Gateway Partnership Helps Secure New Community Prosecutor
In summer of 2022, The Gateway to Milwaukee, along with The Historic Highway 41 and the Crisol Corridor Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), came together with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office and Milwaukee Police Department to address what had been roughly a ten year gap in services within the MPD District 6 area – namely a Community Prosecutor. Though there had been a Community Prosecutor position serving the area previously at the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, due to ongoing budget constraints the position had been removed.
With that news came the opportunity for The Gateway to Milwaukee and our fellow BID collaborators to find a way to fill that gap by bringing back the Community Partnership Unit and its Community Prosecutor position by raising funds that would go to support this position. Over the remainder of the 2022 calendar year, the collaboration worked successfully to secure approximately $100k in funding through a variety of stakeholders including the various area BID organizations, as well as contributions from local business and commercial property owners – all with a shared interest in supporting the recreation of a Community Prosecutor position and the vision for a more safe and secure community.
When the announcement was made that Milwaukee County had received grant funding to cover the position in full, this then allowed the collaboration to bring together representatives from those contributing organizations and individual businesses to form the Joint Safety Committee. This committee has the sole task of overseeing the allocation of funds previously raised to various public safety and security related initiatives throughout the area – leveraging funds to bolster and expand existing programming and projects, as well as supporting future opportunities.
To learn more about this effort and the new Community Prosecutor Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Francesco Mineo, please take a look at the press release videos and article links below.
