David Michael Miller
On cold winter Saturday afternoons when I was a kid, my dad would often take me to the Mitchell Park Domes. We’d bask in the humidity of the tropical dome or enjoy the crisp heat of the desert dome. A trip to the seasonal dome around Christmastime was a must to see the big evergreen trees and the thousands of poinsettias and other flowers.
The earthy smell of all those plants on frigid days is something that’s still with me all these years later.
The three big, modernistic geodesic domes formed the Mitchell Park Conservatory, and it was a point of civic pride, much like Milwaukee County’s new zoo or its museum, which were other weekend stops for my dad and me in the late 1960s.
Now the Domes are in need of some tender loving care — some $65 to $75 million worth, according to a county report. Today the Domes are closed to protect the public from falling debris until stop-gap measures can be completed.
A report in 2000 found structural deficiencies and recommended $25 million in repairs, but nothing happened. For eight of those years, from 2002 to 2010, the county executive in Milwaukee was Scott Walker.
Here’s the irony. Last year, now Gov. Scott Walker pushed through a $400 million taxpayer subsidy for a new arena for the billionaire hedge fund operators who own the Milwaukee Bucks. While County Executive Walker didn’t lift a finger to repair the Domes, he fought hard to help a professional sports team pay for their new digs.
And here’s an even bigger irony. As part of that deal, Milwaukee County agreed to be on the hook for $4 million a year. And how much borrowing would $4 million a year support with interest for 20 years? Well, just about $60 million or so.
In other words, for the money that Milwaukee County taxpayers will be forced to fork over for the Bucks — who could have easily afforded to pay for their own facility — they could come close to what’s needed to repair the iconic Mitchell Park Domes.
The Domes house warm memories for families like mine, they’ve hosted thousands of weddings, and they’re an inexpensive, family-friendly respite mostly for Milwaukeeans themselves. Meanwhile, ticket prices at the Bucks’ new arena will keep lots of those families away even if they care about professional basketball. And many, if not most, of its regular attendees will be from the Milwaukee suburbs beyond the taxing jurisdiction of the city of Milwaukee (which is being hit for $47 million) or the county.
So, where’s the big push from the state to fund these repairs to a publicly owned and iconic civic institution with a family-friendly mission? And why was it so relatively easy to come up with six times as much public money for a professional sports franchise that is worth $550 million and netted former Bucks owner Herb Kohl a 12% annual return on his original $18 million investment?
You know the answer. And it’s one more reason that an avowed “democratic socialist” is doing so well in this year’s presidential campaign.
