Bucks president Peter Feigin gave a brutally honest assessment of Milwaukee while speaking at the Rotary Club of Madison last week, calling it "the most segregated, racist place I’ve ever experienced in my life."
While discussing the upcoming multi-purpose arena to be located in downtown Milwaukee, Feigin revealed how it would play a pivotal role in helping a city in desperate need of revitalization. "Very bluntly, Milwaukee is the most segregated, racist place I’ve ever experienced in my life," he said, according to the Washington State Journal. "It just is a place that is antiquated. It is in desperate need of repair and has happened for a long, long time. One of our messages and one of our goals is to lead by example.”
In the outline of the $500 million arena, the Bucks' ownership group, which includes Marc Lasry, Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan, wants to make sure its construction contractors focus their hiring efforts on people who live in the area. The project also maps out a plan to pay those with "service-sector" jobs at least $12 per hour, which could move up to $15 by 2023. “We know we can’t cure the world," Feigin said. "But we are very determined to get ourselves involved in programs that we can measure a difference in and put our claws into for a long period of time and show a difference."
The Bucks' new arena is slated for a September 2018 completion date.
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