Milwaukee Common Council race: Bowen, Pratt seek 1st District seat

Three of the 15 Milwaukee Common Council seats have been vacant for months but will be filled April 4 when you decide.

MILWAUKEE - Three of the 15 Milwaukee Common Council seats have been vacant for months but will be filled April 4 when you decide.

Their last names have been on your ballots for years: Bowen and Pratt.

"Stopping by to see if I can earn your support for alderman," said David Bowen.

"They say, ‘Are you related to’ or, ‘Do you know?' and I say, ‘Yes. I am related to Marvin Pratt. That’s my father,'" said Andrea Pratt.

Andrea Pratt was in third grade when her dad, Marvin Pratt, won a special election. For 18 years, he served as alderman of the Milwaukee Common Council's First District. In 2004, he became Milwaukee's acting mayor.

"People still have very fond memories of when he represented this area," said Andrea Pratt. "That’s a good thing. That’s a plus for me. He’s my not-so-secret weapon."

Now, she's running in her own special election, facing former State Representative David Bowen.

"The No. 1 thing I can do is really listen to residents of the First," said Bowen.

A third candidate’s name won’t be on the ballot. Vincent Toney is running as a write-in.

SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News

"I, at least, would like to give the people in the community some level of hope that there is somebody out here that is willing to work for them," said Toney. "We need something different in this office to represent this community."

FOX6 News asked the candidates how they would cut crime and homicides.

"Reducing the violence in our communities means that we have to take a public health approach," said Bowen. "I’ve been all in in working with Gov. Evers, and you can see his agenda has listened to our pleas to have focus of resources go into violence prevention programs that we know that work, treating violence as a public health epidemic and disease, stopping the spread of it."

"So if we come up with some ordinances, some legislation around gun safety for responsible gun owners," said Pratt. "People are breaking windows, and that’s what’s happening a lot even downtown with people busting windows, and they’re stealing guns out of cars. You can’t bring your gun inside where you’re going, so you leave it in your car, but it isn’t properly secured, so it’s stolen, and those guns are used in the commission of crimes."

The voters in Milwaukee's First District haven’t had representation on the Common Council since August 2022. That's when the mayor appointed then-Alderman Ashanti Hamilton to lead the Office of Violence Prevention.

Politics Election News Milwaukee