WauwatosaNow.com Community Watch
Community Watch: A Weblog of The Latest Local News

• City receives grant for water utility
  The city of Wauwatosa Water Utility has qualified for a $152,000 infrastructure protection funding grant from the state's Office of Justice Assistance. The grant will help the city take steps to protect the water utility. In 2004, the city's water utility completed a federal mandated vulnerability assessment that focused on lowering the risk of the city's highest priority assets with the greatest vulnerability. Water Superintendent James Wojcehowicz said a variety of security improvements have been completed at the city's water facilities as a result of the assessment and recommendations that followed. With the grant, an online water quality monitoring system and physical security enhancement equipment will be purchased, he said. The online water quality monitoring panels would establish baseline water quality parameters received from Milwaukee Water Works and the water reservoirs at each of the Wauwatosa's pumping stations. The monitoring panels measure total chlorine residuals, pH level and conductivity. Fluctuations in water quality information can serve as an early warning system to the city's utility staff if any action needs to be taken to stop the spread of a contaminant. Additionally, the city wants to purchase and install video surveillance to deter and detect events that could occur in the city's infrastructure. The total grant from OJA, which includes a combination of 80 percent federal funding and 20 percent local match, is $152,736.
• Parking to be limited at Roosevelt School
  Roosevelt School parents and staff can rest at ease now that the city has recommended permanent parking restrictions around the school. The school principal, parents and concerned teachers showed up at City Hall a few months ago urging city officials to make changes to the traffic pattern around the school due to safety concerns for the children being dropped off and picked up. They enacted a 90-day trial around the school that appears to be working, Bill Kappel, director of public works, said. The permanent parking restrictions around the school state that there will be no standing, stopping or parking on school days from 8 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 4 p.m., and that there be a three-hour limit on parking between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The new parking restrictions, which still need approval of the Common Council, will apply to the east side of North 73rd Street between West Wright and West Clarke streets.
• Committee OKs deal with Cobalt
  A Common Council committee Tuesday approved what in essence is a land swap with Cobalt Partners, although some of the details of the deal still need to be worked out...and nobody is saying what will be built on the land on Watertown Plank Road. Cobalt is brokering a deal that would take Milwaukee County's fleet operations services off Watertown Plank Road near Highway 45 to an 18-acre city-owned plot of land in the 11300 block of Walnut Street. The property fronting Watertown Plank Road would then be developed into a private, tax-revenue producing development, details of which Cobalt has not yet disclosed. The city's Community Development Committee voted to recommend approval of a purchase and sale agreement with Cobalt, with numerous contingencies. The sale still needs the OK of the Common Council. Under the agreement, the city would sell the property on Walnut Street for 105 percent of the property's fair market value. Before the city will fully approve the sale, the developer will have to provide the city with $10,000 in earnest money within five days of the agreement, buy the property as is, and provide a development agreement that must be approved by the city.
• City planning left-turn ban at 86th St.
  City officials are planning to put a permanent "no left turn" sign at Watertown Plank Road onto 86th Street to prevent vehicles from turning south at that street into the Medical College parking structure. Neighbors had voiced early concerns before the college's parking structure was built last year that vehicles would back up on Watertown Plank Road, an already crowded street at rush hour, as drivers waited for vehicles to turn left into the structure. Residents who live to the south and north in the 8600 block of Watertown Plank Road already have difficulties accessing Watertown Plank Road from their side streets, they told city officials. Allowing the left turn toward the parking structure would only magnify the problem. The city installed a 90-day trial of no left turns for westbound Watertown Plank Road traffic at 86th Street after the structure was built. That 90-day trial was successful, according to Public Works Director Bill Kappel. A Common Council committee last night recommended approval of an ordinance to make the ban on left turns permanent. The full council will take the matter up on Feb. 20.
• Gas leak reported in Tosa
  About 45 households in Wauwatosa will be without gas temporarily tonight while We Energies works to fix a gas leak, company spokesman Barry McNulty said. A leak in the area of 1100 N. Robertson St. forced crews to seal off a gas main shortly after 8:30 p.m. while they make repairs McNulty said. It's not known how long it will take to make the fix, but We Energies crews will go door-to-door to help relight pilot lights once it's completed, McNulty said. The cause of the leak is unknown.
• Fuller speech is canceled
  Howard Fuller's speech at Wisconsin Lutheran College, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has been canceled due to illness. Fuller, the former superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools, had been scheduled to speak on the history of American education since Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court. No makeup date was announced.
• UPDATE: Arson at mental health complex
  A fire that forced the evacuation of a wing at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex this afternoon was arson, officials said. A 25-year-old female patient in the complex's acute inpatient unit managed to ignite an oxygen machine around 1:30 p.m. in an attempt to escape the hospital, said Kim Brooks, Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. Twenty-seven patients and six staff members were moved to other parts of the hospital while smoke and water damage is cleaned up, Brooks said. No one was hurt in the fire. Detectives will recommend arson charges for the woman, who remains at the complex.
• Fire at mental health complex
  Firefighters were called to the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa this afternoon after a patient apparently ignited a mattress. The fire, which was reported around 3 p.m., was quickly put out, said Jim Hill administrator of the county's Behavioral Health Division. "There is a considerable amount of smoke and water, but no one was injured," Hill said. Patients in the acute inpatient unit, where the fire started, were moved to other areas in the hospital, Hill said. Although the cause was not certain, initial indications were that a patient lighted a mattress on fire, Hill said. The Wauwatosa Fire Department and Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office detectives remain on the scene.
• Guilty plea expected in Webb's brawl
  Wauwatosa - The suspect in last year's brawl at a George Webb's over homosexuality and gay marriage could plead guilty as early as next month. Jason Graham, of the 4800 block of N. Sherman Blvd., was arrested late last year on felony charges of battery and bail jumping in connection with the early morning melee Sept. 24 at the Webb's at 6108 W. Blue Mound Road. He is tentatively scheduled to plead guilty March 20, according to court records. Graham, 26, is accused of assaulting two men - one gay, one transgendered - when a discussion on gay marriage widened to include other patrons. The Milwaukee County district attorney's office recommended that the transgendered man be ticketed for disorderly conduct, but no ticket had been filed as recently as Monday, said Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kim Brooks. Wauwatosa Police declined to ticket him.
• Armed robbery at Swan Serv-U Pharmacy
  A masked and armed man held up Swan Serv-U Pharmacy at 9130 W. North Ave. on Friday night. According to police, the suspect entered the west doors of the store just before 8:30 p.m. and walked to the cash register at the front of the store. A cashier approached the man to help. The suspect turned around to face the cashier. He was wearing a gray ski mask and pointed a gun at the cashier. He spoke in a deep voice, according to the employees, and said, "Do everything I tell you to." The suspect told the cashier to open the register and he then reached over and grabbed the cash. He then demanded to be taken to the other register. He followed the cashier to the pharmacy register, with the gun pointing in the cashier's back. A pharmacist was working in the back area. The suspect stuck the gun in his back and then ordered both employees to the floor. He threatened them that if he didn't get more money he would "blow your (expletive) brains out."