A proposal to require a secret ballot election among alderpersons when selecting a Kenosha City Council president failed to pass Wednesday night.
A proposed ordinance change would have required council members to vote by secret ballot during the organizational meeting following elections. The City Council president presides over meetings when the mayor is absent and serve as “acting mayor” during the absence or inability of the mayor to do so.
The ordinance change was sponsored by Ald. Holly Kangas and co-sponsored by Alds. Bill Siel, Rollin Pizzala, Ruth Dyson and Daniel Prozanski. Currently, only a nominated candidate may request an election by secret ballot and have the clerk count the votes.
The role of City Council president is currently held by Ald. Rocco LaMacchia. He was unanimously elected City Council president by his colleagues during the city’s spring organizational meeting to replace Ald. David Bogdala.
LaMacchia was elected after an agreement was reached where Ald. Jan Michalski pulled his name from consideration for president and nominated LaMacchia. In turn, Michalski was elected chair of the council’s Public Safety and Welfare Committee.
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Wednesday’s ordinance change failed 6 to 9 with all sponsors voting for it along with Ald. Brandi Ferree and Michalski.
Alds. Kelly MacKay and Prozanski were absent Wednesday.
Kangas said she sponsored the resolution because she believes some council members may be intimidated from voting for their preferred candidate if their vote is public or may be pressured or coerced into voting for a certain candidate.
“First and foremost, I want to say (this ordinance proposal) never had anything to do with the two qualified candidates that recently ran for council president but instead it has everything to do with the process. During this most recent election we had one qualified candidate drop out before the vote. When I asked him about it he indicated he didn’t have the votes,” Kangas said.
Kangas said the night of the election there was “so much fenagling going on in this room between the back hall, the computer room, all over.”
“It was decided long before we ever took that vote. That is the purpose of my ordinance (proposal). The election of council president is very important to this body as they are the acting mayor when the actual mayor isn’t available,” she added. “Why must candidates know if they will win or not before the election process takes place? One alderperson who is against my proposed ordinance told me that it wouldn’t be fair if someone tells you they would vote for you and then they actually vote differently. I say, so what? What are we in third grade? Have you never changed your mind at the last minute?”
Kangas said the voice vote for president is “intimidating” and “borders on bullying.”
Siel said he had some of the “same frustration” as Kangas after the spring vote.
“I’ve supported it through the committee process,” Siel said. “I’m not going to change my mind tonight based on the experience on other elections and how they’ve been conducted.”
However, Bogdala was “totally opposed to this ordinance.”
“I don’t think any vote — whether it’s for council president, whether it’s for the appointment of a Mayor’s Youth Commission or obviously any ordinance or resolution — no vote should be by secret ballot. I’ve never liked that from the very beginning. When I heard that there was going to be a change to this I actually thought it would be the other way around. That we would be eliminating the potential for a secret ballot,” Bogdala said.
Bogdala said he believes “fully in transparency.”
“There was a vote that was taken at our organizational meeting. If you didn’t like the ‘process’ or you didn’t like the candidate that was there, the mayor asked for unanimous consent and nobody spoke up, so that’s a unanimous vote,” he said. “I do think it’s important — I think I said it that evening — I think it’s important that we work together, we compromise. There was discussion between the two individuals and that’s what they came up with and at the end of the day you can vote for him or not vote for him. I don’t know that it’s bullying. I’m not sure where that came from.”
LaMacchia said canvassing for votes is nothing new and occurs on nearly every level of government.
“Cities do it, states do it, and they do it all the way to Washington. They canvas votes. That’s what you do,” he said. “This has been going on for years and I don’t see a problem the way it’s been running. If you didn’t want to vote for me you could have pressed the other button.”
Ald. Dominic Ruffalo said, “It’s all about transparency.”
“I don’t think we ought to hide anything and that’s why I’m a no vote tonight,” he said.
