Marathon Co. reviews ‘Community For All’ resolution

The Marathon County Diversity Commission last week agreed to hold a special meeting to consider further edits to a “Community for All” resolution in the hopes of gaining majority county board support.

Commission members said they would consider, as suggested by supervisor Bill Conway, Schofield, ditching the resolution’s first paragraph which references the commission’s charter to “achieve racial and ethnic equity.”

“Equity has some unsavory connotations” for opponents to the resolution, he said. “Let’s pull that to calm some folks down.”

Supervisor Alyson Leahy, however, argued that the commission should not remove the resolution’s first paragraph “if we truly believe it” and suggested that, after a year of changing the resolution numerous times, it was time to bring the controversial resolution to a full vote before the county board.

“I would like to see it put to the full board,” she said. “If it fails, it doesn’t water down what we’ve said. We’ve raised awareness around the county and state.”

Two members of the commission, chairman Yee Leng Xiong and vice-chairwoman Lada Xiong-Vang, however, feared adverse economic development consequences should the county board turn down the resolution.

“From a business perspective, we have to think about how much damage it would do to us as a county,” said Xiong-Vang. “I am afraid of the publicity that would hurt us in the economic development sector. We have to look at that side, too. It would not look really good.”

County administrator Lance Leonhard reported he was “very concerned” that adverse publicity following board action not to approve the Community for All resolution would hurt the county’s ability to attract and hire the best talent.

Xiong said not passing the county board resolution would be “detrimental” to his hopes of signalling that Marathon County is a “Hmong friendly place” for people to relocate to.

Commission member Thomas Wendt said scratching the resolution’s first paragraph was tough because it summarized the county board’s mission for the commission itself.

“How do we do that without hiding our core values?” he asked.

Xiong said it was not the commission’s role to change the mission statement of the commission as set forth in county board policy.

“I would be hesitant to change any words,” he said.