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From the Article:

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) is only running roughly half of the battery electric buses (BEBs) it purchased for the new bus rapid transit (BRT) service.

After a recall of the buses in August by the manufacturer, NovaBus, the transit system is still only operating five of them daily, according to David Locher, enhanced transit manager for MCTS. Ideally, there would be nine running every day, he told the Milwaukee Common Council‘s Public Works Committee on Jan. 24.

The transit system ordered 11 BEBs from NovaBus, a Canadian subsidiary of Volvo Group, to operate on the Connect 1, a new nine-mile bus rapid transit service running east and west between Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa. The BRT service is the first of its kind for MCTS. The service cost $55 million to develop and employs dedicated bus lanes, elevated bus stations and transit technologies like off-bus fare collection and BEBs. Currently, however, the majority of buses operating on Connect 1 are clean-diesel buses like those being operated throughout the system.

MCTS also ordered 4 BEBs to operate on other fixed-bus routes as a pilot for a broader electrification of the fleet. Shortly after the Connect 1 launched, the company announced it was exiting the U.S. manufacturing market, with plans to close its manufacturing and delivery facility in Plattsburgh, New York by 2025.

So far, MCTS has received 11 BEBs from NovaBus. Delivery of the remaining four buses is expected this year.

On June 1, MCTS launched Connect 1. Before the month was over, the MCTS needed to replace a battery unit on one of the BEBs. On Aug. 24, all of the transit system’s BEBs were pulled from the road for a full recall and replacement of the batteries by NovaBus. During the recall, nine buses were sent away and all have returned with new batteries.

From the Article:

Two consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority said redistricting plans submitted by the Republican-controlled Legislature do “not deserve further consideration” by justices as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the state’s political maps.

Their report on six map proposals said plans submitted by Gov. Tony Evers, Democrats and academics are “tilted toward the Republicans” but are competitive enough that “the party that wins the most votes will win the most seats.”

The findings, released to the court Thursday night, struck at the heart of an argument long used by Republicans that Wisconsin’s “political geography” favors their party because Democrats are generally clustered in larger cities. Wisconsin’s current legislative maps, first drawn by Republicans in 2011 and redrawn in 2021, have helped the GOP cement lopsided majorities in the Assembly and Senate, even in years when Democratic candidates performed well statewide.

But University of California, Irvine political scientist Bernard Grofman and Carnegie Mellon University political scientist Jonathan Cervas told the court that the maps submitted to the court contradicted that claim.

“To put it simply, in Wisconsin, geography is not destiny,” they wrote.

The report argues map proposals from every party except the Legislature and voters represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty are able to “improve on traditional good government criteria compared to the current map and manage to create plans with modest levels of partisan bias.”

Also, the consultants wrote, the Legislature’s plan and the plan submitted by WILL “are partisan gerrymanders” from a social science perspective.

The other four plans, the report said, are similar on most criteria, and more competitive than the GOP maps. The consultants did not endorse a specific map but told the court they were prepared to improve map proposals if justices choose.

Shortly after the report was released, Evers called it an important step in the process for finding new maps.

“The days of Wisconsinites living under some of the most gerrymandered maps in the country are numbered,” Evers said.

From the Article:

A Dane County judge has ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to create new rules that allow local clerks to accept absentee ballots with missing witness address information.

The move could lead to more votes being counted in this year’s elections compared to in 2022. An attorney for the Republican-controlled state Legislature plans to appeal the ruling.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ryan Nilsestuen issued the ruling as part of a permanent injunction Tuesday. The order requires the commission to rescind guidance it sent to clerks in September stating the agency could no longer advise clerks on whether or not to accept absentee ballots with incomplete address information written on ballot envelopes by a voter’s witness.

In it’s place, Nilsestuen’s order requires the commission to notify clerks that ballots cannot be rejected if witness addresses are missing things like a ZIP code or municipality. It also states that witness addresses marked “same as voter” or “ditto” must be accepted if that person lives at the same residence as the voter.

“The right to vote is one of our most important, if not the most important, right,” Nilsestuen said. “And this furthers that.”

The injunction wasn’t unexpected. On Jan. 3, Nislestuen, a former chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, issued preliminary rulings on the witness address issue in cases brought by the League of Women Voters and the national youth organizing group Rise, Inc. At that time, he said rejecting absentee ballots due to incomplete witness addresses violates the federal Civil Rights act of 1964 and that the definition of an address should mean “a place where the witness can be communicated with.”

