{"id":10581,"date":"2024-05-07T03:04:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T03:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10581"},"modified":"2024-05-07T03:14:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T03:14:19","slug":"milwaukee-mayor-replaces-citys-election-commission-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10581","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Mayor Replaces City\u2019s Election Commission Director"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-mayor-replaces-citys-election-commission-director\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"madison<\/p>\n

(The Center Square) \u2013 Six months before Election Day, Milwaukee\u2019s mayor has made a change at the top of his city\u2019s elections commission.<\/p>\n

Mayor Cavalier Johnson on Monday announced Paulina Guti\u00e9rrez as the new executive director of Milwaukee\u2019s Election Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaulina\u2019s integrity and capabilities are ideally suited to this position. She will lead the office at an important juncture when public scrutiny of the work of the department will be extremely high,\u201d Johnson said in a statement. \u201cI have confidence in her, and I will make certain the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s statement was silent on the fact Guti\u00e9rrez\u2019s promotion means the former head of the commission, Claire Woodall, is being replaced.<\/p>\n

The mayor told WISN TV that Woodall was offered a different position at the city, but he added that she apparently doesn\u2019t want that job “as it stands right now.”<\/p>\n

Johnson also said the decision to make the change has more to do with the latest cycle of mayoral appointments than anything else.<\/p>\n

Woodall has been in charge of the commission since 2020. She was appointed by former Milwaukee Mayor Tim Barrett, and she came under intense scrutiny for how she handled the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Woodall also faced questions after one of her chief deputies, Kimberly Zapata, mailed three fake military ballots to a Republican lawmaker.<\/p>\n

Zapata said she mailed the ballots to warn State Rep. Janel Brandtjen about a weakness in Wisconsin\u2019s electoral system. Zapata was convicted in the case, and last week a judge sentenced her to probation and a fine.<\/p>\n

Guti\u00e9rrez has served as Milwaukee\u2019s deputy director at the elections commission since early 2023. She begins her new position immediately. She sent an email to the Elections Commission staff over the weekend.<\/p>\n

“Change, especially when it is unexpected, can often be unsettling,” she wrote. “The experience of changing leadership is demanding and uncertain as we navigate uncharted waters and relearn to collaborate and communicate as an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson made four other appointments Monday. He named Jim Bohl as city innovation director, as well as naming Jordan Primakow to be Milwaukee\u2019s new legislative liaison director.<\/p>\n

Johnson named former alderman Khalif Rainey to be Milwaukee\u2019s new director of the office of African American affairs. And finally, the mayor named Veronica Rudychev as city labor negotiator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-mayor-replaces-citys-election-commission-director\/ (The Center Square) \u2013 Six months before Election Day,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":10583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10584,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581\/revisions\/10584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}