Milwaukee and the region deserve something better than the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.
SEWRPC, the special interest / suburban handmaiden, is up for recertification as the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization. SEWRPC not only doesn’t like Milwaukee, as demonstrated by its anti-urban planning studies, it fears Milwaukee and Milwaukee residents, as demonstrated by th craven, cowardly effort by SEWRPC and its enablers at the Federal Highway Administration to eliminate the public hearing from its recertification effort. That effort clearly was aimed and shutting up the Milwaukeeans who dominated the public hearing four years ago. That effort was more or less stymied when those testifying refused to go quietly into that censored night. Jim Rowen has the details.
SEWRPC, as its top dogs — make that top curs — will repeatedly tell you, does not make decisions. It only hires consultants whose findings are apparent from the get-go to conduct land use and transportation studies with pre-determined outcomes. Those studies, as slanted and corrupt and anti-Milwaukee as they are, have a great deal of influence on federal and state officials.
SEWRPC is up for recertification again this year, and it’s not too late to weigh in. Written comments are due Monday. You can fax them to FHWA at 608-829-7526 or email them to wisconsin.fhwa@fhwa.dot.gov
Here are a few things you might want to mention:
Inclusiveness, Process, Hiring:
• SEWRPC does not have any voting members who are elected officials from the City of Milwaukee. In fact, the City of Milwaukee has no representation on the 21-member SEWRPC commission, which has contributed to the disregard of urban needs and City of Milwaukee issues, residents and potential hires.
• None of SEWRPC’s 11 core staffers (senior managers) live in the City of Milwaukee.
• SEWRPC rejected requests of its own Environmental Justice Task Force to conduct a diverse and inclusive search for impending vacancies in the executive and/or assistant director positions.
• SEWRPC has no office in the City of Milwaukee where most of the region’s people of color live.
• SEWRPC chose to move from downtown Waukesha, which at least was accessible by transit, to a more remote location in a Pewaukee industrial park that is not served by transit.
• SEWRPC frequently creates “advisory committees” - with significant decision-making roles – that lack meaningful (or any) representation of persons of color and persons with disabilities.
• SEWRPC has failed to adequately comply with its federal obligation to diversify its staff. SEWRPC has 49 professional staff, only three of whom are people of color. Not one of SEWRPC’s directors or “chief,” “senior” or “principal” professional staff members is a person of color. Yet SEWRPC insists on promoting from within – an action that only reinforces the segregated nature of its staff. If SEWRPC is to maintain its status as MPO, FHWA and FTA should require that SEWRPC immediately cease this practice and engage in affirmative action for all staff and consultant hires and promotions.
• By a vote of 8-1, SEWRPC’s Environmental Justice Task Force recommended that “every SEWRPC plan, i.e. housing, land use, water, etc. will incorporate socio-economic impact analyses by a reputable, independent source other than SEWRPC before the plan may be adopted…” If SEWRPC is to maintain its status as MPO, FHWA and FTA should require that SEWRPC immediately implement this recommendation.
Transportation:
• SEWRPC’s transportation planning routinely approves highway improvements that are sought, without consideration as to who bears the benefits and burdens of highway improvements – especially in light of declining transit service.
• SEWRPC knows that transit services is being reduced and that communities of color and low income communities are disproportionately harmed by transit cuts.
• SEWRPC rejected multiple requests to develop its 2035 Regional Transportation Plan with elements that would seek to enforce actual implementation of its transit recommendations. SEWRPC also refused to allow community groups representing communities of color to participate on the 2035 transportation plan advisory committee.
• SEWRPC recently approved the fast-tracking of a $25 million I-94 interchange to serve a western Waukesha shopping mall at Pabst Farms, an area not served by transit. The mall has been delayed, but rather than delay or kill the interchange – - which is, like Pabst Farms, on prime agricultural land that SEWRPC itself had recommended for preservation as Primary Environmental Corridor land – - SEWRPC put the interchange on a list of approved projects and approved accelerated construction of it.
