Tag Archives: SEWRPC

Oh, boy — SEWRPC misses the truth again

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The Daily Reporter’s Sean Ryan today reports on objections to SEWRPC’s recertification as the Metropolitan Planning Organization for southeastern Wisconsin.

SEWRPC Executive Director Phil Evenson spins the truth so hard in the story that it turns into something else.

But SEWRPC spent the last three years establishing a stronger connection to city residents, said Executive Director Phil Evenson. It created a task force to respond to complaints that minorities and low-income residents aren’t properly represented by the com-mission. It also partnered with groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Inc. and the Milwaukee Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to hold hearings about the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee Commuter Rail project.

Evenson apparently forgot to mention that the NAACP and the ACLU have named SEWRPC in an affirmative action complaint, but Ryan, fine reporter that he is, did not forget that pertinent little fact.

As for the Environmental Justice Task Force to which Evenson referred — it took years of browbeating before SEWRPC agreed to establish the advisory committee, and Evenson already has made clear he will not implement recommendations from the group if he disagrees with them.

The task force, by the way, is supposed to assist in outreach to low-income and minority communities, but SEWRPC cynically did not ask it to promote participation in the recertification public comment period. SEWRPC and the Federal Highway Administration are quite clearly, in fact, trying to supress public participation in the recertification process by eliminating the traditional public hearing and replacing it with a public meeting, at which members of the public are allowed to wander around and talk to bureaucrats and give testimony in secret to court reporters.

Ald. Willie Wade yesterday called killing the public hearing “cowardly.” He’s right.

SEWRPC and FHWA are behaving horribly, singling out southeastern Wisconsin for discriminatory treatment. That makes it all the more important for people to participate in the recertification process. So a reprise from an earlier action alert.

As the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, SEWRPC makes recommendations about transportation planning. These transportation projects impact priorities for government funding, how healthy our air is, where housing is developed, job growth, the availability of mass transit, the supply of and potential movement of water outside the Great Lakes Basin, and much more. The agency, however, often has ignored the concerns of minority and low-income residents of Milwaukee. For example, SEWRPC has yet to conduct a regional housing study – something it promised in 2005 to do. It has denied requests from groups representing low income and minority communities to participate on advisory task forces. It rejected the requests of its own Environmental Justice Task Force to seek a diverse and inclusive pool of candidates to fill its Executive Director and Assistant Director positions.

WHAT: Public Meeting on SEWRPC’s Certification as Metro Planning Organization
WHERE: Downtown Transit Center, Harbor Lights Room, 909 E. Michigan Ave. Milwaukee
WHEN: October 22, 2008 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

A nice victory, but what will SEWRPC do?

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The SEWRPC Environmental Justice Task Force today recommended, 8-1, that socio-economic analyses be conducted for each of the agency’s major studies. Over SEWRPC’s objections, the task force also recommended that the analyses be conducted by outside agencies — not SEWRPC.

The vote does not have the strength of law. The task force can make recommendations, but cannot tell the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission what it must do. SEWRPC Executive Director Phil Evenson already told the task force at its last meeting that he thought SEWRPC entirely capable of doing what it hasn’t done before and doesn’t think the recommendation to use outside entities was necessary.

Stay tuned. More on this later, including video.

 

The SEWRPC files

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The highly prolific Jim Rowen at The Political Environment has been doing a nice job covering SEWRPC’s efforts to scurry away from the light of public review and comment. He’s got posts here and here and related material here and here.

I’ve been thinking that a stroll down memory lane might be instructive. What happened four years ago when the public spoke out on SEWRPC’s job performance was so awful? You can listen to the comments that were made in 2004. They are preserved for history, here. Nothing’s changed much, except that SEWRPC doesn’t want anyone to be able to record and post just what it is the public has to say.

SEWRPC drops the pretense

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With excuses that don’t make sense and an enabling Federal Highway Administration in its corner and back pocket, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission copes with public criticism — by shutting down a public hearing where it might be voiced. More here.

And please participate Oct. 22. Southeastern Wisconsin residents deserve better than this. Details below

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Make Your Voice Heard on Decisions Impacting Quality of Life, Mass Transit, Asthma Rates, Affordable Housing, Job Growth, and More

ACTION ALERT: On October 22, 2008, come join a coalition of individuals and groups to challenge the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s (SEWRPC) recertification as the recognized Metropolitan Planning Organization for the region.

