Milwaukee City Council Meeting Summary - January 20, 2026
Milwaukee City Council Meeting Summary - January 20, 2026
The Milwaukee City Council convened to review the status of negotiations with Washington County regarding the Milwaukee Bay Park, present Q4 2025 and forecast metrics for economic development, discuss board and committee recruitment timelines, address legislative updates, and hear from various council members on community issues. The meeting highlighted positive momentum in intergovernmental negotiations, detailed discussions on improving business friendliness metrics, and a strong emphasis on intentional, community-driven placemaking strategies for the upcoming year.
Consent Calendar
- *No specific consent calendar items were explicitly read or voted upon in the transcript; routine approvals appear to be embedded within the staff reports and meeting flow.
Public Comments & Testimony
- *No formal public comment section was recorded in the provided transcript transcript; however, the Mayor and Councillor Massie acknowledged the "Friends of the Library" and community partners regarding the library's fundraising and the "Milwaukee Passport" program.
Discussion Items
County Negotiations & Milwaukee Bay Park Funding
- Project Status: The Council discussed a positive response from Washington County regarding the financial agreement for the Milwaukee Bay Park. The County countered the City's original ask of $5.6 million with an offer of $4.86 million (specifically $3.3 million in current Shared Taxable Capacity/StCs, rather than the original $3.1 million, and $1.56 million in accrued StCs interest, though the transcript cites a total of $4.86 million on the table).
- Agreement Status: The County did not grant "modesty waivers" (likely a transcription error for "monetized waivers" or similar financial instrument), but staff will draft the updated Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) based on these new terms. A draft IGA is expected next week for staff-to-staff review.
- Speaker Positions:
- Councillor Massie: Expressed urgency regarding the timeline, noting that pending resolution prevents the City from securing other external grants that require established partnerships. She emphasized that a resolution is necessary to facilitate future grant submissions.
- Council Mayor/Members: Expressed gratitude for the County's "good faith negotiations" and constructive approach despite historical tensions. They emphasized the need to move quickly to finalize terms before applying for additional funding sources.
- Councillor Savage: Suggested that the City should look at the upcoming budget process to identify capacity for the Milwaukee Community Center's maintenance and inquired about the obligation to have the park "on the ground" given the financing timeline.
- Councillor Savender: Noted the importance of securing funding windows soon and thanked the County for moving forward despite challenges.
Economic Development Metrics & Q4 Review
- Metrics Review: Staff presented Q4 2025 metrics, including $850,000 invested in 24 local business grants (with 11% going to BIPOC and LGBTQ+ IA plus businesses) and a 70-77% completion rate on the five-year action plan.
- Business Friendliness Survey: The "Impressions of Business Friendliness" metric showed a 71% overall grade but only 44% reported satisfaction. Councillors questioned the metric's granularity, suggesting a need to distinguish between "somewhat satisfied" and "very satisfied" and to analyze qualitative feedback to determine corrective actions.
- Events & Tourism: Councilors discussed the need to differentiate between "supporting" an event versus "financing" or providing "logistical support" (e.g., staff, trailers). There was a discussion on the need for a formal Tourism Strategy to address seasonal dips (winter vs. summer foot traffic) and to better brand Milwaukee for out-of-town visitors.
- Placemaking Strategy: Councilors requested a shift from large-scale market analyses to immediate, low-cost, community-driven interventions. Suggestions included wrapping electrical boxes, adding street planters, or hosting neighborhood potlucks. Staff agreed to vet specific low-cost strategies (e.g., PGE electrical box wrap costs) to bring back to Council for community engagement.
- Business Round Tables: Council decided to hold informal round tables in early Q1 to discuss survey results. The format will involve multiple small group sessions in different locations and times (including evenings/weekends) to gather specific feedback on dissatisfaction and business needs, moving away from grand luncheons.
- Emergency Support for Businesses: Councillor Savage highlighted the closure of businesses (K-Marie, Windhorse) due to asbestos remediation on Harvey Street. Council discussed the potential need for a business rainy-day fund (similar to models in Portland/Multnomah County) to assist with sudden closures or repairs, using business registration fees.
Board & Committee Recruitment
- Timeline Changes: The annual recruitment cycle has been accelerated. Applications are due March 15, 2026 (two weeks earlier than usual), with interviews scheduled for April 8, 11, 15, and 18 to accommodate the upcoming May budget process. This year, 46 positions are expected to be filled or reappointed.
Legislative Updates
- Legislative Session: The legislative session begins February 2, 2026. Key deadlines include Feb 16 (1st chamber), Feb 26 (2nd chamber), and March 8 (signing deadline). Council discussed potential bills regarding public meeting rules and housing omnibus bills.
Council Reports
- Friends of the Library: Councillor Mass highlighted the $40,000 raised annually by the "Friends of the Library" for outreach programs and the need to secure a new storage location for book donations as the current Harvey Street facility is being sold.
- Metro Water & Power (MWP) / West: Councillor Stop discussed the impact of recent atmospheric rivers, noting that infrastructure was near capacity but managed to prevent overflows. He highlighted the necessity of the new 90-inch outfall (106 million gallon capacity) to handle such events in the future.
- Community Action Board (CAB): Councillor Stop expressed disappointment with the County Commission's lack of engagement on poverty issues and advocated for the continuation of the "Milwaukee Heart" rent/utility support program with a formal Council letter of support.
- Clackamas Service Center: Councillor Mass praised the "Milwaukee Heart" program pilot and the Clackamas Service Center's partnership, urging Council to advocate for its continued funding.
Key Outcomes
- IGA Drafting: Staff directed to draft updated IGA based on the County's $4.86 million offer for review next week.
- Placemaking Strategy: Council directed staff to vet specific low-cost, high-impact placemaking strategies (e.g., electrical box wrapping, street furniture) to present for community engagement and potential immediate implementation.
- Business Round Tables: Council agreed to the concept of holding informal, targeted round tables based on Q4 survey results to address business dissatisfaction.
- Recruitment Timeline: Finalized the earlier deadline (March 15) for board and committee applications to ensure interviews occur before the budget process.
- Tourism Strategy: Council expressed interest in developing a formal tourism strategy to address seasonal dips and enhance city branding.
- Emergency Fund Inquiry: Council requested staff to research the feasibility of a business rainy-day fund similar to models in Portland/Multnomah County.
- Legislative Tracking: Council instructed staff to track and report on housing and public meeting bills as soon as bill numbers are assigned.
Meeting Transcript
We had a little bit of delay, and so had uh temporary measure people can advance the walking part of the government remain discussion first items. The slides are up right now, so I think we may as well go along there and uh I put this by enough to help uh remind us for the work. So briefly previous episode, if you might recall, last year, back in way back in twenty twenty-five where we left off. Uh we had a great discussion on December sixteenth among the council about what we should do with our response um from our disappointment to the counties, basically awesome. Um lively debate. We got to a place where we kind of considered and made it on acceptable financial terms. Uh, the council decided to allow the mayor to draft those financial terms in a letter and send it over to the county, kind of as like the teams are what we find acceptable at this point and willing to move forward. And we would love to see some positive momentum or from the county by accepting the board in twenty twenty-six, in the current episode that we're in January thirteenth, we received a response um after the recession on recess on January thirteenth. I think um Councillor Massie would say is positive with positive movement. Um, and essentially, if you look at the first slide in the first episode, we asked for five point six million on the next slide. It's probably better. Do I need to move? Yes to the proportional metro, yes, the trolley triple grant. Um, they did not say yes to modesty waivers. We can talk about that staff at a later date, which is fine. Um, and then they did come up, didn't mean this at three point six million in the SDC conversation, but they met us at three point three. So our original was three point one million of current STCs with a five hundred thousand dollar ask of accrued SDCs between now and the time the park is built. They met three point one current STCs, and they said about two hundred thousand interests between now and then. Um, and it's that's where we stand. So overall, we got four point eight six million on the table. Um as opposed to the 5.16 that we originally started at. So we've they've come up and we feel like there's some positive here. We'd love to see your staff take these numbers and put them in to uh draft IGs again so that we can start discussing staff to staff before have them heard of the day they met and they did not finish that discussion so they're continuing the discussion to next week. Hopefully we receive data draft IGA when you know any issues. That's the update. I hope is the next steps really are draft IJs in hand and staff to staff conversations about um it's small ticket items, so to speak. Peter would say those are not small ticket items, but to clarify the county is just discussing putting those terms into the draft IG and already agreed to those terms, or they had collective consensus to advance those terms to us. Yeah, I understand they sent us over their response back to our counter. So those are their numbers for using their numbers. So we say that essentially that sounds good. So we said that's the draft idea is showing those updates, and we'll go from there. Did I miss anything, Councillor Massie? No, I think that the first uh sort of uh positive movement operated by the web city. Um it's not exactly what we want, but we know that this is like a negotiation, and you know, there's some other things pops that we worked out. I think that there's at least uh you know a uh glad path to help with complete the negotiations and come up with something that's uh that we can work for them. I will tell you that there's uh from my point of view, there's a there's a there's some uh sense of urgency from my perspective because obviously this is not going to pay for everything, so we have to uh seek additional funding sources and one of those big grails, and so there's uh some windows of rent applications that are opening very soon, and I think that we would have trouble uh gathering um those grant submissions if this between us and the county is not set up because they're gonna look at those and say you do we want to give them a grant when they're still feuding with each other and they can't decide what they want to do. And if we have if not all of it substantially behind us, then we're more likely to be successful with the grant submission process. And that uh I mean we'll never get all the grants that we kind of have on our wish list, but it's a substantial. Yeah, those are good additions. Uh so yeah, expediency. We've always wanted this to go faster than asked. We do hope that we can get to someplace within the next month or so. Any questions or anything? Um, I just want to say thank you to the county. Um I think that this is a really good step forward, and there are a lot of choose your own adventure paths that could have been taken through this process, and I just really appreciate that they're having a constructive conversation about this. I don't think it's an easy one, and it's certainly not for us, but it's really not for them. Um given everything that they're taking into account and everything at the national level. Um it's really hard to prioritize forward movement in this, and they did. So I know you're watching. Thank you.
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