• SEWRPC has not taken the same kinds of urgent, affirmative steps to ensure transit expansion, nor has it utilized its authority to seek to require transit improvements to occur concurrently with highway improvements.
• SEWRPC proposed the $6.5 billion freeway reconstruction and widening project for Southeastern Wisconsin – - even as it knew that transit recommendations were not being implemented and that transit service was being cut. The plan calls for the disproportionate loss of homes, businesses and tax base in Milwaukee County, and was opposed by a majority of the Milwaukee Common Council and Milwaukee County Board. SEWRPC’s commission nevertheless recommended it, and its subsequent transportation planning all assumes this massive construction and expansion will occur.
Land Use:
• SEWRPC’s land use plan “serves as a guide for growth and development in the seven county SE Wis. Region.”
• The 2035 Regional Land Use Plan (the most recent one) simply recites principles and concepts of the plans going back to 1966.
• The 2035 land use plan does not address the fact that many low and moderate income working families and unemployed persons, who reside in the older urban communities of the region, are harmed by the lack of affordable housing in the outer suburbs of the region. The plan also does not address the racial import of this problem.
• The 2035 land use plan does not address the harm and racial disparities caused by the fact that new and expanding employment centers are increasingly locating in the outer rings of the region – and access to those jobs is only available by automobile, making them unavailable to many low income persons and persons of color.
• The 2035 land use plan fails to adequately address or seek to remedy the negative environmental impacts of pushing new development onto prime farmlands and open space, or factor in the added costs of new infrastructure and utilities such as highways, water supply and waste water treatment facilities. It fails to address who benefits from this growth, and who is burdened by it.
Housing:
• Milwaukee is the most racially segregated region in the country – with the least diverse suburbs – and our region also suffers from a tremendous lack of affordable workforce housing, and accessible housing.
• SEWRPC has not conducted a regional housing study since the 1970s.
• In 2004, SEWRPC’s Executive Director stated, in writing, that he expected the housing study to begin in the spring of 2005. Three and one-half years later, that study still has not begun.
• Even though advocates repeatedly suggested that SEWRPC conduct its housing study BEFORE moving forward on local Smart Growth plans (so that the housing study information could be included in those plans), SEWRPC refused to do so.
• Earlier this month (Oct. 2008), SEWRPC said it didn’t know when the regional housing study would begin – because it refused to ask local governments to help pay for the study (In contrast, SEWRPC was more than willing to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from local goverments to support the water supply study requested by Waukesha county communities.)
Water Supply:
• The SEWRPC water supply advisory committee had 32 members, 31 of whom were white non-Hispanic, and none of whom was African-American.
• From the outset, the advisory committee and SEWRPC staff excluded from the study nearly all factors related to water supply except supply and demand. In particular, the study failed to evaluate any socioeconomic effects of diverting Lake Michigan water to suburban communities, a particular problem given the residential and employment segregation in this region.
• SEWRPC failed to include projected socio economic impacts, such as impacts on the location of job growth, housing and transportation, in the study, yet moving water across the region will have an impact on these and other matters directly affecting low-income communities and people of color, particularly those who live in the City of Milwaukee.
• SEWRPC failed to meaningfully evaluate who would benefit from, and who would be burdened by, a water supply expansion, or whether there would be a disproportionate harm to communities of color and low income communities in the city.
• The water supply plan takes as a given the assumptions of where and to what extent growth will occur as projected in the 2035 Regional Land Use plan, a plan that is also quite flawed. Rather than tie growth to water availability, the study seeks to find as much water as needed to support suburban growth.
• Despite the fact that two of the alternatives proposed by the study involve Milwaukee’s Metro Sewerage District (MMSD) (i.e., sending “return flow” to MMSD or sending it to the Menomonee River, for which MMSD is currently creating a restoration plan), SEWRPC did not request MMSD’s input in the creation of the water supply study.
• The water supply plan fails to adequately account for water quality and ecosystem impacts that would occur with discharging large new volumes of wastewater into tributaries of the Lake Michigan basin.
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on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 5:06 am and is filed under Commentary, SEWRPC.
