BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

200 E. Wells Street City of Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Meeting Minutes BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE CLIFTON CRUMP, CHAIR Rayhainio Boynes, Vice-Chair Eve Hall, LaShawndra Vernon, Rhonda Manuel, Theresa Garrison and Anthony Smith Staff Assistant, Chris Lee, 286-2232, Fax: 286-3456, clee@milwaukee.gov Legislative Liaison, Tea Norfolk, 286-8012, tea.norfolk@milwaukee.gov Wednesday, June 26, 2019 9:00 AM Room 301-A, Third Floor, City Hall 1. Call to order. Meeting called to order at 9:08 a.m. 2. Roll call. Present 6 - Manuel, Crump, Garrison, Hall, Vernon and Smith Absent 1 - Boynes 3. Review and approval of the previous meeting minutes. Member Hall moved approval, seconded by member Smith, of the meeting minutes from May 15, 2019. There was no objection. 4. Bronzeville RFPs, listings, projects, programs, initiatives, events, activities or updates. a. DCD Commercial Corridor grants for update, review or approval Individual appearing: Terence Acquah, DCD Commercial Corridor Mr. Acquah said there was no grant updates. b. Bronzeville website Individuals appearing: Terence Acquah, DCD Commercial Corridor Gisela Ortega, DCD Mr. Acquah and Ms. Ortega gave a presentation and overview of the new website under development. The website template is a first draft and is based on other websites like Atlanta's. City of Milwaukee Page 1 BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY Meeting Minutes June 26, 2019 COMMITTEE The website will serve to highlight the Bronzeville district and be a resource for residents. Advisory committee members' involvement and feedback is being sought on content and design. The goal is to incorporate members' feedback, show the final website to the committee at the next meeting, and launch the final website prior to and for utilization for Bronzeville Week as soon as possible. They have been involving Ald. Coggs' input on the website. Some features and information from the old website will be incorporated into the new one. The new website will be more aesthetically pleasing. The home page has a brief description of the district, a link to enotification for Bronzeville, a short VISIT MKE video on Bronzeville, and linkable information on Bronzeville businesses and activities. The desire is to feature an interactive map of the Bronzeville district, but direction would be needed to determine what district boundaries to use for a map. The Visit Bronzeville page has a listing of businesses within the BID. The Things to Do page has linkable information to events, activities, arts, and entertainment. The Connect with Neighbors page lists various City and community resources for residents. The Real Estate page provides a listing of resource opportunities and information on the area and redevelopment plans. The Bronzeville Week page highlights information about the event. The About page has information on the advisory committee and can contain the committee's meeting minutes. An ask would be for advisory committee members to submit information about themselves to be included on this page. The History page will initially contain the research information from the Legislative Reference Bureau about the Bronzeville district; however, long term efforts will be needed to improve upon the history information. The Gallery page has various City photos of events that have occurred in the district. The News page has an archive of linkable new articles concerning the district that staff had found. The King Drive BID also is included with a linkable page. The logo on the website is that of Bronzeville Week. Members provided feedback. The VISIT MKE video should be removed and redone due to lacking appropriate music, theming, and highlighted locations such as the Milwaukee Urban League, Griot, and America's Black Holocaust Museum. All different boundaries for the Bronzeville district (historic, current, and TID) should be depicted in some way on the website visually and narratively. The Visit Bronzeville page should make the businesses listed linkable to those businesses' respective websites. The website should include content material (media, photos, and videos) from local businesses. Local events and activities information can be obtained from the local BID. The website should incorporate an interactive, aesthetically pleasing calendar with linkable event information, event narratives, and event photos. Consultation with Ald. Coggs' office should continue. Member Vernon will forward her research information about the Bronzeville district to be used for the History page. A long term project is needed to acquire a better history of the district via interviews with those residents with personal knowledge. A new logo that can be used for the website is under development for Bronzeville Week. The website should feature social media information. Several social media accounts exist, and the Bronzeville Week's committee will have to isolate one to be used. Mr. Acquah commented. The new website link can be forwarded so that members can review the website more closely and provide further input. The final website will be shown to the committee at its next meeting. Member Vernon moved reconsideration of this item later in the meeting. There was no City of Milwaukee Page 2 BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY Meeting Minutes June 26, 2019 COMMITTEE objection. Individual appearing: Ald. Milele Coggs, 6th Aldermanic District Chair Crump