From the Article:

One of the Third Ward’s oldest buildings that last year was a prospect for potential demolition on Wednesday was donated to the nonprofit Milwaukee Preservation Alliance, which intends to preserve and restore it.

The donation resolves a preservation debate over the historic tavern at 266 E. Erie St., parts of which date to 1884. Milwaukee officials last year rejected General Capital Group and Joseph Property Development’s application to demolish the structure. The developers said its condition made a restoration financially impossible, and that it would essentially require a full reconstruction.

After the city of Milwaukee in September rejected the demolition application, members of the Milwaukee Preservation Alliance reached out to see if they could help, said executive director Emma Rudd. Those executive board members, including Peter Zanghi and Claude Krawczyk, worked primarily with Linda Gorens-Levey of General Capital, and reached the agreement for the developers to donate the building to the alliance to be preserved, Rudd said.

“It aligns perfectly with our mission,” she said. “At the end of the day, this is something we were willing to take on that not many would.”

The alliance is prepared to first stabilize the building, stopping further water leakage through its roof, and building scaffolding to brace an exterior brick wall that had been shifting. The long-term restoration will require fundraising and further planning, Rudd said, and will be an extensive effort. The funding for that work would include private donations and potential historic tax credits.

Beyond its deteriorating interior and roof, the building’s foundations will require extensive repair or replacement. An exterior wall will have to be taken apart and rebuild brick-by-brick, Rudd said.

“This is a beautiful, rich historic building that needs love from the ground up,” she said. “We want to use this building not only as an opportunity to promote our mission, but to use it for educational purposes, to see preservation as it happens."

A future use has not been identified for the restored building, Rudd said.

The building is notable because it is among fewer than 10 that survived the 1892 fire that wiped out much of the Third Ward. Its more recent history also includes housing the Wreck Room Saloon, a popular gathering space for the LGBTQ community.

It was most recently a Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design student union before a fire forced its closure in 2013. General Capital and Joseph Property acquired the building in 2014.

From the Article:

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday vetoed a redistricting proposal that the Republican-controlled Legislature passed last week in a last-ditch effort to avert the drawing of legislative boundaries by the state Supreme Court.

The veto came a day after five of Wisconsin’s Republican members of Congress, along with the GOP-controlled Legislature, asked the newest liberal member of the state Supreme Court not to hear a lawsuit that seeks to redraw congressional district maps ahead of the November election.

The political stakes in both cases are huge for both sides in the presidential battleground state, where Republicans have had a firm grip on the Legislature since 2011 even as Democrats have won statewide elections, including for governor in 2018 and 2022.

Evers had promised to veto the GOP legislative-district proposal, which largely mirrored maps he had proposed, but with changes that would reduce the number of GOP incumbents in the state Senate and Assembly who would have to face one another in November.

Evers said he vetoed the maps because they are “more of the same.”

“Republicans passed maps to help make sure Republican-gerrymandered incumbents get to keep their seats,” he said in a statement. “Folks, that’s just more gerrymandering.”

Republicans don’t have enough votes in the Legislature to override the veto.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos accused Evers of trusting the Wisconsin Supreme Court “to give him even more partisan, gerrymandered maps for Democrats.” And Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a statement that Evers is confident the court “will trample the constitutional authority of the legislature.”

The liberal-controlled state Supreme Court last month tossed the current Republican-drawn legislative maps as unconstitutional. The court said it would draw new maps unless the Legislature and Evers agreed to ones first.

They could not agree.

The Legislature raced to pass maps ahead of Thursday’s deadline for consultants hired by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to submit their recommendations for new boundary lines. They were reviewing six maps submitted separately by Evers, Republicans, Democrats and others. They could recommend one of those maps, or their own. It will then be up to the liberal-controlled court to order the maps.

The legislative machinations in Wisconsin come as litigation continues in more than dozen states over U.S. House and state legislative districts that were enacted after the 2020 census. National Democrats last week asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up a challenge to the state’s congressional districts, but the court has yet to decide whether to take the case.

That lawsuit argues that decision last month ordering new state legislative maps opens the door to the latest challenge focused on congressional lines.

Republicans asked in that legislative-district case for Justice Janet Protasiewicz to recuse herself, based on comments she made during her campaign calling the maps “rigged” and “unfair.” She refused to step aside and was part of the 4-3 majority in December that ordered new maps.

