McKinley Beach. Photo by Graham Kilmer. McKinley Beach will open this summer for the first time since 2020. Milwaukee County Parks plans to put the finishing touches on a beach reconstruction project that should make it safer for swimmers. The beach was closed in 2020 after a series of drownings. A study of the water conditions there found that record-high water levels were creating conditions ripe for rip currents. The Milwaukee County Board reviewed a handful of options for reengineering the beach, but eventually provided funding to bring in tons of new sand to fill in the swimming area an ..read more

Pills by Tom Varco (Own work) (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons. A state health department plan to focus on prevention with the next round of funds from a multistate legal settlement with opioid manufacturers and distributors has been blocked by the Legislature’s budget committee. The Republican leaders of the Joint Finance Committee had a deadline of Friday, April 19, to either let the plan go forward or to object to it under a passive review process, which was written into the 2021 law authorizing the state to accept the annual settlement money. On Monday the committee leaders disclose ..read more

This is a rendering showing with the new Palermo’s Pizza manufacturing facility in West Milwaukee could look like. (Photo courtesy of Palermo’s Pizza) Palermo’s Pizza plans to build a new 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the village of West Milwaukee. Palermo’s, a nationally-known frozen pizza maker, is based in Milwaukee and has more than 1,200 employees. The company announced this week that it would build a new production facility 3 miles from its corporate headquarters. Officials say the expansion will allow Palermo’s to add 50 new jobs. [inarticled]In a statement, Palermo’s ..read more

THE NOT-SO-ACCIDENTAL CONVICTION OF ELEVEN MILWAUKEE “ANARCHISTS” by Martín Zimmerman may be the most explosive Milwaukee story you’ve never heard ..read more

Washington High School of Information Technology on March 14, 2024. Photo by Ben Tyjeski. Drinking fountains, or bubblers, as we call them in Milwaukee, are pretty cool. They are an excuse to take a break from class. They cool you down after an exhilarating recess. They sustain you throughout the day; they’re essential! And yet they can provide even more than a reviving sip of water. No designers in Milwaukee’s history understood this better than in the 1920s and 30s. Through design, the bubbler station became an artistic oasis, a tool to inspire and uplift the students’ well-being and creat ..read more

Homes on S. Lenox St. in Bay View. Photo by Jeramey Jannene. Homeowners across Milwaukee might be fearing what their property tax bill will look like after opening their mail this week. The City of Milwaukee Assessor’s Office sent out new assessments that show big increases in property values. However, the fact that assessed values are surging across the city is likely to dampen the actual tax impact for many. The average Milwaukee property’s assessed value increased 17.36%. The surge can be attributed to a hot real estate market and the fact that, for most property owners, it represents two ..read more

Ground level conceptual design for the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center. Design from Milwaukee County. Milwaukee County is looking for contractors to build out an addition and make renovations to the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center. The $31.3 million project is part of a larger statewide effort to close the troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth prisons, which are run by the state. Most of the funding, $28.3 million, comes from the state and is the result of state legislative attempts to reform the state’s juvenile justice facilities by closing the two troubled youth pri ..read more

Detaya Johnson and Catie Petralia, left, gather walkers on the Lincoln Creek pedestrian bridge on March 9, 2024. Photo by Michael Timm. Climate justice was the topic for a day of programming in the neighborhoods surrounding Lincoln Creek, which flows south from Havenwoods State Forest, then east from 64th Street all the way across the city to Lincoln Park. There the urban tributary drains into the Milwaukee River adjacent to habitat improvement projects supported through the Waterway Restoration Partnership. About 30 people gathered at Harriet Tubman Park, near 47th and Hampton, on a brisk b ..read more

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