Hello folks.
Welcome to your Paul Revere show.
We are here on Civic Media WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM every Monday night.
Tonight, it's a cold, bitter night, but I tell you what folks, I'm very, very honored to have with me the leader or, you know, I'll say the leader, the leader of
Folks the new generation mayor Cavalier Johnson.
Hello mayor.
How are you?
Mark I'm doing very very well.
Hope you're doing well too and happy MLK day
Well, I know you must have had a very very busy day and so I and I think I'm stealing you from your children.
So I Thank you very very much for your time tonight, but you know to me it's I Just looked at the history books
This has been a holiday since January 20th, 1986.
So your whole life, you've had this holiday.
I haven't had the holiday.
So before we get into sort of your views and your vision for the future, what has Dr. Martin Luther King and this holiday meant to you?
You know, all day I attended
MLK celebrations across Milwaukee.
And I guess I'll just leave you with what I finished up saying at the first one, which is the largest MLK gathering in the city of Wisconsin put on by the YMCA in Metropolitan Milwaukee, which I've been associated with since I was a teenager.
And that's this.
It's Dr. King's message that it doesn't cost anything to be kind.
It just doesn't.
You can be humble, you can be
gracious, anybody with a heartfelt love can get up and help and serve and inspire the next generation.
And again, it costs you zero dollars.
It costs you zero cents to simply just be a good person, to be kind to your fellow, your fellow man, your fellow woman, children in our community.
And it makes our entire city and our community a better place to be.
So how do we take this message and put it this way?
We're just starting here in 2024.
What is your vision for Milwaukee's role in the state of Wisconsin in 2024?
Well,
Milwaukee's got an outsized role in the state of Wisconsin.
I mean, what happens here in this city, in this city proper, has an outsized effect on what happens in our region and what happens across the state of Wisconsin too.
That's something that I understand full well in my roles and my responsibility as mayor of Milwaukee.
And so for me, I want to make sure that we're continuing to build on the foundation that we've laid over the course of the last two years that I've had the privilege and the pleasure of serving as mayor of this city.
When I first ran for this office, I said I wanted to make a city that was stronger, make a city that was safer,
and
make a city that was more prosperous for everybody.
And I think that we've been doing that over the course of the last couple of years.
When you think about strength for the city, no longer are we facing a fiscal cliff, a calamity that would have devastated services in the city of Milwaukee because we were able to work in a bipartisan fashion in order to get some major accomplishments there in the capital.
When you think about having a city that is safer, look, homicides, violent crime overall has been dropping in Milwaukee over the course of the last couple of years and even exceeding national averages.
And that's good for Milwaukeeans and it's good for the city overall.
And when we talk about having a city that's more prosperous for folks, I mean, you don't need to look terribly far in the neighborhoods or downtown at the investments that are happening.
And if there are cranes in the sky and there are trenches in the ground to pull that pipes out, that means that people are working.
And if people are working, that means they're more stable.
And if they're more stable, that means folks aren't porous or aren't transient, rather than neighborhoods aren't porous.
And if that happens, then we have a stronger city.
The neighborhoods become more cohesive.
People begin to gel.
And that's how you get to the greater public safety that all of us want to see.
And I want to build on that over the course of the next year and 2024 and over the course of the next four years in the mayor's office.
You know, you touched on public safety a little bit.
Just watching the press, you've been very attentive to this.
And you know, if you're in the city and even visiting the city, you hear these rumors of reckless driving.
I think the situation is much improved.
But what steps do you see taking?
Yeah, I would agree that the issue of reckless driving in Milwaukee is much improved.
By no means are we taking a victory lap and saying that it's over or resting on our laurels at all.
But we have been taking concrete, solid steps in order to address the issue.
In
fact, when I became mayor,
even
as acting mayor, the very first document that I signed at that desk was a document corralling all of government to work together to solve the issue of reckless driving.
And so our Department of Public Works has worked with the Department of City Development.
We created a vision
zero office, making us only the second community in the state of Wisconsin to be a part of that international network of vision zero communities around the world in order to stem the tide of reckless driving in our community.
So when you look on the streets of Milwaukee, you'll see infrastructure changes that have happened.
You'll see roads that have been narrowed.
You'll see streets that have gone on a diet.
You'll see pinned on curb extensions that have been put there to stop people from being able to pass on the right, which is the most egregious reckless driving behavior that we've seen in Milwaukee over the last number of years.
You'll see more protected, actual protected bike lanes in Milwaukee.
One, because it's a greater opportunity for folks who use bicycles to get around the community and do it in a safer way and create some equity for those users of the roadway, and not just them, but also for scooter riders and the like.
But it also presents an opportunity for us to have another barrier in place to stop people from driving recklessly in Milwaukee.
So
it's
all those coupled with the Milwaukee Police Department's traffic safety unit, which goes out there and patrols reckless driving on a constant basis.
is our partnerships with places like the Greater Milwaukee Urban League that's working to make sure that young people have actual foundations and driving and getting their actual driver's licenses.
It's the bipartisan legislation that was recently signed by Governor Evers.
and initially authored by Representative Bob Donovan to make sure that young people in Milwaukee and across the state get access to driver's education in school like they used to.
It's all those things together that's working to make the streets safer now, and I think we'll continue to make the streets safer in the future.
You
mentioned driver's education for young high school folks.
To me, that is really, really central for so many people.
When does that program really get laid out?
Is that starting up now?
Yeah, I would check with Milwaukee Public Schools just to double check on that.
But I can tell you that folks get in touch with the grid at Milwaukee Urban League now.
And their program is happening right now, where they're working again to connect young people.
with opportunities to get their driver's license.
And to me, it's about more than just simply getting a license.
See, when I was in high school, I worked.
So I
had the opportunity to pay for drivers.
It was over $300 at the time when I was in high school between 2001 and 2005.
And I was able to afford it, again, because I had a job.
But some of my classmates, they couldn't afford it.
They weren't able to pay for it.
But that doesn't mean they didn't drive, though.
And so, you know, you fast forward, you know, these years
later,
and you've got folks who potentially have taught themselves to drive and potentially are teaching other folks to drive.
They're the self-taught, you know, sort of behind-the-wheel lessons.
And that, I don't think bodes well for continuity in driving culture in our community.
The Greater Milwaukee Urban League heard our call to wrap their arms around this situation.
They've done just that.
And in a bipartisan way, there's legislation that I support in Madison that's also helping to address the situation to it.
I'm very, very proud of
that.
You talked on economic development.
In 2024, how do you see the lay of the land and how do we see more jobs for
younger people in the city?
Sure, that's a great question, especially as it relates to younger people in this community.
So since I've been mayor, I've been working with Milwaukee Public Schools to expose young people in MPS to opportunities in the trades, right?
Certainly we encourage young people to go to college and that's great.
But we also know that every part of everybody won't go to college.
I mean, that that's just the fact of the matter.
And so for those that will go to college and possibly become first generation college students like I was at the University of Wisconsin Madison, God bless you.
We want to make sure you have the resources to go and do that.
But for those other young people who need access to good paying family support and job, we want to make sure that we have your back and have opportunities for you as well.
And it used to be that manufacturing was king here.
They used to say that all you needed to get a good job in Milwaukee was an alarm clock to wake up and a strong back.
But those days are not what they used to be.
Certainly we still have a lot of manufacturing jobs here, but not as much as we used to.
But the jobs that we have in the union construction trades, these apprenticeships, present an extremely large opportunity for people to make a very good living.
And so we've worked with MPS to expose hundreds and hundreds of young people in the school district to opportunities in the trades, right?
So I'm the development mayor.
I want to see more cranes in the sky.
I want to see more buildings going up.
I want to see more housing being built.
I want to see more improvements to our roadway.
That's a lot of construction.
That's a lot of development.
And young people have a tremendous opportunity to be a part of that future and get a good job in the process.
So there's that.
Another thing that we've done is continue on the very popular and longstanding summer youth jobs program called Arna Learn in Milwaukee and encourage businesses and folks with means to give to that so we can make sure young people have access to a good job in the summer.
Another thing that we work to create with some of our partners in the nonprofit sector and others is a program called Camp Rise.
That program is making sure that kids in Milwaukee, kids who live in neighborhoods that have been challenged, have access to caring adult mentors, have access to opportunities to volunteer, opportunities to get off of their block, opportunities to put
some money in their pocket in honest way, honest days wage for an honest days work, right?
Those sort of values.
And that's putting them in a position where they are entering the workforce as young as 10 years old.
And we may be the only big city in the United States, Milwaukee, that's doing workforce development with kids as young as 10.
So we're doing a lot of things to get young people to work in Milwaukee.
Thank you, Mayor.
We'll be right back in a few minutes with more.
From the mayor, we're going to hear about housing, we're going to hear about the election and the vision for the future.
What better way can we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.
Day here at Civic Media WAUK 540 AM other than having my mayor, Mayor Cavalier Johnson with us.
Thank you so much.
We'll be right back with the mayor.
This is your Paul Revere show.
This is attorney Mark Thompson.
This is civic media WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
I am honored and privileged to have the mayor of Milwaukee, mayor Cavalier Johnson with us here celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.
Day.
Uh, thanks again, mayor.
Before we hit the break, you had mentioned that housing is a priority of yours in 2024.
What do you mean by that and what's going to happen?
Sure, housing is extremely important.
And so folks may be aware that under my direction, the Department of City Development is working on a plan to update the zoning code in the city of Milwaukee.
Again, I've talked about an ambitious plan to grow the population here in our city.
I think we shouldn't be nibbling around the edges or shrinking.
I think we should be trying to grow.
We should endeavor to be a city of upwards to a million
people and so our growing Milwaukee plan will I think put us in a position to do that and part of that will mean that we're working to make sure that we have more dense housing across Milwaukee especially in areas that can support it like along bus lines along transit lines and places like that so
We'll be working to make sure that our plan comes to fruition in 2024, but isn't just that.
Just the other day, I had the opportunity to go to the 6th Aldermanic District with Alderman Malayla Coggs, with Alderman Russell Stamper, as well as with Alderman Robert Bauman.
to celebrate our Homes MKE program where we're working with local, usually developers from minority communities to rehabilitate city-owned tax or closed properties.
And then to turn those properties over to stabilizing forces, homeowners, you're going to stay there in those neighborhoods.
And we're using millions and millions of dollars of American Rescue Plan Act funds from President Biden's administration in order to make that happen.
So we're doing a lot of things around housing that I'm really, really excited about in 2024.
You
know, they're in the middle of an election.
How do you see using this election to move your agenda forward in 2024?
Well, I think the election presents a great opportunity to talk about what our vision is the accomplishments that we've had and what we intend to do In the next term, you know, I mean we talked a little bit about Housing now we've touched a little bit on development.
We've touched a little bit on public safety and those certainly are things that I have worked on in this first term and things that I want to continue to build on in the next in the next term as well
so
touched a little bit on public safety and education.
Where do you see this that, you know, there was discussion, controversy, new legislation about MPD Milwaukee police officers getting back into the public schools in Milwaukee.
Where is that happening?
And how is that going to be part of 2024?
Yeah, I mean that's a that's a great question and I mean there's got to be agreement between Milwaukee public schools as well as the Milwaukee Police Department My belief is that it ought to happen now It was not my desire that it happened the way that Republicans in Madison sought it to happen But we got to remember the context, right?
So Republicans in Madison wanted it to be that there would be
one police officer per school in the MPS district.
That means 156 police officers in schools, including the MPS school that my kids go to, my youngest kids in elementary school, who are just in K-5.
That's unnecessary, right?
My thought was that I don't need to have kids, or I don't need to have police, rather, you know, watching over kids when they're getting their backpacks out their locker or whether they're eating lunch in the lunchroom.
I don't need that.
But what I would like to see is for there to be presence outside of school when things are likely to pop off, when you've got some incidences where folks are driving recklessly actually on the schoolyard.
driving towards kids at breakneck speeds, possibly injuring or killing them, right?
That's where I think it's appropriate to have police officers who are at the ready and present to be able to take on that issue.
But that remains to be something that the Milwaukee Police Department as well as Milwaukee Public Schools continues to work on so we can have those school resource officers in place in 2024.
And I should say as well,
Because of my own personal negotiations with Republican, we were able to drop that number from 156 police officers down to 25 police officers, which I believe is 10 officers less than what was initially in place before NPS ended their contract with NPD.
You know, we're talking about young people and we're talking about elections and one coming up soon.
I did note
Pastor Lewis from Souls to the Poles quoted in today's paper about the vote is so, so important.