Now Republicans are making similar arguments in calling for her to not hear the congressional redistricting challenge. In a motion filed Monday, they argued that her comments critical of the Republican maps require her to step aside in order to avoid a due process violation of the U.S. Constitution. They also cite the nearly $10 million her campaign received from the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

“A justice cannot decide a case she has prejudged or when her participation otherwise creates a serious risk of actual bias," Republicans argued in the motion. “Justice Protasiewicz’s public campaign statements establish a constitutionally intolerable risk that she has prejudged the merits of this case.”

Protasiewicz rejected similar arguments in the state legislative map redistricting case, saying in October that the law did not require her to step down from that case.

“Recusal decisions are controlled by the law,” Protasiewicz wrote then. “They are not a matter of personal preference. If precedent requires it, I must recuse. But if precedent does not warrant recusal, my oath binds me to participate.”

Those seeking her recusal in the congressional redistricting case are the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature and Republican U.S. Reps. Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Mike Gallagher, Bryan Steil and Tom Tiffany.

The only Republican not involved in the lawsuit is U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District. His is one of only two congressional districts in Wisconsin seen as competitive.

The current congressional maps in Wisconsin were drawn by Evers and approved by the state Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is under an extremely tight deadline to consider the challenge. State elections officials have said that new maps must be in place by March 15 in order for candidates and elections officials to adequately prepare for the Aug. 13 primary. Candidates can start circulating nomination papers on April 15.

The lawsuit argues that there is time for the court to accept map submissions and select one to be in place for the November election.

From the Article:

Last May, we reported that plans for the East Side food park in the former Zak's / Humboldt Gardens building at 2249 N. Humboldt Ave. (a.k.a. 1025 E. North Ave.) were officially approved by the Historical Preservation Committee. The approval marked the clearance of a significant hurdle for the project, which aims to restore an endangered historic building.

This morning saw yet another positive step forward for the highly anticipated development, which met with approval from the Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee. The committee's approval paves the way for the project to be officially presented to the Common Council for ratification.

From the Article:

Remote work has declined in Wisconsin after spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic, but office vacancies remain elevated in the state’s largest city and its suburbs.

From 2021 to 2022, the state saw an 11 percent decrease in the number of people working remotely, from 437,295 to 387,700, according to a recent study from LLC.org.

Both Madison and Milwaukee have seen about a 20 percent decline in the number of people working from home, according to the report. Madison’s remote workforce declined by 22 percent from 40,253 to 31,385 people. Milwaukee’s has declined by 19 percent from 40,265 to 32,627.

Despite the decrease, remote work nationally remains higher than it was before the pandemic. In September 2023, the average U.S. worker reported spending 3.8 days each month doing their job remotely, down from 5.8 days in 2020 but up from 2.4 days in 2019, according to Gallup.

As of 2023, Forbes reported that 12.7 percent of full-time employees worked from home, while 28.2 percent worked a hybrid model.

Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce President Zach Brandon said the decline in remote workers noted in the LLC.org report isn’t surprising, but he doesn’t expect remote work to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon.

“It will continue to be higher than it was pre-pandemic but never be what it was during the pandemic,” Brandon said. “You’re going to continue to see businesses and governments sort out what works and what doesn’t work.”

While remote work has decreased in Wisconsin, it hasn’t necessarily led to offices brimming with activity in the greater Milwaukee area.

From the final three months of 2021 to the same period in 2022, office vacancies in southeast Wisconsin increased slightly from 15.3 percent to 15.8 percent, according to reports from the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin. By the end of 2023, office vacancies in southeast Wisconsin increased to 17.7 percent.

Tracy Johnson, president and CEO for the Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin, said generally smaller offices are faring better in the market than larger office spaces.

“A lot of it has to do with the fact that people are just rethinking the way that they use their space,” she said. “You’ve got the hybrid model that, I think, is very pervasive.”

While office vacancies haven’t recovered, Brandon said offices are important to local economies because their workers help support surrounding businesses.

“Offices have amenities around them, (and) those amenities are struggling,” he said. “It’s not uncommon to see places that used to be open for lunch seven days a week (that) are not open for lunch every day of the week anymore, if they’re open for lunch at all.”

