Walker suggests greater role for county promoting development

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI

By Steve Schultze

Milwaukee County would play a larger role in marketing the entire county for development under an idea County Executive Scott Walker floated Wednesday with local officials.

He said it could make sense to consolidate local economic-development promotion efforts with the county, but he wants to make sure it does not conflict with ongoing efforts of the Milwaukee 7 group or Visit Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee 7 is a seven-county economic strategy consortium. Visit Milwaukee is a city tourism promotion group.

"As long as it's not something that conflicts with what others are doing, having more bodies working on economic development . . . is a good thing," Walker said.

"We'd like to do something that actually adds value to real economic development," Walker said.

The county executive met privately with mayors and administrators from six Milwaukee County communities Wednesday. No one from the City of Milwaukee attended, apparently the result of miscommunication, said Paul Vornholt, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Barrett.

Neither Barrett nor city Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux was aware of the meeting, Vornholt said.

Walker said he was leaning toward including funding for a new joint marketing effort in his 2010 budget, which is due in late September. He declined to suggest a dollar figure.

He acknowledged a past interest in turning over to the city responsibility for marketing vacant Park East Freeway land owned by the county as well as the city. And the county executive said he still believed it made sense for the city to take over real estate sales duties for the county. However, that has been opposed by the County Board.

Walker downgraded the county's economic development division for 2009, eliminating a director position and dispersing the division's duties to two other departments.

View original story here.