We have previously written about the County Grounds, and how County Executive Scott Walker and the County Board want to renege on their promises to preserve this unique natural space, and home of the Monarch Trail, in order to sell the land at cut rate prices in a sweet heart deal with some land developers, on the pretense of building an engineering school for UWM.
The fight is still going on.
Tom Daykin, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, recently reported that UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago is determined to continue with this farce, even though he doesn’t have Michael Cudahy’s money to support it.
James Rowen, author of “The Political Environment“, also confirms that Santiago is still sticking to this folly, as well as why it is indeed folly:
Because the planning process is essentially closed – - even though there are signs that the plan to build an engineering graduate school and innovation center on the County Grounds does not have vital once-promised, or expected private sector support.
Combined with environmental objections to County Grounds construction, and looming transit and traffic problems, it appears as if Santiago is forging ahead single-mindedly with a plan that lacks campus support as well as financial stability.
In other words, sustainability.
It is ironic that Marquette is planning its engineering expansion in the heart of the city, where there is already the Milwaukee School of Engineering and a substantial related private sector presence – - but UWM management still wants to go far to the west.
Also ironic: UWM has the state’s premier School of Architecture and Urban Planning, where there are faculty and staff experts who know it is a planning mistake to separate the engineering program from the basic campus and much of the Milwaukee-area transit, business and cultural infrastructure.
But that does not mean we should falter in fighting for the grounds.
David Reid points out that Santiago himself has stated that the City of Milwaukee is a big draw for people, which makes his rationale for wanting to spend the money to put in infrastructure necessary to maintain a building eight miles from the main campus even more doubtful.
Three weeks ago, in an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Mark Levine, a professor of history, economics and urban studies at UWM, pointed out that the pretense of building this school on the county grounds is foolish:
In Milwaukee, the defects of academic commercialism are on full display in Santiago’s two biggest initiatives.
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.
This piece, of course, brought out a counter-piece from John Wiley, who says it the school would have benefits for the community, just as long as we are willing to wait decades for it. It also brought out a letter to the editor from County Supervisor Luigi Schmitt, who (surprise, surprise) is a member of the Milwaukee County Research Park Board, and who also has, for more personal reasons, never met a development plan he didn’t like. Supervisor Schmitt wrote:
Ignoring reality
Professor Mark V. Levine’s op-ed disputed the economic development benefit of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s plans for an engineering campus and business park on the Milwaukee County Grounds (Crossroads, Oct. 4).
However, he fails to mention that the adjacent Milwaukee County Research Park has already produced $220 million of new development over the past 15 years, including the headquarters for GE Healthcare (which employs more than 2,000 people).
The nearby Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin have jointly developed a $120 million research center in the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center, generating over $500 million of new development and more than 12,000 employees over the past six years.
These developments are not dreams. They are providing needed jobs, medical research and health services. Milwaukee County joins them all in welcoming UWM as a future partner.
Jim “Luigi” Schmitt
Milwaukee County Supervisor, 19th District
Member, Milwaukee County Research Park Board
Wauwatosa
Interestingly, someone wishing to remain anonymous, but close to the goings on at UWM, sent me an email with a rebuttal:
He cannot argue with analysis, but damn the analysis and full speed ahead
with the white flight anyway. Yes, that is what Milwaukee needs, the major employer to run to the suburb, exacerbating the problems and tax base and increasing the carbon footprint with students going back and forth from the main campus to Wauwatosa, with NO Analysis as to how it can even be done for, say, a typical student who takes courses at the main campus and has to shuttle back and froth to engineering. Unbelievable that, for all the fees paid to the so called consultants, they have not done a simulation for the sample students for each of their years, freshman…senior–grad and how they can get back and forth in under 1 hour each way and what that does to their schedules, given that a huge number of students in engineering work 20-40 hours a week. I suspect that may in fact lead to a further erosion in the enrolment of CEAS, already some areas of CEAS are down 40 percent since 2000 (e.g. computer science graduate students.) Keep in mind that even graduate students in CS often take 400-500 level classes in Math and CS and other, and that means they HAVE to commute.So where is the analysis for THAT?
His numbers are a fantasy. Even if true, the 12,000 jobs he claims were created should be in the depressed, oppressed and bankrupt Milwaukee, with potholes all over. Just look at these real stats:
———————————————-Since the recession hit, 16,000 workers in Milwaukee have been laid off, and by conservative estimations, joblessness among black males especially has reached about 55 percent and could be as high as 60 percent.
http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/06/29/story15.html
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The numbers may be worse now.
Please question this location in terms of the impact it will take AWAY from the City of Milwaukee and the reputation of this wonderful Urban Campus and generator.
To give Chancellor Santiago your opinion, and suggest that both UWM and the entire community would be better served by building the new school on the main campus or in a nearby downtown location, please click on this link.
Also, contact your County Supervisor, and tell them that they should keep their promise to maintain the county grounds as a wildlife area. If they should ask how would they make up the money they are counting on from the sale of the land, here are our suggestions for making the budget much more feasible and responsible.