Welcome to Preserve Our Parks
Preserve Our Parks, a nonprofit watchdog group, battles to keep Milwaukee area parks open and green, resists incursions for non-park uses, and fights for funds to properly maintain one of the County’s greatest treasures, its parks system.
POP was founded in 1999 by a group of Milwaukeeans concerned about the future of our public parks, green spaces and the lakefront. Over the years, we had seen our parks nibbled by sales, leases and easements. We'd seen public policies on parks grow lenient. We'd seen our parks invaded by non-park, non-public purposes.
Why the Public Must Protect Milwaukee County Parks
Historical Context:
The nationally recognized Milwaukee County Parks System was thoughtfully designed and developed with a mission to provide public parks and green space for all, and to serve everyone equally.
These parks, parkways, trails, preserves and beaches play indispensable roles in the county’s vitality. These high-value assets contribute to economic impacts and help make the region an appealing place to live and visit.
This system, which incorporates watersheds, woodlands, environmental corridors, and other natural resources, helps protect against flooding and promotes climate-related resilience. Many of these parks are governed by Wisconsin’s constitutional “public trust doctrine” and other long-held legal protections, which must be honored.
Milwaukee County’s public parks cost-effectively foster the physical and mental well-being of individuals, as well as overall community health, as demonstrated during the pandemic. They are not “discretionary” amenities to be enjoyed by those who can afford to pay for their existence and use.
Parks are fundamental parts of societal infrastructure. They must not be expected to function as business enterprises or to “pay for themselves” with revenue generated by those who rely on them for sustenance.
Parks serve as common ground for democracy, and as public spaces where everyone holds an equal stake and has the same civil and constitutional rights.
To protect the value and functionality of the Milwaukee County Parks System, and more than a century of taxpayer investments, we urge re-dedication to the following guiding principles:
Public funding is absolutely critical. Our parks deserve stable, sustainable and dedicated funding to maintain the parks-infrastructure legacy we have inherited. Future generations are counting on us to secure such funding.
The Milwaukee County Parks System must remain under diligent governmental control and oversight. It must function as a holistic system, in order to retain its overall integrity and equitable access for all. Piecemeal dismantling of this system will inevitably exacerbate social, racial and economic inequities. It will disinherit future generations from public assets acquired by far-sighted forbears to serve this community in perpetuity.
Any public-private partnership offers value only to the extent that it conserves parks and their role as public infrastructure, supports wise park stewardship, and maintains equal public access to all park amenities. It is imperative that partnerships merely supplement, but not supplant, governmental oversight of parks.
Public-private partnership agreements unequivocally must protect public assets and the greater good. Non-park, non-public uses; encroachments, and transfers of parkland that allow private entities to control or exploit parks and public land are all unacceptable and inherently inequitable.
It will not serve the greater good for present-day stewards (elected and appointed) to abdicate from governmental responsibilities and management of the Milwaukee County Parks System, or to resort to short-sighted actions and agreements that foreclose on our future.
Public servants of Milwaukee County have the capacity to find solutions for funding and maintaining a forward-looking, equitable park system that serves all and conserves irreplaceable natural and historic resources. County residents must collaborate with those officials to ensure that parks and public health are protected.
Residential Housing in Parks?
This issue seems to be on the fast track to passage. The Parks Committee will hear this proposal on Tuesday, June 10 at nine am. Please contact your County Supervisor and if you have the time, attend the Committee meeting to express your opinion.
Jewish Family Services (JFS), working closely with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, has proposed to locate a major senior housing project on the grounds on McGovern Park, to be located where the current McGovern Park Senior Center is located. The senior center would be replaced by a reported 4-story apartment building, with JFS being granted a long-term lease of the needed parkland and with the agency promising to recreate a new senior center, or, perhaps, a community center, as part of the overall project. Details of the proposed project are not available, but it would take up a significant portion of the park.
Preserve Our Parks’ Concerns with the JFS Housing Proposal
Housing is incompatible with parkland. Our County Parklands are not “shovel-ready” vacant lands ready for delivery to the next non-park real estate developer. Our Parks are a precious resource bought by our ancestors and delivered to us and our heirs for our use.
This project is illegal. McGovern Park was gifted to Milwaukee County by the City of Milwaukee almost 100 years ago in a transfer of City-purchased and -developed Parks and Parkways. These Parks, McGovern Park included, are all included with a protective covenant that the land would remain as parkland in perpetuity.
The project does almost nothing to financially support our Milwaukee County Parks. JFS has made no promises about ANY additional funding to the County Parks in exchange for gaining this precious County parkland.
Where is the good governance? There are dozens of private and nonprofit senior housing organizations in our region. Why is the County considering giving JFS fast-track, sole-source access to our precious public lands without a normal publicly-announced competitive bidding process?
No JFS housing project plans have been offered to the public. At none of the meetings or discussions with concerned officials have County or JFS staff provided any plans, even concept sketches, of what they propose to create at McGovern Park.
This senior housing building is in conflict with the fabric of the nearby community. A large multi-story apartment building, along with its lighting, traffic, parking and security needs, is incompatible with adjoining neighborhood of one-story single-family homes.
Why use parkland when vacant parcels are available across the City? Clearly, the McGovern Park site chosen by JFS is not the only vacant land in the City of Milwaukee. We have a critical need for additional affordable housing for seniors, but why focus on parkland when there are ample locations elsewhere that might be usable without jeopardizing our Parks heritage.
The JFS housing development jeopardizes a thriving, active senior center community. While admittedly the McGovern Park Senior Center is 50 years old and in need of capital investments, its seniors are thriving there. JFS would disrupt that world and while the agency has said it would replace and even enhance the activity areas, no details have been provided. In fact, JFS has suggested in some discussions that the existing center, focusing on senior residents, might be replaced by a generalized community center function. That is troubling.
The proposal’s Federal funding of $2 million is insignificant against total project costs. JFS has suggested that $2 million in Federal funding would be jeopardized by any County delay. In reality, that potential grant is a fraction of the estimated $16-30 million total cost of the proposal. Even if looming Federal cuts don’t impact that grant, the grant itself is too small to prompt the County into making a hasty, unwise decision.
Preserve Our Parks is not opposed to the idea of combining senior housing with a new and improved senior center—just not in a park. The concept has been done successfully in other communities without taking park land.
