In last Sunday’s issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there was a must read opinion piece by Marc V. Levine, a professor of history, economic development and urban studies at UW-Milwaukee.
In this piece, Levine does a great job explaining in no nonsense terms why UWM’s plan to build a school on the county grounds is foolish:
First, the planned technology park in Wauwatosa has been vastly oversold as a potential engine of economic development; indeed, the majority of university research parks across the country manifest little discernible impact in reshaping the economic trajectory of cities or regions – and almost all of them lose money.
Moreover, the proposed focus of the UWM “Innovation Park” – biomedical engineering – is a mature field, with extravagant costs of entry, many losers, and in which Milwaukee neither starts in an advantageous position nor has especially propitious prospects. The risks of a white elephant are enormous.
Finally, by investing an estimated $150 million outside Milwaukee, UWM will help spearhead a further outflow of capital and workers from a city that has been buffeted over the past 30 years by growing joblessness, poverty and the suburbanization of industry – hardly a positive contribution to local economic development.
The rest of the piece does a great job of dissecting the issues around the freshwater school.
There is also an email circulating that reads, in part:
Thank you for your strong turnout at last week’s UWM Campus Master Plan presentations. More than 350 people attended the two sessions.
It is now very important for you to provide feedback about the current status of the plan. Your insights can be shared with the consultants and planning team online at the Campus Master Plan website:
http://www.masterplan.uwm.edu/feedback/
The draft master plan has been placed on that site, along with a feedback form.
We need as many comments as possible to ensure excellence in the final product. Please share your thoughts with us by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. on November 9.
Thank you for your continuing involvement as we collectively plan for the future of UWM in this important initiative.
Sincerely,
Carlos E. Santiago
Chancellor
We at Milwaukee County First ask you to click on the link above and share your opinion on the technology school, and how it should not be located on the county grounds.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece giving an alternate solution to the placement of the school, which I believe would both enhance the school’s viability and efficiency and save money. Likewise, I also made suggestions for Milwaukee County government to make up for the lost revenue hoped for by the sale of the county grounds:
Milwaukee County First would like to suggest that the Milwaukee County Board take into serious consideration honoring the promise made over a decade ago into making the county grounds into a dedicated wildlife area. We would also strongly urge Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker to seriously consider honoring the campaign promise he made in 2002:
Oppose development of northeast quadrant of County Grounds for anything other than state forest.
Milwaukee County First further recommends that the County Board not only adopt County Executive Walker’s proposal to move all county programs out of the City Campus building, but offer to enter into an agreement with UWM to sell the City Campus building and lot to UWM for their engineering school, which would place it within a mile of the engineering school being built by Marquette University.
Building the UWM school at this site will have many benefits. It will be less expensive for UWM, as that the infrastructure is already in place. Secondly, it will help UWM in its new collaboration with Marquette University and MSOE. Thirdly, it will allow the County to not only save money by not having to maintain a building it is not using, but help put some money to the projected deficit. Fourthly, it will offer the County an opportunity to bolster its transit system much less expensively than a dedicated rapid transit route for a handful of people.
Milwaukee County First also recognizes that the 2010 budget relied heavily on the money from the sale of the county grounds to help fill in the holes in the projected deficit. To alleviate the loss of that sales revenue, the sale of the city campus, as well as some other assets which we will name later, would not only make up for that loss, but also go a long way to either remodel the current mental health complex, or better yet, build a new one.
Other viable locations include the Park East corridor, the Pabst area or the near south side. Any of these locations would be better for the school and the community than the proposed county grounds site.
And while you’re at it, call or email your County Board Supervisor and tell him or her to adapt these reasonable and feasible ideas to help repair the faulty proposed budget and to save the county grounds.