Highlights from the Common Council: December 31
Redistricting, new businesses, and won't someone think of the bees!
Government Affairs, December 13
→ The U.S. Constitution says congressional districts should each have roughly the same number of people in them.1 So when a new census is taken each decade, and once the government gets a good idea of where the population has increased or decreased, states get to work redrawing the boundary lines of congressional districts.
States also use the opportunity to redraw legislative boundaries for their state representatives as well. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t have much to say about this, but over the last several hundred years the courts have mostly settled on the norm that boundary lines for these districts should have roughly equal populations, plus or minus about 10%.2 The difference can be larger, but you need a good reason.
In addition to the Constitution and state law, the Voting Rights Act also disallows redrawing legislative boundary lines to reduce the political power of minority populations. For instance, most Black voters vote Democrat, so it would not be okay for Republicans to intentionally divide the Black vote across multiple legislative districts to dilute their influence (this is apparently called ‘cracking’) or do the exact opposite and draw district lines so that an entire voting block is contained in a single district to minimize their influence in other districts (called, ‘packing’).
All of these issues are particularly contentious in Wisconsin, a state the Princeton Gerrymander Project described as “home to some of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders in the United States.” After the census in 2020, the Wisconsin legislature—made up mostly of Republicans—submitted a new legislative map that just happened to favor Republicans. Democrats were pretty upset even though the Republicans said this was totally a coincidence and double pinky-sweared that they were simply following some impartial rules and trying to make as few changes to previous maps as possible. I won’t go through the whole thing (the timeline here seems decent) but there was a lot of suing and appealing and overturning, and the end result was that Wisconsin was redistricted according to the new maps approved by the Republican-controlled legislature.
Most of this is not super relevant to Wauwatosa except for two things:
All the suing and appealing and reversals and submission of maps and amended maps took up a lot of time and slowed down the city’s ability to decide on new wards and districts for aldermen. This was kind of annoying for the employees who were supposed to implement these changes and confusing for voters because they didn’t know what district they were in or who their representatives were.
Given the contentiousness, city staff and the common council put a lot of effort assuring residents that Wauwatosa’s process for revising election maps is totally above board and not at all like whatever’s going on in Madison.
On December 13, the Government Affairs committee reviewed the newly proposed district and ward maps for the city. City Administrator Jim Archambo and City Attorney Alan Kesner emphasized the following considerations:
They tried to place roughly equal populations in each ward
The shift from 8 districts composed of 3 wards with each district represented by 2 alderman to 12 districts composed of 2 wards with each district represented by 1 alderman reflect results from the spring referendum that reduced the size of the common council from 16 to 12 alders. The new district maps being proposed this month will not go into effect until 2026.
They tried to maintain natural neighborhood and school boundaries to the extent possible.
They composed districts of contiguous wards which, just as a function of geography, limited the choices they had (e.g., Ward 24 could only go with Ward 23 to make District 8 because those are the only two wards that touch each other in that part of the city).
Mr. Archambo also mentioned that redistricting was done earlier this year to reflect new legislative lines imposed by the county and state. However, the city’s ward lines stayed the same, and you can see the result of this by looking at either of the two maps below where certain wards are divided into A and B versions. This is to accommodate state and county legislative lines that cut through wards. So, for the purpose of state or county elections it may make a difference whether you are in ward 20A or 20B, for the purpose of local aldermanic elections, Ward 20 is treated as a single unit.
Anyway, you can see the aldermanic districts in place now and the new aldermanic districts proposed to go into effect in 2026 below. The wards (which don’t change between maps) have roughly 2,000 residents in each which means each district will have 4,000 residents.
Most of the alders liked the new plan. Ald. Moldenhauer:
I think to my satisfaction you’ve given adequate credence to why you are making this recommendation […] I'm very comfortable with this. I think it makes a good deal of sense. It seems very logical. I don’t think there’s anything here that jumps out at me as non-sensical or off-the-wall. I’ll ask this one last question, […] we’re trying as well to abide by the Voting Rights Act to aggregate shall we say minority populations so they’re equally distributed, is that correct?
Atty. Kesner explains that having an equal distribution of minority voters in each district isn’t always the best way to comply with the Voting Rights Act but it is one way.
