The ‘Sewer Socialist’ led Milwaukee into the future in 1938. What’s your idea? | Opinion

Our goal is to root out inefficiency and improve service while reducing costs to taxpayers. Often times, the best ideas come from ordinary citizens and the private sector.

• Milwaukee faces challenges such as crime, infrastructure needs, and poverty despite recent successes like hosting the RNC.
• The Daniel Hoan Foundation is offering a $40,000 prize for the best idea to improve city services and reduce costs.
• The contest focuses on areas like sanitation, infrastructure maintenance, public works, and public facilities.

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” — Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities.“

That reflection could easily describe Milwaukee. With a gleaming downtown on Lake Michigan and led by a dynamic mayor, Cavalier Johnson, the city is poised for greatness. It successfully hosted the Republican National Convention and received positive reviews nationwide, leading to a dramatic rise in convention business.

Yet, the same city was on the verge of fiscal insolvency until securing of a 2% local option sales tax from the State Legislature in 2023. And Milwaukee still faces a large structural deficit and ongoing challenges like high levels of crime, a backlog of street repairs and maintenance, and unacceptable levels of poverty.

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Every day, Milwaukee citizens benefit from a wide variety of municipal services. While it has shown dramatic innovation, as represented by the automated system of garbage and recyclables pickup weekly, the city hasn’t fully tapped the potential for automation, which includes AI and robotics through the delivery of services and simultaneously reducing costs.

Daniel Hoan Foundation awarding $40,000 for best idea

The Daniel Hoan Foundation is again calling on the citizens to submit their best ideas for improving our community. This year’s focus is on how Milwaukee city government might improve services and reduce costs in the process. Our goal is to root out inefficiency and improve service while reducing costs to taxpayers. Often times, the best ideas come from ordinary citizens and the private sector.

The contest will award $40,000 to the best idea that surfaces. Last year, prizes were awarded for the best ideas to improve Milwaukee County’s Parks System while reducing crime was the focus in 2023.

Specifically, the contest will focus on municipal government services such as sanitation services, street, sidewalk, and bridge maintenance, drinking water, sewer management, public works, the public schools and neighborhood services. It also encompass seasonal issues such as snow and ice removal and parking regulations as well as public facilities that people use, such as libraries, offices for small business development, and public buildings.

For those interested, please go to https://innovatemkegov.org/ and submit your detailed ideas in a format that does not exceed two pages in length. The deadline for submission of ideas is Sept. 15.

Hoan a celebrated Milwaukee mayor known as the sewer socialist

The Daniel Hoan Foundation was created by my grandfather, a long-serving leader of Milwaukee who historians have ranked as the eighth-best mayor in the history of the United States. He was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1938 as the mayor of the best-run city in America.

Under his tenure, crime dropped dramatically, and he invested in infrastructure, so the health of the citizens dramatically improved. In fact, he was known as the “sewer socialist” because he created an advanced sewage system. Milwaukee’s fiscal health was the envy of cities throughout the country. None of this may seem very glamorous, but this city functioned, and citizens continued to return him to office for 24 years.

We no longer have to be a city that fits the description of a Charles Dickens novel. I served as chairman of the Board of Directors that oversaw the Port of Milwaukee. During my tenure, Milwaukee became the fastest-growing port on the Great Lakes, thanks to a great port director hired from the private sector, Ken Szallai.

If I’ve learned anything about the government is that the private sector was critical to our success. Szallai continually tapped the resources and ideas of the private sector to assist the miracle turnaround. Our port director entered into numerous arrangements to efficiently deliver products necessary to our economy, including steel, fertilizer, cement, salt, etc., in a way the port could not do independently.

Milwaukee’s innovation officer will help judge best ideas

Fortunately, Milwaukee has a competent, qualified mayor who cares deeply about the city and is willing to do what’s necessary to turn this picture around. He is open to ideas coming from the private sector and our fellow citizens. Jim Bohl, the city’s newly appointed innovation officer, will serve as the chief judge of a small panel of judges.

Bohl’s office was recently created and is charged with the responsibility for implementing innovation and creating efficiency in government.  Add in the fact that Bohl has a lifelong track record of service in government, so he knows how to get things done.

Milwaukee is on the comeback. Let’s earn a reputation as a city that proves it can tap the resources of its citizens to provide dramatically innovative solutions to challenges.

Daniel Steininger is president of the Daniel Hoan Foundation and former chair of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the City of Milwaukee.