WATCH NOW: Appointment to vacant County Board seat leads to heated criticism from some supervisors | Government & Politics

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The recent appointment of Dennis Pierce to the Kenosha County Board’s vacant 5th District seat led to a contentious meeting Wednesday night.

But in the end, the board voted 13 to 8 Wednesday to approve County Board Chairman John O’Day’s selection of Pierce, a retired business services manager at the Kenosha County Job Center. He also served as the 6th District Alderman on the Kenosha City Council from 1984 to 2004.

O’Day announced his appointment of Pierce to the board’s vacant seat for the 5th District, located on the northwest side of the city, less than a week ago. Pierce was one of four district residents who applied for the position and had interviews with O’Day. Pierce will serve until a successor is elected in the April 5 election.

The three applicants in addition to Pierce were Thomas Corrao, Giuseppe Montemurro and Brian Thomas. Pierce, a resident of the 2800 block of 55th Avenue, and Thomas, of the 5100 block of 23rd Place, are the two competitors on the April ballot for the seat. The seat has been vacant since the Dec. 22 resignation of Supervisor David Celebre.

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Appearance of an endorsement?

At the start of Wednesday’s meeting, O’Day attempted a roll-call vote without discussion among supervisors. But Supervisor Terry Rose successfully moved to overrule O’Day’s attempt.

Rose questioned why the seat had to be filled less than two months before the spring election. Rose said he was also concerned about the appointment of Pierce could appear as an endorsement from the board.

“Mr. Celebre resigned his position effective Dec. 2, 2021. That office has been laid vacant since that date and there seemed to be no rush to appoint someone to succeed him,” Rose said. “If Mr. Pierce had no opposition in this election, I would endorse it and speak in favor of it. But that is not the case. I think the people of that district can well decide for themselves who it is that ought to represent them .”

Supervisor Zach Rodriguez expressed similar concerns. He called O’Day “a coward” during the meeting for attempting to avoid discussion.

Rodriguez noted that O’Day announced his pick late Friday afternoon and had the county PR team note that the reason Pierce was named so he could “hit the ground running on the County Board.”

Rodriguez said the appointment gives Pierce an unfair advantage over Thomas because it grants him “the added bonus of the power of incumbency.” He also said O’Day “tried to silence this board from having their say on who’s filling this vacancy.”

“You had two applicants that were not running for this office. You could have picked one of them, but you didn’t. You tried to play politics with this appointment,” Rodriguez said.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Rodriguez said: “We’ve always, always had discussion before appointments. It’s not the first time O’Day has tried to silence us as equals and stifle debate.”

Better that the seat is filled?

However, Supervisor William Grady said he believes “it is not good to have an open seat.”

“It’s better to have a person in the seat who’s qualified because what happens is you have less representation of the people here in Kenosha County. The more power is concentrated the less diversity, the less input we have,” Grady said. “Whether you support Mr. Pierce or not, the idea of ​​having an interim person in this short period of time until the election occurs, I see nothing wrong with that. I would support (Pierce). I would support any other candidate that had the backing of the chairman and the whole process.”

Reached by phone Thursday, O’Day said he stands behind his decision to appoint

“It was my decision and nobody else’s. Nobody talked to me, nobody pressured me,” O’Day said. “I just had my interviews and did my homework and checked them all out. I called them all up and told them what was coming down the pike,” he said.

When questioned about why sought to avoid a public discussion, O’Day replied: “There was no reason for discussion.”

O’Day also pushed back on the argument that the appointment could be seen as an endorsement.

“Whoever votes in the district is going to vote for whoever they want to vote for,” O’Day said “That’s who’s going to be (on) the County Board. This was not an endorsement, necessarily. Why would it be?”

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