Johnson and Brandon said offices also provide an important social space for workers to build a sense of camaraderie. In a virtual work environment, they said it’s harder for coworkers to forge friendships, creating a feeling of isolation.

“We may not have water coolers per se anymore in offices, but the concept of the water cooler is real,” Brandon said.

A 2023 survey from the Society for Human Resource Management found that U.S. workers who have close work friends are more likely to say they’re satisfied with their job than those without close friends at work. And 80 percent of employees with close friends at work say they feel a strong sense of belonging to their organization.

“It’s good for their mental health, I think people feel very isolated,” Johnson said. “When you feel disconnected, I think that contributes to your ability to create trust, and also create innovation.”

From the Article:

The removal of Interstate 794 in downtown Milwaukee would increase daily traffic counts on Clybourn Street significantly, and state planners are exploring options to avoid logjams when its bridge over the river opens for boats.

Clybourn Street is currently a one-way street running in the shadow of Interstate 794’s elevated bridges. In early summer 2022, the Department of Transportation counted about 6,200 daily cars crossing its bridge over the Milwaukee River. Clybourn Street's total traffic counts are currently low, but could increase to about 26,000 cars daily under the most likely option to remove I-794 entirely, according to information the DOT released in August.

If I-794 is removed or redesigned, Clybourn Street would be rebuilt as a wider two-way boulevard to handle more traffic.

Those raising concerns about removing I-794 have argued Clybourn Street will experience car congestion when its bridge opens for boats on the river. The Clybourn Street bridge opens about 2,000 times a year for boats.

Wisconsin DOT planners discussed their efforts around the Clybourn Street bridge last week while updating a Milwaukee County Board committee on I-794. Mike Ernst, project manager on I-794 consulting firm HNTB Corp., said the project team assumes a new lift bridge would be built for Clybourn Street. Efforts are underway to minimize the number of times it would open for river traffic, he said.

“We are currently working on ideas for what we can do for that structure,” Ernst said.

That may mean rebuilding the bridge taller so it not need to open as frequently, said David Pittman, Wisconsin DOT project manager on the I-794 project.

The Milwaukee River is a federally regulated waterway, so it would require an act of Congress to remove the requirement for taller boats to pass, Pittman said.

The DOT had explored building a bridge tall enough to let all boats pass without needing to open and stop cars. However, a bridge that is tall enough, with inclines that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, may be so long that its structure blocks either Water Street east of the river, or Plankinton Avenue to the west, according to those preliminary studies from earlier this year.

Clybourn Street would see daily traffic increase to 26,000 cars under the DOT’s option of removing I-794 between Sixth Street and the northern terminus of the Hoan Bridge. According to last week’s presentation, that is the “most feasible” of the two options the DOT presented last summer to remove I-794 completely.

Several other options remain in play, and a final plan is to be selected later this year. Nine design concepts were shown last summer. State planners will narrow those down to four over the “next few months” for further public review, Ernst said.

The current range of options include rebuilding aging I-794 bridges with no design changes. That would maintain the current eight different access points to downtown.

Other options would redesign I-794, tearing it down and rebuilding it with a new, smaller system of elevated bridges. Those concepts would preserve about four access points to downtown, and open land downtown for public use or private redevelopment. It would not open as much land as removing the interstate bridges entirely.

The redesign concepts would also rebuild Clybourn Street as a wider, two-way boulevard to handle more traffic that now uses I-794. Cass Street would be extended south into the Third Ward to create a new local street connection.

From the Article:

Wisconsin’s budget surplus will be less than what was projected six months ago.

The state is predicted to have a surplus of $3.25 billion by the end of the current budget cycle, according to a new estimate of the state’s general fund from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

That’s nearly $800,000 less than what was projected when the current budget was signed last June.

Jason Stein, research director at the Wisconsin Policy Forum, said the surplus is still large enough to give lawmakers and the governor some options. Republicans have called for more tax cuts, while Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has proposed new spending.

“The state’s extremely bright financial picture dimmed a little bit,” Stein said. “On the whole things are still very strong with regard to state finances, but there was a little bit of a weakening compared to where we thought things were at six months ago.”

The state is projected to collect less tax revenue while spending has increased. The fiscal bureau is now expecting the state will collect $422 million less than previously expected from both individuals and corporations.

This estimate from the bureau included spending that has passed since June, as well as bills currently working their way through the legislature. That includes $423 million for building projects on University of Wisconsin system campuses and other items.