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It’s not too late to comment on SEWRPC
Milwaukee and the region deserve something better than the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.
SEWRPC, the special interest / suburban handmaiden, is up for recertification as the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization. SEWRPC not only doesn’t like Milwaukee, as demonstrated by its anti-urban planning studies, it fears Milwaukee and Milwaukee residents, as demonstrated by th craven, cowardly effort by SEWRPC and its enablers at the Federal Highway Administration to eliminate the public hearing from its recertification effort. That effort clearly was aimed and shutting up the Milwaukeeans who dominated the public hearing four years ago. That effort was more or less stymied when those testifying refused to go quietly into that censored night. Jim Rowen has the details.
SEWRPC, as its top dogs — make that top curs — will repeatedly tell you, does not make decisions. It only hires consultants whose findings are apparent from the get-go to conduct land use and transportation studies with pre-determined outcomes. Those studies, as slanted and corrupt and anti-Milwaukee as they are, have a great deal of influence on federal and state officials.
SEWRPC is up for recertification again this year, and it’s not too late to weigh in. Written comments are due Monday. You can fax them to FHWA at 608-829-7526 or email them to wisconsin.fhwa@fhwa.dot.gov
Here are a few things you might want to mention:
Inclusiveness, Process, Hiring:
• SEWRPC does not have any voting members who are elected officials from the City of Milwaukee. In fact, the City of Milwaukee has no representation on the 21-member SEWRPC commission, which has contributed to the disregard of urban needs and City of Milwaukee issues, residents and potential hires.
• None of SEWRPC’s 11 core staffers (senior managers) live in the City of Milwaukee.
• SEWRPC rejected requests of its own Environmental Justice Task Force to conduct a diverse and inclusive search for impending vacancies in the executive and/or assistant director positions.
• SEWRPC has no office in the City of Milwaukee where most of the region’s people of color live.
• SEWRPC chose to move from downtown Waukesha, which at least was accessible by transit, to a more remote location in a Pewaukee industrial park that is not served by transit.
• SEWRPC frequently creates “advisory committees” - with significant decision-making roles – that lack meaningful (or any) representation of persons of color and persons with disabilities.
• SEWRPC has failed to adequately comply with its federal obligation to diversify its staff. SEWRPC has 49 professional staff, only three of whom are people of color. Not one of SEWRPC’s directors or “chief,” “senior” or “principal” professional staff members is a person of color. Yet SEWRPC insists on promoting from within – an action that only reinforces the segregated nature of its staff. If SEWRPC is to maintain its status as MPO, FHWA and FTA should require that SEWRPC immediately cease this practice and engage in affirmative action for all staff and consultant hires and promotions.
• By a vote of 8-1, SEWRPC’s Environmental Justice Task Force recommended that “every SEWRPC plan, i.e. housing, land use, water, etc. will incorporate socio-economic impact analyses by a reputable, independent source other than SEWRPC before the plan may be adopted…” If SEWRPC is to maintain its status as MPO, FHWA and FTA should require that SEWRPC immediately implement this recommendation.
Transportation:
• SEWRPC’s transportation planning routinely approves highway improvements that are sought, without consideration as to who bears the benefits and burdens of highway improvements – especially in light of declining transit service.
• SEWRPC knows that transit services is being reduced and that communities of color and low income communities are disproportionately harmed by transit cuts.
• SEWRPC rejected multiple requests to develop its 2035 Regional Transportation Plan with elements that would seek to enforce actual implementation of its transit recommendations. SEWRPC also refused to allow community groups representing communities of color to participate on the 2035 transportation plan advisory committee.
• SEWRPC recently approved the fast-tracking of a $25 million I-94 interchange to serve a western Waukesha shopping mall at Pabst Farms, an area not served by transit. The mall has been delayed, but rather than delay or kill the interchange – - which is, like Pabst Farms, on prime agricultural land that SEWRPC itself had recommended for preservation as Primary Environmental Corridor land – - SEWRPC put the interchange on a list of approved projects and approved accelerated construction of it.
