The newest member of the Manitowoc City Council, Aaron Bailey, equated his appointment to the City Council to a “4th quarter touchdown” and called it “huge.”
Bailey is actually the first person of color to serve on the Council in the history of the City. Bailey is representing District 7, replacing Todd Lotz, who stepped down earlier this year.
Bailey has been a member of the Manitowoc community for the past 20 years or so after moving here from the Gulf Coast to work with his father at Manitowoc Cranes. He has since been working with the YMCA and other organizations, just trying to make Manitowoc the best it can be. “Since COVID, I haven’t really been doing anything but working with organizations, and helping them get programs started,” he told SeehaferNews.com. “We are writing programs with the Police Chief, and the LUV organization.”
We asked Bailey what this means to him to represent the black community in such a public way. He called it a “Good situation for people on the outside for people on the outside…giving them a chance to use their voice.” Bailey said that he has had several people from different organizations coming up to him wanting to get more involved, and to see how the City Council actually works.
Bailey didn’t have any time to get accustomed to his new position, as he was thrown to the wolves so to speak as the Council debated the requiring of masks in all city buildings. When asked if he was a little surprised by how these things actually work he said he did not expect it. “Now that I see that, and got a chance to talk with them off the record a lot more, and understand the process” he equated the process to a car. “With anything that runs, there are going to be parts that don’t quite fit right, and sometimes you have to take it back to the shop, kinda configure it and hopefully it don’t pop back off down the road.”
That measure was passed, and will go into effect July 27th, and will run through September 21st, when it will be reviewed again.
Prior to assuming his new role in City Government, Bailey was the Vise President of the Lakeshore’s United Visionaries, but he said he wanted to step away from that role because as he said, “I don’t want people to feel like I’m conflicted between anything.”
