By Press Times Staff
BROWN COUNTY – Incumbent Devon Coenen will face Mark Berndt for the District 20 seat on the Brown County Board of Supervisors.
District 20 encompasses parts of the towns of Holland, Morrison, Glenmore, New Denmark, and the Village of Wrightstown in southern Brown County.
The Press Times asked each candidate the same question and gave each candidate 200 words to respond.
“What do you see as the most important issue facing Brown County and District 20 , and if elected, how will you address it?”
Mark Berndt
A: I believe the biggest concern for District 20 is getting services and infrastructure needs promised by the county when they approved the sales tax.
Our greatest need is broadband access.
The county has applied for grant funds to assist in improving the broadband speed, but none of those funds were allocated in southern Brown County.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, school children and businesses have needed fast internet or high-speed broadband service.
Most of us have a fixed wireless service.
Brown County ranks in Wisconsin, and southern Brown County has some of the worst speeds.
It is time that we have a strong leader that will be proactive in working with the towns and villages to promote more test taking, work with the municipalities and service providers to uniformly present applications for grants to support this infrastructure need.
The majority of residences that took the speed test in District 20 had an unacceptable speed of less than or equal to 10 Mbps.
District 20 needs a leader that will include all municipalities to unify and execute a plan for receiving available funds and improved services.
I am the best candidate that can accomplish this task.
Devon Coenen
A: The most important issue facing Brown County District 20 is infrastructure.
I want to ensure the public works department properly prioritizes our infrastructure needs.
Like our county highway systems, which seem to be overlooked.
In the course of my term, the Brown County Highway Department was able to address County Roads ZZ, W, DDD and R, which are located in District 20.
Another infrastructure need is broadband, because it is limiting our families who need to work from home and youth who need to access educational platforms.
Currently, Charter Communications has received the first phase of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity funding, which covers most of District 20.
This funding is for fixed broadband and voice services to homes and small businesses.
I want to continue to help our communities navigate the options that the county can provide to help fill the holes of that funding.
One recent example is the County Board voted to unanimously draft a letter of support for broadband in the Town of Morrison for their current grant application.