Citizen Action Weekend 2025 Newsletter, March 28th
Longest Serving Citizen Action Staffer, Brian Wooldridge, Retires After 33 Years!
By Robert Kraig, Executive Director
Operations Director Brian Wooldridge is retiring after over three decades of service to the cause of a just and equitable Wisconsin. Brian has been on Citizen Action’s staff for all but 8 years of Citizen Action’s existence, a record 33 of our 41 years of history! Over the years Brian had a variety of roles at Citizen Action until becoming Operations Director in 2008. During this journey, Brian managed Citizen Action’s sometimes rocky conversion from the analog to the digital age, often on a shoestring budget.
When Brian started at Citizen Action in 1991 his focus was information technology and databases. At the time Citizen Action was funded by a large state-wide fundraising canvas that signed up over 100,000 dues paying members. Citizen Action began before the digital age, so the operation generated tens of thousands of paper records that had to be managed and regularly updated. According to the manager who hired Brian, Bill Dempsey: “When Brian started, we had thousands of member data on index cards piled up to the ceiling by the boxload at the old downtown office on Wisconsin Ave [in Milwaukee]. Brian was part of the team that modernized that whole system and created the first and largest database of progressive-minded Wisconsin grassroots leaders.”
As Citizen Action coped with the digital revolution in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Brian was asked to make due with less. For years the organization could only afford used computers, many of them donated, and Brian was charged with keeping them all running. I remember when I first started working at Citizen Action in 2007 he had in his office a pile of old laptop computers stacked to the ceiling which he was using to scavenge parts to keep other staff computers running.
Brian was always willing to step up and learn new things as necessary. During the Great Recession of 2008-09, which bankrupted many nonprofit groups and rapidly dried up much of Citizen Action’s funding base, Brian was asked by former Executive Director Linda Honold to become Operations Director, which included managing the organization’s human resources, financial operations, and office management. Brian rose to the occasion, and while learning on the job in early years, helped Citizen Action navigate the financial crisis and rebuild. He served in that capacity for 17 years.
Brian was instrumental in Citizen Action’s entry into podcasting, relatively early in the development of the most democratic of the major digital communications media, as the producer of our weekly Battleground Wisconsin Podcast. Launched in 2011, during the heat of the Act 10 protests, Battleground Wisconsin has steadily grown, reaching its current status as the top rated political and public affairs podcast in Wisconsin in 2024. Brian will continue to produce Battleground Wisconsin as a consultant.
Through all the dust and heat of three plus decades in the social justice movement what always shined through was Brian’s calm and steady demeanor and his deep passion for making sure all the internal systems of Citizen Action kept moving, even if they had to be held together with glue and masking tape. Despite the chaotic character of social justice organizing, and all the challenging high energy personalities who relied on Brian to do their work, he persevered through it all, keeping his steadying hand on the wheel of social change.
Time to Get Out the Vote!
Volunteer to knock doors and make phone calls
For more information on door knocking, contact:
- In MKE, contact: [email protected] or [email protected]
- Wausau: [email protected]
- Eau Claire: [email protected]
- La Crosse: [email protected]
Over 300 people attend Citizen Action “Hands Off Medicaid” Town Halls in Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire.
Thanks to those who attended one of the three Medicaid Town Halls.
We are looking forward to fighting with you to protect Medicaid from Congressional cuts and get serious about organizing a pathway to expand access to healthcare for everyone.
See news coverage in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, WIZM Radio La Crosse, ABC TV 19 La Crosse; NBC TV 13 Eau Claire; CBS TV 8 La Crosse; and ABC TV 18 Eau Claire.
Join our organizing, contact: [email protected]
Take Action, Tell Congress, Don’t cut Medicaid to give tax cuts to billionaires!
Attend Joint Finance Committee Public Hearings on the State Budget
The Joint Finance Committee has officially announced Budget Listening Sessions. They will be held:
- Wednesday, April 2, 2025 Kaukauna High School, Auxiliary Gymnasium (Door AA4) 1701 County Road CE Kaukauna.
- Friday, April 4, 2025 Wisconsin State Fair Park, Exposition Center 640 South 84th Street West Allis.
- Monday, April 28, 2025 Hayward High School Auditorium 10320 Greenwood Lane Hayward.
- Tuesday, April 29, 2025 Northcentral Technical College-Center for Health Sciences 1000 W. Campus Dr. Wausau.
