Author Archives: Erik Brooks

Here are some South  Shore headlines …

• Medical Examiner Called to Industrial Accident in Cudahy (WISN)
• Girl Fatally Struck by School Bus on Milwaukee’s South Side (Journal Sentinel)
• Caterpillar Cuts Workforce by 14,000 in One Year (BizTimes)
• Caterpillar Sales Woes Continue (Wall Street Journal)
• Support Duck on Airplane Goes Viral (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• Director Brings Fresh Options to Cudahy Rec Department (Bay View Compass)
• Angelic Bakehouse to be Sold to Ohio Foodmaker (Business Journal)
• American Legion in Oak Creek Revitalized (NOW)
• Oak Creek Part of Largest Urban Orchard in Country (NOW)
• Oak Creek’s Lake Park Vista Could Get Final Approvals en Route to 2018 Opening (Business Journal)

I got some sad news this week: Faced with declining and aging membership, the South Milwaukee Women’s Club is disbanding.

Recently, I helped celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary year with this proclamation, and it shows just how significant a mark this organization has left.

From funding the city’s first Christmas tree to creating the Mary C. Nelson Arboretum to supporting our soldiers and veterans to working to improve health care in the area — and much, much more — this group leaves behind a century-long legacy of community service and charity that we still feel to this day.

This organization will be missed. Thank you for your service!

This community has a volunteer spirit like no other, and we celebrated that spirit at last week’s Commissioners’ Banquet, and at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

Actually, every day we celebrate dedicated community servants, volunteers whose limits know no bounds. 

We celebrate people like Don Bulley.

This fall, Don retired from the Library Board after 36 years.

From the Library Board to the Friends of the Mill Pond to the Historical Society to the Community & Business Association, Don has left his imprint on so many community organizations. We thank him for his service.

We honored Don at Tuesday’s council meeting. Here is the proclamation we presented him.

Do you want to join a board or commission? Learn more here.

Updated to the correct hours (5:3o t0 7:30 tonight).

Hours are 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. If you wish to hand out candy, please remember to turn on your front porch light. Stay safe … and drivers, use caution.

Happy Halloween!

The South Milwaukee boys cross-country team proved it is one of the top squads in the state with a strong showing at the WIAA championships on Saturday in Stevens Point.

The Rockets took sixth as a team, led by junior Jordan Janusiak, who finished eighth. Senior Chris Sobczak finished 23rd, and sophomore Aidan Sodemann was 84th. Junior Max Moran was 97th. Check out full team and individual results on the WIAA website.

Maddie Wood finished 119th for the South Milwaukee girls.

Congratulations, South Milwaukee. A great season!

And one more note: Josh Janusiak, Jordan’s older brother, won the Midwest Conference Championship individual title, also on Saturday. It was a dominating performance; the sophomore from Lawrence University won by 27 seconds over second place in running the eighth-fastest time in school history.

Yesterday, I wrote that I support one of the candidates in the 21st Assembly race.

While I stand by my right (and some would argue, duty) to advocate for the candidates who I think will best represent South Milwaukee at other levels of government, I was labeled as “unethical” “low class” in doing so. Others expressed disappointment.

So I am making this pledge today: I’ll avoid making political statements on this forum going forward, and I’ll prevent others from doing the same.

I’ve also removed the reference to the endorsement in the post in question.

I will refocus on what this blog has become — a valued source for news and information for South Milwaukee and the South Shore. I’ll focus locally, sharing what’s happening with city government, police, fire, schools, events and more.

Yes, I will have a (sometimes strong) viewpoint on those issues every now and then. We may disagree, and that’s OK. I hope we can do so amicably.

Communication is a top priority for me as mayor. It’s why I started this blog seven years ago, and why I work hard at it daily.

It’s important to me and, I hope, important to you. Readership shows it is: This blog will top 1 million total page views sometime next year. I thank you for being a part of that growing audience.

And I thank you for your support of this forum.

The diversity of programming delivered by the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center continues to impress.

This time, it’s African American dance.

From the SMPAC …

We’re thrilled to present one of the top African American dance companies on November 18. Step Afrika! performances are more than dance shows; they integrate songs, storytelling, humor, and audience participation. The blend of technique, agility, and pure energy makes each performance unique and appeals to all ages and cultures.

