Wauwatosa’s $57.9M Deal: Process, Power, and Public Oversight
An analysis of 1,208 emails on how The City of Wauwatosa advanced the Boston Store redevelopment
For the complete investigation, read the full report here.
TL;DR This article is based on 1,208 city emails released under Wisconsin’s Open Records Law (with 1,454 withheld): staff, acting through the CDA, likely committed ~$4M (2022) to purchase the Boston Store before tax increment financing (TIF) or other long-term financing plan was approved, and routed early costs through the CDA in ways that likely reduced the need for separate Council appropriations on those items. The Council later approved the TIF. City materials reflect ~$35.7M in developer incentives and $1M (phased) for an affordable-housing fund. Emails also revealed discussions about leveraging the Boston Store purchase to influence or resolve the ongoing property-tax litigation between the City of Wauwatosa and the mall’s owner. Throughout this process, the emails emphasize message coordination, avoiding the term “subsidy,” aligning talking points, and revising headlines, rather than providing timely, straightforward information to residents and elected officials
All source documents are available for public review here - City Provided Dropbox Link.
These records were released by the City under Wisconsin’s Open Records Law. The City was responsible for any required redactions. We link the documents so readers can verify quotations and context. Readers will likely need to download the PDF for proper viewing.
Wauwatosa Boston Store Overview Podcast
What It Took to Get These Records
This investigation stems from a public records request submitted on January 28, 2025. Despite Wisconsin law requiring responses “as soon as practicable and without delay,” it took the City of Wauwatosa four months to deliver partial materials. The city reviewed approximately 4,500 emails but released only 1,208, withholding 1,454 under various exemptions.
Critical gaps remain: no calendars for key officials, truncated email threads, missing internal chats, and virtually no correspondence from elected alders. When Onward Tosa requested these additional documents on July 29, 2025, the city formally denied the request on September 7, 2025. While these omissions may fall within legal exemptions, they limit public understanding of how this $57.9 million commitment was made or evolving. We delayed releasing this piece in hopes of obtaining additional documents for a fuller picture. What follows is drawn from the available records.
The Timeline
What the public and elected officials were told: The redevelopment began in 2022 as a city-led response to blight at Mayfair Mall.
“Quiet talks” over the Boston Store property appear to have begun in October 2021, outside public view. The records Onward Tosa obtained raise a question: did the city comply with Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law? Also, a finance email suggested tying the extent of an offer to resolution of the mall’s ongoing tax-valuation litigation. Emails also show the property owner engaged the City in fall 2021 and asked to be put in touch with residential developers. By February 2022, a “CONFIDENTIAL” draft term sheet was sent to the owner’s counsel, noting it had not been discussed with the CDA or Common Council.
Internal emails repeatedly center decision authority on the *City Administrator, e.g., in Nov. 2021 the Finance Director wrote, “without the City Administrator the only issue will be who decides what we’re willing to offer,” and the City Attorney said he couldn’t make an offer without first “talking to the City Administrator.” From 2021–2023, the City Administrator led early talks, issued a June 2022 confidential memo, directed post-closing communications on July 25, 2022, asking that all inquiries be routed “for the sake of consistency,” and likely later paused a July 2023 budget item, indicating key strategic, messaging, and financial calls ran through that office.
*Per Municipal Code §2.08, the Mayor may give task direction, while the Administrator serves at the pleasure of, and is removable by, the Common Council
Buy First, Finance Later
Based on internal emails and counsel memoranda, purchasing the Boston Store with city reserves in 2022 before a TIF was amended or created introduced three problems the City then had to solve:
(1) TIF eligibility: outside counsel warned the roughly $4.1M acquisition would not qualify as a TID project cost unless the City used post-hoc mechanisms (e.g., transferring the parcel to a developer at a loss so the shortfall could be treated as “real-property assembly costs” after the TIF action);
(2) base-value risk—the timing could impair achieving a $0 base unless the City rebutted a presumption that the purchase was aimed at reducing the tax base (staff planned to argue the auction forced the timing); and
(3) Because the City paid cash and faced 1–2 years of holding costs, it routed early invoices, such as a ~$24,000 utility bill, through the CDA and planned to pay itself back later with borrowed funds and tax increment district (TID) money.
In short, while the purchase was defended as a necessary defensive move to control the site, the records show the sequence, buy first, finance later, created legal and financial complexities that were subsequently addressed through amendments to TID 10 and the creation of TID 15.
The CDA Payments
The CDA functioned as a vehicle through which certain payments were made without separate Council appropriations. For example, when a $24,813 invoice arrived with no budget line, staff wrote: “I’ll have it paid centrally as we work on the CDA budget for Mayfair.” Multiple emails describe expenses paid “out of the CDA” and later reimbursed with borrowed funds.
One internal note stated, in substance, that routing documents through counsel could limit public release during drafting. Emails also reflect a preference to handle drafts through counsel during negotiations. A press-release headline was changed, after a request by the Mayor, from “Wauwatosa CDA Closes on Boston Store” to “Wauwatosa City Authority Buys Boston Store,” though the CDA was the buyer of record. Why was the change needed?
