It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this post, but the Board of Health for Madison and Dane County (BOH) last night proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it exists to protect Director of Public Health Janel Heinrich…not to serve the citizens of Dane County.
Dane Undivided stands ready to work with our fellow citizens to do something about this ugly reality. (More on that at the end of this post.) But first, we need to tell you what has unfolded.
For those not aware, on May 21, 2020, the Dane County Board amended chapters 2 and 46 of the Dane County Code (2020 OA-002), giving the Director of Public Health extraordinary and virtually unlimited powers to dictate health policy during what they dubiously deemed a public health crisis. The fact that much of what is being done is unconstitutional didn't phase them in the least. They just rubber-stamped a committee recommendation and did it.
The County Board's decision remains nothing short of a travesty; the supervisors in office at that moment unanimously tossed their fiduciary responsibility to represent you—a responsibility constitutionally and legally vested in them. They instead handed their solemn authority to an unelected bureaucrat on all matters “pandemic.” Queen Janel has been leveraging that power—almost without cease—ever since. She's done it with the help of her royal court, which includes not just the Dane County Board, but the Madison Common Council and, very clearly, the BOH. The State Department of Health likewise smiles upon her, because she has done more than any other county health director to carry out their vision of perpetual emergency orders and mask mandates.
Fast forward to this week. The published agenda for the BOH’s December 1 monthly meeting noted that recently elected County Supervisor Jeff Wiegand’s 2021 Res-157 would be up for consideration. That resolution appropriately asks that the Director of Public Health pull back her latest emergency order (which includes a mask mandate for children 2 years old and up); hold an actual hearing to obtain public opinion on the matter; gain the consent of the governed if she can; and garner some on-the-record agreement from the elected county representatives to whom she is constitutionally accountable (a point that Wisconsin's Supreme Court has clarified within the past 21 months).
At its September meeting, the BOH, forced to hold its collective nose and contend with Wiegand's resolution, had intended to kill it that same night. But a procedural mistake by Madison Alder and BOH member Lindsay Lemmer resulted in Res-157 remaining alive and being placed on this month's agenda—a mistake for which Lemmer apologized profusely to her fellow board members last night.
It seems not many people knew about the Res-157 in time for the September BOH meeting, but in the last few days, word quickly spread that it be up for discussion again. People who'd missed their chance earlier this fall were determined not to do so again. “Register to speak in favor of Item 12,” the texts and emails getting passed around all said. I personally received the same basic message from multiple individuals. In fact, one heckuva lot of people must have registered to speak in favor of Wiegand’s resolution last night.
Know how I know…?
Because at the last minute BOH Chair Dr. Jerry Halverson somehow eliminated nearly all public comment on item 12, after which all BOH members ultimately voted to postpone any further action on the resolution…indefinitely.
Let's be clear: government bodies don’t pull this sort of stunt when they’re confident. They behave this way when they feel threatened...when they sense their narrative and control slipping away from them. So, the Dane Undivided team can only surmise that, faced with overwhelming public support for a resolution that had the power to jeopardize the policy preferences the BOH shares with Janel Heinrich—ongoing fear, emergency orders, and technocratic control of Dane County—Halverson shut it all down and ensured a procedural tomb for Res-157, from whence the board members all clearly intend to ensure it never emerges.
These were definitely not winning PR moves. Preventing a public discussion that so many citizens were intent on having with the board was also gobsmackingly unethical. In order to flout what it eschewed, the BOH put one and possibly both feet in the grave of its own credibility yesterday evening.
In the end, aside from Supervisor Wiegand, just four citizens managed to be heard on Res-157, all of whom were clearly in support. They slid through only because they'd registered to speak not on agenda item 12 but rather on item 2, which was the public comment period itself. Every other citizen who made the effort to register and set aside the time to speak on Item 12 was summarily silenced. That's a lot of injured parties...Dane County residents and business owners thrown under the bus by a board ostensibly formed to do right by them. We don’t yet know exactly how many individuals were silenced last night, but suffice it to say that we’ll be pressing for answers.
By the way, the BOH didn't stop with just shutting down public comment and burying the resolution. They went the extra mile by making plain their abhorrence of Supervisor Wiegand. Unprofessionalism, non-collegiality, and unneighborliness at their very worst were on full display. Dane Undivided, on the other hand, wishes to congratulate Supervisor Wiegand for doing us all the great favor of forcing the BOH to dispense with any pretense concerning how it really thinks about Dane County citizens.
Those who stayed on yesterday's call till the bitter end endured yet another of Queen Janel’s fraud-filled COVID updates, followed soon thereafter by a love fest almost entirely dedicated to her. The board members:
waxed poetic about the marvelous Janel;
opined how hard it must be for dear Janel to deal with so much misguided public criticism;
decried all the foolish citizens unable to recognize Queen Janel's benevolent protection;
lauded wise Janel and her PHMDC team for their “SCIENCE”-based approach [insert guffaw here]
agreed that they simply can’t allow the unwashed and uneducated masses to undermine good Queen Janel’s excellent dictates [seriously, I’m hardly exaggerating; I'd post a link to the meeting, but there isn't one]
Arrogant, self-justifying, self-congratulatory, technocratic nonsense.
Supervisor Wiegand is not done. He has already announced that if no one else will hold a public hearing on Queen Janel’s emergency orders he will. He's aiming for Monday, December 13th and plans to release more details soon. We ALL need to be there.
But you and me…? We’re not done either. We need to find our courage and resolve, roll up our sleeves, dig in our heels, and fight to free ourselves, because Jeff Wiegand can't save us. We are going to have to fight together for our own and each other's freedom.
That starts with open defiance of Emergency Order #5 to the greatest degree possible. A mandate IS NOT LAW. Stop treating it as such. Refuse to comply with the mask mandate any longer. Dane County does not own any of us. Take back sovereignty over your own body and life...without delay.
But it also involves going public with the stories Dane County "leadership" doesn't want you telling or other people hearing—the ways PHMDC's never-ending orders and mandates have harmed you, your loved ones, your business, and your community. How about we create an archive of written and video testmonies so powerful that Dane County's leadership can't ignore it. If you want to tell your story but need protection from possible reprisal, we get it. We'll work with you. But the more people willing to share their experience openly the better. They want us afraid, which is exactly why we can't be.
Dane Undivided has the platform. You have the stories. Let’s put those two things together. Just reach out via our contact page.
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