Step Afrika! promotes stepping as an educational tool, focusing on teamwork, academic achievement and cross-cultural understanding. The dance company will hold a workshop for South Milwaukee High School students, as it does for K-12 and college students around the world.As part of a school district, our center is unique in that we get to bring international arts experiences to our school kids. This is positively the arts at its finest.

Here is the press release.

The South Milwaukee Parent Advisory Council — a group of parents from each of the six public schools that meet with the superintendent monthly to offer feedback and advice on the operations of our schools and district — recently posed questions related to education to state Rep. Jessie Rodriguez and Jack Redmond, her opponent in the upcoming election for Assembly District 21.

Here are their responses.

Downtown trick-or-treating should be bigger and better than ever this year, thanks to the work of Julie Arnold from Lovenote Photos, among others.

Be sure to check it out this Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. … and while you’re out, why not check out two new businesses opening their doors for the first time?

• First, JB’s Tee Shirt Factory is moving from its current location at 1233 Milwaukee Ave. into a bigger building (they are eventually purchasing) at 1114 Milwaukee Ave. They are renovating the inside of the store now, and they have even bigger plans for the facade. Stay tuned for more details, and learn more about JB’s on their website. (I shared a photo from the renovation work in this post. Jason, Aaron, Berto and team should be proud of what they’ve done. I stopped by this week, and it looks terrific.) They will be handing out candy on Saturday, and expect to be fully open in early November.
• Also, Scrappy’s BBQ officially opens this Saturday, too, at noon, just in time for trick-or-treaters. Mike has been working hard the past month whipping the former Lloyd’s Lunch building into shape, and you can see (and taste) the fruits of that labor this weekend. Check out their Facebook page for more.

Our downtown momentum continues. See for yourself as you hunt for candy on Saturday!

I’ve had a number of questions in recent months similar to this: What’s with the construction work happening below the Mill Pond dam on Oak Creek Parkway?

Here is the answer, provided by Jim Ciha, Milwaukee County landscape architect …

During the heavy rains of 2010, a 15-foot section of the of this wall collapsed.  This wall, built in the late twenties, was constructed by some of the federal work programs of the depression.  This damage was part of the many areas in the park system impacted by the storm. 

In 2015, Milwaukee County bid the project out and awarded the reconstruction of the collapsed portion of the wall, stabilizing the wall foundation and tuck pointing the stone. Most of the work will completed by the end of the  month. 

The estimated cost of the wall reconstruction was $290,000.

I’m so glad this event has returned …

Thanks to Nels Monson and First Congregational for this Rocketober treat!

Saturday, October 29, should be a really fun Rocketober day in South Milwaukee.

Events at South Milwaukee Little League, St. Mark’s, downtown and at First Congregational — as well as the Human Concerns Haunted House. Check out the full Rocketober schedule here.

Here are details on downtown trick-or-treating, which is quickly becoming a staple event in South Milwaukee …

• When: 2-5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29
• Where: More than 40 businesses along 10th and Milwaukee Avenues
• How it works: It’s simple. Start by printing the scavenger hunt form, picking up a copy at a participating business, or downloading the app (there is an app this year). Stop at each participating downtown business and have them mark the form, or log your visit on the app using a QR code, while grabbing some Halloween treats. If you visit at at least 18 merchants, register on the app or turn in your form at Moran’s Pub, 912 Milwaukee Ave., at 5:15 p.m. for a chance to win raffle prizes.
• Be sure to visit Lovenote Photos at their new location, 1300 Milwaukee Ave., to get a FREE Facebook photo taken of your children in costume. (Thanks to Julie from Lovenote for leading this event; she’s done a great job.)

Download the app, and get more details here. Here is the flyer.

Spend some time downtown and support our local merchants, having some fun along the way. It promises to be a great day.

Happy Rocketober!

South Milwaukee High School’s a capella groups The Pop Rockets & Delta V have released their first two singles.

From Lee Stovall …

Thank you all so much! There are too many people to list who have helped out with this project, and of course the students worked very hard on it themselves. If you’re interested in supporting the groups further, all of the profits from the singles will go towards our April trip to Memphis. 

