I love this time of year in South Milwaukee! From the blog’s Events page …
If I missed something, email me at erikbrooks32@gmail.com. And merry Christmas!
Saturday, November 23: South Milwaukee Old Fashioned Christmas, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Grobschmidt Senior Center. Details
Wednesday, November 27: MIAW and Brew City “Thanksgiving Eve Thunder,” 7:30 p.m., Bucyrus Club. Details
Saturday, November 30: Shop Small World Tour II, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.. Details
Saturday, December 7: Christmas at the Commons. Details TBD.
Saturday, December 7: The Flamenco Nutcracker, presented by Studio K Flamenco, 3 and 7 p.m., South Milwauukee Performing Arts Center. Details
Sunday, December 8: “A Noel Celebration,” a Christmas Concert by the Milwaukee Circle Choir, 2:30-4 p.m., Sts. Peter & Paul Polish National Catholic Churt. Details
Saturday, December 14: South Milwaukee Christmas Market, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., South Milwaukee High School. Details
Wednesday, December 18: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Wild and Swingin’ Holiday Party, 7:30 p.m., South Milwaukee PAC. Details
Thursday, December 19: South Milwaukee Community Meal, 5-6:30 p.m., First Congregational Church Hall. Meal, provided by local organizations, is free of charge. Details
The Girls Swim team recorded personal bests in all WIAA State performances last week. Congratulations to Nadia Blackmore, who was seeded 7th in the 100 yard breaststroke and placed 2nd! That is the highest podium finish in school history for the girls’ swim team!
Ella Foster finished 14th in the same event. The medley relay team of Ceci Nicholson, Ella Foster, Nadia Blackmore, and Sophia Palacios were seeded 14th, beat 7 teams in their heat, 2 teams the next heat and got 7th place! With 3 events swam, SM took 16th out of 34 teams. Go Rockets!
Thanks to J and J Doubletake Photography for the following photos from the state meet. Julie and Jodi continue to do an incredible job in capturing the story of South Milwaukee High School activities and athletics, through photos. Beautiful!
South Milwaukee Alderman Tim Backes has graciously volunteered to write regular updates for the blog.
You can see his latest installment here. In this writing, Tim shares some insights on the Bucyrus campus redevelopment, the very cool Shop Small World Tour, and the 2025 budget.
Thanks, Tim, for bringing this idea to the blog! I am always looking for content to further our mission of keeping South Milwaukeeans informed on key issues, while also providing important context and depth where possible. It is why I started this blog as an alderman in 2009, and why I continue it today.
Six years ago, the former Bucyrus campus — east and west of the tracks — was 100% vacant, a ghost town in the middle of the city facing an uncertain fate in uncertain times.
Would it go the route of so many white elephant industrial complexes across the country and sit vacant for decades, awaiting new owners and new life? Would it be razed? Or would the owners (and the city) settle for something less than the site’s true potential for some quick cash?
Thankfully the answer has been an emphatic “hell no” to all of those questions.
Instead, we are witnessing a complete turnaround of this property in less than seven years, with an innovative mixed-use development taking shape, one piece at a time. The latest (and final) addition: 171 new apartments as part of a $50 million development by Scott Crawford Inc. announced on Monday.
Crowley and South Milwaukee Mayor Jim Shelenske both thanked El-Amin for his persistence and hard work to make the project happen. Shelenske said projects like these are what can be accomplished when multiple levels of government work together.
Crowley told reporters the development furthers the County’s vision “of developing safe, quality, and affordable housing.” “This project is a continuation of our work to make critical investments in suburban communities to provide residents equitable access to affordable housing and homeownership opportunities,” Crowley said.
El-Amin said South Milwaukee was one of the last suburbs in the area to be developed and that’s one thing that attracted him to the project. “I like the areas other people neglect,” he said of his decision to develop in the city. He added he is passionate about the area and the people, and his biggest hurdle was finding partners that shared that passion.
