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| | | | 1. Call to Order at 10:03 AM | | | |
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| | | | 2. Roll Call | | | |
Roll call
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| | | | 3. Review and Approval of previous meeting minutes (4/4/25)
Minutes note: Member Moore moved, seconded by member Tucker to approve the minutes of 4/4/25. There were no objections. | | | |
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| | | | 4. Traffic and Safety Update
Minutes note: I would like to take this time to talk about the traffic and safety that we have observed just in this neighborhood. lets document some things that we as members of this committee who work and play and live in this neighborhood have observed during this period; since April there have been two high-speed chase in this neighborhood; my home, in the area closest to Walnut and Vel Philips was violated by a community member where they threw a brick through our dining room window. it took about over an hour for the police to come. It started off where the gentleman attempted to steal our recycling bin.
My husband stopped him, but the individual threatened my husband and son, said Andrews. He ended up running off, but he came back, and threw a huge brick in our window and threatened to shoot up our house. During the first threat, we called the police, about six times; It took the police an hour to arrive. The gentleman was found a few blocks away and was eventually arrested.
Member Key said that incidents in car theft have decreased, but it definitely was a string of attempted thefts, one successful theft, even including the breaking of my vehicle in an attempted theft; this was younger teenager, people throughout the parking structure.
The building manager and contractor security did call and engage with the police, provided video footage other than the thefts which happened early in the summer. Though there's been continued vandalism, so stream of discharging fire extinguishers in the parking structure, using them to break other fixtures in the parking structure, launching them off of any wall in the parking structure. So it's just become a thing.
We have increased the contracted vendor patrols, and then of course informing MPD of every instance that it has occurred, and then participating with video footage.
Those ones with the fire extinguishers are younger kids, mostly on bikes coming into the structure, probably between 11 and 14 years of age, but none of them have been caught in the act to get any identification or find out who their families are, or where they're coming from, but it seems like they're very much neighborhood locals and at least one or two of the youth is a repeat offender. so we've been trying to increase the vigilance and making sure everyone's aware to lock their vehicles. to not leave anything of value, visible.
The monthly safety meetings have been hosted at Thrive On, at least on a rotating basis. we appreciate, the MPD efforts in being more present and support the happenings on site. Someone was robbed closer to Walnut. There was the incident of the Young People's Influencer concert event on King Drive that had a ton of young people running out of the venue, that was concerning, continue Key.
Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs, added to that specific incident, the restaurant or club, no longer just Caribbean establishment, also Flame 13; they had an influencer event, the police record showed that nearly 500 folks came out to it far beyond their capacity. there was a fight inside, there was a fight outside, pepper spray sprayed. There was medical attention given to some young people. several fights throughout the neighborhood; five businesses had to shut down, 12 squad cars, three fire apparatuses, and possibly, two medical had to come through, as well as the King Drive was shut down by MPD because of the large crowds.
As a result, this week, they came before our licensing and I requested and the committee made the recommendation of non-renewal of the license; the council will vote in full, on September 23. The goal is to closed down the establishment that poorly planned that event.
Member Tucker is mostly concerned with the big events. Being a business owner in the area, he is glad to hear from the District's Alder person. it is encouraging to hear that when things of these nature happened, that there are steps that are being taken to eradicate or straighten the situation.
Member Wineberg shared the traffic violence data in the district, and reminded all that the traffic violence dashboard is available to anyone to use in the Milwaukee Vision Zero page; looking across the city year to date there had been 41 people killed, although it would seem to be at a lower pace than last year. The sixth district for example and so far this year there have been four people killed, but two of those were on the interstate which kind of doesn't really reflect anything local that's happening so much and then there were two other fatalities. In 2021, there were seven people killed, not on the interstate in the district, now it has gone down to two.
The things that have been deployed are working. The whole point of Vision Zero is zero traffic deaths, but we are very hopeful when we see major movement to drop from seven or five down to two. That's impressive progress, said Wineberg.
Member Key asked if these crash were related fatalities, is there a way to determine if there's any pedestrian versus crash related incidents. Member Wineberg said that the traffic balance dashboard can show you the difference of that, we have to toggle to hit pedestrian involved; Key asked, because she has personally called emergency and non-emergency number for pedestrians folks that look like they were experiencing a mental health or a behavioral health crisis or otherwise unhoused and they are in particular locations usually around center sometimes a little bit more north, but there is a lot of times that she is concerned about folks that are in and around the street with varied levels of mobility.
Key hopes that some of the recommended solutions on how the reports considers the folks that are in vehicles, the pedestrian, whether they are on bikes or walking. There are a lot more neighbors coming into the neighborhood as well with new apartment activity happening, said Key.
