What you should know about Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan, the two remaining candidates for Milwaukee mayor

Milwaukee Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson and former Ald. Bob Donovan will go head-to-head April 5 in an election that is unique for its lack of an incumbent.

Wisconsin's largest city, after all, tends to re-elect its mayors for long periods of time.

That includes former Mayor Tom Barrett, who resigned late last year to become U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg after nearly 18 years on the job — a tenure that did not set the record for the city's longest-serving executive.

Whoever becomes the next mayor will serve the remaining two years of Barrett's term and contend with a host of pressing challenges but also generational opportunities.

The contest will pit a millennial Democrat who has risen quickly through ranks at City Hall against a conservative former alderman who served 20 years as the representative of one of the city's south side districts.

And while turnout in the seven-way Feb. 15 primary was only 22% of registered voters, a key takeaway was that Johnson received citywide support while Donovan's support dropped from his 2016 run against Barrett.

Here's what you should know about the two remaining candidates for Milwaukee mayor — and how they would approach key issues facing the city.

How Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan would address public safety

Johnson's plan to combat crime focuses on law enforcement, prevention and "intervention with community healing," he said.

Measures included stabilizing the number of sworn police officers; community-oriented policing; additional training for police and firefighters on diversity, cultural sensitivity, use of force and mental illness; securing state and private funding for Crisis Assessment Response Team mental health services; and boosting funding to the city's Office of Violence Prevention.

He said he would seek additional funding from the state to maintain police staffing levels, which have decreased due to budget pressure in recent years.

Fact check: Did Cavalier Johnson lead the effort to add 200 new police officers

Johnson also said he would like to put more than $5 million of the remaining $197 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds the city expects to receive toward the Office of Violence Prevention. Including the more than $3 million in ARPA funds the city allocated last year, the addition would allow the city to match the $8 million state allocation Gov. Tony Evers announced in October.

To decrease reckless driving, he has called for measures including narrowing roads and changing the structure of streets to prevent behaviors like the "Milwaukee slide," where drivers pass on the right shoulder to run red lights.

Donovan, who formerly chaired the Common Council's Public Safety and Health Committee, said decreases in police officer positions had been detrimental and an appropriate number of officers was necessary to effectively, efficiently and fairly police the city. While he did not know exactly how many sworn members he'd like, he estimated that figure would be around 2,000. The sworn officer force has dipped to about 1,630.

To pay for such an increase, Donovan planned to work with the state to get additional shared revenue or other revenue-generating options, consider measures such as a 911 surcharge and look for ways to save city dollars. The costs cannot fall solely on city taxpayers, he said.

He called for increasing the number of detectives and said he would like to see the implementation of juvenile detention facilities patterned after boarding schools.

Donovan also advocated for community policing, especially putting officers on foot or bicycle patrol to build trust with residents. That approach is important to ensure the officer is not seen as "some invading, occupying force" but rather as a "guardian of safety for that neighborhood," he said.

As for how to respond to reckless driving, he said the city needed to send a strong message that it would not be tolerated. Any reckless driver should be arrested and, if necessary, their vehicle towed and impounded, he said.

What Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan would do to combat COVID-19

In an interview, Johnson charted the evolution of the city's response, saying the city had been trying everything possible to respond to the pandemic.

That includes encouraging mask-wearing and the initial 2020 mask mandate to stop the spread when little was known about the virus and there was no vaccine.

Johnson co-sponsored the Common Council resolution that instituted the mask ordinance in July 2020, and late that year he joined all of his council colleagues in supporting legislation that raised the fine for businesses that violated health orders issued by the city Health Department.

Now, with vaccinations readily available, Johnson on Jan. 20 signed the new mask mandate, that expired March 1.

He said of the shift in approach that the pandemic has been a learning process and the city throughout has used the tools at its disposal to curb transmission of the virus.

And while he stood by the previous fines for businesses under the circumstances at that time, he said today the most important effort is to get people vaccinated. Johnson was vaccinated on camera and has received a booster dose.

