ALERT: Supervisors Move to Put O’Donnell Park Up for Sale

Please contact your supervisor TODAY regarding the issue outlined below in a statement from Preserve Our Parks (of which I am a board member.) To contact your supervisor, click here.

A resolution to put O’Donnell Park up for bid to private developers was introduced Jan. 27 at a meeting of the Parks, Energy & Environment Committee of Milwaukee County’s Board of Supervisors. (It was a substitute for a resolution requesting bids to repair a small area of O’Donnell’s roof and to explore increased programming and income options for O’Donnell Park.)

It will be presented to the full board Thursday, February 5 at a 9:30 a.m. meeting.

A pending resolution solicits bids for redevelopment of “Entire O’Donnell Park Parcel” and immediately stops O’Donnell revenue from going into County Parks budget. The resolution to offer this 147-year-old public park to for-profit bidders was sponsored by Anthony Staskunas, Deanna Alexander, and Steve Taylor, who voted for it in committee.

Approving the resolution will mean O’Donnell Park is “declared surplus,” a term applied to property no longer of any use to the County, such as outdated vehicles or vacant buildings.

An RFP would cover “the entire O’Donnell Park Parcel” with “full redevelopment of the southern half of the parcel” and redevelopment on the northern half “consistent with the parks-only provision of the existing deed restriction.”

Until O’Donnell Park is sold, “any revenue generated by the Parking operations shall be used to first pay off debt related to O’Donnell Park, then towards cash financing of any needed repairs, and then any excess shall be added to the Parks Department’s budget…” That’s an immediate $1.3 million slashing of the parks’ maintenance budget.

Please help stop an unprecedented—and completely unnecessary--sale of O’Donnell Park. The seven-acre complex serves as Milwaukee’s cultural gateway and town plaza linking Downtown and the Lakefront. Facilities include a three-story pavilion (home to the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, Coast restaurant, and meeting/banquet rooms), two garden plazas and a 1,332-space parking facility. There are 900 monthly parkers at O’Donnell and 200 on a waiting list. The parking structure received a $5 million thorough restoration in 2011, fully reimbursed by a former contractor.

Please contact your supervisor and those who have not yet declared a position on this park sale (and to support O’Donnell’s maintenance and best use), especially Mark Borkowski, Marina Dimitrijevic, Theo Lipscomb, Khalif Rainey, Peggy Romo West, James ‘Luigi” Schmitt, and Martin Weddle.

We averted a sale in December by making our views known to supervisors and we can do so again. Keep fighting for parks as “democracy’s common ground.”

Before contacting supervisors please check the article by The City Parks Alliance on Why Urban Parks Matter! It may help you formulate an argument.

County Board is considering the sale of O’Donnell Park

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Imagine the public outcry if Milwaukee County were to consider selling Lake Park, Washington Park, Whitnall Park, or any other park in its award-winning park system. There ought to be an outcry. Our parks should not be for sale.

And yet, the County Board is in fact considering the sale of one of its parks. As a board member of Preserve Our Parks I am forwarding the following appeal. I hope you will join me in opposing this effort. If you can’t attend the public hearing (details below) please contact your county supervisor. (If you need help scroll down for contact info and talking points.) And please forward this message to your friends!

View from O'Donnell Park

Dear friend of the parks,

Our parks are at a crossroads, and we are asking for your help. Milwaukee County is proposing to sell O’Donnell Park to the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. NML is undergoing an expansion that will add some 1600 new workers to its staff, and it needs more staff parking. O’Donnell Park is located one block from NML, on the lakefront. This unusual park’s street-level plaza and pavilion sit on top of a 1300-car parking garage. This roomy garage could help alleviate NML’s parking problems.

The trouble is, NML does not want to simply rent garage space in O’Donnell Park. It wants to buy the park in its entirety—the plaza and pavilion and the garage underneath.

Please come to a county hearing on September 10 to learn more about the proposed sale and help express to Milwaukee County that our parks are not for sale. O’Donnell serves as a superb conduit between downtown and the lakefront. Its garage earns the County $2 million a year in parking revenues. Its preservation is essential—if O’Donnell can be sold, any park can be sold. And the fact is, NML has other options for providing employee parking.

We applaud NML for its commitment to downtown and for the vibrancy it brings to our city, but our parks are not for sale. Please attend the hearing to give the County this message: Keep O’Donnell under public ownership and control. Do not turn it over to private, commercial ownership. Please ask your friends and neighbors to join you at the meeting.

PUBLIC HEARING ON THE PROPOSED SALE OF O’DONNELL PARK

Wednesday, September 10, 6:30 p.m.

DOWNTOWN TRANSIT CENTER, HARBOR LIGHTS ROOM

Free parking next door in O’Donnell Park garage.

Enter garage from Michigan St. or Lincoln Memorial Drive.

CONTACTING YOUR SUPERVISOR

A simple email or phone call will suffice. If you don’t know your supervisor’s name follow the county board link. If you email please click ‘bcc’ and enter info@preserveourparks.org. It is important for us to know how many supervisors are being contacted.

Tell them loud and clear: “Our parks are not for Sale.” Let’s keep O’Donnell a public park, for our use now and for handing on to future generations.

Talking Points

• O’Donnell Park has our city’s best, most inspiring, location. Let’s keep it in public hands, for our use now and as a heritage we can pass on to future generations.

• Private ownership of parks means loss of protection, not preservation.

• If O’Donnell is sold, any park can be sold.

• O’Donnell Park is an “earner.” It produces over $2,000,000 per year in net operating revenues from parking alone, which helps support all our parks.

• O’Donnell Park is built on land that has been a park since 1868. It has weathered previous fiscal crises, and will weather this one.

• Park deeds require that parks be used only for park purposes and prohibit transferring the land to private entities. The public has the right to have these deeds honored.

Gateway to museum and lakefront

To find your supervisor go to:

http://cts.vresp.com/c/?PreserveOurParks/9e7fec6aa7/3865a739aa/42340b9b41 and click on “Find Your District or Supervisor.”

Then click on the photo of the supervisor to get to contact information.

To contact Preserve Our Parks:

www.preserveourparks.org

info@preserveourparks.org

Who wants to sell this view from O'Donnell Park?

It's bad enough that the county cares so little about the public interest that they sold some of the best views on the county grounds in Wauwatosa to a private real estate developer who plans to put condos and apartments there. (Scroll back for many previous posts on this subject.) Now we have a proposal to sell this view from O'Donnell park for the same purpose! In other words, instead of preserving this view - which, as we all know, has become an icon for the city of Milwaukee - for the entire public to enjoy, the county is considering its sale to a private developer so that only a few condo owners would have that opportunity.

Please read Dan Cody's blog on this for more details:
"Sup. Lynne DeBruin’s Misguided Proposal to Privatize Public Park Land at O’Donnell Park"

And then contact your county supervisor and share your views.