As Saul Alinsky said and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appropriated, “never let a crisis go to waste.” That is exactly what government did during the COVID-19 hysteria. One local government board that took full advantage to implement government overreach was the Kenosha County Board of Health (KCBoH). Lead by former Kenosha County Health Director Jennifer Freiheit (D), the KCBoH used COVID to threaten and imply it could shut down businesses and schools, even though it did not have the power to do so. The KCBoH was stacked with liberals by former County Executive Jim Kreuser. These liberals hid what they did for almost two years by holding virtual meetings way past the panic of COVID and did not publish public notices of their agendas.

Paid Advertisement

Fast forward to June 2023, and the County Executive, Samantha Kerkman, is trying to appoint conservatives to the KCBoH, to fight the ultra-liberal social justice KCBoH. She found a great candidate in County Board Supervisor, small business owner and conservative Latino, Zach Rodriguez. Rodriguez was seemingly a great fit for the KCBoH, he knows first hand the struggles business owners faced during the covid era shutdowns and would be the first to call out the KCBoH if they ever again tried to strongarm business, schools and churches into shutting their doors. Rodriguez also represents the 8th District which includes an area underserved by the KCBoH. On the June 20^th county board agenda, Kerkman’s appointment of conservative Zach Rodriguez, the only minority on the Kenosha County Board, to the KCBoH was referred to the Human Services Committee by County Board Chairman, Gabe Nudo.

Paid Advertisement

The Human Services Committee had been chaired by Supervisor Amanda Nedweski until Nudo threatened to remove her because she voiced vocal opposition to Nudo’s stance on several proposed resolutions. The Human Services Committee is now chaired by Zach Stock (RINO). Stock does whatever Nudo and his future father-in-law tell him to do. That is how he got the position of committee chair.

Paid Advertisement

The appointment of Zach Rodriguez to the KCBoH was taken up by the Human Services Committee on August 1^st. Supervisor Nedweski was excused from the meeting, so the six committee members to vote on the appointment were: conservatives Stocker and Geertsen, liberals Yuhas, Kubicki, and Gentz and RINO Stock. Because Yuhas, Gentz, and Kubicki have been hyper-liberal since Kerkman became county executive and conservatives took over control of the county board, it was predicted that those three would vote against the appointment of the only conservative Latino on the county board. With Nedweski missing, the vote should end in a 3-3 tie – and a tie vote fails. But Chairman Nudo could attend the meeting and vote to break the tie. Nudo was asked by Kerkman and others to attend the meeting. He REFUSED. While the Human Services meeting took place, and the tie vote happened, Nudo sat in his office upstairs from the meeting, doing nothing. His anger toward Rodriguez because he refuses to “kiss the ring” of Nudo outweighed the importance of appointing Rodriguez to the liberal KCBoH. Supervisor Rodriguez had asked Stock to postpone his appointment to the next meeting because Rodriguez couldn’t be there when the resolution was presented due to a work conflict. Stock REFUSED. Stock knew without Nedweski there, the vote would be a 3-3 tie and Rodriguez’s appointment would fail. Stock was once again doing the bidding of Nudo and proved him to be a RINO. 

Paid Advertisement

Prior to the next Human Services Committee meeting on September 5^th, Nedweski worked with Kerkman to get a “motion to reconsider” the appointment of Rodriguez on the agenda. After a procedural maneuver to try to run out the clock before taking up the Rodriguez appointment, Nedweski made a motion to reconsider the vote of the Rodriguez appointment. That’s when the fireworks started. You can watch video of the meeting below. We have listed in chronological order below some of the notable events. 