Public-private partnerships to redefine a downtown — that’s the story here. The affordable housing portion of this is important, and needed. But we can’t lose sight of the significance of the development as perhaps the final chapter of a book that wasn’t even being written in 2016.
Think of what’s happened on this campus since then. The purchase, rehabiliitation and transformation of the former Bucyrus Employee Club into the Bucyrus Club and Museum. The relocation of the Steele Solutions headquarters. The opening of Styled Aesthetic, showing there was room for the “little guy” in this redevelopment. And now a transformational project that will inject new life into our city center in a way our city (in a way most cities) hasn’t seen before.
The South Milwaukee High School Career and Technical Education Program has a unique opportunity to give our students hands-on homebuilding experience.
The School District is considering developing a number of parcels near Blakewood Elementary School into homes. The current proposal would be to construct one house a year for the next several years.
This program could begin in the 24-25 school year in partnership with the Oak Creek-Franklin School District. OCFD has a robust program that teaches homebuilding to its students. South Milwaukee High School’s partnership with OCFSD would ideally lead to South Milwaukee being able to develop its own construction program in the future.
If the two districts agree to the partnership, South Milwaukee students could begin receiving on-site building instruction while adding to South Milwaukee’s building stock during the 2025-26 school year (at the earliest).
Learn more at the project informational meeting at 5 p.m. this Thursday, November 14. Details here.
Start there – at a place too many never got to the last time we did this. Donald Trump won. You may not like it, but win or lose, you accept the results. That’s what we do as American citizens. You don’t try to undo the results, lie about them, and stand by while others use violence to invalidate them.
That’s life lesson #1: Lose the right way.
Then you live your life. You get up, go to school, go to work, go to theater and choir rehearsal. You keep working hard in the classroom. You hang out with your friends and family. You keep volunteering. You keep helping others. You keep being a 16-year-old girl who is so much more than one political outcome.
You also keep fighting for what you believe in. Work for positive change, resisting the urge to go low. Let others spew hate and divide. You love and unite.
Stand up for LGBTQ+ rights, a woman’s right to choose, common sense gun control, immigrants, and the countless other issues you are so passionate about. Do your part to lift up the most vulnerable among us. Resist those bent on doing otherwise … while always remembering, despite Tuesday’s results, how you act, what you say and how you say it, matters. I will always believe that.
Do good, embrace hope, and get to work. Start with your family, your school, and in your community. Then go bigger. I can help.
Also, keep your head up. I say it all the time to my family, the athletes I coach, and anyone who will listen: It is what is next that matters most. Focus on that.
And this, too, from Matthew 6:4: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Yes, Shelby, don’t worry about tomorrow. Work to make tomorrow better!
The United States turns 250 in 2026, and let’s use that as a milestone moment for the future of this country. Let’s learn from what happened last night, as Democrats and citizens. In doing so, let’s listen to those who don’t agree with us politically – assume that is 50% of the people you come across; that is the city, state and country we live in – and find a middle ground that this divided place so desperately needs.
For as long as I’ve been involved in local politics, I’ve considered South Milwaukee a 50-50 city politically, and the 2024 results do not change my thinking.
Of note: South Milwaukeeans have supported Democrats (albeit narrowly) for president in each of the last four elections, state and U.S. Senate in the last three, and governor in our last two — while also backing Republicans at various points in the last 14 years, often splitting our vote.
Here are those historical results … and you can draw your own conclusions.
Haven’t returned your absentee ballot yet? Do it in-person today!
Also, please respect our pollworkers and how hard they have worked — and how hard they will work today, this week and beyond — to deliver a free, fair, safe and secure election. Join me in thanking them.
And read this before you head to the polls. It matters.
I’ll share local election results on my blog as soon as I see them.
If you are one of the thousands of South Milwaukeeans – and millions of Americans – heading to the polls Tuesday, please remember those words. It has to matter!
I voted blue last week – and encourage you to do the same – first because I believe in the candidates and what they stand for. Do we agree 100% on issues? Of course not. But I know State Rep. Christine Sinicki, Peter Barca, and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin will be strong champions for the communities they represent, just as they have been for decades. Experience matters. So do honesty, integrity, respect and compassion – and just being a good person.