In November 2023, a third default notice for $37,240.81 in past-due lease charges was issued to the CDA. Internal emails indicate a property manager approved payment but the check was not overnighted as expected.
Message Management & Information Flow
City emails suggest that officials engaged in significant message coordination, and that elected alders may not always have received information at the same time as staff. It is well-documented that the City Administrator routinely meets one-on-one with most alders on a near-monthly basis. These records raise questions: what is covered in those private meetings, do alders receive full briefings on major financial commitments, or do those sessions serve mainly to shape how the information is presented?
Language Games:
“We can’t call it a subsidy. We should use the phrase ‘public-private partnership’”
The Mayor removed references to “18-20 story buildings” because “I don’t want to talk about building size in terms of stories... Telling it this way should help calm fears of residents, especially those spooked by [a previous developer’s] ill-fated 28-story tower.”
An email discussed lining up city spokespeople for media requests; critics argue this sidelined outside voices (e.g., housing advocates, some alders, planners).
Information Gatekeeping:
“Let’s hold distribution until after the council workshop. No point inviting questions we can’t answer”
“We want to present it as nearly finalized, keep the Council focused on the vision, not the steps that got us here”
“This isn’t FOIA-able yet. It’s a working draft, not a final record”
When a reporter’s headline didn’t match city preferences, the Communications Director admitted it was “a little misleading” but chose not to correct it. The concern wasn’t accuracy, it seems to be narrative control.
Staff prepared internal talking points so everyone could “talk from the same playlist,” documents never released publicly. The stated goal: frame redevelopment as economic necessity, not using a luxury housing subsidy.
The Numbers Tell a Different Story
The city touts a $1 million affordable housing contribution, to be paid in phases throughout the project, while providing $35.7 million in developer incentives. The “affordable” contribution appears lacking when 2,467 low-income families compete for just 709 affordable units in Wauwatosa, and the new apartments will likely charge $3,000 for a two-bedroom, not the $576 that would be truly affordable.
Current holding costs for the vacant Boston Store likely exceed $800,000, expenses an elected official questioned before purchase but were dismissed by staff. Even basic finances seem to remain unsettled; in December 2022, property managers were still trying to reconcile utility costs.
A February 2023 email admitted: “We don’t have an exact ownership or legal structure identified yet.”
Alders’ Access
In September 2023, an alder raised concerns about process, transparency, housing mix, and public subsidy. That dissent does not appear in the public-facing materials we reviewed. Emails indicate the CDA was expected to act early to “set the tone” before a Council vote. Reliance on attorney-client privilege for drafts and negotiations may have limited contemporaneous disclosure to elected officials.
The Pattern Is Concerning
Major project steps often preceded robust public input.
CDA actions and payments sometimes preceded or sat adjacent to Council approvals, reducing the need for separate appropriations on some items.
Communications emphasized framing and message discipline.
Attorney-client privilege limited public access to drafts during negotiations.
Informative materials appeared to be sequenced in ways that may have narrowed political deliberation at key stages.
What’s Still Hidden
Despite four months of waiting, critical records remain concealed:
City calendars for key officials
Internal chat communications
Most alder emails were excluded (one hopes alders were asking questions about this massive expenditure)
Documents referenced but missing from correspondence
What else is in the Boston Store emails, and is this how all development deals are done?
The Path Forward
In our view, these emails reflects what scholars call “administrative capture,” a staff-led process overshadowing elected deliberation.
Other cities demonstrate transparency is possible: publish actual contracts with agendas, post amendments showing what changed, maintain public cost ledgers, present risk assessments to elected officials, and treat communications as a public service, not marketing.
While these emails reveal no evidence of outright corruption, they expose a concerning pattern of minimizing public participation in significant financial decisions.
As one resident asked: “Is this sustainable leadership, or just kicking the can down the road?”
The answer begins in these 1,208 emails.
For the complete investigation, read the full report here.
Disclaimer: This investigation is based solely on public records obtained through Wisconsin’s Open Records Law. All quotes are taken directly from official city correspondence released by the City of Wauwatosa. This analysis presents observations about the public development process based on available documents. Onward Tosa makes no allegations of illegal conduct or wrongdoing by any party. Some email threads appear incomplete in the released records, and additional context may exist in withheld documents or communications not subject to this records request.
We welcome corrections and additional context. Please review the source materials and contact us at onwardwauwatosa@gmail.com with any clarifications or corrections.
Spring 2026 Elections: Get Involved
Spring 2026 aldermanic elections will be here before you know it. If you want to make positive changes in Tosa that will benefit generations to come, now is the time to get organized. Reach out to Onward Tosa at onwardwauwatosa@gmail.com for more information about how to get involved, learn about city policy, or consider running for office. If you’re concerned about transparency, taxes, and accountability, now’s the time to get involved.
At this time, Onward Tosa is an informal group of concerned residents focused on information sharing and civic engagement; it is not registered as a Political Action Committee (PAC) or formal political entity.
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