Posts Tagged ‘Common Council’

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Barrett should veto this idiocy

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

The Common Council, without a shred of public input, this week decided that anyone wanting to park a car that is for sale on the public property must get a $40 permit from the city, show the Department of Public Works the title to the car and have the vehicle inspected by a DPW employee.

This burdensome, idiotic requirement was adopted on a 10-4 vote without much thought at all. The justification behind it is absurd.

“The Common Council finds that a disproportionate number of vehicles that are for sale on public property are unlicensed, unregistered or are offered for sale by individuals who have no legal authority to do so,” the newly-expanded ordinance reads.

Poppycock. Show me the data on that one. And how the hell is requiring a $40 permit for a street sale going to prevent someone from selling a stolen car through some other — any other — means?

Ald. Robert Puente suggested the ordinance should apply citywide, rather than limited to areas where street sales of cars is a problem, so the police would have an easier time enforcing it. Yup, residents of Milwaukee should face a burdensome, expensive, useless requirement so cops don’t have to think or learn a new set of boundaries.  I thought the police were here to serve the citizenry, but it looks like that idea has been totally flipped backwards and upside down.

Technically, the ordinance prohibits parking any car for sale on public property, whether there is a “for sale” sign on the vehicle or not. You can get busted for driving the car and parking at the library, even if you leave the “for sale” sign at home. That is not what the council intended, but it is what the ordinance says.

Mayor Barrett should veto this idiocy. The ordinance, even narrowly interpreted, obviously will hit hardest at people in the city who can’t park their for-sale cars on private property — those whose garages are accessed through alleys or who don’t have private parking at all. The latter, of course, includes many poor people of the variety who don’t have the money or time to go chasing down to City Hall to pay $40 and go through a hassle to sell a $300 car.

We are in danger of having a bad ordinance that has been poorly drafted inflicted on the city. The Common Council should have realized that is a common result when legislation is rammed through without  much thought or consideration. Barrett really needs to kill it.

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Posted in City of Milwaukee, Commentary, Common Council | 1 Comment »

Council, without public input, passes $40 car sales fee

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

It will cost $40 to park a car on the street and stick a “for sale” sign on it, under an ordinance adopted Tuesday by the Common Council.

Anyone wanting to sell a car on public property — namely, streets — will have to fill out an application and have the vehicle inspected by the Department of Public Works. There could be fines and towing for those who don’t obey.

The public not notified of the ordinance or provided an opportunity for input before the measure was  debated and approved, 10-4, by the council Tuesday morning.

The $40 fee already is in effect in small areas of the city, and Ald. Joe Davis asked the council’s Public Safety Committee to extend it to his district as well. The committee, instead, recommended Tuesday morning that it be extended to the entire city and the council agreed a short time later.

A portion of Ald. Robert Donovan’s district was the first to be subject to the $40 fee. Donovan told the committee that the large volume of car sales on the streets were causing problems in some areas. He said some of the cars sold turned out to be stolen.

Ald. Robert Puente said it would be easier for police to enforce the ordinance if it were citywide.

Voting against the measure were Aldermen Jim Bohl, Michael Murphy and Joe Dudzik and Alderwoman Milele Coggs.

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Posted in City of Milwaukee, Common Council, News | No Comments »

Murphy pushes for better Brewers-related traffic control

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

The Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Police Department should resolve their differences over who should pay for traffic cops at intersections near Miller Park on game days and make sure those traffic cops are posted, Ald. Michael Murphy said.

“I’ve received complaints on the ad hoc placement of officers,” he told the Common Council this week.

Traffic near the stadium has become a bigger issue since the Brewers started winning regularly and drawing large crowds. Brewers-generated traffic jams made it extremely difficult to enter or leave the Story Hill neighborhood last year on some big game days because there were no traffic officers assigned to intersections such as W. Bluemound and N. Hawley Roads or Bluemound and N. Story Parkway.

The Brewers pay for the city to provide security at Miller Park and the council this week approved a $1.5 million agreement for the upcoming season. There apparently is disagreement, though, between the Brewers and the Police Department about who should pay for traffic officers working on city streets outside of Miller Park, Murphy said.

