MARSHFIELD, Wis. (WSAW) - Your Town Marshfield has had quite an eventful year when it comes to city issues; at times, discussions have been tense. One teen took to the podium during a council meeting to address the conduct she saw from her adult leaders, offering a message of respect.
Her name is Charlotte Schiferl, 14. She started paying attention to the city meetings when the pandemic sent her home.
“My parents watch the council meetings and I just started watching with them and it was kind of interesting to me,” she explained.
She was particularly interested in what was happening with the community pool and how the city would handle COVID-19. She said it was “cool” to see the council interact with the community members and then make decisions.
“It was really interesting to, like, see, like, just how they thought through it because you could kind of, like, see, like, what they were thinking.”
As she observed, she noticed something not-so-cool: community members and the council name-calling and berating each other.
“It’s just, like, rude and, like, I was raised to be respectful and I felt like people needed a reminder of that.”
So, on April 13, this person too young to vote addressed the conduct she saw. She acknowledged the difficult work the council was presented with, especially after watching the mayor’s conduct hearing but urged everyone to treat each other kindly.
“Yes, we do have a right to come up here and speak and have different opinions, but please be respectful when doing so; no name-calling,” she said during public comment. “While we all have the right to freedom of speech, we also have a responsibility to be respectful.”
“Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is standing up in that awkward situation and say, you know what, that’s not OK, and finding a voice that they’re comfortable with and say something of like, what can we do to fix this or how can I help you,” Danielle Wojcik, Schiferl’s cross country coach said.
Schiferl said the lessons her parents and Coach Wojcik taught her empowered her to speak up. Schiferl even included a reference to one of her coach’s teachings in her comment: “the fishbowl is real.”
“I’ve always looked at how we function as a group, a society, the fishbowl is the glass bowl that we all live in,” Wojcik explained. “No matter what happens, we’re always interacting whether or not you realize somebody is watching on the side or the person that you’re with. And so, you can leave an impact and you don’t even know it. Or, unfortunately, people can caste judgments without understanding the full situation and that’s not fair. So, if we all get the idea of, we work together, we get more accomplished and it gives everybody a better sense of citizenship because it’s all for one and one for all. They say it takes a community to raise a child; it takes a community to build a community and we have to work together and nothing better than the fishbowl.”
“The decisions you make will impact whether my generation will want to come back to Marshfield and raise our families here,” Schiferl addressed the council. “As my cross country coach likes to say, the fishbowl is real. People are watching. Thank you for your time.”
The council chambers erupted in applause. Schiferl said she was not expecting that response. She even received letters and flowers, thanking her for her comments. She said if she feels the need to address the council with her thoughts, she will not be afraid to do so and encourages others to do it, respectfully, too.
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Your Town Marshfield: Teen reminds community to have respectful discourse - WSAW
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