Letter to the Editors: New Richmond School Board, ICE | Opinion | hudsonstarobserver.com

The following are letters to the editor that were published in the latest edition of the Star-Observer.

Readers wrote of the New Richmond School Board and the school district's bathroom policy. You can read our most recent coverage of the New Richmond School Board here. They wrote of the environment and Xcel's solar farm project in the area. They also discussed Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Read the letters here:

Students model democracy, while adults model disrespect

New Richmond has produced so many amazing students. A group of articulate, mature and respectful future leaders was on display during the Feb. 10 special meeting of the New Richmond School Board. The students perfectly modeled how a republic that uses democratic principles should function.

They shared different perspectives and opinions. None of them ridiculed, shouted down, or talked over their peers. They spoke directly to a board whose job it is to make policy for the entire district. It was exactly what meetings discussing local policies should look like. Then the “adults” chimed in and any pretense of improving a bathroom use policy ended.

Much of the rest of the meeting contained hateful, threatening speech directed at board members, their attorney and even some students.

Political agendas took center stage. U.S. Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany, who once voted for the largest cuts to education in state history and who is not a district resident, managed to weasel his way into the meeting by having a thinly-disguised campaign statement read by one of his supporters.

Many parents spoke from the heart about keeping their children safe. Over and over again, members have talked about wanting safety for all students. It was so disappointing when Ben Englehart made a motion and while the other members were attempting to discuss it, both he and his supporters continued to yell and interrupt the conversation.

We should commend most of the board members for keeping their composure and listening to everyone despite enduring two hours of personal attacks and disrespectful comments. We are lucky to have an experienced, clear-thinking board that is working to protect all students while not risking expensive legal fights and judgments.

New Richmond calls itself “The City Beautiful,” but outside of the students, nothing was beautiful about the Feb. 10 meeting. That was not the New Richmond that I grew up in, taught in, or where my kids went to school. We must not become another hateful, angry community where a small group can bully and shout to get what they want. New Richmond must be better than that.

Kerry Kittel

New Richmond

Bathroom policy chaos calls for transparency

Poor leadership from Washington D.C. to Madison has put local school districts in an impossible situation regarding their bathroom and locker room policy. Why? Interpretations of Title IX are shifting wildly between administrations and judges. Several years ago, a Supreme Court Justice was either unwilling or unable to define a woman during a confirmation hearing. Some states have passed their own laws requiring students to use facilities that match their sex assigned at birth. Other states, like Wisconsin, haven’t passed anything. It’s an absolute mess.

How is all of this confusion and ineffective leadership translating to local districts across Wisconsin? It varies. A lot. Some school boards are debating and voting on different policies — this has resulted in the formal adoption of more restrictive policies in some cases. For example, Watertown requires students to use facilities aligned with their biological sex. A couple of districts with a more restrictive policy have been sued and lost, but key cases are being revisited in light of the new administration’s guidance on Title IX and recent decisions at the Supreme Court. In other cases, school districts are formally adopting a broader interpretation of Title IX where students are allowed to use the facility aligned with their gender identity, regardless of biological sex.

Unbeknownst to me before the scandal unfolding over the last couple of weeks in the New Richmond School District, there is a third option. Some districts are quietly adopting a policy without formal approval by the school board or the knowledge of many students, parents and the broader community. If the policy for your district is not published in official board minutes or communicated via websites and email, your administrators are likely implementing their interpretation, which may be inconsistent with your values and expectations.

Lack of transparency is not the way forward. It contributes to confusion and drives angry conflict in the community, often at the expense of historically marginalized groups such as biological girls and the LGBTQ+ community.

Get involved. Ask questions. Attend meetings. Run for local school board positions. We must do better.

Kirk Stueve

New Richmond

Deportations and the Department of 'War'

On Sept. 6, our president wrote, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Chicago, Portland, Maine, Memphis, Los Angeles and finally Minneapolis found out what the president meant, what it feels like to be under occupation by a paramilitary force controlled by your so-called leaders.

The administration claims to have removed over 4,000 of the “worst of the worst” from Minnesota in recent weeks, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos. Department of Homeland Security statistics indicate that nearly 75% of those persons “removed” have no criminal charges against them.

Tom “Bagman” Homan went on the air on Sunday in a self-congratulatory mood: “We fixed it… [The president gets another win… every day he’s winning.”

And he’ll keep on winning. Once the newly-purchased human warehouses have been emptied of “illegals,” who will he deem fit to fill them up with?

Maybe you, if you don’t happen to believe that his every utterance is coming from God.

