On the evening of Jan. 28th, 2025 the Winona County Board held a vote on their initiative for a long standing discussion of a new police station in Winona. In the 4-1 vote, the council board opted to start the pre-design phase of a new combined police and sheriff station to replace the Law Enforcement Center (LEC).
The topic of a new station is not unfamiliar to the community of Winona County. In July, 2022 the community with the help of Community Not Cages, a local activist group, successfully protested the Winona City Council’s decision to demolish the local East End Rec Center and replace it with a combined police/fire station and a new Rec Center. Through community collaboration and protest they were able to stop the demolition, and the plans of a new police station got placed on the back burner, until recently with the revitalization of design plans for a new police and sheriff station.
Community organization was no stranger to this recent meeting either. Many community members and Winona State University students came, and spoke virtually, to the Winona County Board public hearing to emphasize their wish for funding to be moved away from a new police station and instead focused on the needs of the community. Community members voiced their concerns on the lack of acknowledgement for the much-needed resources to support issues of houselessness, domestic violence, and mental health services that are prevalent in Winona.
Taya Peterson, a Winona State student and Social Work major, testified at the meeting. She commented how she hopes to use her degree at Winona State to help the community of Winona as a social worker.
“Our focus should be on reducing the need for police intervention. We should focus on a new approach where police are not the primary First Responders.” Peterson said. “Instead, social workers and mental health professionals should take the lead if we invest in our community.”
Peterson’s sentiment that the outdated focus on policing was detrimental focusing on the needs on Winona community members was revibrated across many of the speakers.
TL Jordan, a Winona State Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) instructor, held similar sentiments in their statement to the county board. Jordan focused on supporting other departments in Winona, such as the neglected fire department and Social Services.
“We need housing, we need to help our house this population, we need Social Services, and we need a fire department that can actually operate. And has, you know, maybe like a modicum of comfort like air conditioning in the summer.” Jordan said.
Another WGSS professor, Mary Jo Klinker commented about the intersection of feminist activism and the needs of community.
“Feminist activists seeking to build a safer world for us all discuss budgets as moral documents and imagine a feminist future for housing, childcare, education, and health care. That’s what I think people are asking the county and city to do in Winona, to put the peoples’ needs first.” Klinker said.
With the community’s outcry for aid where it needs it most, aid to resources for houselessness, domestic violence, and mental health, when ignored by those that are supposed to help them they can support each other by focusing helping each other’s needs.
