Who will be Milwaukee’s next mayor? It’s all come down to acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson and former Ald. Bob Donovan.
The two have faced off in several forums ahead of the April 5 election hoping to distinguish themselves as the best leader for the city. The candidates came together once again this week for a conversation about how they would lead Milwaukee in the face of existing challenges. The forum was hosted by Milwaukee PBS, CBS 58 and WUWM.
The topics included public safety, recruiting police, the city’s pension crisis and education. They also had things to say about workforce issues.
Mayoral candidates Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan were asked how they planned to address the disparate impact of COVID-19 on jobs in Milwaukee — more specifically, how they planned to bring jobs to challenged neighborhoods and ensure they pay a living wage.
Job loss particularly impacted low-wage workers, and residents of Black neighborhoods experienced disproportionate unemployment.
Johnson used the current development of The Couture building in downtown Milwaukee as an example of a solution: "The thing that’s most exciting to me about The Couture though, is the fact it’s going to take a million construction hours. And 40% of those hours, 400,000 of them, will go to people who live in the most depressed neighborhoods in Milwaukee, the neighborhoods that I grew up in, because of the city’s Residence Preference Program. So, that will create an opportunity for those folks who live in disadvantaged, challenged neighborhoods to have an access point into a 21st century economy job in the trades."
Johnson wants to see more jobs in the trades, more green jobs, tech jobs and more businesses raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour so, as he said, folks will not have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
And he mentioned his Economic Prosperity plan that focuses on economic mobility for people living in Milwaukee.
Donovan said as mayor he would want a department of city development that is more aggressive in reaching outside of the region to bring jobs to Milwaukee.
"And I would urge that department and insist that that department work with many of our executives currently here in Milwaukee," he said. "Milwaukee is home to some of the best Fortune 500 companies in the country. We need to tap into the connections that those CEOs have with other CEOs around the country and bring some of their vendors and some of their companies that they are connected with right here in Milwaukee."
Donovan added that he’d look at programs that have worked in other cities and implement them in Milwaukee. He referenced a program out of Cleveland known as The Cleveland Model, where worker cooperatives are owned by the workers.
The candidates also addressed how they’d encourage entrepreneurship and emerging businesses in Milwaukee.
Donovan said he’d start by sitting down with them in order to understand their challenges. He mentioned engaging the private sector and the philanthropic community.
"There are a lot of other initiatives that by engaging the private sector we can move forward with, and this would be one of them. Our philanthropic community in Milwaukee, I would want to engage in a number of efforts to ensure our young entrepreneurs are successful and that Milwaukee becomes a hub of creativity," he said.
Johnson said he’d work to ensure entrepreneurs have access to the resources they need at all levels of government.
"We have tremendous programs and opportunities through our department of city development, through the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation. At other levels such as Milwaukee County in addition to the state of Wisconsin with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and a whole host of others, that if we had a one stop shop where folks knew where the resources were, they could work to create new jobs and live out their own dreams creating prosperity and opportunities, not just for themselves but for people in our neighborhoods too," he said.
Donovan and Johnson also answered questions on public safety, police recruitment, the city’s pension crisis and education. The full video of the forum can be found at Milwaukee PBS.
The mayoral election is Tuesday April 5.
