Incumbent Dennis McBride will face Andrew Meindl, who currently serves as an alderperson for District 1, in Wauwatosa’s mayoral election April 2.
The next mayor will enter office as the city plans its 2045 Comprehensive Plan. They’ll tackle questions of how to fund aging infrastructure as the city approaches a fiscal cliff and faces financial restraints on its tax levy. The next mayor will also need to focus on meeting the demand for housing and figure out how and where to build developments. Like other cities nationwide, Wauwatosa is facing an affordable housing shortage, and 92% of its workforce doesn’t reside in the city, according to the 2023 Housing Study and Needs Assessment.
If Meindl wins the election, a new person would be appointed to his alderperson position. If he doesn’t win the election, he would remain on the Common Council until the end of his term in 2026.
Here’s what to know about the two candidates:
Andrew Meindl
Background: Andrew Meindl has served on Wauwatosa’s Common Council as District 1 alderperson since 2022. He’s running for mayor because he wants to address the root causes of issues and bring a fresh vision to Wauwatosa.
Meindl and his wife Amanda moved to Wauwatosa in 2021 to raise their two children and reside in East Tosa. He currently works full-time as a project manager for the U.S. General Services Administration and has worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service. Meindl would leave his full-time job to serve as mayor, he said. He holds degrees in environmental planning and policy, and urban and public affairs.
On the Common Council, Meindl has pushed to depenalize marijuana possession, advocated for the use of city funds to erase residents’ medical debt and worked to bring a sustainability manager position to Wauwatosa.
Websites:www.meindl4tosa.org/ , www.facebook.com/meindl4tosa
Endorsements: Meindl has been endorsed by Citizen Action of Wisconsin, an economic, racial, and environmental justice advocacy group; Run for Something, an organization that recruits and supports strong voices in the next generation of progressive leadership; former Wauwatosa Mayor Theresa M. Estness; and more than a dozen community members on his website.
Supporters: Meindl’s campaign is primarily funded by monetary donations and some in-kind donations from Wauwatosa residents and himself, according to campaign finance reports through January. The next reports will be due March 25 and published shortly after, according to Wauwatosa Communications Manager Eva Ennamorato.
Meindl wants to increase homeownership, save TIF for ‘truly affordable’ housing developments
Meindl believes that the strategy of increasing supply to meet demand is not working to bring Wauwatosa the housing it needs.
He doesn’t think tax increment financing, or TIF, should fund developments unless they bring “truly affordable housing” for households that earn 50% of the area median income, he said.
“We need to go in (on) as many projects as we can on the general tax rolls, and not (be) deferring them in a TIF,” he said.
Meindl wants to take measures before using TIF, like expediting a permit process, to incentivize developers to bring affordable housing with their developments.
Meindl also wants to increase homeownership through the city’s newly formed Regional Community Land Trust, a private nonprofit that would own the land the house sits on while selling qualifying individuals the home.
Meindl wants to cut down on third party spending, focus on sustainability
Wauwatosa is taking out too much debt and has excessive spending of at least $1 million on third party vendors like attorney fees, Meindl said. One way to cut down on costs he believes would be to insource work to City staff.
In his executive budget, he would hire a grant writer and sustainability manager, two jobs he says would pay for themselves with the grant funding found and the money saved with sustainable measures.
Since most city staff need to spend time writing their own grants, a grant writer would work across city departments to leverage funds for the city, Meindl said.
The City has worked to reduce its own carbon footprint with initiatives like installing solar, but reducing residential and community-wide emissions is another story.
A sustainability manager would work to complete a climate adaptation plan for all of Wauwatosa to improve its emissions, Meindl said.
Meindl sponsored a resolution to create a sustainability manager position with public works, but McBride’s executive budget denied that along with other staffing requests. Wauwatosa is now pursuing funds for a sustainability manager position to be shared between Milwaukee-area suburbs.
Meindl wants to get residents more involved, increase transparency in local government
Meindl said he would increase transparency in Wauwatosa as mayor. He would start by opening public comment at the Common Council level for comments connected with items at the meeting. Public comments are currently made at the committee meetings before an agenda item is sent to the Common Council for what is often the final discussion.
He said he’s heard residents feel left in the dark on how the city handled the purchase of the Boston Store and the apartment development planned for Mayfair Mall.
“I wish that if we’re going to embark on this large-scale project that we could have had more residential engagement” from the start, Meindl said.
