In contrast to the chaos coming out of the White House week after week, good news keeps popping up in the West Bend community. Here are couple of uncollected items to support that observation:
One piece of good news is that three incumbent West Bend School Board members will be running unopposed in the spring general election April 7.
Running for a second term are incumbents June Kruger, an IT manager at West Bend Insurance; Kelly Lang, an executive for the Association for Equipment Manufacturer; and Chad Tamez, a general practice medical doctor. They have been solid performers for the past three years.
Continuity is a good thing when it comes to running a school district, especially when the three candidates are common sense, pragmatic problem solvers.
Note that no right-wing evangelists are running this time around.
The quality of our schools is of the highest priorities in our community. When people are considering moving here for careers and raising families, the quality of schools ranks high.
The same goes for corporations looking to locate an office or factory. Managers know they will need a smart labor pool, so a top-notch school system is a gotta-have.
This is the first school board election in a long time that has not been contentious.
Another positive: The new downtown Christmas promotion Christkindl Markt was an unqualified success the weekend after Thanksgiving. The three-day event on Sixth Avenue drew 25 vendors of potential Christmas gifts and drew good crowds Friday, early Saturday and Sunday morning. It lost attendance due to the snowstorm Saturday evening.
Frank Carr, one of the organizers for West Bend Rotary, in partnership with the Downtown West Bend Association, said everybody had a good time, “All the venders want to return for the second event next year.”
Downtown West Bend is becoming a favorite destination for local people, but also for many visitors from surrounding zip codes. There seems to be something special going on just about all the time.
Yet another positive: The West Bend chapter of Indivisible, a national organization, is showing tenacity in its opposition to President Trump’s agenda on a number of issues.
Thirty-five members of the chapter showed up last week on a cold, rainy Tuesday for a rally outside West Bend City Hall to remember the Jan. 6 insurrection against the national capitol five years ago.
Half carried candles as a vigil for five officers who died after combatting the insurgents on that historic afternoon. The other half carried handmade signs displaying the names of officers who died in the riot and its aftermath.
This is the fourth Indivisible rally in West Bend. They coincided with rallies in other communities across the country.
Several of the protestors said they had called the offices of Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and GOP House members. They said they got no satisfaction.
They opposed President Trump’s wholesale pardons of the rioters who were arrested, including many who pled guilty.
Expect Indivisible to continue periodic protests in an effort to take House seats away from the six Republicans in Wisconsin in the midterm general elections Nov. 3.
Wisconsin was a swing state in the 2016 election when President Trump won his first term with Wisconsin in his tally of electoral votes, again in 2020 when Wisconsin swung against him as he was defeated by Joe Biden and was narrowly for him 2024 when he won a second term. These local protests matter in a very purple state.
It was hard to tell which side drivers were on when passing the vigil last week. Most of the honkers, however, were a series of short honks and waves from car windows that suggested support for the vigil. Only a few blaring honks were heard.