How do you see you and this campaign as mayor your election helping get out the vote in the city?
Yeah, and Reverend Lewis is 100% correct about the vote being so important.
Look, it doesn't matter who you are.
It doesn't matter how much money you have or how little money you have.
It doesn't matter if you live in a big house on the lake.
It doesn't matter if you live in a challenged neighborhood.
All you got is one vote.
All of us have one vote.
It is the great equalizer.
It means that my voice counts just as much as yours and your voice counts just as much as mine.
So folks should take up the responsibility they have as citizens to get out there and to go vote.
And we'll be encouraging people in this election to exercise their voice, to get up to get out there and to go vote.
Not just for mayor, but for other offices that are on the ballot this spring.
And we're not stopping there either.
My desire, of course, is to win reelection and continue serve as mayor.
But this year is a very, very important year for elections, not just in the state of Wisconsin, but across the entire United States.
And the people who vote in the city of Milwaukee, particularly in the city of Milwaukee, they have some of the most powerful votes.
in the United States.
Wisconsin is the purple, the purplest of purple states.
It is a true battleground.
But the people in Milwaukee, if they get up, if they get out and go vote, it's their votes that will help to select who the president of the United States is going to be.
So we really need to talk that up, really need to educate the folks in this community as to the power that they hold in their ballot.
Well, as a person who
has a privilege of living in the city of Milwaukee, even though we're broadcasting in here in Waukesha.
You're going to have my vote.
Thank you much, Mayor.
And I look forward to seeing you out there and doing everything you can to get the vote out because you are right.
And this 2024 in the United States of America, the future could be decided in Milwaukee.
We know Wisconsin is going to be important.
but it could actually come down to Milwaukee.
And so it's, I'm really happy to hear you say that this is going to be a central focus of your campaign as, as mayor.
And I, I really, really thank you.
So 10 seconds on this birthday of celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
What do you say to Wisconsin and to your, to your voters?
Get
up, get out there, go vote.
exactly what Dr. King would have wanted for each and every single one of us to do in the message that I started with.
It cost nothing, absolutely nothing, to simply be kind.
Thank you so much, Mayor, folks.
This is your Paw Review Show.
This was Mayor Kevillier Johnson, one of the leaders of the state of Wisconsin.
Safe travels to you.
We'll be right back on the other side with our county executive in Milwaukee, David Crowley.
I thought it would be perfect to have this back to back.
Welcome back, Wisconsin.
This is Civic Media.
This is your Paul Revere show.
We are here every Monday at 7 to 8 at WAUK 540 AM 101.1 FM.
We spent the first
segment with Mayor Kevlar Johnson.
I thought it was not only appropriate but crucial to share this time with County Executive David Crowley.
Thank you so much for being here, David.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, you know, I tear right up.
You know, I asked the mayor, what did he learn from Martin Luther King, Jr.
and what lessons?
Same thing to you.
How did that, how did that man impact your life?
I mean, one, he set the foundation, you know, I mean, one, we're talking about a man who was fighting when, you know, my father, let me put it in perspective, my father was born in 1955.
And my father grew up in the, in the Bronzeville neighborhood when it was a thriving neighborhood.
And I know the stories.
of what happened to him.
But even when I think about what Dr. King fought for, right?
And the fact that when all that was happening to him as a childhood, it really set the foundation and what my father instilled into me.
But it also let me know that when we think about Dr. King's march, you know, it lets us all know that we've all been marching for a long time.
We've been a part of Dr. King's dream.
And so when I think about what he has done for me,
I wouldn't be able to be the first African-American county executive in Milwaukee County if it wasn't for the foundation that he laid.
Now, some ways it took a long time for a person like me to be here, but to learn perseverance and to understand that from Dr. King, it is my duty, one, to not only fight for equality,
but it's my duty to fight for equity and to continue to fight for social justice.
And so Dr. King along with so many activists who were fighting for their civil rights.
I mean, and as you know, what I really appreciate about Dr. King is he was also a union man because he was also on the picket lines fighting for individuals.
And so he not only understands
understood social justice, but he also understood economic justice and what that meant to not actually just have the political power but also to put that economic power, which was something that he was really starting to focus on before his assassination.
And so Dr. King has done a lot for me.
I think he's done a lot not only for a person like me, but you know, so many people in this country and in this world.
Without a doubt, he definitely had it.
big impact on me.
So how do we take that message and make it a practical reality?
You know, you're the county exec, Milwaukee County, the largest county in the state.
Uh, as the mayor said, we're the economic engine and large part of the state.
Uh, what do you see your role in.
developing Milwaukee County and where are we going and in particular in 2024?
So Milwaukee County one, I think it's one of the best places on earth.
I was born and raised here.
I live here and like many other.
great places.
We have our share of challenges and lead in many different negative statistics, many different disparities right here, whether we're talking education, housing, incarceration.
You can name it.
We lead in it and it's probably a negative statistic.
But I also believe that right here within Milwaukee County, the way that we've.
pushed our administration to look at is to look through a racial equity lens.
Our vision for Moorkee County is that by achieving racial equity, we can become the healthiest county in the state of Wisconsin.
And we can, because even when you think about the health disparities that we see, we see them largely along racial lines.
And health isn't just not about our physical health.
It's really about that mental health and the social determinants of health, because housing, education, employment, this all wraps into how we live healthy lives.
And when I think about today, the service that Dr. King fought for, this is about equity.
This is about making sure that, one, we take a look at many of our policies.
How can we look internally and figure out
how do we right the wrongs or make sure that we're not continuing to not just have policies but implement policies that directly impact people who are marginalized or not represented within our workforce or within our service work that we are working with our constituents.
We have to make sure that we are representative of our community, whether that is through our administration, whether that's through board appointments and whether that's through our employees.
to continue to do this work that Dr. King has started is going to take more than just me.
But to be able to have people in place, and that's what I'm truly blessed with, is a team of individuals and to have an organization of folks who really believe in the work that we're doing.
And so we continue to do this, do Dr. King's.
We're actually embedding his dream into the future outcomes of our community.
So, you know, that's a very powerful message.
So, you know, how do you take Milwaukee County, which is like, how many municipalities are in your county?
We got 19 different municipalities.
So, I mean, this is, how is the county exec?
How do you go about handling all these different egos and all this?
I mean, that's a lot of people you got to deal with, a lot of leadership.
There's a lot of leadership.
I mean, and all the different municipalities have their own personalities, right?
Like every municipality isn't the same and they govern themselves the same.
Some people work well together, some have combined services, others do not.
And one of the first things that I did when I was county executive, we were able to actually go out in public because I was in the onset of the pandemic.
I visited all 19 municipalities and it gave me an opportunity to understand the things that their constituents are fighting for at the local level.
And I would say that that helped fuel some of the work that we have also been doing at the county and also even at the state level to make sure that we're bringing home as much resources as possible that not only helps out the city of Milwaukee, but the other 18 municipalities that I represent as well.
And so, you know, it's really about building relationships.
And I will tell you that it's about also being honest and having tough conversations.
And I think that we've been able to do that in this first term.
So, you know, I think we're going to be able to continue to build upon the relationships that we've built so far and really figure out different ways to make a greater
impact.
So in terms of like short term.
Where do you see the areas where you can make the biggest gains?
The short term where you can make the biggest gains.
I think that at the county level,
I mean, we've been able to do a lot of great work, you know, particularly with, you know, I think about what we've been able to do with our ARPA funds, being able to invest in affordable housing around suburban neighborhoods.
The first time we've been able to do that in, I don't know, 30 years, even if that.
But, you know, the short gains, it's kind of hard to say what those short gains are when you think about what we've been able to do so quickly.
But the short gains is really being, to be honest with you, is really being able to double down on the investments that we have made.
And I'm thinking of those affordable housing investments that we've made.
I'm thinking about being able to see more happening with our transit line.
We just had the connect one, and now we're looking at a second one off of 35th Street that's being looked at right now.
And so just better connectivity, particularly within Milwaukee County,
And I guess the short-term game was would be getting not only the city of Milwaukee, but all of the rest of our municipalities right to think of ourselves as Milwaukee.
And so we are the largest majority of the state.
And as the mayor alluded to early in your show, we're the economic engine of this state, but we do that together.
You know, you know, the, the folks who live in the city of Milwaukee are going in places who, in, in, in the Wauwatosa area, you know, in the, in South Milwaukee and in Oak Creek and those same people are coming into, you know, the city of Milwaukee and many of them work within the city of Milwaukee, right?
