Milwaukee leaders seek power to distribute $1 million each to their neighborhoods
(The Center Square) – Some Milwaukee aldermen want $1 million each to spend on their neighborhoods as they see fit.
Common Council members Milele Coggs, Nikiya Dodd, Khalif Rainey, Chantia Lewis, José Pérez, and Russell Stamper II last week issued a statement making the case for “a participatory budgeting process” for some of Milwaukee’s $394 million in American Rescue Plan money.
“With the ARPA funds, we see a real opportunity for us to not only hear the priorities of residents, but to put resources behind some of the very things they want.,” the council members said in their statement. “We cannot think of a better way to demonstrate our commitment to those principles than to support the allocation of no less than $1 million per aldermanic district – to be spent in a manner determined solely by district residents.”
The aldermen say sending the money directly to the neighborhoods would bring the most help to the most people.
“This process would allow each to begin to address their specific needs. It would also empower residents to make decisions regarding how to best meet the needs of their neighborhoods and community within the federal guidelines of usage of the ARPA funds,” the aldermen said in their statement.
The funds the group is requesting would be in addition to all other city spending in Milwaukee.
“It should be noted that any district-specific ARPA funding that comes forward will in no way restrict the ability of residents to benefit from programming and/or improvements that will be brought forth by the city’s overall (huge) ARPA funding infusion,” the alderman said.
At least one onlooker took umbrage at the suggestion that the aldermen should have sole authority over pandemic relief spending in their wards.
“The Milwaukee City Council’s plan to give each alderman a $1 million of federal Covid aid to bestow as he/she sees fit is nothing more than a taxpayer scam and it proves that President [Joe] Biden’s irresponsible and fiscally reckless stimulus plan is about pork politics and rewarding his political machine, not getting Americans back to work or our schools fully re-opened,” Brett Healy, president of The MacIver Institute, told the Center Square. “Every hard-working federal taxpayer should be outraged that their money is being wasted by Mayor [Tom] Barrett and the City Council.”
Healy said allowing Milwaukee aldermen to hand out $1 million per-ward would all but guarantee waste or fraud.
“This taxpayer money will be sent to all the groups that helped to get President Biden elected or to the clique of political insiders who run City Hall,” Healy added.
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