You can buy them here: 

• https://loudr.fm/release/survivor/StdkE
• https://loudr.fm/release/writings-on-the-wall/BfhNK

Listening to them on Spotify also gets us a marginal profit, so if you just want to hear the songs, feel free to check them out here:

• Delta V’s Survivor: https://play.spotify.com/album/0rMR61DQCuwcM7EKNFSUqk
• PopRocket’s Writing’s on the Wall: https://play.spotify.com/album/3JkjSYL2t2lvE9unjyVb1h

The singles also have been released on iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, and Apple Music, so feel free to check them out on whatever online music service you prefer!

From the South Milwaukee cross-country website …

The boys varsity turn in another fine performance and finished first in the WIAA Sectional Championships at Grant Park.  This will be the third straight year that the team will compete in the State Meet.

Jordan Janusiak continued an outstanding season by winning the individual title.  Also running well were Chris Sobczak (second), Aidan Sodemann (third), Wyatt Schlager (13th), Max Moran (17th), Nick Sluga (26th), and Andrew Strasser (32nd). Aidan Sodemann’s time of 16:29 puts him number 10 on the top 10 times list.  

I can’t remember any Rocket Team going 1, 2, 3 at the Sectional Championships.  It was a great team effort.  

The girls team finished in 5th place.  Maddie Wood finished seventh and qualified for her third State Meet.  Also placing were Maddie Smith (25th), Vivian Grossman (32nd), Miranda Ekleberry (39th), Kate O’Neill (40th), Alex Krane (44th), and Alex Zeman (45th).

The State Meet will be held on Saturday, October 29 at The Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids.  The boys Division 1 race will start at 1:10 pm, and the Girls Division 1 Race will begin at 3:05 pm.

The JV runners ended their season with some very good performances.  We had 8 boys and 3 girls get PR’s.  We changed the format for our end of the season JV Invite this year.  We ran 2 races for the boys and 2 races for the girls.  We our boys into two teams.  Our B team finished first in their race beating Oak Creek by 1 point.  The A team finished in 11 place.  19 boys teams competed.  The girls competed as one team in the B race and finished in 2nd place.  These results indicate that our future is very bright.      

And in other sports news …

Football

The Rocket football, minus star quarterback Jake Simuncak, fell 56-21 to Whitefish Bay in the first round of the WIAA playoffs on Friday. The finished the year 3-7.

Here is a story from North Shore NOW.

Josh Janusiak (Class of 2015)

Check out this story about his exploits at Lawrence University. From it:

With his shy smile and aw-shucks demeanor, Josh Janusiak has all the earmarks of the boy next door.

But make no mistake, the Lawrence University cross-country star is no wallflower. Janusiak has proven to be a fierce competitor and a thoroughbred who devours the miles, leaving the competition in his wake. He captured his third Midwest Conference performer of the week award of the season a few days ago and stands poised to challenge for the league title Oct. 29.

“Given the training this year, the effort put in by everyone and the positivity, I think this year has been very close to perfect,” said Janusiak, a sophomore from South Milwaukee.

Mackenzie Meyers (Class of 2016)

Mackenzie was a standout on the Rocket Varsity Tennis Team for the previous four years and is continuing that success as a freshman student-athlete at Marian University where she finished her freshman tennis season 20-9 playing the majority of her matches at #2 for both singles and doubles. Marian finished 4th in their conference, up one spot from last year. Mackenzie just recently was named as one of the All-Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Top Singles Players!

• Link to the All-Conference Awards Page: http://www.naccsports.org/sports/wten/2016-17/awards-season
• Link to Mackenzie’s Roster Page: http://www.sabreathletics.com/sports/wten/2016-17/bios/meyers_mackenzie_0pa8?view=bio

From the Grant Park Watch group … 

Hi Neighbors: Do you have questions about drugs in our community, but were afraid to ask?

SMPD Investigator Jon Rivamonte will be giving a drug presentation at Monday night’s Neighborhood Watch meeting taking place at the Grant Park Clubhouse at 100 E. Hawthorne Avenue, starting at 6:30 p.m.

All SM residents are encouraged to attend to get up to speed with this information. Inv. Rivamonte was assigned to the drug group for five years and has a wealth of knowledge in this area.

Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting.