OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – City leaders in Oshkosh may weigh-in on the back-and-forth over where the new mail trucks will be built.
The city council on Tuesday talked about a new resolution urging Oshkosh Defense to build the trucks in Wisconsin as opposed to at its plant in South Carolina.
“We often will have a discussion about a resolution prior to it being proposed to us, so we had not seen anything prior to the meeting,” said Council Member Mike Ford.
While Ford like the idea, he says the city needs to be careful.
“Obviously we want to have these jobs here. The more high quality jobs we have at Oshkosh, the better. But we’ve got to be a hyper vigilant about not getting in the business of telling private companies what they should and should not do,” Ford told WTAQ News. “So my hope is, if we do move forward with the resolution, that it’s something that really just touts the positives about Oshkosh – our quality of life, our school system, all the reasons that we want people doing business here – and it’s not something that gets us into this partisan morass.”
Ford says the topic is clearly being politicized as part of the Senate race in the state, which can make it a touchy subject.
“We’re a non-partisan council. We can’t be getting involved and dragged into these partisan debates,” Ford said. “We’ve got to be really careful, because we lose our credibility really quickly if we get into the business of being a government entity that starts picking winners and losers in the private sector.”
Ford adds that he wants to make sure the city doesn’t take up an issue that is more of an internal issue between the UAW and Oshkosh Defense. The move would mirror the effort from the UAW, which is trying to pressure the Post Office to reconsider its order to Oshkosh.
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