Roald Evensen

River Falls

The real domestic terrorists are Trump, Noem and Miller

As someone who believes that words matter and have consequences, I’m sickened by the Trump administration’s attempts to label and criminalize peaceful protest as “terrorism.”

Human Services Secretary Kristi Noem has, in the past month, branded the two Minneapolis citizens murdered by ICE, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as “domestic terrorists.” This is a self-serving lie used to justify the brutal killing of two peaceful protesters.

At the time they were executed, Good and Pretti were exercising their First Amendment rights, along with thousands of concerned fellow Americans, to monitor and protest a hostile invasion of their city. Witnessing and recording the abuses of an ill-trained and undisciplined occupying force, Good, Pretti and others admirably banded together to establish a measure of safety for their terrorized and threatened neighbors of color, the main victims of ICE’s discriminatory attacks.

A terrorist is defined in the online Oxford Dictionary as “a person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against citizens, in pursuit of political gain.”

The next time President Donald Trump, Noem and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller want to slap the label of “domestic terrorist” on someone, they should look in the mirror. They are the ones intimidating and using violence against the civilian population, not brave citizens like Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who gave their lives to confront ICE’s guns and chemical weapons with whistles and phones.

Thomas R. Smith

River Falls

Test your well water to protect your family's health

More than 42,000 Wisconsin wells exceed the health standard for nitrate, which is linked to cancer, birth defects, infant death and other health risks. If you rely on a private well for your drinking water, it is important to test your water for toxins like nitrate, lead and PFAS to protect your health and the health of your family. Fresh, clean drinking water is necessary for living. Water is something a lot of us take for granted until it is not there any longer. Please visit conservationvoters.org/water-resources for educational information on your right to know what is in your water. They recently released two documentaries about the drinking water crisis in our state. I want to encourage you to take this issue seriously, no matter how you get your drinking water. Please ask your friends and family and neighbors if they have tested their drinking water in the past year. Water is life.

Amy L Wicker

Baldwin

Solar farms are a win-win

You may have seen yellow signs along the road arguing against the proposed Ten Mile Creek Solar project in St. Croix County — I would like to encourage support for Solar Farms following some common-sense arguments.

First, from a perspective of health and finance, it’s a win-win for St. Croix County residents. Solar is far more beneficial than the corn and soy being grown on the proposed farmland. The majority of corn and soy grown in our county is not used for food; it often gets turned into ultra-processed food ingredients like corn syrup and soybean oil. These ultra-processed foods are linked to higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease — and on top of this, we are forced to spend billions in tax dollars subsidizing the public health epidemic through these crops. Solar, on the other hand, helps replace fossil fuels, lowers air pollution and provides clean energy all while producing a surplus of money for the farmers and the county.

Second, the Ten Mile Creek project would plant vital native plants under the panels. Native plants are vital to pollinators like bees and butterflies. They help increase carbon storage and reduce field runoff (solar does not leach chemicals). The reason the Midwest is so fertile is because of the native prairies that once thrived here. On the other hand, corn and soy are essentially ‘dead land’ that harbors little to no biodiversity, is prone to erosion and requires tons of fertilizer just to stay productive, much of which runs off into our streams and aquifers. Compare the drinking water of someone who lives next to a prairie to that of someone who lives next to a cornfield and you’ll taste it for yourself.

To be clear, this is not an anti-farmer opinion (in fact, not allowing private farm owners to harvest Solar is more anti-farmer than this!). It’s an opportunity to create a cleaner, healthier, more financially stable St. Croix County for today and future generations. Please take a moment to reach out to your town board representatives and encourage them to support farmers’ abilities to harvest solar.

Daniel Goldberg

Houlton

Who is in support of voter fraud?

Certainly not the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which maintains the state's list of registered voters. The Trump administration falsely claims that there are 7 million people registered to vote here. This claim was based on testimony from someone convicted of fraud, but the administration isn’t letting facts get in the way.

Currently, there are roughly 3.5 million active registered voters in Wisconsin. In addition, there are also records of inactive voters for people who have been voters in the past. These inactive voter records are kept on file to identify people who are deceased, or have moved, or are incarcerated, or are otherwise not eligible to vote in Wisconsin — so they don't vote here.

Also keep in mind that the facts are that incidences of attempted voter fraud are so minuscule as to have zero impact on any election outcome.

You know what is a problem? Voter suppression.

The SAVE Act would require citizenship documentation for voter registration, even though voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering. This will create miles of red tape for anyone who may have moved, changed their name (i.e. married women) and those who are without a birth certificate or passport. Many American citizens who are eligible to vote will not have the time or resources to wade through the bureaucracy thrown in their way, causing them not to register to vote.