inquired about what Bronzeville district maps (actual, TID, area plan) to use for the new website and resources towards a long term project to conduct interviews for a more thorough history of the district. Ald. Coggs replied. All three maps should be shown on the website where appropriate, and information should be present to differentiate them. She has pending legislation to expand the boundaries. There is no Bronzeville account available for an interview project. Such funding can come from a grant, sponsor, or via donation. Perhaps DCD can assist or videos from Bronzeville Week can be utilized. The City Channel has the ability to take videos. Members commented further. All maps should be incorporated, as appropriate, on the website with the TID map beins used for the business related pages. The home page should not contain any map. An official map will be a long term project. Perhaps remaining TID funds and Community Development Block Grant funds (under public service) can be funding sources of an interview project. Content sources can come from UW-Milwaukee, testimony from Vel Phillips, and Milwaukee Public Library archives. For quality, the preference is to have an vested person do an interview project. c. Rise & Grind restaurant update Individual appearing: Baboonie Tatum, Rise & Grind Cafe Ms. Tatum gave an update. The concept is to create a travel cafe with affordable travel packages, kiosks to book vacations, a merchandise area, a new fryer hood, new menu itmes, Friday fish fry, vegan menu options, pop-up shops with Saturday buffets, sensory ordering opportunities for special needs classrooms, afterhours karaoke and live jazz, additional fried menu options for evenings, ongoing catering, and a new website. A goal is to hire several full time positions with help from the Milwaukee Urban League. Branding is under development with Retail Works. Her and her partner's travel agencies are being combined to create this new concept for a travel cafe hub. Perhaps the cafe can be a part of VISITMKE. Members commented. They look forward to the new concept, special menus, and sensory lunch opportunities for special needs students. The cafe should connect with First Stage on the sensory aspect. First Stage holds sensory related performances. d. Other There was no other discussion. 5. Discussion on criteria, scoring, and evaluation relative to committee recommendations. Individuals appearing: Amy Turim, DCD Real Estate Matt Haessly, DCD Real Estate City of Milwaukee Page 3 BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY Meeting Minutes June 26, 2019 COMMITTEE Ms. Turim and Mr. Haessly gave an update. A revised summary evaluation sheet has been provided based on comments made at the last meeting. Also provided is a mock sheet with fake proposal information to give members further insight. DCD will give objective information, comparisons, and allow the advisory committee to add its own preferences and evaluation. The sheet provides a portion for the committee to offer its own additional criteria, if any, and the criteria could possibly be on a case-by-case basis. Members Garrison and Hall left the committee at 9:55 a.m. Members said that the sheet should also include information on project timeline, duration of property ownership, and former uses. Ms. Turim and Mr. Haessly replied. A reality to consider is that timelines are complex since many of the RFPs involve highly distressed properties. A RFP document contains much information regarding a property. An RFP sheet will be provided to members as a reference to go along with a summary evaluation sheet. Chair Crump commented. Of importance is for the committee to establish criteria that cannot be quantifiable for its portion of the evaluation sheet. The criteria should be based on arts, culture, and entertainment. Barring urgency, members should come up with about 5 unique criteria and their respective weighted scoring to add to the evaluation sheet between now and the next meeting. The goal should be for the committee to establish its own standard criteria and weighted scoring at the next meeting. Certain criteria can be offered on a case-by-case basis, but the committee should have minimum criteria established to be consistent when making recommendations. Although challenging, criteria examples could be project vibrancy, sustainability, uniqueness, value added, and consistency with other uses. Member Vernon said that a Likert scale, instead of a percentage scale, should be used for the committee's criteria. Projects are susceptible to being skewed to match percentage scoring. Ald. Coggs added that consistent judging is important to keep the focus on what is important to Bronzeville, she is confident in the committee to establish its own criteria, and there should be room left for those criteria that are not quantifiable. 6. Announcements. Ald. Coggs introduced Christina Allen, a student youth intern in her office for the summer. There were no other announcements. 7. Next meeting date and time. a. Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 9 a.m. 8. Agenda items for the next meeting. To be determined. Forward agenda items to clerk staff. City of Milwaukee Page 4 BRONZEVILLE ADVISORY Meeting Minutes June 26, 2019 COMMITTEE Mr. Lee said that agenda items for the next meeting include updates on Bronzeville Week and an anti-displacement tax fund. 9. Adjournment. Meeting adjourned at 10:20 a.m. Chris Lee, Staff Assistant Council Records Section City Clerk's Office City of Milwaukee Page 5