• SEWRPC has not taken the same kinds of urgent, affirmative steps to ensure transit expansion, nor has it utilized its authority to seek to require transit improvements to occur concurrently with highway improvements.
• SEWRPC proposed the $6.5 billion freeway reconstruction and widening project for Southeastern Wisconsin – - even as it knew that transit recommendations were not being implemented and that transit service was being cut. The plan calls for the disproportionate loss of homes, businesses and tax base in Milwaukee County, and was opposed by a majority of the Milwaukee Common Council and Milwaukee County Board. SEWRPC’s commission nevertheless recommended it, and its subsequent transportation planning all assumes this massive construction and expansion will occur.
Land Use:
• SEWRPC’s land use plan “serves as a guide for growth and development in the seven county SE Wis. Region.”
• The 2035 Regional Land Use Plan (the most recent one) simply recites principles and concepts of the plans going back to 1966.
• The 2035 land use plan does not address the fact that many low and moderate income working families and unemployed persons, who reside in the older urban communities of the region, are harmed by the lack of affordable housing in the outer suburbs of the region. The plan also does not address the racial import of this problem.
• The 2035 land use plan does not address the harm and racial disparities caused by the fact that new and expanding employment centers are increasingly locating in the outer rings of the region – and access to those jobs is only available by automobile, making them unavailable to many low income persons and persons of color.
• The 2035 land use plan fails to adequately address or seek to remedy the negative environmental impacts of pushing new development onto prime farmlands and open space, or factor in the added costs of new infrastructure and utilities such as highways, water supply and waste water treatment facilities. It fails to address who benefits from this growth, and who is burdened by it.
Housing:
• Milwaukee is the most racially segregated region in the country – with the least diverse suburbs – and our region also suffers from a tremendous lack of affordable workforce housing, and accessible housing.
• SEWRPC has not conducted a regional housing study since the 1970s.
• In 2004, SEWRPC’s Executive Director stated, in writing, that he expected the housing study to begin in the spring of 2005. Three and one-half years later, that study still has not begun.
• Even though advocates repeatedly suggested that SEWRPC conduct its housing study BEFORE moving forward on local Smart Growth plans (so that the housing study information could be included in those plans), SEWRPC refused to do so.
• Earlier this month (Oct. 2008), SEWRPC said it didn’t know when the regional housing study would begin – because it refused to ask local governments to help pay for the study (In contrast, SEWRPC was more than willing to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from local goverments to support the water supply study requested by Waukesha county communities.)
Water Supply:
• The SEWRPC water supply advisory committee had 32 members, 31 of whom were white non-Hispanic, and none of whom was African-American.
• From the outset, the advisory committee and SEWRPC staff excluded from the study nearly all factors related to water supply except supply and demand. In particular, the study failed to evaluate any socioeconomic effects of diverting Lake Michigan water to suburban communities, a particular problem given the residential and employment segregation in this region.
• SEWRPC failed to include projected socio economic impacts, such as impacts on the location of job growth, housing and transportation, in the study, yet moving water across the region will have an impact on these and other matters directly affecting low-income communities and people of color, particularly those who live in the City of Milwaukee.
• SEWRPC failed to meaningfully evaluate who would benefit from, and who would be burdened by, a water supply expansion, or whether there would be a disproportionate harm to communities of color and low income communities in the city.
• The water supply plan takes as a given the assumptions of where and to what extent growth will occur as projected in the 2035 Regional Land Use plan, a plan that is also quite flawed. Rather than tie growth to water availability, the study seeks to find as much water as needed to support suburban growth.
• Despite the fact that two of the alternatives proposed by the study involve Milwaukee’s Metro Sewerage District (MMSD) (i.e., sending “return flow” to MMSD or sending it to the Menomonee River, for which MMSD is currently creating a restoration plan), SEWRPC did not request MMSD’s input in the creation of the water supply study.
• The water supply plan fails to adequately account for water quality and ecosystem impacts that would occur with discharging large new volumes of wastewater into tributaries of the Lake Michigan basin.
Tags: FHWA, recertification, SEWRPC
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 5:06 am and is filed under Commentary, SEWRPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.