Latest Community for All Resolutions
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Yet another modified “Community for All” resolution is headed to the Marathon County Board’s Executive Committee in the next few weeks, and this time members of the Diversity Affairs Commission are hopeful they’ll get it passed.
“Working through this process, we found this as another opportunity to work with others on the board who were traditionally in opposition to try to come to a compromise,” said Supervisor William Harris, who has had a hand in crafting several versions of the resolution over the last year. “I think everybody that came to the table truly wanted to move forward on getting something positively done that the board could support and we could get passed.”
The resolution recognizes that diversity, inclusion, and equity as items that are essential to positive and healthy lives and calls for providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who may otherwise be marginalized.
Additionally, the resolution clearly defines equity as fair and impartial treatment.
The document goes on to recognize that the county’s image as a welcoming community is “vitally important to achieving the board’s core values.”
Commissioner LaTonya Campbell called the latest version fabulous. “I think it is something we can present to the community and I think the timing is perfect since we have the opportunity [to bring in] refugees [in the next year]. It’s a statement from the community supporting and welcoming them.
Both Harris and Commission Chair Yee Leng Xiong noted that the discussions that brought forward the new version weren’t always easy, but they made for a better product.
“This is what leadership looks like. People from different backgrounds and perspectives on the board all got together and took something that was hard- became hard for our community and hard for the board to do. [We came together] to put something forward as leaders to step up and try to bring the community back together,” said Harris.
The modified version, which will contain much of the “Whereas” statements from version A and the “… Be It Resolved” statements from version B, will now be taken up by the Executive Committee at their next meeting. Should it pass there, it would move to the full board of supervisors sometime in August.
The versions will now be merged for inclusion in the Exec Committee’s next meeting agenda. Supervisor Bill Conway noted that some grammatical things need to be cleaned up in the resolution as well.
You can view both versions of the resolution in their entirety by clicking on the PDF attached to this story.
