County referendum proposal for Bucks arena stalls

Milwaukee County residents will not be asked to vote Nov. 4 on whether to spend tax money on a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.

The full County Board has not yet voted on Supervisor John Weishan Jr.’s proposal, introduced in April, to schedule a November advisory referendum to gauge voters’ opinions on spending county tax money to build a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and to expand the Wisconsin Center convention center. Weishan said Thursday that his colleagues have used stall tactics, such as sending the proposal back to a committee that had already voted in support and pulling the item off an agenda, to avoid voting on the proposal.

Their latest stall tactic, Weishan said, is the request for a legal review of the potential referendum question, which effectively kills his proposal. The deadline to schedule a referendum for the Nov. 4 election is Aug. 26, but the County Board does not meet during August. There will be no opportunity before the deadline, the supervisor said, for the county’s attorneys to come back with an opinion and for the full board to vote.

Anticipating his colleagues’ resistance, Weishan said, he asked the full board to vote on a second proposal Thursday, one simply to poll supervisors and determine whether the majority support spending tax money on a new arena.

That effort also stalled.

Because Weishan’s second proposal did not go through the traditional committee process, the County Board could not debate it unless at least 12 supervisors wanted to do so. Only 11 voted in favor.

Supervisor Theo Lipscomb Sr., who suggested Thursday that Weishan’s referendum proposal be sent to the county’s attorneys and who pulled the measure off a committee agenda earlier this year, said the proposal needs more work.

“It’s unclear,” he said, “exactly what they’re voting on.”

Lipscomb said voters should be able to consider a specific proposal for a new arena before being asked whether they want to help pay for one. He said he also was not sure that one referendum should determine spending on both the Wisconsin Center and a new arena.

Those same motivations prompted him to vote against Weishan’s second proposal, Lipscomb said.

“You don’t even know what you’re saying ‘no’ to,” he said.

But Weishan said voters do not need a specific request from the new Bucks owners in order to decide whether they want to help pay for construction of an arena.

Other local governments, such as Racine County, already have voted against spending tax money on a new arena, he said. If Milwaukee County supervisors or their constituents are not able to record their own opinion, Weishan said, that silence could be misinterpreted as tacit approval of a new tax.

The supervisor claimed his colleagues are ashamed that they want to spend money on an arena while letting their parks languish and roads crumble, he said, and that is the source of their resistance.

“We all make choices in life and set priorities,” Weishan said, “and I think they honestly know their constituents would prefer to drive down a parkway road without hitting a pothole.”

But County Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic said resistance to a referendum has nothing to do with supervisors being squeamish about broadcasting their opinions to voters. She voted to send the referendum to the county’s attorneys and voted against debating Weishan’s second proposal.

“I think eventually there will be a referendum,” she said, “but I don’t want to lock us in.”

Supervisor Deanna Alexander echoed that opinion, saying she agrees that tax money should be prioritized for the county’s existing needs, such as parks, but now is not the time to back up that belief with a referendum.

“If we have a referendum on it, and the question is not worded the right way,” she said, “and the referendum is not put out at the right time, it will simply be a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

If the county rushed to condemn spending money on a new arena, Alexander added, it could preclude discussion of some alternatives.

The public should be given more time, Dimitrijevic said, to learn about potential ways to help support a new arena before being forced to make any decisions.

“I just think we’re not there yet,” she said. Follow @bkevit