One Referendum Wins Applause, Another Gets Hisses from Committee

It was an emphatic thumbs up for one referendum and a forceful thumbs down on another.

Of six Tosa aldermen present on a Common Council committee Tuesday, and another half-dozen standing by to speak, none was strongly opposed to giving city voters a say in resetting the council's numbers.

The same group of aldermen later in the evening were unanimously against seeing Wauwatosa take part in a referendum on the size of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.

Public vote on size of council moves forward

The Committee on Legislation, Licensing and Communications voted 6-0 to recommend an advisory referendum on the April 3 ballot asking voters their opinions on whether 16 aldermen is too many.

Ald. Dennis McBride had proposed a binding referendum last week that would have required the council to cut itself in half if a majority of voters agreed that eight was enough.

But he revised his own resolution to support a non-binding resolution instead after hearing debate and realizing that there was a lot of discomfort with a hard, fast and final decision on very short notice.

"A number of people expressed some reservations," he said Tuesday night. "An advisory referendum would have the advantage... of giving us more time to think and discuss. Based on the outcome, we can take action or not."

McBride has argued that 16 aldermen make for inefficiencies in government. As an example, he cited comments in two performance evaluations of City Administrator Jim Archambo that specifically mentioned that he might be overtaxed on the job by having to respond to so many elected representatives.

Ald. Cheryl Berdan, who has opposed reducing the council in the past and was against a binding referendum, cautioned that "the large size of the committees, where the work is done, is more efficient." Nevertheless, she too supported a non-binding referendum.

The advisory question will not set a number but will simply ask voters if support or oppose a reduction in the number of representatives on the Common Council.

Ald. Tim Hanson introduced a successful amendment to add to the language on the ballot that the pay of aldermen would not be increased with any reduction in their numbers. Aldermen are paid $4,200 a year.

County Board structure is 'not our business'

A proposed resolution forwarded from the Intergovernmental Cooperation Council of Milwaukee County for an advisory referendum on the size of the County Board was swatted down hard.

The committee on Tuesday did not even forward it to the full council but rather voted to "place it on file" – which is somewhat like "putting it in the round file," in workplace parlance.

County Supervisor Joe Rice, who has fought an attempt at downsizing the board by one seat – his – while at the same time advocating for a much larger reduction, spoke in favor of the resolution.

"There is a significant amount of interest in reducing the size of the board," he said, pointing out that seven other county municipalities have already passed the resolution and more are poised to do so.

But Supervisor Jim "Luigi" Schmitt, also in attendence, decried the strict wording of the resolution proposed by the ICC, which called for a reduction to nine members serving part-time.

Schmitt earlier had voted with Rice on a County Board motion for an advisory referendum that was less specific about numbers and pay for supervisors. That resolution failed, 14-5.

"I voted for this – I was one of the five," he said. "But the wording of this is flawed."

Schmitt warned against looking only at reduced spending with a smaller board and more focus on reduced representation – especially for Wauwatosa.

"I represent 52,000 people now," he said. "With this, I would represent 100,000."

Schmitt said that in his tenure as a supervisor he had taken on what amounted to a second job just balancing the interests of Wauwatosa and the county over development on the County Grounds.

"I have put in thousands of hours on this," he said. "It has been a part-time job on its own."

If the ICC resolution cutting the numbers, time and pay of supervisors passed, he said, "Will Wauwatosa have a representative? Be careful what you wish for. The way it's written, there's no option."

'A well-intentioned and very misguided resolution'

That argument resonated much more strongly with Tosa aldermen, who felt that Wauwatosa has too many ties to the county to risk getting into a political battle with its governing body.

"There is no other municipality more intimately intertwined with Milwaukee County," McBride said. "You don't want to risk alienating the people you have to work with."

McBride said he personally supported the idea of reducing the number of supervisors but that it was not the place of the Wauwatosa council to support it.

"This is a well-intentioned and very misguided resolution," he said.

One after another, McBride's colleagues echoed that sentiment.

"It's not our business to tell them how to do it," said Ald. Bobby Pantuso.

"I do believe the County Board needs to be restructured," said Ald. Cheryl Berdan. "I don't like the (proposed) question at all."

And, "This is very important to me as a citizen of Milwaukee County," said Ald. Craig Wilson. "It's much less important to me as a representative on the Wauwatosa Common Council.

"It takes too heavy a hand. I won't carry the water of others."