Donovan was critical of the city's response to the pandemic, which he said from the initial lockdown just before St. Patrick's Day 2020 to today has hurt small businesses and employment.

In an interview, Donovan said he saw a role for government in making the vaccines available and that he had been vaccinated and boosted.

However, he said the decision about whether to get vaccinated is best left to individuals and their doctors.

"I’m not certainly in any way anti-vaccine, but I am pro-freedom," he said.

Donovan also said he wanted the city to emulate measures from other communities, citing Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' policies as a starting point.

He also did not support the city's vaccine mandate for employees or the masking requirement in city buildings.

Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan on education, MPS

Donovan was the only candidate in the primary field not to fully reject the state legislative proposal to break up MPS, saying he would welcome the opportunity to learn more about it and would want to also hear the perspective of MPS School Board members and the superintendent.

More generally, he said, he would be open to hearing other proposals to give the mayor more power over MPS. He said he would also appoint an education advisory committee to inform his decisions on education.

Donovan initially supported the 2009 plan to give the mayor the power to choose the MPS superintendent, saying he had pushed for more mayoral control of MPS for years, though he raised concerns about mayoral control over the district's budget.

Donovan attended Catholic schools in Milwaukee, graduating from Thomas More High School. His children have attended a mix of Catholic and public schools in the city.

Johnson has come out strongly against the proposal to break up MPS, though he hasn't said he would resist participation in the process.

"It fails to acknowledge the systemic inequities in our city that stem from poverty, crime and the hollowing out of employment in urban centers," he said.

Johnson, a 2005 graduate of Bay View High School and first in his family to graduate from college, has a son in MPS and will soon have two daughters in the district's public schools.

Johnson stressed the importance of building up MPS, arguing that MPS should be the city's sole authorizer of charter schools — schools that are allowed more curriculum flexibility but must have public oversight.

Johnson also called for the school district to offer more driver's education opportunities.

Cavalier Johnson and Bob Donovan on the pension crisis

Johnson pointed to the latest budget for evidence of his work on the pension issue.

During the fall's budget deliberations, he sought — and got — $30 million more than the $10 million Barrett had proposed socking away toward the pension reserve fund.

The council added the $30 million by substituting pieces of other departments' budgets with ARPA funds, freeing up tax dollars to put toward the pension and bringing the pension reserve fund to about $82 million by the end of this year.

At the same time, he said he would want to continue working with the state to bring in additional revenue for the city.

Milwaukee-area leaders have been pushing for the state to allow a Milwaukee County referendum on increasing the local sales tax while also calling attention to the stagnant shared revenue coming to local governments from the state and state restrictions on local governments' mechanisms for raising revenue.

While he said the city needed additional funds to keep pace with rising costs, Johnson was cautious about the commitment to maintain police that Republican state Sen. Dale Kooyenga of Brookfield was seeking as part of a potential funding deal with the state.

He expressed concern that while the city would bring in additional dollars, over time the sales tax increase would be consumed by wage and benefit increases received by police through collective bargaining.

Donovan said his first step to addressing the pension issue would be to get on the phone to Gov. Tony Evers and the state Legislature.

He likened some previous efforts to address the pension to "putting a Band-Aid on a cancer victim."

He said the city desperately needs a partnership with the state to address its fiscal challenges but that there also needs to be a larger rethinking of the system for paying for local government.

He called for an analysis of how other communities around the nation fund local government, raising concerns about the city's dependence on shared revenue from the state.

As mayor he said he would also have an audit conducted to make sure the city was spending wisely. Donovan said he also would explore using ARPA funds to ward off cuts.

And while he was not convinced a sales tax was the correct funding source, Donovan said he had met with Kooyenga and felt there were initiatives that could be further discussed.

As to whether he could commit to not cutting police, Donovan said: "I would commit to increasing the numbers of officers. They need it. They can't keep up."

Journal Sentinel reporters Vanessa Swales and Rory Linnane contributed.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee mayor candidates Cavalier Johnson, Bob Donovan on issues