Lafayette Crump: Success as Development Commissioner Will Mean Improved Equity in Milwaukee

How does Lafayette Crump define success in his new job as the City of Milwaukee’s commissioner of City Development?

“I think it would be a disservice to this community if I did not view my success through the prism of how I am able to improve racial and economic equity in the city of Milwaukee,” Crump said during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program. The interview, one of the “virtual Lubar Center” programs of Marquette Law School, was posted online on Wednesday, August 26.

“I’m charged as development commissioner to promote development in the City of Milwaukee, to bring jobs here, to ensure that we lessen the impact of home foreclosures, that we assure that there is affordable housing available for people. All of that is clearly important and we will never lose sight of that as a department,” Crump said. “But we have to think about those things through the prism of how they are improving racial equity.”

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Patrick Sharkey: Keep the Police, but Add a Corps of Problem Solvers

Police are effective in reducing violence, according to Patrick Sharkey. “When there are more police on the street, there’s less violence, and we have very good evidence on that,” Sharkey said during a virtual “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program on July 22.

But that is only part of what is needed to make communities safe, Sharkey said. The reliance on police to deal with safety in urban areas has left big inequalities and needs unaddressed. That’s one of the key factors behind the enormous wave of protests since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis in May.

So Sharkey, a professor of sociology and urban affairs at Princeton University and an expert on the value of community efforts in increasing safety, has been calling in places such as the Washington Post and New York Times, for bold experiments in new ways to help neighborhoods.

That led to Sharkey’s online conversation with Gousha, Marquette Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy. Sharkey has done consulting in Milwaukee in recent years and has visited Marquette Law School twice previously.

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New County Executive Remains Confident in Good Days Ahead for Milwaukee

As new Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley was being interviewed for an online “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program this week, viewers could see a message board behind Crowley with the phrase, “It’s a good day to have a good day.”

When Gousha, Marquette Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, asked Crowley about it, Crowley said it was a motto in his family and he described himself as an optimist – in fact, he said, some say he is “recklessly optimistic.”

He maintained that tone, even as he discussed the enormous problems he faces in the job he won in the April 7 election. Milwaukee County government continues to struggle with large financial stresses and increasing demands for services. Add on the crises that Crowley faced the day he took office – responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the sharp economic slump that resulted – and the urgent issues that arouse in late May in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, and it would be easy to guess Crowley’s optimism had declined.

Crowley told Gousha that the crises have “exacerbated what we knew we needed in Milwaukee” and have made progress more difficult. “But we’ll be able to move this community even further” as the issues are addressed, he said.

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