robin Reese, project coordinator at the Vangard Group LLC, Milwaukee, set her mayoral to-do list sky-high.
“If I were mayor, I’d be up all night figuring out how to do both — bring the arena and the streetcar and focus on the inner city,” Reese said. “Milwaukee is definitely greater than downtown. As mayor I’d figure out a way to balance those and have success all around.”
Rebeca Lopez, an attorney with Milwaukee law firm Godfrey & Kahn SC, also targeted the central city in her priorities.
“As mayor, my work would be to bring those businesses into the inner city and encourage entrepreneurs to come in and train folks, and invest,” Lopez said. “I think they would give back and it would make us richer.”
As an example, Lopez cited Shinola Detroit, which manufactures high-end watches and bicycles in another industrial city — Detroit — that lost massive numbers of jobs in recent decades.
Rebuilding the central city and creating a workforce will require significant improvements in the city’s educational system, a priority for several of the 40 Under 40 winners.
“My thought was looking at education and trying to get everybody on the divide between public education, voucher and choice all together and fight to the death,” said Rebecca Mitich, an attorney with Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek SC, Milwaukee. “No, not fight to the death, but have a conversation about how we can turn our attention back to filling up our children, rather than filling up seats.”
As mayor, Mitich would step up to lead that conversation, noting that public schools, voucher schools and charter schools need to co-exist and thrive.
Still, others had ideas that impact the environment.
Given his role as president and architect at Bray Associates-Architects Inc., Milwaukee, it was not surprising that Matthew Wolfert turned his attention to infrastructure. Portions of the Milwaukee sewer system still combine storm and sanitary pipes, a long-term problem.
“We’re trying to position ourselves as the water leader in the world, yet we on the other side are one of the biggest polluters of that natural body of water,” Wolfert said. “It’s amazing to me that we just continue to ignore that and not even begin preparing ourselves to separate those sewers and get that piece of our infrastructure right.”