Paid Advertisement

•  Chairman Nudo asks the committee to table the motion to reconsider Supervisor Rodriguez’ appointment.
• Chairman Nudo falsely contends that the motion to reconsider Supervisor Rodriguez’ appointment isn’t legal and claimed he hadn’t spoken with the county’s legal counsel. (Sources inside county government say this is untrue and that Chairman Nudo had spoken with counsel, who assured him the motion by Supervisor Nedweski was legal.)
• Supervisor Zach Stock informed the committee that the motion was legal and that he himself had approved putting the appointment on the agenda.
• Supervisor Nedweski reminded the committee that the county is required by state law to have this vacancy filled
• Supervisor Bashaw confronts the person recording video of the meeting, seemingly concerned it was being recorded. He then goes on to ask if the video was going to be sent to the Kenosha County Eye.
• Chairman Nudo responds to Supervisor Nedweski’s remarks about keeping the county in compliance with state law by stating “I don’t care what they do at the state level!”
• Chairman Nudo then began to shout at Supervisor Nedweski saying “Would you like to send whatever you sent as a text message, would you be willing to release” before he was quickly called out of order by several of his fellow Supervisors. (We believe the text messages he is alluding to relates to a communication sent to the Republican Party of Kenosha County that conveys a local party member’s concern about Nudo’s seeming realignment with the county board’s most liberal members.)
• Supervisor Rodriguez directly questions the committee, as well as Chairman Nudo and Supervisor Bashaw and Stock for attempting to delay his appointment to the Board of Health. He notes this is nothing more than a poor attempt to kill his nomination via time constraints
• Supervisor Rodriguez indicates that the county’s legal counsel has conveyed that while he cannot physically attend the meeting, he was willing and able to phone in and provide clarification if requested by the committee. 
• Rodriguez makes this same offer again, before being told by Supervisor Stock to “stop talking”
• Chairman Nudo again voices his anger that this motion was not given his approval, yet another attempt by him to take power away from the duly elected Supervisors.
• Supervisor Nedweski stands up to Chairman Nudo and reminds him that she reports solely to her constituents and not to any other member of the county board. 
• Supervisor Bashaw indicates that Supervisor Rodriguez’s nomination previously failed simply because of a tie and nothing more sinister than that.
• Supervisor Rodriguez speaks to the vote at the previous meeting and why it tied. In doing so he directly calls out Chairman Nudo for not doing his job, by refusing to cast the tie-breaking vote, and questions why he wouldn’t publicly make his opinion known. 
• Chairman Nudo then starts yelling yet again, and is almost immediately called out of order.
• Chairman Nudo continues to yell “No, I’m going to finish! And I will make a drastic decision if you [don’t let me finish]” (One can only assume he was threatening to strip Supervisors of their committee assignments as punishment for calling him out of order and not falling in line with his wishes.)
• As Chairman Nudo is further pressed on why he refused to do his job as prescribed by law, he tells another Supervisor to “shut up!”

The vote to reconsider the vote on Rodriguez’s appointment failed on a 3-4 vote. Those voting yes on reconsidering the appointment were conservatives Nedweski, Stocker, and Geertsen. The no votes were liberals Yuhas, Gentz, Kubicki, and RINO Stock. 

Paid Advertisement

When KCE asked Stock why he voted yes for Rodriguez when he knew the vote would fail because it was a tie, and why he voted no when his vote was the tie breaking vote, Stock stated,” It is impossible for me to know the outcome of a vote before it is taken.” This is a lie at worst and disingenuous at best, the vote on Rodriguez’s appointment was a roll call and Stock was the last one to vote. At the time of his vote, he, along with everyone in the room, knew it was currently split 3-3 and that his vote would determine the outcome. 

Paid Advertisement

Every step of the way, Nudo, Bashaw, and Stock were against appointing conservative Latino Rodriguez to the ultra-liberal KCBoH.

Nudo, Bashaw, and Stock ran as conservatives during the 2022 election, yet time after time they have shown they are RINOs at best, liberals at worst. Nudo’s only concern is getting re-elected as county board chair. He has gone so far as to begin calling the Democrats on the county board for their support as chairman next term. 

Stock’s only concern is getting re-elected. He doesn’t care about the promises he made to be a conservative. He is even going as far as pushing to increase spending in the over $70,000,000 human services budget to try to use tax dollars to win re-election.

Bashaw represents the most conservative county board district in all of Kenosha County. Yet he works with democrats to push for changes to consolidate power to the county board chair and strip power from the county board supervisors. He also authored Kenosha County’s “Green New Deal” despite knowing that Co. Exec. Kerkman would veto the horrible legislation if passed by the county board.

All three – Nudo, Stock, and Bashaw – voted to override Kerkman’s veto of the “Green New Deal,” something that conservatives would never do. Members of the Republican Party of Kenosha County are working to recruit true conservatives to run against them, since they have proven themselves to be RINOs willing to work against the conservatives on the county board.