City Council urges Congress to reject Medicaid cuts, approves fireworks
EAU CLAIRE — The Eau Claire City Council passed a unanimous resolution urging Congress 'to protect essential programs by rejecting dramatic cuts to Medicaid' and other programs while also passing a resolution to accept a donation of fourth of July fireworks from Festival Foods Tuesday evening.
The resolution protecting Medicaid passed with all those present voting in the affirmative while the fireworks resolution had one member vote against the resolution.
City Council Member Andrew Werthmann proposed the Medicaid resolution along with Council Member Roderick Jones.
'We were inspired by the news of the county passing a similar resolution a few weeks ago,' Werthmann said.
He said the other instigator was the passage of the budget reconciliation bill proposing at least $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and related programs in February along with concerned constituents writing him.
'[They] are deeply concerned about what this could mean for them and wanted the city to have a role in speaking up,' he said.
'This is not a good thing for our city and our county where we're a place that has a high quality of life,' said City Council Member Clara Serrano. 'This will definitely impact our quality of life to have more sick people who can't get healthcare.'
Various council members expressed concerns Tuesday of a snowball effect touching on not only how this negatively affects individuals but the financial wellbeing of institutions like hospitals and nursing homes. It was expressed that a loss of Medicaid could further reduce access to mental healthcare and tip vulnerable individuals over the edge to poverty and homelessness.
'We're at a very precarious place with people just on the edge of homelessness,' Serrano said. 'There are so many more that are just hanging on by a thread. Cuts to food aid and Medicaid—I'm very concerned that it will cause us to have a big spike of people who no longer can afford to stay in their homes.'
'These are the kinds of things that have a downstream impact,' Werthmann said. 'Not everyone can make it in our economy. Maybe you're recently out of a job. We've heard some stories of people who have special needs, families who depend on these things.'
'These programs are used by a lot of people in our region and they contribute to the well-being of people throughout our community,' said City Council Member Joshua Miller. 'We saw it as very important to speak up from a local level.'
'When lifelines are cut, then our local community ends up having to pick up the pieces,' Werthmann said. 'We were already stretching our budget.'
'We're really limited in the kind of way that we can raise revenue,' Serrano said. 'And those federal programs, our residents are already paying into. If we have to do some kind of financial gymnastics to be able to make up for this short fall, the city is very limited.'
The resolution to accept a donation from Festival Foods for Fourth of July fireworks for the next three years passed 9 to 1.
Werthmann said that he tried to get Festival Foods to compromise to pay for some of the city's extra expenses and with accommodations for quieter or a smaller fireworks display.
'I thought it was reasonable to ask for a compromise,' he said. 'They said they weren't interested, so in the end, I decided to vote no.'
Two city council members — Council President Emily Berge and Larry Mboga — attended the meeting virtually as they were attending the National League of Cities Convention in Washington D.C.
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