“The two of them need to get that resolved in the coming season because there is a traffic safety issue,” Murphy said.

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Posted in City of Milwaukee, Commentary, Milwaukee Brewers, News | No Comments »

City opposes protections for convicted criminals seeking housing

Friday, February 13th, 2009

The Common Council went on record last week opposing a bill backed by some Milwaukee Democrats that would prohibit housing discrimination based on arrests or convictions that are more than three years old.

“My office, in meeting with landlords, regularly advises that one of the things that landlords can do to make sure their properties are not facilitating drug dealing or gang activity is to screen their tenants,” Assistant City Attorney Adam Stephens told the council’s Judiciary and Legislation Committee ealier this month.

“That would be a problem” if the landlords had to worry about becoming criminals themsleves, he said.

Under the proposed legislation, a felon who served four years in prison for a serious crime would be protected under the law because the conviction would be more than three years old, Stephens said.

“Obviously, that’s a very practical concern,” he said.

A less serious offender serving probation on a more recent conviction would not be protected, he said.

“I’m a little confused as to the point of this legislation,” Ald. Ashanti Hamilton said.

The major sponsor of the draft legislation, which has not yet been introduced,  is State Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids). Assembly co-sponsors  include Milwaukee Democrats Annette Williams, Tamara Grigsby and Fred Kessler, city officials said.

Schneider has long been concerned about the misuse of electronic court records in employment screening, and other legislators believe that convicted criminals need a place to live and deserve a second chance, city lobbyist Jennifer Gonda said.

“There’s sort of a sympathetic factor there,” she said.

Ald. Jim Bohl said he was confident the vast majority of constituents would support him in door-to-door debates with the legislation’s sponsors over the proposal’s merits.

“This is not something that would be positively viewed by most of their constituency,” he said.

Bohl predicted the committee’s recommendation to oppose the measure would sail through the full council.

It did — unanimously.

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Posted in City of Milwaukee, Common Council, News, State Legislature, crime | No Comments »

City tags lenders with property upkeep duties

Monday, December 29th, 2008

Banks and financial institutions that file foreclosure actions against properties must maintain the properties if they have been abandoned by their owners, under a new ordinance adopted by the Common Council.

“This is a very important piece of legislation,” said Ald. Michael Murphy, who sponsored it with Aldermen Jim Bohl, Robert Bauman and Willie Wade. Murphy said the ordinance is being eyed as a nationwide model.

Under the legislation, lenders must inspect a property once a foreclosure action is filed and register the property if it appears to be abandoned. Lenders must reinspect occupied properties every 30 days.

The ordinance also requires lenders to assure that:

•    Buildings are secured and inaccessible to unauthorized persons.
•    Litter, trash, debris and graffiti are removed.
•    Grass is mowed, noxious weeds are removed, vegetation trimmed.
•    Immediate risks to health, welfare and safety are eliminated.
•    Public walkways are kept free from ice, snow, mud and other debris.

Violations can bring fines of $100 to $2,000.

Many banks and lenders support the ordinance, which was modified in draft form after lending institutions objected to some of its original provisions, according to testimony before the Common Council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee.

The city has 1,700 foreclosed properties, with another 4,500 “on the waiting list,” Murphy told the council.

In some instances, owners who can’t make their mortgage payments are simply walking away from the properties, he said.

As a result, “the snow is not shoveled on the sidewalks, the grass is not cut, the garbage is not picked up, these properties end up becoming attractive nuisances, they become problems with gang members, solicitation. They also become fire traps, they also provide further decline in property tax values of the properties adjacent to them.”

The new ordinance, he said, is “not a silver bullet in terms of addressing all of these issues.”

The ordinance gives the city one way to deal with an issue made more difficult by the securitization and sale of loans between institutions. Murphy singled out Deutsche Bank, based in Germany. Deutsche has more than 400 city properties that have been foreclosed upon and 14 servicing agents.

“None of them can be reached,” he said.

The ordinance, he said, “is not a panacea, but I think it’s the right direction.”

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Posted in City of Milwaukee, Common Council, News | 3 Comments »

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