A virtual emergency meeting that was supposed to steady Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission instead blew up into a procedural standoff that ended with no quorum, no votes and a lot of frustration.
On Tuesday, May 19, five SDC commissioners logged on to a hastily called online session to take up leadership questions and insurance coverage for the agency’s financially strapped properties. The call ended without a single action taken. The clash exposed long-simmering tensions over how the agency is being run after it halted its anti-poverty programs in 2024 and began grappling with lawsuits and mounting debt. Commissioners on the call said they were trying to safeguard SDC’s assets and enforce the rules, while others argued those issues could wait for an already scheduled in-person meeting.
The five commissioners - Walter Lanier, Dessie Levy, Pam Fendt, Richard Diaz and Jackie Q. Carter - convened the virtual meeting to elect officers and to talk about securing property and liability insurance for SDC’s building at 6850 N. Teutonia Ave., according to Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Because not enough commissioners joined the call, no votes could be held, and much of the time was spent peppering a registered parliamentarian with questions about what the bylaws actually require. “We don’t get a notice, nor do the items that we request get placed on the agenda,” Commissioner Walter Lanier said.
Jorge Franco, SDC’s interim CEO and board chair, pushed back on the effort, calling the agenda items routine business that could easily wait for the board’s regular meeting and labeling the emergency session “invalid,” per Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. He noted that the board already had a regular, in-person meeting set for Thursday, May 21, at the Milwaukee Public Schools Central Services Building, 5225 W. Vliet St., where officer elections were expected to be handled. “SDC remains fully compliant with its SDC bylaws,” Franco said, even as the agency works to untangle debts and legal claims.
A troubled agency’s long slide
SDC halted its programs in April 2024 and has since been pulled into wage-claims lawsuits, foreclosure threats and vendor judgments, according to reporting by Wisconsin Watch. Local coverage has described repeated board turnover and disputed property sales as the commission scrambles to stabilize while fending off creditors. Urban Milwaukee has tracked the ongoing saga as commissioners argue over how strictly they must follow the bylaws while the agency is under intense financial strain.
Bylaws fight and what is at stake
The emergency session quickly turned into a bylaws seminar. Commissioner Dessie Levy said she received an email on May 18 from Franco informing her that she had been removed from the board for exceeding the number of allowed unexcused absences. Levy says she plans to appear at the in-person meeting to challenge that move. During the virtual call, a registered parliamentarian told commissioners that, in her reading of the rules, the bylaws do not outline any way to remove a commissioner unilaterally without a vote, according to coverage by the Milwaukee Courier. How that interpretation is enforced could determine whether the board can police itself or whether appointers and attorneys will ultimately be the ones to settle the dispute.
What happens next
For now, the fight over process and power is expected to shift to the in-person meeting, where Levy plans to press her case and commissioners could finally take formal votes on officer roles or membership. The agenda for that session included a closed portion and time for public comment, according to Urban Milwaukee, and any enforcement of the bylaws may hinge on the official minutes and roll-call records kept by SDC staff. City and county officials who appoint several commissioners are watching closely. Their next choices could determine whether the board can cobble together the quorum it needs to make binding decisions about SDC’s future.
