The Green Bay Common Council met on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, at 6:00 PM (estimated) in Council Chambers. The meeting included recognitions, a public hearing, multiple ordinance votes, committee reports, and a massage establishment license discussion. The meeting adjourned after approximately 55 minutes.
Alder Grant. If you could please sign in. Can I do it verbally? I actually don't have any internet where I am. Okay. Yep, you are noted as present. Thanks. Okay, sorry about that. All right, I'll call to order the meeting of our common council for Tuesday, August 19th. Clerk. All right, thank you very much, Clerk. Now please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for the invitation offered by Alder Johnson. I pledge religiously to the fly of the United States of America. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mayor. Uh please remain standing. She is the proud leader of the longest continually meeting Christian congregation in the state of Wisconsin. Bridget's ministry works to help people see that Jesus' teachings are more relevant today than ever, particularly around the areas of justice, inclusion, healing, and hope. She lives in the bay with her husband and daughter, who I had the pleasure of meeting beforehand, Scott and Josie. Welcome. Bridget received her Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1998 and completed further requirements for uh ordination through Chicago Theological Seminary in 2005 and 2003. She was named St. Orbert College Young Alumnae of the Year for her work of witness and mission. She was ordained by the UCC in 2007. She's a native of Milwaukee, served several churches in the Metro area. She cites a missionary experience in El Salvador. At the end of that country civil war is a watershed event in her call to ministry. After returning to the state, she served as a chaplain at a homeless shelter, which focused particularly on hospitality to those dying with AIDS. In 2022, she was featured in the Neville Public Museum's Hurstory exhibit, which lifted up the changing roles of women in Brown County. So one of the uh one of the oldest churches in Wisconsin founded in 1835, uh originally part of the Fort Howard uh settlement, uh, but also served as a stop during the Underground Railroad during the civil war, which I think uh is a really interesting point uh about our community's history and really captures I think uh the things that you do. I mean, I've been to your church probably more than any other in our city, yet I've never been there for a single mass, wedding, or funeral. And I think it's because of how much you open to the community and how much you open your doors to serve the people uh that live it in our in our city. So thank you for what you do. And with that, uh Reverend Bridget. Thanks for the invitation and for that introduction, Brian. Let us take a moment to quiet ourselves and remind ourselves that we're always in God's presence. Holy one, source of every language and culture and dream, who delights in community and who calls us to seek justice. We gather tonight in this chamber not only as officials and citizens, but as neighbors bound together by the promise of community. Remind us that true strength is not found in uniformity, but in beauty of our differences woven together. That the voice is long silenced to find courage here, that those who carry power remember its purpose to serve the common good, to lift the lowly, to protect the vulnerable, to pursue what is just. May this council's work be animated by wisdom greater than personal interest, by courage deeper than political calculation, by compassion stronger than fear. We gather tonight in the shadow of systems that too often favor the powerful and forget the poor. Do not let us be comfortable here. Disturb our complacency. Expose the easy answers. Remind us that every decision made in this room will either widen the gap of inequality or build the bridge toward beloved community. Give these leaders courage to speak hard truths, to listen to the voices long silenced, to resist the lure of expedience, and to choose what serves the least. Let this chamber be more than a place of procedure. Let it be a place where justice rolls down like waters, where diversity is celebrated, where compassion is not weakness but strength. Stir us so that decisions made in this room may ripple outward as blessings toward equality, toward peace, toward a city where every child, every elder, every newcomer, every neighbor knows they belong.