Within Vision Zero, there is a will to have a multi pronged and multi layered approach: changing the designs of streets is one thing, homeless or mental health issues driving some of the crashes, we do want to, help support those supportive services. Every social service helps make the community safer on any metric that you look at.
continue Wineberg, having the number for the county homeless outreach team, is something we should all be using if we have people we are concerned about to call.
From the design perspective, definitely when we slow down speeds of traffic, then if somebody is either crossing the street and the light changes, because they were older and it was hard to get across in the time that was allowed, or it's someone that's panhandling, that's standing in the middle and trips on the curve, if the cars around them are going slower, their outcomes will be better, but there was, kind of a general thing, if we make it safe for pedestrians, if we slow down some vehicle speed so that people can, we can both prevent and survive crashes better, that will help not just this population, but everybody that's out on our streets.
Ald. Coggs added because of the concerns that have been raised, particularly on Center Street and now beginning to be North Avenue and just up and down, particularly King Drive, she is trying to meet with the county supervisor for the area, to discuss what resources are available to attempt to address some of these issues. Additionally, the city is now in ownership of the CYD building, and RCM owns the Victory Over Violence park. Both will be put up for RFP soon, as a portion of the park has to be kept public and has to be kept green space, but we will be asking for plans to deal with the un housed and folks in need of mental health assistance as well.
Some of you might remember the lady that used to basically sit on North Avenue on the bus shelter.
A article was done where somebody did investigative research to find that her family was getting financial assistance to take care of her. Through that investigation, they were able to get her the help that she needed. if you notice, that particular person is no longer laying on that bus shelter, said Coggs
because it is a lot of the same characters, over and over, it takes some figuring out who they are, who their families are, and working with some creative partners to get more resolution than what we've gotten. In an effort to alleviate the situation, for example on Center Street, the county has gotten rid of bus shelters, removed benches, but it continues to be an effort that we have to put forward to deal with in assisting people with mental health challenges, as well.
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| | | | 5. Residents and Business perspective Part II - A Deep drive into traffic and safety in Halyard Park
Minutes note: From the last agenda we took a walked through our catchment area from North Avenue to King Drive to Walnut to Vel Philips; considered the Western end of the block, where the Black Holocaust Museum is located there are a lot of challenges. Working with the Howard Fuller Academy and working with the Thrive On team, member Key mentioned some of the challenges that they're experiencing in some ways that they plan on remedying it.
For today, I would love for us to go down the next block, going from North Avenue all the way down to Walnut.
I know we have a hard stop at 11th, but I would love for us to discuss on Fifth Street, some things that we're observing and like last time, being able to point out where some of the, traffic challenges are on these blocks that need to be addressed.
This committee is not designed to, to last forever, what we're doing is going block by block with the intention of after we've had a chance to document and express, some of our concern, observations that we begin to talk about some of the strategies that member Wineberg, Washington and team have shared earlier o begin making recommendations with the goal by the close of this year, we would have been able to make recommendations or at least draft recommendations that we can share with Ald. Coggs to advance from there.
Starting the virtual tour from North Avenue, we have Finlayson Drive, and the Greater Milwaukee Urban League here. In working and talking with Dr. Eve Hall about the Greater Milwaukee Urban League, she said that parking is usually in abundance on the street here, but you have to be mindful about making sure that your car doors are locked. This parking lot, if you do not have an assigned spot at the Urban League or as a part of these apartments, your car will be towed. Like mentioned before on Vel Phillips, the stop signs are suggestive, and there is a lot of speeding that happens in this neighborhood, particularly at intersections such as this.
I remember in our earlier conversations that I think at Garfield 502, they were like Garfield days, and there was feedback about a lot of people kind of taking over the neighborhood and the streets. I don't have a reference because I don't really play on this side of the block. I just come and go. I don't even know about Garfield days, but is there anything from a traffic and safety perspective on this side of the block that anyone can pour into or offer perspective on, said Andrews.
Ald. Coggs said that Garfield days this year is actually Saturday, she added that alghoutgh she did not have any commentary about that block, closer to the Urban League on the 5th Street side, the issue has been less about 5th Street and more about North Avenue where 5th Street is and folks feeding down there and almost running into the Urban League building, destroying planters, people driving down North Avenue and going onto
the sidewalk.
Andrews said that this is the same feedback that member Pruitt offered with serious concerns about people speeding and some close calls to them crashing into the museum. Over the past couple of years, the Urban League building has been breached multiple times. An acute challenge that persists, she said.
Andrew asked thinking about some of the tools that have explained earlier on in our sessions, such as the speeding tables and the speed bumps, are those part of the toolkit of recommendations for North Avenue,
can these be use on arterials streets.