Submit a comment on State Budget
Call your state legislators in support of expanding BadgerCare in the state budget. Call 1-800-362-9472.
Call Governor Tony Evers at 1 (608) 266-1212 and urge him to veto any state budget that does not include BadgerCare expansion.
Attend the Fundamentals of Organizing Training
Tue, April 1, 4:30pm–8:00pm CDT and Tue, April 8, 4:30pm–8:00pm CDT
Join us and our national network, People’s Action for the ‘Fundamentals of Organizing’, a two-part training that is held quarterly. The training has an emphasis on building relationships grounded in mutual self-interest that balances an expansive sense of how a multiracial democracy should operate and a long-term vision for the world with the realities of building power in the world as it is today.
FOCUS: Fundamentals of Organizing with a focus on power, self-interest, one-to-one relational meetings; and the foundation of power organizations.
WHO: Open to leaders and staff of People’s Action member organizations, partners, and movement allies.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 1st & April 8th
WHERE: On-line
Citizen Action Southeast Organizing Co-op members join other community voices against pollution from proposed We Energies gas plant.
This week, we made our voices heard at the Oak Creek gas plant hearing. Our newest member, Josh Salazar, delivered a compelling testimony against the project, speaking out on the harmful effects of pollution on our communities.
Josh’s passion and dedication are a strong addition to our movement for clean energy and environmental justice.
Listen to Josh Salazar’s PSC hearing testimony.
Citizen Action Northwest Organizing Co-op member pushes for Childcare funding in State Budget.
Citizen Action member and in-home childcare provider Julia Bennker, owner of Ms. Julia’s Schoolia, attended a round table on childcare on March 24 in Chippewa Falls with Governor Evers and the secretary-designee of the Department of Children and Families Jeff Pertl.
Governor Tony Evers began by saying that we are in a critical time in our state for funding child care, where the Governor’s proposed budget for the first time (after many attempts) includes funding for childcare to the tune of $480 million. Evers and Pertl agreed that “this time might be different.” When asked why, they said it is because “we’ve been talking about it so much.”
State Senator Jeff Smith reminded the group that 90% of brains are formed in these early years. “It boggles my mind why people don’t understand this [or care about the impact of high-quality care].” Senator Smith continued by letting attendees know that one of the major challenges is convincing people that childcare providers are not just babysitters.
Let’s keep telling our stories! They need to hear what life is like now for working parents, their children, and the people who take care of the children. To get involved, contact Citizen Action Organizer Jeremy Gragert: [email protected]
Citizen Action in the News
Citizen Action held large-scale “Hands Off Medicaid” Town Halls in Wausau, La Crosse, and Eau Claire this week, brining a sharp local focus on the Trump Administration’s plan to take health care and long term care away from millions of Americans to fund lavish tax giveaways to the super rich.
See news coverage in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, WIZM Radio La Crosse, ABC TV 19 La Crosse; NBC TV 13 Eau Claire; CBS TV 8 La Crosse; and ABC TV 18 Eau Claire.
Citizen Action’s Robert Kraig was on the Earl Ingram Show for the full hour to discuss the latest developments in the attempted authoritarian takeover of the federal government, and the rising popular resistance against it, and the critical Spring elections here in Wisconsin. Listen Here.
Robert is on Earl’s show every Wednesday from 9 AM to 10 AM on the statewide Civic Media Network.
Station list here.
Listen to “Rural Wisconsin fights Medicaid Cuts” Battleground Wisconsin Podcast
It’s time to get out the vote in Wisconsin for the Spring Election. We review news that the state supreme court race will shatter all spending records for the prized judicial seat that will determine control of the state’ highest court. We discuss the critical importance of talking directly to potential voters the final 4 days and encourage our listeners to volunteer with Citizen Action on phones or doors. RSVP to talk to voters.
Next week is the start of the Joint Finance Committee public hearings on the State Budget, next Wednesday in Kaukauna and Friday in West Allis. We encourage people in each area to consider attending in support of expanding BadgerCare and other state budget priorities.
We welcome back to the show, Timothy Faust, Citizen Action’s healthcare coordinator, who just returned from a week-long tour of rural Wisconsin hosting Hands Off Medicaid Town Halls to organize opposition to Congressional Republicans proposed cuts to Medicaid. Contact Tim: [email protected]
We close the show with a review of this week’s PSC public hearing on We Energies desire to build polluting gas plants. Robert educates us on why the gas plant is a bad idea.
Listen to the show.
Social media post of the week