The SAVE Act creates barriers to voting rather than securing our voter rolls. It's legislation that attempts to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

Tell your U.S. Senators to vote NO on the SAVE Act. Call them now: Tammy Baldwin at 202-224-5653 and Ron Johnson at 202-224-5323.

Tammy Tollefson

Town of Clifton

On the SAVE Act

Asking for someone’s identification to register to vote is racist — that is the argument against ratifying into law the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act.

We are told it is a throwback to Jim Crow days. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has gone further, calling the proposal “nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0.” Jim Crow was enacted and enforced for decades by the Democratic Party in the South. Wisconsin was never governed under Jim Crow. Proof of citizenship is not the same as a poll tax or a literacy test.

Exactly why requiring proof of citizenship rises to that historical comparison seems unclear, other than the assertion that certain groups will not be able to manage the complexities of obtaining an ID.

The arguments I have heard are drawn explicitly along race and gender lines. It is said to be too complex a task for a married woman who took her husband’s name to secure proper identification.

Yet that same married woman must, as a matter of law, file her name change with the Social Security Administration and update other legal documents.

I have not heard Democrats argue that it is too complicated for white men to obtain an ID. The claim instead is that women and minorities face barriers too burdensome to navigate the bureaucracy required to register.

Under the SAVE Act, an embossed birth certificate or a valid passport would satisfy proof of citizenship. A REAL ID-compliant driver’s license would also qualify.

Yes, there is a process. It requires effort and documentation. I am sure the average American can handle these hurdles with ease.

Every election cycle, Democrats send out teams and brigade-sized groups to register Democratic voters. I am confident the Democratic Party can organize similar efforts to assist anyone who needs guidance in obtaining a birth certificate, replacing a passport, or securing a REAL ID.

Democrats favor Motor Voter (National Voter Registration Act) registration expanded the mechanisms by which individuals could register to vote, permitting registration concurrent with a driver’s license application, by mail, or through in-person submission at designated agencies. By decentralizing and broadening the points of entry into the voter rolls, the statute reduced the immediacy of documentary verification at the moment of registration and imposed additional administrative burdens on states charged with maintaining accurate and current registration lists.

The claim is that illegal aliens are able to exercise an illegal voting franchise. There have been documented cases. Most recently, an illegal alien woman who assumed a stolen identity had been in the country for 20 years, received over $400,000 in public benefits and voted in elections. The facts in that case have not been disputed.

With illegal aliens voting, sloppy voter rolls and failures to follow established procedures in places such as Fulton County, Georgia, particularly concerning mail-in ballots, it becomes easy for one side or the other to claim an election was stolen.

Both Hillary Clinton, on the grounds of voter suppression, and Donald Trump, on the grounds of fraud, have claimed that an election was stolen from them.

A republic requires secure and verifiable elections.

After an election, we need to know with certitude who the winner is. Persistent claims that elections were stolen undermine confidence in our system.

I am for any reform that strengthens clarity, transparency and verification so that when the votes are counted, the public can say without hesitation that one candidate won and the other lost.

The SAVE Act is a necessary step toward securing elections and restoring public confidence in their outcome.

Rick Coalwell

Somerset

Above all else: love

The past week’s news cycle almost broke me. Between continued hatred and abuse of immigrants and the hateful way children were treated at a local school board meeting just for making themselves vulnerable and asking for compassion, I became angry, then despondent, then hopeless.

No wonder I feel defeated. Hate is powerful and all-consuming. But then I remembered that love is stronger.

I’m not perfect. In the past, I’ve judged instead of loved. I’ve caused pain. All of us have. Christians seem to fall into this category more than most, I propose. In fact, as a Christian, I’m ashamed it took me as long as it did to embrace this simple truth of the faith: above all else, love.

Christians, of course, believe the 10 Commandments are the “law,” but Christ clearly focuses on two, stating: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV).

Christian or not, it’s hard to argue with the concept that the law of love can transcend all else. What’s more, love is action. It’s what we do or don’t do.

Love is not using “the law” to justify hatred, bullying, abuse, violence. Love is not telling people they will go to hell if they don’t see the world the way you do.

Love is seeing another person’s humanity in yourself and acting accordingly. I’ve seen too much hate this week and I’m heartsick for our nation.

No matter who you are or what you’ve done in the past, please consider how your words and your behavior fit into this definition. The world would be a much better place for everyone if we could reboot and start from here: "’Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV).

Laurie Harmon

Hudson