Meindl would also instate participatory budgeting, a democratic process in which community members decide how to spend part of a public budget, as much as state statute allows. He would create a citizen development review board, a meeting open to any residents to see development proposals and add suggestions that a committee would have as input when elected officials discuss development projects.
“Then the citizens will know that their voice was heard,” Meindl said.
Dennis McBride (incumbent)
Background: Dennis McBride has served as mayor of Wauwatosa since 2020. He was an alder on the Common Council for 10 years and served on the Wauwatosa Civil Service Commission for 15 years.
McBride worked as an attorney for more than thirty years in government and private practice. He holds degrees in journalism and public administration. A Wauwatosa East High School alum, he’s a co-founder of Friends of Hoyt Park & Pool, Inc. and Support Our Schools (SOS) Wauwatosa.
The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 protests against former Wauwatosa Police Officer Joseph Mensah’s shooting of 17-year-old Alvin Cole, marked the start of McBride’s first term as mayor. He has advocated for the need to reform the state’s property tax levy to loosen spending restrictions on local governments and worked with County Executive David Crowley to secure $15 million in ARPA funding to finance affordable housing in the suburbs.
Websites:www.mcbride4tosa.com, www.facebook.com/Dennis4Tosa/
Endorsements: McBride is endorsed by the Milwaukee Area Labor Council; Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley; former Wauwatosa Mayor Kathy Ehley; former Wauwatosa Mayor Maricolette Walsh; Milwaukee County Supervisor Shawn Rolland; community members and 13 current alderpersons, according to his website.
Supporters: McBride has received monetary donations from Wauwatosa residents and real estate executives and architects, including individual $972 donations from Jason Macklin of Wingspan Development Group, based in Mount Prospect, Illinois; Christopher Thomas, the architect of the Mayfair Collection; Tim Blum, who led the Mayfair Collection redevelopment; and Michael Coakley.
John Morgridge, former Cisco Systems CEO, and Tashia Morgridge each donated $970 to McBride’s campaign as well, according to campaign finance reports through January.
Wauwatosa is moving forward, rebuilding trust since 2020, McBride said
Almost four years since the protests to fire Mensah sparked by national movements following the murder of George Floyd, McBride says Wauwatosa is healing and moving forward. He said he made the right decision to enact an emergency curfew during that time.
“If any part of Wauwatosa had burned we would have had flight out of this city,” he said. “Instead, our property values are soaring, we’re moving forward on affordable housing… none of that would have happened if we hadn’t taken steps to make sure that what happened in Kenosha didn’t happen again in Wauwatosa.”
McBride said the city and Wauwatosa Police Chief James MacGillis have embraced changes and recommendations from a 2021 report and study on the Wauwatosa Police Department that asked for transparency and more community policing.
McBride said if he had extra funding he would spend it on hiring more social workers to work with police to support residents in mental health crises. Two thirds of police department calls are related to mental health, he said. The city currently has one staffed social worker.
McBride wants to play ‘small ball’ for affordable housing
Wauwatosa needs more multi-family housing like condos and duplexes for people who have low- and middle-incomes and the 92% of its workforce that doesn’t reside in the city, according to the 2023 Housing Study and Needs Assessment. McBride said all housing will help affordability, and building more housing will meet the demand.
In his next term as mayor, McBride said he would take the approach of “playing small ball” by identifying lots within land-locked Tosa to build housing that makes sense for the area.
“We have to find the small properties that are vacant, underdeveloped, and try to do something with them,” he said.
The latest developments in the city, like the Mayfair mall apartments, have put apartments where no one would have put a single-family home, he said.
Private developers will need subsidies to build affordable housing, but the city can’t afford to subsidize those developments alone, McBride said. Tax increment financing and federal funds are already helping projects, he said.
“You can’t force private developers to build housing when they can’t get the financing for it,” McBride said.
McBride will address aging infrastructure needs ‘on a methodical basis’
At a mayoral candidate forum in early March, McBride said the city is taking small steps to fix the city’s aging infrastructure and he’d submit for a referendum when it comes time to do so.
The city might face an operating referendum in the coming years, which allows a school or municipality to exceed its revenue limit without issuing new debt and pays for operating costs like salaries, benefits and supplies. The city could also go to a capital referendum, or issue bonds, for city hall and library renovations.
In the case of lead lateral removal and replacements, the city is seeking federal funding. The city will work with residents that have a lead lateral they want removed now and are willing to pay for, McBride said.
“We can’t afford everything, and we can’t afford it all at once,” McBride said, “but if we do what we’re doing on a methodical basis, we can get the job done.”
Contact the reporter at bfogarty@gannett.com
