Marathon County Courthouse. MWC file photo.
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — After almost a year of discussion, a resolution has failed in committee.
The Diversity Affairs Commission of Marathon County has been working on the “A Community for All” resolution since June of 2020. The resolution began as the “No Place for Hate” resolution but was reworked several times after being sent back to the Commission on three separate occasions.
After a town hall was held on the resolution in April, two versions of the resolution were discussed by the Commission. The Commission voted to send the first version of the resolution forward to the Executive Committee for consideration on Thursday afternoon.
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There was a robust discussion on the “A Community for All” resolution both in public comment at the beginning of the meeting and during committee business. According to County Board Chair and District 32 Supervisor Kurt Gibbs, the Executive Committee heard from 28 individuals on the resolution for over an hour.
The discussion of the resolution during its spot on the committee agenda lasted for just under an hour. Those opposed to the resolution noted a lack of changes toward compromise from its previous iteration and that it had the potential for future litigation.
District 35 Supervisor Langenhahn said of the resolution, “As someone who values fairness greatly, I was very excited when leaders from the Diversity Affairs Commission and leaders from the community with dissenting opinions to the resolution had sat down to craft a compromise.
“I thought that that would be the ticket to really gain some ground on this particular item. Unfortunately I was very disheartened when I heard that at the Diversity Affairs Commission’s most recent meeting, the group decided not to accept anything from these discussions. And that is not compliant with what I would call complaint with being a community for all”.
Those in favor of the resolution stressed that its failure would signal that Marathon County is not a welcoming community and receive negative national attention. District 3 Supervisor William Harris said the resolution’s failure could have long-lasting economic outcomes.
“In terms of jobs and businesses that are out there, most businesses have policies now about inclusion and diversity. They don’t want to move somewhere they can’t move their workforce, where they can’t hire people to work there. Where people aren’t welcome.
“Now this resolution is out there. So people are watching on how we decide to go whether we approve it or not. I think if we don’t approve it, it sends the message that we’re not welcoming. At least to the outside. And so that could result in loss of business opportunities.
“Businesses that are looking at this community. And in the time of a pandemic where we want to get people back to work, I want businesses to come here and I want this county to be successful. Not passing this hinders that. And talk about people moving out? If there are no jobs, people will move out, people will not come here. It does impact us largely economically too,”.
The idea of a Board-appointed task force was brought forward by District 4 Supervisor John Robinson as another potential compromise to save the resolution. Robinson was supported by Gibbs who said the task force could solve the main problem and objection to the resolution.
“We are talking at people, we are not talking to people. And we are not listening. If you’re going to develop something, you need to listen. Learn more with your mouth shut than you do with your mouth open,”.
The motion to create a separate task force for the resolution was not passed. Other members of the Committee voted against the idea, feeling that the current resolution had been discussed long enough to come up for a final vote. Some members of the Committee did say they would be interested in creating the task force at a later date separate from the resolution.
Following the failure of the task force charter there was some final discussion on the resolution. The final vote on the “A Community for All” resolution failed 2-6.
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