Like many people who don't even live within Milwaukee County.
Um,
but I'm out here broadcasting Walker Shaw and this, I mean, there's a important relationship between these two counties, right?
Oh, I mean,
absolutely.
And
so.
You know, being able to have open communication, even with people who I don't politically agree with, but understanding how we can make things work to, to make sure that the people that I represent aren't necessarily negatively affected is extremely important.
So building those relationships we have to do.
You know, one thing, and I didn't have the chance to talk to the mayor about this is we, we sit on Lake Michigan.
It's one of the great bodies of fresh water in the planet.
And, you know, anybody that's been paying attention, we don't have any ice out there yet now.
I mean, with this cold weather, maybe we'll see some ice.
But, you know, we definitely have global warming.
How do you see the lake as an asset to growth in our county?
And how do you see that as part of your long-term vision?
Oh, I mean,
one.
We're talking about having the largest freshwater system in the world in our own backyard.
And we have to, one, understand how much of an asset that is to be able to have this type of access to this water.
And so we have to, one, look at it as, this can help us economically in the future.
And so for me, you just pointed out, right, there's no.
I said, right.
So that tells me that global climate change is real.
OK.
And we need to understand that.
And so when I think about the future of Milwaukee County, I'm not thinking about just the people who just come here because we have great opportunities, right?
But I'm thinking about in the future, when you're thinking about those individuals on the West Coast, where you're seeing the types of earthquakes that they're having on the West Coast, and they don't have
of access to water, clean water, the way that we do and the way that they go through droughts.
You think about, you know, the South of America where Southern America or just Southern America where, you know, they have a failing energy grid.
And then you think about even the East Coast where you have the potential of hurricanes, the Midwest, Milwaukee would be the place that people will want to come to in the future.
And so,
We have just set the foundation of what we want this place to be while making sure that we also protect the culture and protect those individuals who currently live here and who contribute to this society as well without moving them out.
In terms of 2024 and beyond your next term.
What do you think are the key issues that you're gonna have to wrestle with?
We are as a as a people gonna have to wrestle with
What depends on how big we're talking right
Like, how big are we talking, Mark?
Are we talking like federal politics, statewide politics, county politics?
I think that's like a so open-ended.
I don't know how to answer that.
There you go.
This is a nice thing.
I'm just on the bus.
You're driving the bus.
You tell me where we're going and what issues.
Oh, man.
I mean, one...
Let's start this spring and then let's then move on to this fall, right?
And I think that one, we have some local election that's coming up and they're going to be crucial, myself included.
And so to be able to keep us on track on the work that we have been able to do to achieve our goals and our vision, I want to make sure that I get myself elected.
And so for me, it's really.
you get sure that we do everything from the county perspective around health and human services tackling the mental health issues that we're seeing the opioid crisis getting as many harm reduction vending machines as we can uh it's possible right right now out out there right now and we're accepting applications within wonky county so if you know folks um uh let us know uh but when you're talking about transportation right and it's not just getting people to and from
but making sure that
we can keep people safe
excuse me david i'm sorry folks okay
This is attorney Mark Thompson.
This is your Paul review show.
We are here with company executive David probably will be right back on the other side for more.
and this is your Paul Revere show.
This is Civic Media, WAUK 540 AM, 101.1 FM.
I'm honored and privileged to have County Executive David Crowley, our Executive Milwaukee County, the engine of the great state of Wisconsin.
And we're talking about where are we going?
In 2024, we were just talking about the importance of your election and folks.
Just no punches.
I get to vote for David on voting for him.
So they, you know, you've done a great job.
You're the future.
You know, this is, this is new times for new vision.
So I just want to touch space here.
We, you know, we have a big election.
You said spring and fall.
But we have something in between right we have the RNC in Milwaukee County Some of my damn friends think it's like not a good idea.
I thought it was a great idea So how do you see the RNC convention in in Milwaukee County?
How do you see your role in that whole
thing?
Oh
How do I see my role?
Well, one, I don't think I need to show up anymore.
I think I'm done.
I think we're talking about the Republican National Committee.
You know, for me, I mean, yes, I think this is a great thing for our area, right?
And there may be more opportunities for me to get involved in things, and we'll see how those opportunities come.
But they're spending money in our county, right?
But I mean, at the end of the day, right?
