Author: Correspondent

Text from the message written to Amazon.com’s founder Jeff Bezos, from City of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, regarding recently announced plans to locate a new distribution center in southeastern Wisconsin. Dear Mr. Bezos: Amazon is a remarkably innovative company that has transformed consumer purchasing. By making the most of technological advances and managing colossal growth, it has added efficiency and value to customer purchases. Amazon has creatively disrupted a large portion of the economy. While that has consequences for companies and employees in traditional retail settings, Amazon has thrived in competitive capitalism. With recent new stories reporting Amazon is...

Between 2014 and 2017, Amazon’s investments contributed more than $1 billion into Wisconsin’s economy, indirectly creating 5,500 additional jobs on top of the 4,000 the company employs directly. For 2018 Amazon will celebrate its third year fulfilling customer orders from Wisconsin and surpassing the milestone of 4,000 full-time employees in the state with job opportunities for people with all types of experience, education and skill levels—from human resources, engineers and facilities technicians, to those seeking entry-level positions and looking for on-the-job training. “Since our first day at the Kenosha facility, we’ve received amazing support from the community and we...

“Lighting the bridge will not only enhance our skyline, but also show the world how Milwaukeeans can come together to achieve change.” – Light the Hoan Just weeks after successfully launching a campaign to illuminate the Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge, Light the Hoan is pleased to announce a $50,000 grant from the We Energies Foundation to help energize fundraising efforts. Earlier this year, a collective of business and civic leaders formed Light the Hoan as a committee of the Daniel Hoan Foundation. The group has launched a public crowdsourcing campaign to raise more than $1.5 million to install LED...

Photo by Gage Skidmore and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 On July 16, Donald Trump met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, just days after indictments were announced against 12 Russian nationals, accusing them of interference in the 2016 election. Senator John McCain issued a public statement in reaction to the behavior by America’s leader in Finland. His message was directed at fellow Republican leaders and every American. “Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats...

Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputies were certified under the federal government’s anti-immigrant 287g program, to interrogate community members concerning their immigration status and detain people for deportation. Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson secretly applied for 287g in 2017. Voces de la Frontera’s Waukesha chapter held a Family Defenders Organizing Training on July 14 to prepare Waukesha immigrant community members to respond to arrests and deportations under 287g, incidents of racial profiling, and human rights abuses. “The main way that 287g will affect us is through the separation of families,” said Veronica Esquivel of Voces de la Frontera’s Waukesha Chapter. “For...

For the past 20 years, over 100 volunteer anthropologists and anthropology interns have been collecting oral histories of Milwaukee neighborhoods. Studies on 104 neighborhoods have been completed or are in progress. The oral histories include historical information on population migrations, institutions, leaders, and leisure time activities. During the past three years, Urban Anthropology Inc. (UrbAn) has included these studies in a website entitled 191 Milwaukee neighborhoods. Incorporating work from others The website includes the following information on all 191 neighborhoods: neighborhood description, brief population-centered history, residents of the past (at times celebrities), business corridors of previous eras, interesting neighborhood...