From: Zielinski, Tony Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 9:59 PM To: Elmer, Linda; Lee, Chris; Bohl, James Subject: Fwd: Proposed St. Augustine's Please enter this into the file for the proposed 5 and Harrison zoning change that may be coming before the Zoning Committee. Thanks Tony Zielinski Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: "Torres, George" Date: June 16, 2015 at 1:56:51 PM CDT To: "jperez@milwaukee.gov" , "tzieli@milwaukee.gov" Cc: "Ayala-Smith, Maria" , "Nancy Jelen (nancy.jelen@alverno.edu)" Subject: Proposed St. Augustine's Good Morning Gentlemen, Thank you both for taking time to return my calls to discuss the proposed “St. Augustine’s” mega complex here on the near south side. As I indicated to you both, we as an agency do not believe this initiative is in the best interest of the community and therefore do not support this proposal. As you may know, La Causa also operates a beautiful relatively new school located at second and Mitchell Street. We are an MPS authorized non-instrumentality school which means we have full autonomy to run the school as we see fit. The building is 14 years old and we have invested over $8 million in the facility and surrounding area including a new soccer field that was built with the help of the UPS Foundation. We feel that this is autonomy allows us to ensure that the community has a well-run, well performing school with over 800 students, 95% of which as Hispanic. We also have an Early Education and Care Center/Kindergarten Academy located at 8th and Greenfield Ave. that has another approximately 400 students. These two business are also complemented by three other divisions that collectively brings total employment here to 340 strong. We are very proud of what we, as an agency, bring to this community. As we look at the St. Augustine” proposal, we are disappointed to see yet another “non-educator” entering the education field only to satisfy an ego. We are hopeful that our elected officials please keep in mind an old saying that says “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Allowing yet another voucher school into the area will certainly have a significant negative impact on the enrollment of the schools already in place and the list of established schools already in this area is mind boggling (http://www.interorealestate.com/community/wi/milwaukee/near_south_side/scho ols/?TYPE=Public+Elementary). As schools lose students, it becomes much more difficult to operate them efficiently (economically viable) and ultimately, that is what forces them to shut down. Painting a picture that he will create a high performing school of 2,000 sounds good but history has proven otherwise. The near south side already has had its challenges with empty vacant building such as Hayes and Dover; do we really need more empty boarded up schools? What happens then to those schools that already have small enrollment? It’s also frustrating to hear that this proposal misrepresents itself as a parochial school as its name implies which will draw Hispanic’s (the Archdiocese has issued a statement that this is NOT affiliated with them). The area already has a large voucher school (St. Anthony’s) that continues to pull students from the district count which directly impacts other public schools in the area. Voucher schools continue to be a hot bed of contention because of their lack of accountability and you have to ask yourself if that’s what we need more of in this community. I absolutely agree with Alderman Zielinski that what we need is more open green space for our children. Please don’t be lured in by a promise “to allow the public to use the space”, at the end of the day, it will still be private property. Instead, let’s pull together as a community and start a capital campaign to build a soccer complex that is truly a public space. I feel confident that organizations such as the UPS Foundation, the Green Bay Packers, the Milwaukee Brewers, MPS, the NFL, U.S. Soccer Foundation, Action for Healthy Kids, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Chatham Athletic Foundation, and a host of other, would be great partners for such a venture. You’d be surprised what a handful of grant writers can produce! I also would be interested in hearing what the new Bucks owners would be willing to kick in given the anticipated support from the City/taxpayers for a new arena? The St. Augustine proposal would bring nothing to the table that we couldn’t do ourselves. We ask that you strongly oppose this initiative and pursue other opportunities for this land that would better serve the whole community and eliminate the potential to cause other collateral damage to surrounding businesses, schools, and agencies that are already doing what they can to help improve the quality of life for all of the families in this community. Please know that you can count on us to do our part. Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions or if we can be of any assistance. Regards, George A. Torres George A. Torres President & CEO La Causa, Inc. P.O. Box 04188 Milwaukee, WI 53204 414-316-5510 “Where Children and Families Come First”