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Exceeding Expectations
I recently had the
exciting opportunity to attend the
Brown County United Way Annual Meeting. The
event highlighted the incredible work that Brown
County United Way is doing in our community to
improve the lives of our residents through
volunteerism and coordinating community
engagement. During the annual meeting, we also
learned the exciting news that
Brown County United Way had exceeded is campaign
goal by approximately $100,000! The
organization raised more than $4 Million in
2017, which will be critical in helping it reach
its new goal, which is to help 10,000
individuals over the next ten years in achieving
financial stability. The message during the
annual meeting stressed that it's important to
know and understand those who are struggling
financially in order to be able to help, and
that this may mean expanding upon the
traditional understanding of poverty. It was an
honor to help celebrate Brown County United
Way's accomplishment and take time to recognize
the men and women who have dedicated so much to
improving the everyday lives of Brown County
residents. Congratulations, Brown County United
Way, and thank you for the outstanding work you
do in our community!
It was a
full house at the KI Convention Center for the
2018 Annual Brown County United Way meeting.
Criminal
Justice Reform
This session, I
focused on one very important piece of criminal
justice reform in our state, expungement.
Expungement is an option available to one-time,
low-level, youthful offenders which allows such
offenders to request that their record be
publicly cleared (the record is still available
to those within the criminal justice system),
and a judge can either deny or grant their
request. The goal of expungement is to allow
these types of youthful offenders an opportunity
at a clean record and a fresh start, without the
barriers to employment that a lifelong record
may entail. Wisconsin's outdated expungement law
requires that judges make this determination at
the time of sentencing, essentially requiring
them to make a decision without knowing if the
individual has reformed, and how the public
would be impacted. Those directly involved in
the expungement process (courts, defenders,
prosecutors), have voiced issues with this
"time-of-sentencing" requirement, and indicated
that it makes more sense for the offender to
come back to the court, after they've completed
their sentence, and then request expungement.
This allows a judge to review post-sentencing
behavior and make a better determination as to
whether the individual and the public would
benefit from granting expungement. The product
of my efforts on this reform culminated in
2017 AB 331. Recently, the Assembly took up
an
alternative expungement reform bill. I
authored a
floor amendment to that bill which
significantly improves it by allowing the reform
to apply retroactively. In other words, the
amendment allows for individuals who have
already passed through the court system the
opportunity to petition the court for expungement. The amendment is a critical piece
to ensuring that this reform is effective, and
allows those young, one-time, low-level
offenders who have reformed and are currently
trapped by this outdated law, an opportunity for
a fresh start. The legislation as amended now
moves to the Senate for consideration. You can
check out my floor speech regarding this bill
and my amendment by clicking the photo below.
Wisconsin Conservation Congress
Are you interested
in natural resource management? If so, you may
want to check out the 2018 Wisconsin
Conservation Congress Spring hearing
questionnaire, which is now available
online. And on April 9, 2018 a DNR
public hearing and Wisconsin Conservation
Congress County Meeting will be held at NWTC,
room SC130 (2740 W. Mason St., Green Bay) to
allow interested individuals an opportunity to
share their thoughts and input on local and
statewide conservation issues. I encourage you
to stop by and share your thoughts! |
