Milwaukee Professionals Association

AN ANCHOR - CENTER STREET LIBRARY

PRESS RELEASE - PART ONE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2, 2003

Milwaukee, Wisconsin – AMANI Neighborhood
Aldermanic Service Districts
1............7th Aldermanic District, Fred Gordon
2............10th Aldermanic District, Willie Wade
3............17th Aldermanic District, Willie Hines

CENTER STREET LIBRARY, 2727 W. Center, is located at the intersection of 27th & Fond du Lac and Fond du Lac and Center.

It is a "gateway" structure.

It is an "ANCHOR" for the neighborhood. It must not CLOSE.

It is to the Amani and contiguous neighborhoods stakeholders what a "father" or "mother" is to the family or home. If you REMOVE either one, there is a VOID. There is a "missing link".

It is a safe haven for many children from 5pm-7pm during the week.

HISTORY
The present site at 2727 W. Center is a fourteen (14) year old site; opened June 10, 1989.

Milwaukee Public Library has had a presence in the neighborhood since November 5, 1928. Before the present address, it was at 2620 W. Center Street.

That location is now, Wisconsin's Black Historical Society Museum.

Center Street Library is a little larger than the regular size Milwaukee Neighborhood Library with site size of 49,750 square feet and a building size of 16,150 square feet.

Its collections mirror many of the needs of the stakeholders of the area.

Certainly with the growing diversity of ethnic groups, commerical districting and housing development, there are many opportunities to grow and those areas of growth should be where we are strategically planning for customer use, justification of site and funding.

The site comprises 113,630 volumes of:

1.....Adult Literacy
2.....Job and Career
3.....African-American Literature
4.....Popular Music - Blues, Gospel and Jazz.

Its special programs include:

1.....Project Open Door Adult Literacy Program for Reading Levels up to Grade 4

2.....Preschool Child's Door to Learning

3.....Computer Training Lab

4.....Computer Technology Center

There are partnerships with local organizations. Two groups are:

NEIGHBORHOOD PARENTING GROUP - strives to help families by helping parents improve their parenting skills.

GRANDMA'S HAND QUILTING GROUP - quilters compare skills and complete quilts that are donated to hospitals and other community groups.

It serves as a field trip for handicap customers of Curative Rehabilitative Center and students of nearby public and private schools.

It is the NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING PLACE and has housed meetings for townhall meetings such as:

1. Community Block Grant Neighborhood Strategic Planning (1 ½ year of stakeholders Planning – CFNBA & Project Respect).

2. Project Respect Lead Agency Meetings.

3. Fond du Lac Restoration Project - Design of Highway 145/West – WisDOT.
4. Fond du Lac Restoration Project – Edwards & Associates

5. Meetings by Department of City Development, Neighborhood Services, Department of Public Works.

6. Main Street Planning – CFNBA
7. Main Street City of Milwaukee

8. CNI/FONDY NORTH BUSINESS ASSOCIATION - Business Meetings, Public Art, Highway Development, W-2 Seminars, Economic Development Conference, Amani Strategic Planning Meetings, Crime/Safety Interventions

Service Area
NORTH - Burleign Street
SOUTH - Highland Boulevard
EAST - 12th Street
WEST - 35th Street

It is in a "densely" populated zip code (53210, as well as, nearby densely populated 53205, 53206, 53208) in the central city. It borders enterprise zones 7 - Amani, 8 - Metcalfe, 10 - WAICO-Y, 12 - Midtown.

Therefore, it is in the heart of Community Development Block Grant dollars and Housing and Urban Development funding.

WRONG PICTURE
Until the recent creation of the Chaney Correctional Center, down the street at 30th and Fond du Lac, Center Street Library was the newest site between 20th/Fond du Lac and 35th/Fond du Lac; the FOND DU LAC RESTORATION CORRIDOR.

Speaking of the Chaney Correctional Center, it sends the wrong message to our children, the "passing through" traffic pattern that makes up the 25,000 per day traffic total, and tax payers to have a $5,000,000 plus Correctional Center and CLOSING the local public library.

"There is just something wrong with that picture."

MPS
Another point here, "How Can Milwaukee Public Schools (charged with educating the children of Milwaukee), suffering for funding for educating the children, opening a health promotion center.

It my understanding that a family-health center would be some of the driving funding for the "proposed REPLACEMENT" of Center Street Library.

Let's keep our priorities straight.

Yes. We need HEALTH CARE in the neighborhood. However, that is not a PRIMARY FUNCTION OF MPS.

MPS is constantly being hounded with "low scores", “very low scores” and “number last score" in surveys. Not to mention the high "dropout" rates.

HEALTH FACILITY
If there is a health care center supported by the stakeholders of the area, it would be a large federal-state-local-private funded facility that would be a One Stop shop that would address a myriad of health concerns that are epidemic in the area - dental care, stokes, diabetes, aids, heart, obesity, asthma, low birth weight babies, drug additions, breast, lung, colon and prostrate cancer.

It would be built from the ground like the $5,000,000 plus Chaney Correctional Center was. And, capable of being impactive and long-term supported.

ALTERNATIVES
In fact, instead of talking of CLOSING this ANCHOR, we should and must be engaged in:

1. Increasing Hours

2. Adding both Saturday and Sunday visits

3. Utilization of the large meeting room and the Computer Center for 24-hour service (w/creative financing).

4. Re-opening the Drive Thru.

5. RECRUIT AND TRAIN NEIGHBORHOOD STAKEHOLDERS (including children) to help operate the library - create ownership.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Join CFNBA in helping to ensure that BIG BOX RETAILERS, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CHAINS pay their fair share to the neighborhoods they get freebies - environmental dollars, tax increment and tax incentive districts, enterprise dollars and general pool funding.

HELP us ensure that politicians do not forget the "Social Responsibility" Pledge when they are authorizing "cheap land sale" and the various federal fundings.

They help keep Center Street Library and others opened by remembering to support the neighborhoods with jobs and direct give-backs from the big organizations.

HELP US PROMOTE the creation of a Fond du Lac & North Business Investment District to help see that the businesses provide an annual “count-on” revenue stream.

MIXED MESSAGES
At 27TH & Fond du Lac Avenue where Center Street Library is located, the City of Milwaukee has designated that intersection as part of the Fond du Lac "COMMERCIAL DISTRICT".

A UW-MIlwaukee study has PROJECTED MILLIONS each year of buying power from that same intersection - 27th & Fond du Lac.

Then, why is John Norquist, Mayor and the Budgeting Committee, talking about CLOSING instead of EXPANDING services at Center Street Library – A Neighborhood ANCHOR?