But you can, if you are using your voting power and your ward drawing power inappropriately, you can for example, spread out certain voting blocks in a way that they have no chance of winning any district. […] Wauwatosa’s population is not really set up to do that very well. That kind of ill intent or bad effect comes about more frequently when you’re in a situation where you have concentrations of certain voting blocks or voting groups and you use your power to split them up. W
What we’ve tried to show here […] is that we have a pretty reasonably population of non-white people in all of these districts such that we’re not in a place where we don’t really have the power with these maps to put people in one place where they could have more stand alone voting power.
Ald. Makhlouf wondered why this is all changing so quickly and worried that it would create confusion for constituents. Ald. O’Reilly responded that, “A point I'll make first to Ald. Makhlouf which is that changing maps and changing districts is a little like starting a business or having a baby. It’s never the right time.”
She then attributed much of this confusion to the state’s redistricting process, the addition of new state representatives in the city, the pandemic, and the large turnover in the common council. She concluded that it’s better just to get the changes that need to be done over with:
We waited for these census results for so long. We drew the maps that we did and the state, because it was engaged in what’s known as vote block cracking came in and decided they wanted to reduce the political power of the City of Milwaukee and in doing so blew our map into this confused state. And also gave us five state representatives in this city instead of two.
[…]
I have a bias towards action which is just generally I say if it's going to be complicated whenever we do it that the best thing we can do is to do it with expediency and integrity.
The Government Affairs committee unanimously recommended the new maps for introduction to the Common Council. It went to the common council for a first reading on December 20th and will likely return to the Government Affairs committee on January 10th before going back to the Common Council for final deliberation and approval on January 17th.
Community Affairs, December 13
→ Chris Geiger, of Cardinal Capital Management, has asked for a one-year extension on the final approval for his proposed 40-unit 55+ senior living community, Le Bon Vivant, at the corner of 74th and Wright Streets. Citing “uncertain economic conditions that have affected construction projects including rising interest rates, inflationary impacts, and labor and supply chain issues that have delayed contractor bid packages,” Mr. Geiger asked for another year for his firm to begin development as it works “to finalize the construction financing to commence the project.”
According to this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this development has been in the works at least since 2020.
Ald. Morgan said, “that with the economic conditions in construction we just have to accept this is happening in certain projects. […] It just seems like it’s the nature of the situation right now.”
Ald. Makhlouf suggested maybe the developer should anticipate these inflation problems, “instead of repeatedly coming back for extensions.”
The committee voted unanimously to recommend a one-year extension to begin construction.
Plan Commission, December 12
→ One advantage of opening, say, a McDonald’s instead of Bob’s Hamburger Stand is that nobody knows who Bob is or what his hamburgers taste like but everyone knows what they’re getting at McDonald’s (And it’s great! Spare me your condescension). This is to say that opening a franchise potentially comes with a lot of instant credibility or predictability from potential customers that you would otherwise have to painstakingly build yourself.
Other benefits of being a franchisee might be training from the parent company on how to run a successful business, or a clear business model with predictable costs and known risks, or an established supply chain from which to purchase food or materials.
The downsides are that maybe the royalties are high or the parent company makes you pay for expensive advertising or building upgrades that you wouldn’t bother with if it was your own business, or that the food is just not that good. Or maybe the franchise owner doesn’t legally have the right to sell you a franchise license and the franchise will fold and the owner will move onto a new “franchise concept” and leave you kind of sour about the whole experience?
Wauwatosa’s Plan Commission considered a request from a husband and wife for a Conditional Use permit at 8816 West North Avenue to open an eating establishment called Kwench Tosa that “specializes in preparing and serving organic, all natural juices, smoothies, acai bowls, coffee drinks, and locally made baked goods.”
Kwench Juice Bar and Café is a franchise with close to thirty locations across a dozen states. It is also appears to be the latest in a string of failed franchising concepts by an enterprising Massachusetts-resident named Christos Gregoris who keeps getting served with cease and desist orders for illegally selling franchise licenses.
For instance, he is the mastermind behind the now-defunct Poppin’ Kettle franchise which sold “products, equipment and services to enable purchaser-investors to establish their own gourmet popcorn business” before he was ordered by the state of Connecticut to stop selling franchise licenses to owners in a state where he was not registered to do business.
