- In tonight's look ahead, the city of Milwaukee has released
its ambitious nearly 100-page "Blueprint for Peace, "
an awaited document to stem violence in the city.
A city that saw a 76% increase in gun homicides
between 2010 and 2016.
The blueprint sets out six goals beginning with
stop the shooting.
The others: promote healing and restorative justice,
support children and families, promote economic opportunity,
foster safe and strong neighborhoods and
strengthen the coordination of violence prevention efforts.
The plan is being described as a public health approach.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett joins us with details.
Mayor, thanks very much for being here.
- It's great to be with you.
- Why a public health approach?
- Well, I think most people would be surprised to learn that
in the city of Milwaukee, the budget for our police
department, which this year is about $302 million,
is actually larger than the entire tax levy
for the city of Milwaukee.
I'll repeat that 'cause it's shocking probably
to most people around the state.
The budget for the Milwaukee Police Department is larger than
our entire property tax levy.
So there's no question that we're putting the resources into
law enforcement and doing what we can to apprehend criminals
and to stop things from happening.
But we're also now convinced that we could add a gazillion
police officers and we still wouldn't get to some of the core
issues that are leading to the violence in the city.
Nationally and locally here as well,
we're seeing more and more people saying, look,
let's look at some other factors.
Obviously, we're going to have a lot of police but let's treat
this as a public health epidemic because there are factors that
are leading, not just Milwaukee but a lot of urban areas
throughout the nation, to have much higher counts of violence.
So that's something that we want to deal with here.
So what we did is in 2015, the year when we saw a significant
increase in homicides, we essentially retooled our Office
of Violence Prevention, tripled it in size,
and asked them to put together a community document.
So this is not the mayor's "Blueprint for Peace."
This is the city of Milwaukee community's "Blueprint for Peace,"
because I need the entire community to buy into
this approach to see if we can reduce the violence we have
in the city of Milwaukee.
- Now, this blueprint is all-encompassing.
How can the city fix everything all at once?
- Well, we can't fix everything all at once,
but I think if we can bring the churches,
if we can bring law enforcement, if we can bring community
groups, if we can bring citizens,
neighborhoods together and have a unified approach,
where we're dealing with a wide range of issues,
I think we're more likely to have a significant impact
on the level of violence.
Now, I say that, and I want you and your viewers to know our
homicide rate for this year is down about 16% from last year.
And it's down about 22% from 2015.
So I don't want people to be afraid to come to Milwaukee.
There's an incredible renaissance going on
in the heart of the city right now, unlike anything people
have seen in their lifetimes.
At the same time, we know that there are neighborhoods that are
plagued by too much violence.
That there are poverty issues, homeless issues,
transient issues, education issues.
So we want to deal with all these issues while we move the
city forward.
Because the city is moving forward.
- Now, one of the goals is coordination of efforts.
We've learned that there are so many people and groups trying to
help, but they compete for funding.
How do you specifically bring them together?
- So our goal is to have our Office of Violence Prevention
essentially be the center of the wheel.
And all the spokes feed into that center so that we can
better coordinate what's happening in different
neighborhoods.
We want to literally map the neighborhoods and see what
resources are in various neighborhoods serving youth,
serving people coming out of prisons,
serving people who need food.
If we have a more coordinated approach to this,
I think we're going to be able to better utilize the assets we
have and see where we need to put more resources.
It's an incredibly comprehensive approach.
You're right when you say that.
The document itself is very comprehensive.
But it's focused on bringing everyone together.
Not just law enforcement, not just the churches,
but as many individuals and institutions as we can to
supplement and complement the work that's being done
by law enforcement.
- Now, I noted interestingly that towards sustainable funding
to help implement the goal, you're thinking of a potential
city fee or a tax?
Describe that idea.
- Well, we're still in the formative stages for that.
Yesterday we made a presentation to the United Way.
And we think that there might be community support from
corporations and foundations.
Because we've done it in a way that we focus
on ten different neighborhoods.
Ten different neighborhoods.
It's a citywide approach, but we know that the violence
is most prevalent in ten different neighborhoods.
And so we're able to work with the foundation,
work with the corporation to say, look, you want to help us?
Here's old Milwaukee.
Here's old Milwaukee neighborhood.
Here's Harambee.
We could work with you to focus your dollars or your assets or
your people in this specific area.
So even though it's a large document and a comprehensive
document, it really can be broken up,
depending upon the funding source and the different needs
of those neighborhoods.
- Very briefly, with about a half a minute left,
what is next?
- Well, what we're doing right now is we're having neighborhood
sessions.
Again, because a big part of this is to have the
neighborhoods buy into this.
It can't just be the mayor's plan.
It can't be just the city's plan.
It certainly can't be just the police department's plan.
It has to be all of our plan.
If I didn't think we couldn't move the needle,
we wouldn't be doing this.
But I'm convinced we can deal with these issues because of the
incredible progress we've seen in economic development in
Milwaukee.
It's a different Milwaukee for people who haven't been here.
We're really moving in the right direction.
But we have to, again, bring everybody along with that.
- Mayor Tom Barrett, thanks very much.
- Thank you.