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Supervisor Karen D. Powers urges county to prioritize accessibility and defends diversity, equity and inclusion
Summary
Supervisor Karen D. Powers used the public comment period to press the board for greater inclusivity: she recounted a family health decision, highlighted a recent graduate with Down syndrome, cited gaps in park accessibility for people using wheelchairs and defended DEI as vital to the county.
During the public comment period, Supervisor Karen D. Powers (District 25) urged the Winnebago County Board to advance inclusivity and accessibility.
Powers recounted a family decision in 2006 to carry a pregnancy to term despite medical indications and noted the child recently graduated with honors; she said that any job the young person may be offered would be a diversity hire and used the anecdote to affirm the value of DEI. "DEI is what is vital to a thriving vibrant society," Powers said, accepting the "woke" label as meaning attentiveness to systemic injustices.
She also raised a specific accessibility concern: citing comments from Supervisor Doug Nelson at a park commission meeting, she said the county lacks any landing in its park system that allows transfer of a rider in a wheelchair on pontoon boats and urged installation of hand-crank systems or other mechanisms to provide equitable access to boat rides in county waterways.
Powers also noted historical representation on the county board, saying it took many decades for women to be elected and that the board's share of women (as stated in her remarks) lags the county's female population share. The public comment period then closed and the meeting moved to committee reports.