And there was the YoFresh Yogurt Café franchise in California that he tried to sell to a pair of sisters before being issued a cease and desist order by the California Department of Business Oversight.
And there’s his Java’s Brewin’ franchise concept in New York:
Respondents Poppin Kettle and Gregoris, for example, failed to disclose to Investor 1 that it settled civil litigation brought by several New York business opportunity purchasers naming Gregoris and Java’s Brewin as defendants (DiPietro et al. v. Java’s Brewin Development, Inc., Christopher T. Gregoris et al. (E.D.N.Y. 1:08-cv-01620-ENV-MDG 2008)). In addition, Respondents Poppin Kettle and Gregoris failed to disclose to Investor 1, among other things, that Gregoris was a control person of Java’s Brewing, which was the subject of a Cease and Desist Order entered by the Commissioner on June 23, 2008 for violations of the Act; that on October 8, 2008, the Commissioner imposed a $30,000 fine against Java’s Brewing for the same violations of the Act, and that such fine remains unpaid.
One possible explanation is that being a business owner just makes you a magnet for lawsuits. People learn you own a nationwide franchise of coffee shops or yogurt cafes and assume you have deep pockets. Another possibility is that it’s easy to get caught up in the high of selling franchise licenses to aspiring small-business owners that you lose track of which state they live in. Another possibility is that the paperwork is just confusing.
On the one hand, I admire the man’s perseverance. There is something inspiringly American about trying and failing and getting sued again and again until you succeed. His current Kwench franchise has thirty locations across the United States. Maybe this is the one that takes off. Maybe this is the one where he files all the right paperwork.
On the other hand, if I spent $30,000 on one of his franchise licenses, I would be pretty upset if it turned out he sold it to me illegally.
Common Council
→ The common council approved all the items above (and more) on December 20th with little fanfare. The real fireworks, however, came during discussion of a proposed “No Mow May” ordinance which would encourage residents to let their lawns grow long through the month of May to create, according to BeeCityUSA.org, a “habitat and forage for early season pollinators.”
For Ald. Morgan, it wasn’t just the lawns that were at stake, but society itself:
I’m not going to support No Mow May as it seems to be non-productive and reflect laziness and apathy. As our societies and schools seem to decline, we should be promoting more positive environmental initiatives like actually planting gardens, vegetables, prairie grasses and the like.
Ald. Moldenhauer, resident curmudgeon of the 1st District, while lamenting the modern Tosan’s apathetic grounds keeping nevertheless expressed his intent to hold fast against the rising tide of lawn-based incivility:
We ostensibly [already] have No Mow May as far as I’m concerned in some yards around our city. And I’m not here to cast aspersions on the cutting habits of my fellow residents but as someone who represented where City Hall is, and dealt to make sure we keep City Hall in good repair […], I just can’t support this.
But Ald. Dolan offered a spirited dissent to the dissent in the name of bees everywhere:
The best example I can give you is the strawberry. Think of that white little flower, it produces then after the flower is done and the bee has done it’s duty to it, we then get the strawberry. So the reason why this is important isn’t just because it’s an ordinance or just because it’s trendy or just because it’s something that everybody else is doing. It’s because there are places like [names a bunch of universities]—they’re telling us: we have a problem with our bee population. So much so that there’s hats that are made—
*holds up brown hat with yellow flower on it*
—that are saying “Save the bees.” For me to sit here and not saying anything in defense of the bees would go against everything that I, as a citizen prior to becoming an alder person, defended.
[…]
We don’t have another planet to live on. This is it!
…I understand people are taking trips to the moon. That’s a topic for a different day.
The No Mow May ordinance passed 11-2.
I don’t have a strong opinion on the matter other than to say that last summer I asked my retired neighbor—a stalwart groundskeeper with grass cutting habits that would make Ald. Moldenhauer flush with pride—where he would rank our front lawn in relation to the rest of the neighborhood. Having been, for many years, forced to take in its slowly lengthening eclipse of purple-blossomed creeping charlie, the near-right corner still defiant in its unseeded and desert-like barrenness, and the stout weeds poking through the unreplenished mulch, he responded matter-of-factly and without hesitation, “Bottom ten percent, Ben.”
I won’t say I was proud, but couldn’t we also take a cue from America’s poet and just be a little inspired by it all?
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, soon out of their mothers' laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. Happy New Year. Spring will come.