As you may remember, last month the Appleton Common Council passed two resolutions, #6-R-21 condemning xenophobia and anti-Asian hate and #4-R-21 in support of CEDW.
The AAPI resolution borrowed heavily from the language of a similar resolution passed in Eau Claire. When some Council members expressed dissatisfaction with aspects of the resolution and took standard procedural steps to amend the language their actions were decried as harmful and the Appleton community as a whole was denounced as racist.
The discussion around the CEDAW resolution was somewhat less fraught than around the AAPI resolution, but there were there were some confusing aspects. The purpose of the resolution was unclear given that CEDAW was put in place by the UN to promote sex-based equality and protections for females and the term “gender” never appears in it whereas Appleton’s resolution in support of CEDAW seemed to view it as promoting gender-based equality and protections. Some council members did try to amend the language to correct this issue, but multiple members of the public who spoke in support of the resolution explicitly stated the language should not be changed because “trans-women are women,” and multiple members of the Council also argued that the resolution should maintain its original trans-inclusive language.
For both of these resolutions there were also interesting philosophical differences about what exactly the scope and purview of a city’s government is. Is it appropriate for a city government to, as a body, tell state and federal representatives how to act? Are the needs and desires of Appleton residents best served by its Council engaging in state and federal level advocacy as opposed to focusing on local actions that improve local situations?
Shortly after both those resolutions were passed, Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) posted an interesting comment on social media.
[T]he appetite of certain Council members to voice these (to put it nicely) conservative family values, has widened considerably over the past two election cycles. I saw this coming and hoped others were listening as we lambasted certain members for these perspectives and felt the backlash coming. Well, it’s here and while we can still hold it in check, it does mean that every progressive measure we bring will now come with these exhaustive attempts to dull down or simply remove any language that they find counter to their values. Strap in people, it’s going to be [a] tough couple of years!
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9)
I reached out to Alderperson Schultz twice in the hopes that he’d be willing to expand upon that comment, but he has not responded.
I, personally, would have been interested in learning what he meant when he referred to “conservative family values” because people can have a wide range of ideas about what exactly those are.
I do also think the public could benefit from knowing what sort of progressive measures are in the works and that Council members plan to bring forward in the future.
And do the residents of Appleton really need our Common Council to go through a “tough couple of years”? This last year has been hard enough on people, at a national, state, and local level. Here in Appleton, our property taxes aren’t going down, city departments are starting to face budget shortfalls, longstanding services are not simply being cut back but completely eliminated, we’re facing an affordable housing issue, and we’re embarking on a big library building project that Mayor Woodford is on record saying we will face difficult decisions over. Is the Common Council committed to focusing on fixing those problems, or are they going to be expending time and energy holding their colleagues in check while promoting and passing progressive measures directed toward state or national concerns instead of focusing on local issues?
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