Member Washington explained that in fact, DPW had received complaints further down on North Avenue, much further down where the curve is.
So there was a house that repeatedly kept getting hit because people were speeding through there and we put a speed table at that curve. here your best option would be a raised intersection. that's really your only option on an arterial because on an arterial you still need to keep those speeds. On a residential street, you can slow people down a little bit more with just a speed hump. but because arterials are designed to move people and residential streets are more for land use. that's pretty much your only option.
The other thing is we are a little bit limited in the sense of what you can do because of looking at this, where we're showing the urban league, you have that type one curb ramp, basically what I mean by type one curb ramp. There's only one curb ramp versus sometimes you see two going in each direction of each crosswalk.
it makes it dangerous for people speeding if they happen to slide up there. But at the same time, we have to respect ADA. And there is not a lot we could do with that outside of some sort of hardening in front of the building. As far as directly addressing the speeding, the best option here, because you can't use traffic circle on an arterial, a raised intersection is your only option. Those are pricey, one because they are the size of the street. if you're doing a speed hump, obviously, those are typically on residential streets is not as much material, covering the entire street plus as wide as North Avenue is.
Another option to considered said member Washington, would be a raised intersection.
That would be the only option on an arterial because on an arterial you still need to keep those speeds. So if you're on a residential street, you can slow people down a little bit more with just a speed hump.
arterials are designed to move people and residential streets are more for land use.
The other thing is we are a little bit limited in the sense of what you can do because of looking at this, where we're showing the urban league, you have that type one curb ramp, basically what I mean by type one curb ramp. There's only one curb ramp versus sometimes you see two going in each direction of each crosswalk.
So that one, that kind of makes it dangerous for people speeding if they happen to slide up there.
But at the same time, we do have to respect ADA.
And I admit that those are pricey, one because they're the size of the street.
So if you're doing a cross, I'm sorry, if you're doing a speed hump, obviously, those are typically on residential streets is not as much material, but you're talking.
Covering the entire street plus as wide as North Avenue is.
what is a raised intersection, an example would be outside of the Phillips Plaza on Vel Phillips and Wisconsin.
basically the entire intersection is a giant speed up. Another option, is a raised crosswalk; that way you're not raising the entire intersection, you're just raising the crosswalk portion of it.
That also would slow people down, it has that same effect.
The raised crosswalk typically has a speed hump effect, but it's also less expensive than trying to do the entire intersection and you're also dealing with whatever utilities are there.
Member Key said that when considering these recommendations, the raised intersection, raised crosswalk, of are they complimentary to the crosswalks that have additional pedestrian lighting such as the one at North Avenue and 73rd. There is a crosswalk that on all sides of it there are lights additional signage. Lights up I believe when you press a button or when there's motion are those something that like for example if the intersection at North and King was the raised crosswalk would the North and Vel able to be something like the illuminated crosswalk just considering all the pedestrian traffic from the school and the museum.
Washington said that there are not a lot of those in the city, but DPW is looking at expanding those. There is one at 68th in Congress, some are solar activated, although not very reliable; he will come up with a list of options based on today's discussion. | | | |
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| | | | 6. Reset | | | |
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| | | | 7. Adjournment at 11:03 AM
Joanna Urtiz
Staff Assistant | | | |
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| | | | In the event that Common Council members who are not members of this committee attend this meeting, this meeting may also simultaneously constitute a meeting of the Common Council or any of the following committees: Community and Economic Development, Finance and Personnel, Judiciary and Legislation, Licenses, Public Safety and Health, Public Works, Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development, and/or Steering and Rules. Whether a simultaneous meeting is occurring depends on whether the presence of one or more of the Common Council member results in a quorum of the Common Council or any of the above committees, and, if there is a quorum of another committee, whether any agenda items listed above involve matters within that committee’s realm of authority. In the event that a simultaneous meeting is occurring, no action other than information gathering will be taken at the simultaneous meeting.
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| | | | Upon reasonable notice, efforts will be made to accommodate the needs of persons with disabilities through sign language interpreters or auxiliary aids. For additional information or to request this service, contact the City Clerk's Office ADA Coordinator at 286-2998, (FAX)286-3456, (TDD)286-2025 or by writing to the Coordinator at Room 205, City Hall, 200 E. Wells Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202. | | | |
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| | | | Persons engaged in lobbying as defined in s. 305-43-4 of the Milwaukee Code of Ordinances are required to register with the City Clerk's Office License Division. Registered lobbyists appearing before a Common Council committee are required to identify themselves as such. More information is available at http://city.milwaukee.gov/Lobbying. | | | |
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