Milwaukee City Council Work Session: Staff Introductions and Court/Code Enforcement Discussion – August 4, 2026
Milwaukee City Council Work Session: Staff Introductions and Court/Code Enforcement Discussion – August 4, 2026
The work session began with introductions of two new city staff members: Javier, a court specialist formerly with Hillsboro Police Department, and Kaylee, a new receptionist who previously worked for the City of Portland. Council members welcomed them and briefly discussed their backgrounds.
Following introductions, Judge Graves provided an update on municipal court operations. The judge noted that caseloads remain consistent with a roughly 9:1 ratio of traffic to code enforcement cases. The discussion focused on challenges with tree code violations, including lack of supporting information provided to the court at arraignment, which hampers equitable sentencing. Judge Graves reported that about 60% of tree code cases involve residents and 40% developers, raising equity concerns about fines, especially for non-English speaking residents and elderly homeowners. Two positive case examples were shared: a developer case where a trial provided complete information leading to an appropriate fine, and a long-standing code enforcement case of a squatter property that was fully resolved after a year of judicial and code enforcement collaboration.
Council members discussed inconsistencies in code enforcement priorities, citing an example of a bike rack sign on city property that remained unaddressed. They expressed interest in a data-driven review of code enforcement and urban forestry activities to better understand resource allocation and equity in enforcement.
Key Outcomes
- Council directed staff to coordinate a comprehensive data deep dive involving the court, code enforcement, and urban forestry to examine citations, removal permits, and where code enforcement time is spent.
- The work session concluded and the council moved into executive session under ORS 192.660 to review the performance of the chief executive officer and to conduct labor negotiation deliberations.
Meeting Transcript
Okay. Um March Session session. It's a short one. Um and we're gonna start with some introductions of some new efforts that are uh we may see as the public. Thank you very much. Um Javier is our court specialist, and Kaylee on day three is our new receptionist, um, and they are both critical parts to making our um front desk customer service facing team as efficient and effective as possible, supporting of course court services, which you're gonna hear about more in the work session, but also everything that comes across the city hall front desk. Um I'll ask them to just say a little bit about yourselves, your background, and sort of what you're excited about joining the Milwaukee team. Oh, good for this. Um I was a city of Portland employee for about 15 years. Um layoffs brought me to start a new career, which we here and uh Milwaukee is my home, so I wanted to be part of the Milwaukee community, so it was been a great transition having her awesome. Great Javier? I'm Javier. Uh I come from the City of Hillsboro Police Department. I worked as a uh record specialist for five and a half years, and then one and a half as a supervisor. Um I found this, and I as a kid we would come to Milwaukee, so it was always like uh on the way kind of thing. Um my dad actually finances chuck through that reliable credit, so that we would come here for I knew of it, and then just like now being in the city, I'm like, I really like it here. But I live in Hillsborough, so that's a commute. Yeah. Well, welcome both of you. It's great to have you as part of the team. Um questions from the council? They're very scary people. What's your favorite animal? Yeah, I don't know. Actually, don't do that. I have two cats and a dog and like here. I think I have a favorite animal right now. Very large geese. Yeah. Yeah. I like seeing them here. Yeah. Okay. Well, since Katie is here and we have our a new arborist, I guess, starting to do that. We do too today. Today. All right. Uh I could ask a similar question, but it's a only the oldsters among you will remember Barbara Walters, but it was the question she asked, which is if you could be a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Maybe we don't have to be old to know Barbara Walters. She's been around for a long time. Yeah. I don't know my trees, but we'll go with the dog witch. How much did you learn from? And you have a bonus for that answer. I mean I paid a man somewhere for it. Um Kayle, as only in her three days not had a chance to prove herself, but I can I can attest that Javier is a very good office chair racer. Proven on our Memorial Day Eve, Memorial Day weekend eve first annual office chair race. Right in the lobby. And please don't tell HR. It was really fun and Javier.
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