Neenah, WI—OnTuesday, April 21st, the City of Neenah, Wisconsin, will swear in their newest city council member, Mr. Brian Defferding, age 49, a member of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin.
Running for a non-partisan office, Defferding based his campaign on door knocking, listening to people, and sharing their concerns. “When you talk to people, meet them where they are at [in viewpoint]. And then, tailor your response in a Libertarian way,” he said. Enough voters saw the reasonableness of his message. He beat his single opponent by 24 votes.
His opponent, a long-term city council incumbent, told Defferding several years ago that if he did not like the rules of the city, he should “move out to the country.” Instead of heeding her ridicule, Defferding got elected in 2018 as a county board supervisor, where he served a few terms and became a watch-dog against unreasonable government regulations, and an advocate to protect taxpayer money from frivolous spending.
His motivation to run this spring for city council had to do with Neenah’s 6% property tax increase, and its increase of fees by 10-15%. His opponent had always consistently voted for the numerous spending increases, and new borrowing, and tax and fees increases
Defferding also sharply criticized the city government for massive use of taxpayer money to prepare Arrowhead Park for private development.
A notoriously polluted area in the city, the park had suffered decades of chemical runoff from area paper mills. According to Defferding, Neenah’s government has spent $3.5 MILLION in various tests, legal costs etc. etc. since 2010 to try and get the area certified by the Wisconsin DNR as a safe zone for sales and developments to proceed.
Defferding’s opponent, who told him to move out of the city over its refusal to allow him to build a privacy fence several years ago, consistently voted for that spending. Calling Defferding simply an “extremist Libertarian” on her social media, the people replied to her. Defferding says that “Residents want the city to stop spending money” so unreasonably. As a Libertarian, and a new city council member, he can do a lot to protect taxpayer money.
