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What can bring together the Milwaukee mayor, the DA, and virtually the entire City legislative caucus in a divisive election season?
Pedro Colón running for City Attorney. Reads the Shepard-Express endorsement:
(Mu)ltiple conversations with Colon, and really listening to his plans for the office, have won us over. We enthusiastically support state Rep. Pedro Colon for city attorney on April 1. We also understand why District Attorney John Chisholm strongly supports Colon. ...
Colon’s ideas would take the city attorney’s office into the 21st century by working with other levels of government, especially on reducing crime and nuisance properties; training police officers to respect the rights of citizens while making arrests; fighting to fix the school choice funding flaw, which currently penalizes city taxpayers; finding fair solutions for residents who have had their driver’s licenses taken away; and personally advocating for the city when important lawsuits arise.
Unity and action are playing well this election season, though a small number of naysayers still insist the key to better public policy resides in sitting on their duffs.
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by Robert Miranda
"Taking Sides"
Milwaukee Spanish Journal
March 29, 2008
Wisconsin ’s first Hispanic State Representative wants you to vote for him on April 1st so that he can become Milwaukee ’s first Hispanic City Attorney.
Pedro Colón says that as City Attorney he’ll replicate strategies at fighting crime like those used in Los Angeles , California where crimes in that city’s toughest neighborhood were reduced by 53%. While this statement sounds good, it must be noted that Milwaukee is not Los Angeles and Los Angeles by all accounts is a very unique city.
In fact, when the Los Angeles City Council and its Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development met in November 2005 to develop a comprehensive citywide gang reduction strategy, one of the first notions brought to the table is how unique Los Angeles is compared to cities across the nation.
So when Colón talks about dealing with gangs in the same manner as Los Angeles is dealing with their gang problem, one has to wonder first if Colón really understands the size and nature of youth violence taking place in Milwaukee, and second, is Colón really looking at the right paradigm to address the problem.
Los Angeles has had to deal with over 700 gangs and an estimated 40,000 gang members, all of which have spawned years of violence unlike any other city in the country.
I’m not sure if Milwaukee should even be compared to that level of violence; albeit we have violence taking place in Milwaukee, but to tell voters that our violent culture is comparable to that of Los Angeles is a bit of a stretch.
But then again, Colón is a politician.
One thing politicians know is fear. Keep telling the public that Milwaukee is as dangerous as Los Angeles and fear takes place among the electorate. Just look at how the Bush administration hoodwinked the American people into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and was linked to Al Queda before launching his invasion of Iraq in 2003. Colón wants to bamboozle us all into believing that the gang problem in Milwaukee is as massive as that in Los Angeles.
Not a bad fear-mongering attempt by Colón, using recent news reports of gang activity as a way to get into office. Problem is, once he’s in there the taxpayers are going to get conned into paying for increased salaries and increased staffing, so that he can effectively replicate the duties of the Milwaukee County District Attorney at the City level.
Yes, sir! Colón wants to crack down on those disorderly drunks coming out of Steny’s on the Southside. He wants to set up crime sting operations against those law breaking jay-walkers and disorderly conduct types screaming and yelling in the middle of the night.
Of course I’m over simplifying this, but what else is Colón going to do as a City Attorney Prosecutor, solve murders? Kidnappings? Hassle gang members on the streets?
It’s clear that Colón is mystified about the role that the office of City Attorney plays in local government.
Undaunted however, Colón does want your vote. He’s asking for your vote months after his vote went against the very community he was to represent at the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
As a board member of MATC, Colón led the effort to stop a $1 million dollar welding training program from being placed at Esperanza Unida. His vote blocked our efforts to have a job-training program placed in our southside neighborhood.
Now he wants your vote so that he can become a City Attorney, so that he can put people in jail.
Wow! He votes against our community from having a job-training program placed in our community, stopping people in our community from having an opportunity to train for a job. Now he wants this same community to vote for him to be City Attorney.
Seems to me that had he voted to allow a $1 million dollar job-training program come into our community, maybe crime would not be as big an issue he’s making it out to be.
Robert Miranda, is a national award winning columnist, Latino community activist, Executive Director of Esperanza Unida and Editor-in-Chief of the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. Email at: rmiranda@wi.rr.com