Candidates offer a primary view of West Allis

West Allis - With the first primary election in a long time in West Allis aldermanic district 2, campaign signs will soon start popping up to sway voters in the Feb. 21 primary.

Both incumbents, Kurt Kopplin and Marty Weigel, are running. Their three challengers are Scott Bunker, Cathleen Probst and Ryan Wargolet. One of the five will be eliminated and the rest will go on to the spring election April 3, when two aldermen are elected for three-year terms in each district.

Meeting the candidates

For Kopplin, who is finishing his fourth term, the attraction is the chance to continue to support the city's efforts to breathe new life into vacant and under-utilized properties. He said he and the council have supported city development efforts to partner with people who are willing to take a chance with those properties.

The result has been success stories like Summit Place, where the huge former Allis-Chalmers building was transformed into a vibrant part of the city providing many jobs, Kopplin said.

Kopplin also said being in procurement in the private sector most of his life and now in the public sector, he is "always keeping an eye on the buck." And that background helps him make sure the city is on track as well, he said.

Weigel also pointed to his background helping him contribute to guiding the city.

"I've had 31 years of making payroll and dealing with unexpected expenses, hiring and firing staff," Weigel said.

Weigel, who has served as an alderman since 2003, said he wants to help the city get through tough times, not only economically but because it is facing record retirements.

"I want to help the city keep running as efficiently as it has been," Weigel said, who owns and operates a restaurant and bar, Benno's Genuine Bar & Grill, at 74th Street and Greenfield Avenue.

Coincidentally, just across the street is Bunkers Nostalgic Lounge & Eatery, owned by one of the challengers, Bunker. He said he is running because of the number of vacant and distressed buildings in West Allis, especially downtown.

Bunker said the city could be more aggressive looking for dowtown businesses and tenants. To help entice businesses, he said he would see if there are sources of money to help businesses come into the city.

Additionally, he thinks city officials should sit down with prospective new businesses to see how the city might help them.

Probst said a major reason that she is running is to forge a bond between businesses, the city and the school district so that the many noncollege-bound students who graduate from the local high schools are well-prepared to find jobs locally. She believes businesses can be retained by giving them a good workforce.

She had advocated a strong relationship between businesses and the schools as a high school teacher for 19 years with the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District but was disappointed with the School Board's movement toward that goal, Probst said. No longer a teacher in the district, Probst said she hopes to pursue that goal through the city, which probably has a better feel for what businesses need in terms of employees, anyway.

Probst said that as a former member of the teachers contract negotiating team, she learned, "It's all about relationship building, and I'm very good at building relationships."

Wargolet said he wants to keep a sharp eye out for waste and favoritism.

He also wants to bring the perspective of the younger generation to the council. (The youngest alderman is 52. Wargolet is 32.) To help the younger folks get jobs, Wargolet said he would bring his marketing training to advertise more to bring businesses into the city.

"I'm a pretty creative person, if they want to go in that direction," Wargolet said.

The council's direction

As to the general direction the council is taking, Kopplin said it is on the right track, especially in the downtown where the Business Improvement District of downtown businesses works to keep the area healthy.

"Everything the BID has asked the Common Council to do, we have pretty much done," Kopplin said.

For example, he noted the passage of an ordinance that limited the ability of resale shops to move into downtown, which worried the BID.

While applauding the city's successes such as development at Six Points and in various tax incremental finance districts, Weigel said he doesn't favor the city looking for tenants for the downtown.

"To me, that falls to the BID," Weigel said.

But what could be a boon to West Allis is pushing the state to either improve the Milwaukee Mile, an under-performing asset with the more than 70 acres in the heart of West Allis, or to turn it into something else , Weigel said.

Bunker said he departs from the council's direction in at least a couple of ways. The money the city is spending on building a bike path between 70th and 76th streets might have been better spent benefitting people in other ways, he said. Similarly, he disagrees with the council researching the feasibility of a skate park, something he belives should be left to the private sector.

In the larger development picture, Bunker said he is not sure enough effort is made to find alternate funding sources to tax money.

Probst said she would depart from the council's direction by giving more opportunity for people to give input and ask questions by allowing them to speak in committees.

Beyond that, Probst said she has a reverence for government properly carried out, noting that she taught a college-level class on government at Nathan Hale High School.

Probst said she offers new blood and new ideas and said, "West Allis can be more than it is," adding that she is not afraid to make suggestions or o roll up her sleeves to get the job done.

Getting the job done in the downtown means attracting family-friendly businesses, Probst said, partly by encouraging businesses to keep up their aesthetics. In that vein, she approves of the decorative lighting the city installed downtown.

Wargolet said he advocates small government and careful spending.

Looking toward the downtown, he said the owners of buildings that need repair should be encouraged to make those repairs and he would like to see if money is available to help them. He also favors expanding the number of brick pots downtown to help beautify it.

He also would try his best to aid constituents just as he helps people every day on the job, Wargolet said.

"With seven years in the hotel business, I please guests and help them any way I can," he said.