Which brings me to the race for president.
In every job I’ve ever had, and in the message I share with my players and my own kids all the time, I have been equally rated based on the “what” and the “how.” “What” you accomplish is certainly important, but just as important is “how” you do it. In other words, how you treat others, how you act, what you say and how you say it, matters a lot. On the job, on the court, in the classroom, in life.
I like enough of the “what” for Vice President Harris to get on board. Indeed, I wish President Biden had stepped aside sooner and we had gone through a traditional nomination process, to give us a better look at the deep Democratic bench. And I have serious concerns about the choices made by the current administration when it comes to issues like inflation and immigration. But facts matter … and inflation is under control, the stock market is at an all-time high, and unemployment is historically low. Illegal border crossings are way down. Our relationships with allies have been restored. Crime is down (even if it doesn’t always feel like it). I, too, stand behind women and them making choices about their own bodiese. Support for the Affordable Care Act, tax breaks truly targeted at those who need them most, common sense gun control, support for public education … I am with Harris on these issuees.
Yet while I cast my vote for Harris, I also cast it against her opponent. Because the “how” matters.
Your actions matter. Fidelity in your marriage matters. How you treat women matters. Being convicted of 34 felonies and found liable of sexual abuse matters. Lying matters.
The words of those closest to you matter. When your former top mililary official and former chief of staff say you’re a “fascist,” when your former National Security Adviser says you’re “unfit,” and when your vice president says he can not endorse you “in good conscience.” I listen. You should too.
Your own words matter most of all. What you say matters, and I take what Trump says at face value. Don’t we have to? This is potentially our next president! And, if words don’t matter, and it’s only about “the weave,” then why even have a campaign at all?
Calling Jan. 6, 2021, a “day of love” – please, just watch the damn video – matters. So does labeling immigrants “vermin” who are “poisoning our blood,” while knowingly amplifying lies about the impact of immigration on small cities from Ohio to Wisconsin to Colorado. He calls the United States “a garbage can for the world,” Milwaukee “terrible,” and Detroit an example of a “developing nation.” He wants “Hitler’s generals,” says he is willing to turn the military on the “enemy from within,” and is OK with being a “dictator on day one” and “suspending the Constitution.” He attacks, ridicules and insults everyone from transgender kids to our foreign allies to his political opponents.
We have lived this reaality for eight years. But when it comes to Trump’s racist, sexist, and hate-filled words, let’s not dwell in the past. Let’s look at what he has said in the last 72+ hours. I cannot be OK voting for someone questioning Giannis’ heritage, stating he’s cool with shots being fired at Liz Cheney or the media, and that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House. Can you? And are you OK with him pantomiming oral sex on his Fiserv Forum microphone? Yeah, that was just the last few days.
And it all matters to me.
Please do not excuse or dismiss words and actions like this as “Trump being Trump.” That is an incredibly dangerous “landing place,” for America.
Yes, this all matters. We can’t let it not matter.
Saturday, November 2: Friends of the Library Book & Bake Sale, 10-2 p.m., South Milwaukee Library. Details
Monday, November 4: Grand Kyiv Ballet presents “The Nutcracker,” 7 p.m. South Milwaukee PAC. Details
Friday, November 8: Denim and Diamonds, an appetizers/dinner/live auction event in support of Launching a Legacy, 6 p.m., Bucyrus Club. Details
Saturday, November 9: Ladies Auxiliary of the Knights of Columbus Holiday Craft/Vendor and Bake Fair, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Knights of Columbus Hall. Details
Friday, November 15-Sunday, November 17: SMHS Theatre Co. presents “Little Women.” Shows at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, South Milwaukee PAC. Details
Thursday, November 21: South Milwaukee Community Meal, 5-6:30 p.m., First Congregational Church Hall. Meal, provided by local organizations, is free of charge. Details
Friday, November 22: Sista Strings, 7 p.m., South Milwaukee PAC. Details
Saturday, November 23: South Milwaukee Old Fashioned Christmas, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Grobschmidt Senior Center. Details
Wednesday, November 27: MIAW and Brew City “Thanksgiving Eve Thunder,” 7:30 p.m., Bucyrus Club. Details
Saturday, November 30: Shop Small World Tour II, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.. Details
I love the way South Milwaukee is redeveloping. Emphasis on “re.”
