8 candidates run for vacant Milwaukee council seat

Eight candidates are competing to represent Milwaukee’s 3rd District in a special election this spring.

The district includes the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, the Brady Street nightlife hub and three large public housing developments. It hasn’t had a representative on the city’s Common Council since the death of Alder Jonathan Brostoff in November.

The eight candidates will be on a Feb. 18 primary ballot. The top two will advance to a general election on April 1.

WPR interviewed each of the candidates, who will appear on the ballot in the same order as below.

Ieshuh Griffin

Griffin is a former juvenile case manager who now consults for pro se litigants.

“I try to go to places where people are afraid to go, or where people forget about,” she said of her campaign strategy.

So she’s been knocking on doors in the district’s Housing Authority-owned towers. She learned residents who complain about bedbugs and armed criminals get threatened with eviction.

“It’s like they’re not living in their own home, they’re living in a prison,” she said.

Griffin said the city must take responsibility for public housing conditions, and pledged to “personally go to the Housing Authority” and oversee it.

Griffin also said she’s met several women who’ve been trafficked for sex, yet dismissed when bringing complaints to the police. She proposed creating “safety sites” where the women would be “assured there’s a record being made.”

Nas Musa

Musa co-owns Casablanca on Brady, a restaurant known for Middle Eastern food, belly dancing and progressive politics.

Owners of local bars and restaurants are worried about crime, Musa said. He proposed more town hall meetings with police and fining people for leaving guns in their car.

“The only reason why these car break-ins are happening is because they’re looking for guns,” he said.

Musa said he wants to bring his restaurant owner’s mentality — “I’m hands-on, I’m cooking, I’m cleaning, I’m doing dishes” — to City Hall.

He also wants to reduce speeding on Brady Street. Musa lost his cousin to a motorcycle crash there.

Daniel Bauman

Bauman spent a decade in the New York City advertising industry before moving back to his hometown of Milwaukee. He ended up working for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, first as deputy campaign manager, then as community engagement liaison.

“The third district is ripe for being able to bring in some areas of affordable housing, and even workforce housing,” he said.

Bauman supports the Growing MKE zoning overhaul, which would open single-family areas to duplexes and triplexes. But he believes historic districts should be protected from development.

“If we lose the character of these neighborhoods, it’s hard to really replace that,” he said.

Bauman also said he would seek to limit minimum parking requirements for new apartment developments. He’s endorsed by Mayor Johnson and Brostoff’s widow.

Alex Brower

Brower is a substitute teacher and director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans.

He says electricity should be “owned collectively and run not for profit, but for regular people and for its expressed purpose.”

“We are calling for the city to use a little-known law to replace WE Energies with a municipal, or cooperative, utility,” he said.

Brower also claimed city government is “serving the interests of the richest one percent,” citing over $80 million in subsidies for new Northwestern Mutual construction downtown.

Brower is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

Frank Ferrante

Ferrante is a master’s student in water policy at UW-Milwaukee. He said environmental issues are key in his campaign.

“I think it’s unacceptable that we haven’t moved forward on rebuilding our recycling center yet,” he said.

The city’s Materials Recovery Facility has been closed since a fire in 2023.

Ferrante said reassembling the “really strong” supply chain of recycled materials purchasers will be difficult if the center isn’t rebuilt soon.

“We’ve got to be ecologically-minded about our lake,” he continued.

That includes paying attention to “emerging contaminants” like PFAS and microplastics, he said.

Josh Anderson

Anderson grew up in Cudahy in a working-class family. He said his family taught him “compassion, fairness and hard work” — values he wants to represent as alder.

He said he’s concerned about the Growing MKE rezoning plan, especially increasing density without investing in public transport.

“If our public transportation isn’t ready for this, that’s going to cause issues, especially for a lot of poor people,” he said.

Anderson, who is gay, also said “the transgender community is under attack” and promised not to be afraid to “speak up” for them.

He also argued against the city chartering schools.

Bryant Junco

Last summer, Junco spent his nights patrolling the Brady Street area, calling the police whenever he spotted a car break-in.

“I started that because, to be frank, nobody was doing anything about it,” he said.

Junco proposed officers from surrounding departments be hired for temporary details that’d patrol nightlife hotspots on weekend nights.

He said they should be paired with Milwaukee officers to prevent situations like the killing of a Milwaukee man by five Ohio cops during the Republican National Convention.

“Our own officer can be there and say, ‘Oh, that’s so and so, he’s here all the time. He’s good. Don’t worry about him,’” Junco explained.

Junco also called it “unacceptable” that controversial Housing Authority director Willie Hines receives an $11,000-a-month pension.

Alexander Kostal

Kostal calls himself a “creature of the district.” His single dad owned a bar on Brady Street.

Kostal only ever left the 3rd District, he said, to attend Marquette University Law School. He became a public defender.

“The city really has failed to invest in the root causes of crime,” he said.

Kostal said his job has shown him Milwaukee needs “immediate action” to do so.

He called for investing in youth programs and “properly funding “mental health treatment.

He also wants to see more protections for income-diverse single-family neighborhoods in the Growing MKE zoning plan, he said.