Republican leaders said the new estimates show there is still enough of a surplus to deliver more tax cuts.

“These estimates are consistent with what we expected when we crafted our budget. We created a responsible budget that protects taxpayer resources, while making important investments in our state,” Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born wrote in a statement. “With over $3 billion in the bank and $1.8 billion in the state’s rainy day fund, it is critical for us to return a portion of these funds to the people of Wisconsin.”

Earlier this week, Republicans called for tax cuts that would total $2.1 billion during this budget cycle and $1.4 billion every year after that.

“There’s a lot of room to do one-time spending increases or one-time tax rebates and there is less, but still significant room, to do ongoing spending increases or ongoing tax cuts,” Stein said.

Stein said state revenues grew very rapidly during and immediately after the pandemic.

“They’re not (growing) now, and there’s no real prospect for them doing that in the near future, absent some sort of tax increase by the state,” he said.

When asked for a response to the revised estimate, a spokesperson for Evers pointed to this week’s State of the State address.

In that speech, Evers called for funding a variety of programs, including child care, expanded Medicaid coverage for new mothers and investing in education.

From the Article:

A pair of Wisconsin Republicans want to give the Universities of Wisconsin $500,000 a year to ensure conservative voices on public campuses are heard.

Rep. Scott Johnson, R-Jefferson, and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, are proposing a bill that would fund the university system’s free speech office, the Wisconsin Institute of Citizenship and Civil Dialogue.

The bill proposal says the Wisconsin Institute of Citizenship and Civil Dialogue was not adequately funded when it was created.

The Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue was created in November 2022 by UW System President Jay Rothman in conjunction with a student free speech survey. The UW system spent $250,000 on the center in its first year, according to a university spokesperson.

At the time, Rothman said it was an extension of UW-Madison’s “It’s Just Coffee” program that brought students from different backgrounds together to discuss politics, religion and economics in a non-threatening environment.

The survey of more than 10,000 Universities of Wisconsin undergraduate students found stark differences in opinion on free speech when broken down by political affiliation, gender and race.

From the Article:

Warehouse Art Museum, which bills itself as Milwaukee’s only private museum dedicated exclusively to the exhibition of modern and contemporary art, is planning to move into a new facility in 2025 in order to expand its exhibition space and hours of operation, providing greater public access to its collection.

Details about the new facility and opening plan will be unveiled later.

The museum temporarily closed its doors to the public in December after the conclusion of its fall exhibition, PAUSE/CONNECT. The museum will remain closed through 2024 as staff prepares to open the new facility.

During this temporary closure, Warehouse Art Museum plans to remain active, with plans for several events around Milwaukee in the coming months.

The move has been in the works for more than a year, Warehouse Art Museum Co-founder and Managing Director John Shannon said.

“We’ve now made a firm decision to do so,” Shannon said.

Warehouse Art Museum opened to the public in 2018 in a five-story concrete and brick warehouse at 1635 W. St. Paul Ave., in the Menomonee Valley. The museum’s international collection of more than 7,000 works includes significant concentrations of self-portraits, monotypes and contemporary studio craft. Since its launch, the museum has opened 14 unique exhibitions comprised of work from the permanent collection including Rediscovering Ruth Grotenrath and William Kentridge: See for Yourself.

The museum’s international collection reflects the personal vision its co-founders, Shannon and Jan Serr.

In its new location, WAM is planning to double its gallery space, providing visitors with both permanent and rotating exhibitions. In addition to the new space, WAM also plans to provide new research services for students and scholars to better explore the collection.

Programming at the museum has included four or five gallery exhibitions per year, often featuring guest curators, with concurrent artist talks, guest speakers and guided exhibition tours.

Warehouse Art Museum’s Plumb Press also maintains an active publication and video presence.

From the Article:

After a Thursday court ruling, the city can take ownership of the former Northridge Mall site, the Milwaukee Mayor’s Office confirmed.

This includes properties formerly owned by Black Spruce.

Northridge Mall has sat vacant for more than two decades, after closing in 2003. The former mall was located on the Far Northwest Side.

Several past attempts to redevelop the mall have not worked out. In recent years, it has been prone to fires and vandalism.

The mayor’s office said the city is planning next steps for the property when it comes to razing and restoring the site.

Officials said the first step would be to eliminate any danger the site poses. Demolition will start in the spring. The future of the site is still up in the air.