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Seven has proven to be a winner when it comes to raising funds on the craps table or for branding southeastern Wisconsin as a single economic and cultural entity.

That became clear last week when the "Milwaukee Seven" branding effort announced that it has already reached its goal of raising $12 million to fund a five-year marketing effort of the region only six months after leaders of the seven counties decided to band together.

After a meeting of the group Wednesday at the QuadGraphics Sussex plant, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said that the work was moving along better than expected.

Public and private contributions totaling $5.2 million will be combined with another $7 million in resources provided by organizations to reach the funding total.

"We also heard several presentations on the regional economy, the state of and changes in manufacturing, including gains and losses," the mayor said. "What we have said is important overall is that businesses, government and the area's universities work together" to help grow the regional economy.

Barrett said another meeting will be held in a few months on fostering growth in IT and biotech industries. "It is going very well and there has been a lot of interest," Barrett said of the effort.

Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas agreed, adding some similar efforts to do this in the past have fizzled. "But I really have high expectations for this one," he said. "I was always in the choir in school. While we are can be good soloists in Waukesha County, we also have to be good members of the choir and sing with a loud voice the praises of the seven-county region."

But tensions continue on area highway expansion plans.

One area of contention between the counties continues to be the proposed widening of Interstate 94, between the Zoo Interchange and the Marquette Interchange. The plan adopted by an advisory group of all southeastern Wisconsin counties calls for widening along a stretch near Miller Park, known as the Story Hill neighborhood. The advisory group voted Wednesday to keep the lanes in the plan, but also decided to look at mitigating the effect the plan would have on surrounding neighborhoods. A group of citizens has been fighting the recommendation despite calls from other counties to alleviate the bottleneck in the freeway system.

Barrett has joined that effort, which runs counter to that call for regional cooperation.

Following a recent 8-1 vote by the Milwaukee School Board to oppose such a freeway expansion, Barrett said he hopes to push for a reconsideration of the plan to expand the so-called "East-West Corridor" from six to eight lanes within the city limits.

Those 19 miles of new lanes would be part of a larger $6.2 billion plan to rebuild all of the region's freeways, with new lanes on 127 of 270 miles, over the next 30 years.

"Milwaukee is still interested in keeping the current number of lanes," Barrett said, adding that funding for such an expansion might not be available soon -- if at all.

- Dennis Shook is a freelance columnist from Kenosha.

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