Tag Archives: Murphy

Council fantasy

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Here’s how I wish it would go today at the Common Council, but it won’t.

Ald. Michael Murphy’s alternative to the proposed $20 wheel tax is adopted. Murphy has proposed a $10 wheel tax with lower special assessments for street repairs. Murphy’s proposal means property tax-exempt non-profits still kick in for street repairs based on the size of their individual properties; under the $20 tax proposal, non-profits with lots of property, but few vehicles, get off really cheap. In addition, the state just raised its own vehicle registration fees by $20. Make it expensive enough, and more people simply won’t register their vehicles.

Murphy’s proposal doesn’t stand a chance in the world, though. The $20 tax seems not only meant to fund street repairs, but also to serve as a symbolic Common Council declaration of independence and leadership. Some aldermen are clearly unenamored with Mayor Barrett’s low-key style. 

Also during my wish-it-were-so council debate, the aldercritters find a way not to tax motorcycles, mopeds and scooters. It’s seems awfully silly to me to levy an additional $20 tax on vehicles that actually are lighter and cause less damage to streets than cars or trucks (yes, I have a scooter.)

The council then moves ahead and rejects Murphy’s proposal to sell water to the “middle third” of New Berlin. This deal is akin to a starving man selling his pure gold watch for a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk. The City of Milwaukee is desperate for the $1.5 million New Berlin is dangling. It is making this decision based on inadequate information and fear, a really dangerous combination. 

Hank Aaron extension getting electeds’ attention

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State Sen. Jim Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa) and Milwaukee Ald. Michael Murphy are pushing to develop and open the the Hank Aaron trail from Miller Park through the Veteran’s Administration and west past the Zoo to Underwood Creek Parkway, where it would hook up to the with the Oak Leaf Trail. The DNR has a nice map here.

The two, along with West Allis Ald. Marty Weigel, who also is chair of the county’s Trail Council, want the trail open before major construction begins on the Zoo Interchange project, to serve as an alternative east-west route.  

The DNR owns the abandoned rail line that will one day be the Hank Aaron extension. but the $1.6 million the department has to develop the trail is rapidly becoming not enough to complete the project because the price of asphalt needed to pave the trail is soaring. In addition, there are six overpasses that will be reconstructed during the Zoo Interchange project that hang directly above the trail. The trail likely would be extensively damaged during the Zoo Interchange project if it is paved before hand.

Yet, as the electeds point out, there is no reason the trail could not be “paved” with crushed limestone in that Zoo Interchange area. Folks may have to detour for a while, but most of the trail would be nicely paved, and all of it would be ride-able for much of the Zoo Interchange reconstruction period.

Sullivan, Weigel, Milwaukee bike / ped guy Dave Schlabowske, Hank Aaron Trail Manager Melissa Cook, Wauwatosa Mayor Jill Didier and others (Murphy had another commitment and was unavailable) met Friday at the Hawley Rd. entrance to the trail to discuss its development. There are some challenges, to be sure, as a tour on Sunday showed. The bridges need work — one of them is just downright scary — and there is a lot of loose rock in some small areas. Most of the vegetation growing along the trail is just different variety of invasive species and should be removed. Still, even in its unpaved, overgrown state, the trail (not officially open, so stay off it, ya hear?) is a level shot from the VA to west of Highway 100. People will use it, both for recreation and transporation.  

 

State Sen. Jim Sullivan and West Allis Ald. and County Trail Council Chair Marty Weigel discussing the future of the Hank Aaron Trail.

More water sales to New Berlin on tap

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New Berlin would pay Milwaukee $1.5 million for the right to buy Lake Michigan water and a much larger portion of New Berlin would get Milwaukee water than does now, under agreements to be considered by the Milwaukee Common Council.

About one-third of the suburb now receives Milwaukee water, and the proposed deal would add the middle third of New Berlin to the Water Works’ customer base. Click here and go to page 10 to see a map of the expanded service area.

“This area is outside the Great Lakes Basin but is within the MMSD service area; water is returned to Lake Michigan,” according to a Water Works feasibility study of the proposal.

The deal will provide economic benefits to Milwaukee water customers of an estimated $1.60 to $4.50 per residential account per year, the study said.

“Future water rate increases would proportionately increase the amount of the benefit,” the study said.

The maximum amount flowing to the suburb would increase from 4.8 million gallons per day to 6.3 million gallons per day. The proposed agreement also sets hefty charges of $10,000 to $30,000 per hour for excessive demand by New Berlin.

“This is intended to be an incentive to New Berlin to use various storage and well pumping combinations as well as emphasize their conservation efforts,” the Water Works study said.

The $1.5 million New Berlin payment to Milwaukee would go to the city’s general fund and would be in addition to regular water rates that go to the water utility, according to a resolution introduced by Aldermen Michael Murphy and Jim Bohl.

Under a proposed agreement between the two communities — a sort of side agreement to the actual water sales proposal — representatives from Milwaukee and New Berlin will meet once a year to talk about “opportunities to improve the availability of skilled workers in both communities and to improve the access of workers in each community to job opportunities.”

The two communities also promise not to “promote, encourage, offer economic incentives to, or otherwise solicit businesses to relocate from the City of Milwaukee to the City of New Berlin, or the City of New Berlin to the City of Milwaukee.”

Both the water sales agreement and the $1.5 million payment are scheduled to be considered by the Common Council’s Public Works Committee on July 29.

Murphy opposes $20 wheel tax

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Ald. Michael Murphy said Wednesday that he opposes the $20 wheel tax endorsed by a Common Council committee, and would offer a compromise that would reduce the proposed fee to $10.

The $20 fee endorsed Wednesday by the Public Works Committee would raise $6.6 million and would eliminate the need for special assessments for street repairs; the $10 fee would raise $3.3 million and allow special assessments to be significantly reduced, Murphy said.

The $20 fee  would allow some major entities, such as hospitals, that benefit greatly from steet repair programs to be totally exempted from sharing the cost of the repairs, Murphy said. Maintaining some level of special assessments would assure that those entitities shared in the cost of repairs while at the same time providing property tax relief, he said.

Murphy may have an uphill battle to win his colleagues’ support for his version of the wheel tax. The $20 fee proposal has 10 co-sponsors, a veto-proof majority. It was endorsed by the Public Works Committee on a 4-1 vote.