June Update: County Newsletter
Happy June to everyone! As most of you probably know, June is pride month where we commemorate the long fight of LGBTQ+ people for civil rights. In particular, I want to acknowledge Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera, the trans women activists who were at the helm of the original protest movement in June of 1969 that turned into the pride celebrations we know today. If you do anything this pride month to support your queer friends and neighbors, I encourage you to learn this history and how to advocate for action that will retain the civil rights that the LGBTQ community have fought so hard to win. Our LGBTQ Kenosha County residents deserve to feel safe and protected in their community, and I hope we all continue the fight to that end.
I also want to take this opportunity to share some community resources and events we have coming up in honor of pride month. The LGBTQ Center of Southeast WI provides ally trainings as well as educational and community events. There is also a program run by Grace Lutheran called the Open Hearts Ministry, where volunteers are paired with LGBTQ youth to accompany them to major life events like graduations and recitals, in instances where they have been disowned by their family or their families do not support them, which is unfortunately a fairly common occurrence. Even though pride is in June, Kenosha Pride celebration is Saturday July 6th in the beautiful HarborPark Celebration Place.
As for County Board news updates, at the June 4th meeting, the board voted on Supervisor Gentz’s resolution to repeal the “at-will” firing policy of division heads by the county executive. After some substantial discussion on the floor, the board voted 13-9 in favor of repealing the policy. You can hear some of my thoughts about this policy in last month’s newsletter, but I was one of the 13 who voted in favor. Unfortunately for those of us in the majority, we received word two days later that Executive Kerkman vetoed the resolution.
At the June 18th meeting, we voted to override the veto, even though we were fairly certain we did not have the numbers to do so (this requires a ⅔ vote). The final vote was 12 in favor of the override, and 10 opposed, so the veto stands. Although there was limited likelihood of an override, the motion gave supervisors the opportunity to speak on what this veto seems to represent, and many insightful viewpoints were shared to this end. If you’re interested, the County Board meeting recording starting at 12:15 (which you can find if you click here) has the discussion. In particular, Supervisor Grady speaks to the purpose of having an Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch of government (good civics class review) and Supervisor Kirby points out that many of the supervisors who voted in favor of the at-will firing policy in 2022 were unseated in the last election, opposing Executive Kerkman’s statement the the retention of the policy is the will of the people.
There were several other resolutions passed at the June 18th meeting, mostly zoning ordinances and the like that I will spare you. One exciting program on the horizon is a bike share program through Tandem Mobility that will set up stations in Petrifying Springs and Kemper Center (as well as several other non-county properties). In my experience, these programs are very beneficial to the community for both recreation and transportation, and I hope it gets implemented well in Kenosha.
I hope to see you all out and about! I have been loving all the outdoor music festivals, the harbor market, and getting to meet so many of you. Please don’t be a stranger (summer is my off-work season, and I look forward to connecting with you all before teaching gets more intense again).
Have a great month, and I’ll talk to you in July.
Recording of June 4th Meeting: https://www.youtube.com/live/K2WeAx_6XTQ?si=uC8T5hVdA4mg5dSS
Recording of June 18th Meeting: https://www.youtube.com/live/IckRpoYTAFI?si=3j1Ui9DxaC2PtXe4