Milwaukee City Council Work Session: Behavioral Health Update and TriMet Budget Presentation - March 3, 2026
Milwaukee City Council Work Session: Behavioral Health Update and TriMet Budget Presentation - March 3, 2026
The Milwaukee City Council held a work session on March 3, 2026, with two one-hour agenda items. The first item was an update on behavioral health and housing services from the police department, library, and Love One partners. The second item was a presentation from TriMet on proposed service cuts due to a structural deficit.
Discussion Items
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Behavioral Health and Housing Services Update: Police officer Greg Elkins, library director Brad Hush, and Love One executive director Brandy reported on their partnership. Glenn (behavioral health specialist) presented statistics: 569 contacts in the previous year, 315 in the current year, indicating reduced need due to effective resource connections. A new behavioral health case manager, Trista Erickson, will start March 9, 2026, increasing coverage from 4 to 6 days per week. The stabilization center (23-hour) has had 17 to 18 stays from Milwaukee since mid-December. The 13-bed shelter (90-day stay) is full. Library staff reported increased numbers: PITTS (Patron Incident Tracking System) reports up from 40 to 72, water bottles distributed from 184 to 1,779. Parole and probation services at the library served 300 people. The library also provides a private phone for calls. Council members expressed appreciation and discussed the importance of relationships and trust. Business community collaboration was suggested for outreach.
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TriMet Budget and Service Cuts Presentation: TriMet General Manager Samu Sue and team presented a $300 million structural deficit requiring cuts. Proposed service cuts include reducing the Green Line to operate only between Clackamas Town Center and Gateway (requiring transfer), combining bus lines 32 and 34, shifting line 29, and other adjustments. TriMet aims to cut 10% of service, but the board may vote on a 5% cut. TriMet has reduced internal spending by $150 million, laid off staff, and increased fares. Public outreach included 5,000 survey responses and 8,100 respondents. TriMet is working on a transit funding task force (HB 4008) and seeking help from local governments. Council members expressed concern about rolling back progress in Clackamas County and the impact on transit-dependent riders, especially students and seniors. TriMet committed to working with Clackamas County to mitigate impacts.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken (work session). Next steps: TriMet board hearing March 18, first reading March 25, board vote in April, implementation August 23, 2026. Further service cuts expected in fall 2026.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, I think it's coming through now. Yeah. All right. So there are three of us. We have a quorum. You can go ahead and put us on the record. All right. We are on the air. Welcome to our March third. It's March already. Our March third uh work session. Uh, we're starting, we have two one hour items on our agenda, and the first one is behavioral health and housing services update with Greg Elkins from our police department. Brad Hush. Uh, from our library director, Lance Hanukkah, who also works with the police department, and partners from Love One. So maybe member of the Council, Joey B, thank you guys for uh helping us work. Great. Uh here tonight just talked about some homeless operations that we've done throughout the year, what our plan is kind of moving forward. Feel free to shoot them out. So just our agenda again just talk about who we are and kind of what we do and who we're partnering with as well, too. Uh first off, we have our amazing Love One team right here with Brandy, who's the executive director of Love One, Don Holden is uh uh outreach person for Love One. We have a Glensee Canada as well. Deputy Director, sorry about that. She's calm the uh They are a great team. I know that you guys know Love One and what they've done, but without them, we probably wouldn't be where we are with outreach team that we have in Milwaukee and the help that we get. They just do such amazing things for us. Um I know that you and Luke, uh our former uh chief trader once we kind of really started that relationship with Brandy and Glenn as well, and then we got Glenn on board. And it's made a huge difference for us. Um as officers, we were really kind of, you know, I hate to say that we were hand tough of what we can do with um the health community as well, too. It's just we didn't have the resources, and a lot of what they do is the important part, which is the follow-up with them and making sure that they're following up and getting the resources they need to help that they get. So it's been just an amazing partnership that we hope that we can continue on for a long time. So thank you guys. You're stuck with us. Um this is just kind of a slide just to show you where we're at with our officers right now. Um currently have uh about 31 officers, that's including the three admin uh chief um operations captain, Chair Dino, and myself as well too. Uh numbers down a little bit. We've had some retirements, we've had some people leave, but we're looking to get those numbers up. We have about three or four more officers in the background that uh asked their background to get them hired up in April, or they can start an academy as well, too. Um did you say former officers? Four. Sorry, four more officers that we can get on board. They'd be new. We still have openings for laterals. Um we just had um Johnny Van Break with Walton come over as part of our traffic team. He's a lateral officer. It's been a great addition so far as well. Too um, just wanted to put those numbers up. That's kind of one of the reasons why we're just had a little bit hand up, but I know that you guys have been working hard too to help us get those numbers up. Uh with the utility fee that just passed, we've been able to get our iron process started more and get more going. Part of that huge success with behavioral health is we're able to add another person. If we go to the next slide, we'll talk about our behavioral health team, which consists of only Glency Kennick now.
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