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Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades.
Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “InterCHANGE,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
A top Franklin official reacts to ACLU lawsuit
By Kevin Fischer
Wednesday, Dec 3 2008, 10:13 PM
Here is
The Daily Reporter story on the ACLU's civil rights complaint against the DOT and the proposed Drexel Avenue Interchange:
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ACLU tries to kill I-94 widening |
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Sean Ryan , sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com
December 4, 2008
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation Inc. on Wednesday filed a civil rights complaint against the Wisconsin Department of Transportation over its planning for the $1.9 billion reconstruction of Interstate 94.
In a complaint (PDF) to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the group asked the federal agency to ban the widening of I-94 between Milwaukee’s Mitchell Interchange and Illinois state line, require public-transit improvements along the corridor, and block the removal of one offramp on the 27th Street interchange.
Karyn Rotker, ACLU senior staff attorney, said spending billions on highway projects while transit plans flounder creates racial inequity in southeastern Wisconsin. Many low-income residents of Milwaukee don’t have cars and would be able to access more jobs through public transit, she said.
“This is a world of finite resources,” she said, “so it shouldn’t be that every highway project gets funded.”
WisDOT representatives were not available to comment before deadline.
The complaint also asks the federal government to block construction of a new I-94 interchange at Drexel Avenue. By removing a ramp on the 27th Street interchange in Milwaukee and building a new interchange at Drexel to serve Franklin and Oak Creek, WisDOT would push businesses out of ethnic Milwaukee neighborhoods and into the predominantly white suburbs, Rotker said.
In the complaint, the ACLU cites 2000 U.S. Census statistics that residents in Franklin and Oak Creek were 89.6 percent non-Hispanic white, compared to 45.5 percent of Milwaukee residents.
“It’s actually going to shift development likely out of the city of Milwaukee and into the suburbs,” she said. “That’s having a discriminatory effect because of who’s living in the suburbs that are going to benefit.”
Mark Luberda, Franklin’s director of administration, said the purpose of interstate highways is to support commerce and resident needs throughout the nation.
“To try to manipulate that system to restrict commercial development seems to fly in the face of the purpose of the interstate system,” he said. “It really needs to be a technical engineering question: What’s the traffic demand and demand for access on and off the interstate at that point?”
WisDOT studies determined a need for more access at Drexel, Luberda said, and removing the interchange would only add more traffic to the highway because cars could not get off.
“Sometimes, to evaluate a proposal, it’s helpful to take that proposal to an extreme,” he said. “And to an extreme point, it would be that you get on at Racine and you can’t get off until Milwaukee.”
The complaint against WisDOT mirrors two civil rights complaints the ACLU filed against the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission this year. The group in August asked the U.S. DOT to force transit improvements if an interchange near Pabst Farms in Oconomowoc is rebuilt for $23 million. In September, the ACLU argued SEWRPC does not follow affirmative-action hiring rules when adding to its staff.
The ACLU filed its complaint with the U.S. DOT instead of in federal court because, in a court case, it would need to argue WisDOT intended to cause racial disparity through its projects, Rotker said. |
