Author: NNS

By Marcelia Nicholson, Guy Smith, and Rebecca Stoner • Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service The past few years have reinvigorated our love of parks, many of us realizing that the only way to be with our loved ones safely is outside. We meet on park benches, picnic tables, walks on nature trails or even on a swing set. Parks are one of the few free, accessible recreational spaces that remain in this country. It would be a terrible shame to lose them. Yet, some days, that feels like where we are. You may have seen press in recent years about...

By Janan Najeeb • Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service The City of Milwaukee’s recent redistricting process and efforts by Hispanic leaders to create a third Hispanic-majority, or near-majority, in the 13th Aldermanic District were fraught with emotion. On December 6, then-Mayor Tom Barrett vetoed the aldermanic district map approved November 23 by a 14-1 Common Council vote. The veto was meant to give members of the community an opportunity to weigh in on the City of Milwaukee’s redistricting process, particularly the Latino community, which expressed concern that its growing numbers were not reflected in the approved map. The Hispanic community...

By Edgar Mendez • Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service When Melvin Reese hears his work phone ring he knows someone in crisis needs his help. “I say a prayer for me and whoever I come in contact with once I’m on scene,” said Reese, a member of the Salvation Army Milwaukee Chaplaincy Program. Reese and other chaplains in the program, a partnership with the Milwaukee Police Department, are trained to respond to violent and often tragic scenes. Sometimes they’re called to a murder scene. Other times they respond to suicides, vehicle accidents or any other situation that officers feel their...

By Edgar Mendez • Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski almost never became a firefighter at all. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father all served as City of Milwaukee firefighters, but Lipski said he never felt pressured to follow in their footsteps. “They said to do something that doesn’t beat your body up so much,” said Lipski about his father and grandfather. So he did, working for a few years as an emergency medical technician for Paratech Ambulance. Fate eventually intervened, and his father asked Lipski, then 21, if he was interested in taking the tests needed...

By Montell Infiniti Ross • Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service With June being the official month of Pride, I reflect on the experience of being not just a gay man, but a BLACK gay man. I can’t help but think about the similarities between being Black and gay. You see, I have experienced being looked at as “less than” due to my cultural upbringing as well as my sexual orientation. I have been ostracized in rooms filled with either heteronormality or no racial diversity. Many times, these situations can create self-doubt. Sometimes it comes from where you would least expect...