As communities all around us throw up soulless spec buildings, South Milwaukee is attracting developers and business owners focused on bringing creative second and third generation reuses to landmark former properties in our city. The latest examples are in the news this week.
Bucyrus Campus
The redevelopment of the campus — from the opening of the Bucyrus Club to the new homes for companies big (Steele Solutions) and small (Styled Aesthetic) — is already a big win for the city. Now, the southern portion of the campus has been sold, with a developer bringing forward new plans for 179 apartments and other uses. From the Journal Sentinel …
Developer Scott Crawford, LLC has been working to create a multifamily and commercial development on the property at 1100 Milwaukee Ave. in South Milwaukee’s downtown for the last three years. The project has seen multiple iterations with the number of apartments and amount of retail space varying with each new submission. It was even completely canceled at one point.
The latest proposal is set to be reviewed by South Milwaukee’s Plan Commission Tuesday.
Note: I am told the commission meeting was cancelled, but there will be a special meeting on Nov. 7, when the project is expected to be considered by both the Plan Commission and Common Council.
The review follows the recent sale of the parcel to Bucyrus ACME, a limited liability company led by Que El-Amin of Scott Crawford, Inc. The 4.4-acre commercial parcel was sold for $2.75 million, according to online property records. The sale was recorded Oct. 17.
The latest plans, dated Oct. 10 in Plan Commission documents, indicate 179 apartments ― 68 in the Technical building, 26 in the Corporate building, 45 in the Heritage building and 40 in a new three-story building on the west side of the property. The Heritage building is proposed to include 7,730 square feet of retail space on the first floor with apartments on the remaining three floors above.
Other amenities in the plans include a playground behind the Corporate building, an art alley behind the Technical building and bicycle racks. There will be 384 parking spaces on the property.
South Park Lanes
Premier Pickleball Club & Complex opened on Friday at the former South Park Lanes, which closed in 2014, reopened as an indoor soccer facility, and is now home to one of the more unique redevelopment projects in the region. From its Facebook page, the new business is a …
Premier indoor facility with 12 dedicated courts facilitating open play, lessons, clinics, and tournaments. The complex also boasts event spaces, an exercise gym, pro shop, and member service amenities.
From school district emails sent to high school and middle school families …
Thursday
Today, at approximately 1:40 p.m., the High School and the Middle School were placed in a brief HOLD. At the same time, District officials and the South Milwaukee Police Department removed a staff member from the high school due to an investigation. The HOLD was released at 1:47 p.m.
Investigations involving staff members are extremely serious and administration officials are following all internal protocols and applicable state laws. The District is also cooperating with our partners in the South Milwaukee Police Department.
We respect the privacy and confidentiality of our staff and students. There is also a need to maintain the integrity of the investigation to obtain a final determination of the circumstances and any resulting decisions. Therefore no further information will be made available regarding this matter at this time. It is always our goal to be as forthcoming as possible with our community, so we will share additional information if and when we are able.
Friday
We do not have any additional information that we are able to share at this time. Families and students that were directly impacted have been contacted. If you have any questions or if your child has any additional information they would like to share, please contact the South Milwaukee Police Department or myself at 414-766-5035. If your child is impacted by this information and needs additional support at school, our student services team is available to meet with the students at school. Please contact your child’s counselor or the High School Principal, Mike Arendt, at 414-766-5110 to set up an appointment.
It’s Da Crusher, of course! Shot the night of Crusherfest, as we unveiled this statue to the world. Do you have a photo you’d like to share on the blog? Send it along.
South Milwaukee Blog 