GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay won’t be getting rid of the opportunity to pray at the beginning of its city council meetings.
Instead, the council voted Tuesday night to have the mayor’s office form a committee to possibly set some guardrails.
At the beginning of each meeting of Green Bay’s city council, there is the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation.
For his 16 years as mayor, Jim Schmitt would lead the council in prayer. When Eric Genrich took over five years ago, he started a rotation among council members for the invocation.
“It offers all of our alders the opportunity to center us before we begin important deliberations on behalf of the city,” said Genrich.
Some council members have used the opportunity to say a prayer. Others have used the moment in nontraditional ways.
In March of last year, now former council member Steve Campbell played a Donald Trump-infused recording of the National Anthem.The following meeting, now former council member Randy Scannell called for a moment of reflection while playing 70 seconds of animal noises.
FOX 11 tried to find out from the League of Municipalities how many municipalities in Wisconsin begin their meetings with an invocation. A league official told us this was the first time in his 10 years on the job someone has inquired about this issue.
The League of Municipalities did provide a reminder the law allows a municipality to do an invocation.
Two members of the public spoke in support of keeping the invocation.
“I think a good compromise here would be to allow alders who are comfortable giving invocations to continue doing so, but make it easy for alders who think that’s not something they’re comfortable with to abstain,” said Eric Drzewiecki of Green Bay.
Most council members spoke in support of that sentiment. Alder Joey Prestley, however, weighed the value of the invocation versus potential negative consequences like excluding certain religions.
“I didn’t deliver an invocation last week,” said Prestley. “We didn’t seem harmed by it. We still have freedom of religion. You can pray before the meetings.”
The council unanimously agreed to look at the possibility of adding restrictions, including time and the use of recordings or props.
Three council members were excused from the meeting, including Alder Craig Stevens. He introduced the communication for the council to consider removing the invocation.
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