| By Andrea Morrow, Big Radio Senior Reporter |
The Rock County Board of Supervisor’s Public Safety and Justice Committee says it is declaring “war” on human trafficking with a new proposal to build a halfway house for people who’ve been trafficked.
Rock County Supervisor Mike Zoril says an anti-human trafficking resolution he wants to bring before before the county board “has more teeth” than a separate bill on human trafficking authored by other county board members that’s slated to hit the floor tonight.
Details of Zoril’s plan are scant, but the resolution seeks $1.5 million in federal COVID-19 recovery funding that would pay to build a recovery house for local victims of human trafficking.
Human trafficking includes people being held against their own will while being sexually exploited or forced to work.
Zoril, a member of the public safety committee, tells WCLO radio the committee is asking the full county board to toss out a separate anti-human trafficking resolution that’s being brought Thursday by supervisors Mary Beaver and Mary Mawhinney.
Both those supervisors say that resolution is scaled back from earlier versions brought forth that they say were tied to partisan political debates on immigration law.
Zoril says Mawhinney and Beaver’s resolution lacks teeth, calling it “largely symbolic.” He says the new bill would “actually take meaningful action” to construct “a safe haven for victims of human trafficking.”
Zoril tells WCLO Radio in an email he’s not focused right now on the logistical aspects of building a safe house for people who’ve been trafficked. He said that should be up to Rock County staff to consider how to build such a facility for $1.5 million in one-time, ARPA funding.
The new proposal would be the fourth anti-human trafficking resolution to come to the board. It’s the third to be authored by Zoril.
The topic of human trafficking has sparked infighting between different factions of the county board, and a few board members said their own stance in the debate has drawn threats and public shaming. A few former county board members who resigned from the board in frustration this year have cited board infighting over human trafficking as one reason they’d quit.
Zoril told a Big Radio News reporter the task force’s members in the past have said they might look into a safe house for people who’d been trafficked. He suggests that members of the task force would be thrilled to see the new proposal.
Carrie Wyatt, A spokesperson with the independent, ad-hoc Rock County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, tells the Big Radio Newsroom that nobody consulted the task force over the resolution. She said the first she’d heard of the new plan was in a press release Zoril sent out Wednesday trumpeting the new resolution.
The release seems to have roped in the task force as a proponent of the new bill was the first they’d have heard. Wyatt said she and others on the task force felt blindsided by the new bill, and was unhappy that Zoril had tied the task force to it without first reaching out.
He suggested the bill and his leadership bringing it forth is part of a new breed of county board leadership he calls “audacious.”
Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines “audacious” as either “intrepidly daring,” or “insolent” and “contemptuous of law, religion or decorum.”
Big Radio anchor/reporter Neil Johnson contributed to this report. Tune to WCLO Radio and check back at WCLO.com as Big Radio continues to track this story.
