Black Health Coalition, NAACP: Decertify SEWRPC

Also on this page: All aldermen sign letter critical of SEWRPC. Barrett rep rips SEWRPC.

Oct. 3, 2004 -- The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission should not be recertified as the area's federally-recognized Metropolitan Planning Organization, according to the head of the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin and a representative of the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"There are some things you can't fix," said Black Health Coalition Director Patricia McManus.

The NAACP's Wendell Harris said SEWRPC should be decertified "frankly, because everything it stands for goes directly to the heart against what NAACP stands for."

McManus said the agency did not make adequate efforts consider health effects of its proposed freeway expansion.

"I think it's just unconscionable," she said during last week's public hearing on SEWRPC recertification. "Decertification needs to occur. There are some things you can't fix, and trying to fix this would be worse. They need to clearly understand that they have really neglected populations.”

Harris said the community needs mass transportation. "(That) this whole plan calls for expanding the freeways and ignores the fact that we don't have a way to get out to those jobs in suburban communities is something that's criminal and we cannot continue to allow that to happen in this community."

McManus also blasted SEWRPC's hiring of Creative Marketing Resources to help sell the expansion plan in the minority community. SEWRPC Assistant Director Ken Yunker has publicly denied that Creative Marketing was hired to help push the plan, but the firm's contract contradicts him.

CMR was to work to "help the public gain better understanding and positive support directed toward SEWRPC's reconstruction plans," according to contract documents obtained under the state's Open Records Law.

“They (SEWRPC) contract with an organization I know very well to do PR and it's the same old game," McManus said. "'We're going to do what we wanted to and then we're going to pay a little money to one black organization to have them go out there and then tell groups that what we did was OK.' "

"This is 2004," McManus said. "This cannot continue."

15 of 15!
Entire council signs anti-SEWRPC letter

Oct. 1, 2004 -- All 15 members of the Common Council have signed a letter expressing "serious concerns" about the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's regional plans, Ald. Michael Murphy said Thursday.

And County Supervisor Lynne DeBruin, in her testimony before Federal Highway Administration officials, said she has she has supported SEWRPC for 12 years. but "the way SEWRPC conducted its recent Southeastern Wisconsin freeway planning process has changed my support of this entity."

Ald. Terry Witkowski was the last to sign the council letter. His signature was added after Tuesday night's FHWA public hearing on SEWRPC's recertification as the federally-recognized planning agency for the area. Murphy read the council's hearing at the hearing.

Murphy

"When SEWRPC held a series of hearings about freeway expansion, it chose to ignore the overwhelmingly anti-expansion sentiment voiced by citizens, and in votes by the Milwaukee Common Council and the Milwaukee County Board," the letter said. "A repeat of that outcome would further distance SEWRPC from the residents of the largest municipality in the region that it serves.”

The aldermen also said that SEWRPC's makeup -- three representatives from each of the seven counties it serves -- "is wildly imbalanced due to the fact that smaller counties, such as Ozaukee with a populationof 83,555, wields the same influence as Milwaukee County with a population of 932,012."

The county's DeBruin, in her testimony, said that with the freeway study, the agency "created a planning process that included several SEWRPC firsts, all of which led me to conclude that SEWRPC has become an entity with a political agenda of its own."

DeBruin said the County Board voted to essentially oppose expansion in Milwaukee. SEWRPC officials, in response, weighted the County Board vote to show it actually favored the full expansion plan.

"This decision to rewrite an overwhelming Milwaukee County Board vote was fraudulent, misled the public and state decisionmakers, and undermines SEWRPC's relationship with Milwaukee County," she said.

DeBruin

Former County Supervisor Daniel Diliberti, who likely will be elected county treasurer in November, urged the FHWA not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Diliberti's term on SEWRPC expired last month.

He said SEWRPC's structure of three representatives from each county could be considered a strength because all counties came to the table as equal partners.

All the other speakers who addressed the issue said that residents -- not counties -- should have equal representation. The SEWRPC structure does not allow residents of the counties to be equally represented.

Barrett rep blasts SEWRPC
A "lot of work" needed, Greenstreet says