“We said this four years ago, and unfortunately we have to say it again – SEWRPC hasn’t lived up to either its ethical or legal obligations to represent the interests of all residents of our community,” said Karyn Rotker, Senior Staff Attorney for ACLU-WI.

Every four years, the federal government has to certify that a Metropolitan Planning Organization is following federal laws and requirements, including civil rights and environmental justice requirements. SEWRPC is up for recertification this year. The U.S. Department of Transportation will have a public meeting where YOU can provide written or spoken comments.

As the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, SEWRPC makes recommendations about transportation planning. These transportation projects impact priorities for government funding, how healthy our air is, where housing is developed, job growth, the availability of mass transit, the supply of and potential movement of water outside the Great Lakes Basin, and much more. The agency, however, often has ignored the concerns of minority and low-income residents of Milwaukee. For example, SEWRPC has yet to conduct a regional housing study – something it promised in 2005 to do. It has denied requests from groups representing low income and minority communities to participate on advisory task forces. It rejected the requests of its own Environmental Justice Task Force to seek a diverse and inclusive pool of candidates to fill its Executive Director and Assistant Director positions.

WHAT: Public Meeting on SEWRPC’s Certification as Metro Planning Organization
WHERE: Downtown Transit Center, Harbor Lights Room, 909 E. Michigan Ave. Milwaukee
WHEN: October 22, 2008 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

SEWRPC the reluctant

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You guys do what you want,” SEWRPC Executive Director Phil Evenson tells the Environmental Justice Task Force.

The task force, though, as everyone on it knows, has no real power over the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. All it can do is suggest. Task force member Joette Heckenbach requested that SEWRPC get outside assistance to conduct socio-economic analyses as part of the agency’s studies. Evenson and SEWRPC Deputy Director Ken Yunker don’t like that idea much.

Below the video of SEWRPC’s resistance is part of the affirmative action complaint the NAACP, with the assistance of the ACLU, filed against SEWRPC with the Department of Labor’s Office of Contract Compliance. It lays out nicely how SEWRPC prefers to hire its major consultants — from a rather small list of white people.

Facts Relating to Non-Compliance With Affirmative Action in Use of Professional Service
Subcontractors

39. SEWRPC has hired, and continues to hire, “independent contractors” who provide significant and ongoing professional services, including many of the kinds of services that are or potentially could be performed by SEWRPC employees.

40. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC has routinely identified, hired and retained most or all of these “independent contractors” on a “no bid” basis.

41. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC retains significant control over the performance of work by these “independent contractors.”

42. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC did not comply with affirmative action or disadvantaged business enterprise requirements or policies in hiring these contractors, or otherwise attempt to ensure that the professional services contractors it hired are members of diverse groups.

43. Upon information and belief, SEWRPC has not engaged in any efforts to monitor or otherwise ensure that these professional service subcontractors engage in Affirmative Action.

44. SEWRPC does not identify or report these professional service subcontractors in its EEO reports, and does not maintain demographic data on them.

45. Such “independent contractors” from whom no demographic information is collected, who were not recruited through the methods specified in the AA Plan, and who are not identified in affirmative action reports, include, but are not limited to, the following:

a. Since 1997, SEWRPC has annually contracted with its former executive director, who upon information and belief is a white non-Hispanic person, to provide engineering, planning and surveying services including but not limited to “determination of an annual work program” related to public land surveys; “oversight of Commission staff activities intended to carry out the work program,” and designing and executing other projects assigned by SEWRPC. For 2008, SEWRPC pays its former director $6,500 per month ($78,000 per year) based on the “equivalent of three-quarters time of service,” and provides him with office space, a vehicle, telephone service, and support staff; during some prior years, SEWRPC also paid for its former director’s health insurance.

b. Since 2006, SEWRPC has utilized the services of two designated individuals, who upon information and belief are white non-Hispanic persons, as “personal service contractors” for planning services related to the 30th St. Corridor Redevelopment, and, upon information and belief, has provided them with office space in Milwaukee County. The 30th St. Corridor is in the central city of Milwaukee, an area predominantly populated by persons of color.

c. Since 2007, if not earlier, SEWRPC has entered into an annual contract with the University of Wisconsin Extension for the services of a specifically identified individual, who upon information and belief is a white non-Hispanic person, for public education and outreach, including outreach to communities of color. The contract obligates SEWRPC to pay 100% of this person’s salary and benefits, and milage and expenses.