It's Reader Mailbag time! Send in your questions!

In these discombobulating times, let's recombobulate together. Send us your questions, and we'll do our best to give you some answers.

The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.

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We’ve got a busy year ahead, folks. There’s just over five months until the election, and less than 50 days until the RNC comes to Milwaukee.

And perhaps now is a good time to share with you all that I will have official credentials to cover the RNC! That’s right, The Recombobulation Area has official press credentials for this of all political conventions. It’s going to be quite the experience. We’re pretty excited to have the opportunity to cover this in a way only The Recombobulation Area could.

But before we’re deep into the RNC/election vortex, we’re going to need to answer some questions. Namely, your questions. As a reader-powered publication, we always want to know what’s your minds.

So, have at it!

There are a number of ways to send us a question:

• Leave a comment! We’ll make it all the easier for you to get to it, here’s a nice blue button to click

• Send me a DM right here on Substack. Here, another nice blue button!

• Tweet at me!

  • I’m at @DanRShafer (as you’re probably aware)

• Send it on Instagram!

  • We’re at @therecombobulationarea. We should be on Instagram more often, probably.

• Send it on Facebook!

  • Do people still do newsy stuff on Facebook anymore? Doesn’t seem like it. Anyway, we’re there, too.

• Walk around shouting it!

  • This won’t work, but it would be funny!

• Send us an email!

  • We’re at therecombobulationarea@gmail.com. If you’d like to keep your name out of the mailbag, this would be the best way to do it.

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ONE MORE THING: TODAY is the deadline to submit public comment about the Reimagining 175 Study, on the future of the Stadium Freeway.

Longtime readers may recall our award-winning 2021 series, “Expanding the Divide”, which included a column I wrote on why this freeway should be converted to a boulevard. Now, almost exactly three years since that series was published, we’re talking about a bold new future for the freeway, in real terms. Wild.

Take a look at all the renderings and information and have your say and fill out the survey here.

There are a number of different options for each intersection along the freeway. There are fair arguments for many of them. But what is clearly the worst option of all is to keep things the same. The “existing” option in the survey does not belong in any of the top threes.

For what it’s worth, here’s what I went with:

• Bluemound Rd./Wisconsin Ave./Wells St.

  • 1) S5, 2) S6, 3) S3&4

• State St./Martin Dr.

  • 1) S6, 2) S5A, 3) S2

• Vliet St./Washington Blvd.

  • 1) N5, 2) N4, 3)N6

• Lloyd St./Lisbon Ave./Sherman Blvd.

  • 1) N6A, 2) N3, 3) N2

The status quo isn’t working. We’re never going to change this city by doing the same things over and over again. This roughly 60-year-old freeway is going to reach the end of its useful life soon. It would be far better to build something better for the long term that would better connect the city and create new opportunities to invest in neighborhoods.

Tear Down the Stadium Freeway in Milwaukee

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Alright, have at it! Send in those mailbag questions. We can’t wait to hear from you.

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Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 18 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.

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Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer.