Donovan, who’s been on the Common Council for 16 years, joined TMJ4 Live at Noon Thursday to talk public safety and incumbent Mayor Tom Barrett’s downtown streetcar project.
Donovan took issue with Barrett’s comments that crime victims are usually people who are committing crimes themselves.
“I would argue if you use that same quote to the victims of crime that you see day in and day out, they are the ones that are suffering because of the chaos that’s going on across our city,” Donovan said. “This needs to turn around and give people a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Donovan says he’d like to put 200 more police officers on the street.
“We must restore the level of morale amongst our officers. In my 16 years as an alderman, I’ve never seen it as low as it is now,” Donovan said.
Donovan would also like to make changes to the police department’s no-pursuit policy, and put more officers on the streets walking and riding their beats in order to increase community relations.
Even though preliminary work has started on the Milwaukee streetcar project, Donovan says he will do his best to stop it, dubbing it a “solution in desperate pursuit of a problem.”
“It’s not solving any transportation problem we have, yet costing our taxpayers well over $100 million, 125 just to build it, let alone to operate it, to maintain it, so yes, I would do whatever I can,” Donovan said.
TODAY’S TMJ4 has invited the candidates for Milwaukee Mayor, Milwaukee County Executive and State Supreme Court to appear on Live at Noon leading up the Wisconsin Primary on April 5.