And you think about the opportunity that we have with the Democratic National Committee was coming, right?
Or a conference was coming.
And I mean, this was a big thing for us.
But unfortunately, we had a huge pandemic, and it didn't just affect Milwaukee, it affected the entire world.
And so to help us have a redo, I mean, this is an opportunity for us to...
literally have the biggest billboard in the country, in the world.
Everybody's going to be watching this, whether they're actually tuning in because they care about the RNC or they're going to have their popcorn like many other folks just to see how this thing goes.
This is going to put walking on the center stage.
And when you think about conferences, when you think about concerts, when you think about our economy and being able to showcase the things that we have here.
you know, go a step further and even talk about what I was saying before our break to bring businesses here because this is a place that they never even seen before because this is a great place to be.
I think this provides a tremendous opportunity for
that.
Yeah, I mean, with a doubt, a doubt.
You know, we have water, we have great energy.
I mean, you know, to showcase the advantages Milwaukee County has in the country is, you know, it's an opportunity.
And let me take a flip side.
Let me just, you know, I serve on the Wisconsin Election Commission, right?
So, recently we had, we had our fake elector, you know, Bob Spindel, right?
Now they just came out and admitted that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
He said the whole thing was a scam, right?
that they just, so why can't we use that?
The fake electors have told us that Donald Trump is the biggest loser ever.
Why can't we use that at the RNC, is the background?
I mean, to me, it's just amazing, right?
I
think, well, who knows, right?
I think, you know, it hasn't gotten here.
I think if you keep putting it out there, it may actually end up happening in some type of capacity.
But our eyes are going to be on us.
And I'm not sure if the date has been set for the DNC, but just south of us, you're going to have the DNC.
And so there's going to be tremendous opportunity for Milwaukee to get involved in many different capacities.
And we just need to make sure that we're taking advantage of
it.
You had mentioned looking for down the road to November.
What do you, what do you see the challenge in Wisconsin?
And, and I, I think when you mentioned November, you were talking about the presidential election, right?
Absolutely.
I mean, absolutely.
I mean, this is, I mean, I mean, you've heard it every time, every election where it's the most important election in like, but this is, this is a little different, right?
And, and, and I think we've seen this level of,
of posturing from any type of presidential candidate that's willing to sit there and say that he's willing to get revenge on all of his political views.
And he just needs one day, right?
And this is what we're up against.
And so when you think about Wisconsin, this is a critical state.
And we're always going to be a critical state.
because we have been going each way for the past 40, 50, 40 years.
We're purple, right?
We're very purple.
We're dark purple.
I mean, I think about this past election when you can have Governor Evers and a Senator Ron Johnson, and I think that says enough.
But at the end of the day,
you know, we have to make sure that we're getting our messages out there as Democrats.
And as Democrats, you know, we have to be talking about the investments that really came down the pipeline.
I mean, and we can start with, you know, we can start with the COVID-19 relief that we've received from the federal government.
government.
You know, it was unprecedented dollars that were helped out.
I mean, we were able to eliminate, you know, child poverty for a point in time
in
half.
And so we have to just continue to do those things.
And so we have to continue to tell our story to make sure folks understand that, you know, Democrats are fighting, you know, for the little guy.
And we just have to continue to just do what we need to do.
You know, I think they're key things.
You know, we have
the whole abortion issue, the whole, you know, I mean, that, you know, where we stand on equal rights on women, on gender is so fundamental and so crucial, especially for young people.
And we got a minute left.
How do you see getting out the vote in Milwaukee County and in the city of Milwaukee is so crucial in November?
I mean, we have to be the ones that really carry this state, you know, forward.
We have to remember that we are the largest by population and we are the most diverse.
And so, you know, I'm a father of three girls.
So when you sat there until when you mentioned abortion, you talk about women's rights, that's something that we have to do because it is on the ballot.
And so we also have to talk about the fact that,
you know,
safety is on the ballot.
So we're going to get this.
All right, let's get this on the other side because it's hard.
There is no other side.
Hello folks.
You have shared our time tonight with County exec David Crowley.
Thank you so much as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'
's birthday.
This is your Paul Revere show folks.
We are here every Monday night on Civic Media, WAUK 540 AM, 101.1 FM.
And we're honored to be here.
Thank you, David.
