County Supervisor Patti Logsdon Faces Challenger

Danelle Kenney (left). Sup. Patti Logsdon (right).

Milwaukee County Supervisor Patti Logsdon has a challenger for her seat on the Milwaukee County Board.

Danelle Kenney, a realtor and resident of Franklin, has filed to run against Logsdon, the incumbent, for District 9 on the county board.

Asked why she wants to run for the county board, Kenney told Urban Milwaukee, “I decided to run for the board because I feel like the feedback I’ve gotten from folks in my area that are into politics is that they wanted somebody that’s more proactive in the community and someone that works together with local officials more than current representation.”

Reached for comment, Logsdon told Urban Milwaukee, “I’m very proud of what I’ve done, with my accomplishments working for my community.”

County supervisors are elected to a two-year term. The part-time, non-partisan position pays $25,924 annually. The county board is the legislative branch of county government.

Kenney is a realtor with Rock Solid Realty Group. She began her career as a social worker, first with the county and then with Froedtert Health. She is a graduate of UW-Whitewater and recieved a masters degree from UW-Milwaukee. Kenney is originally from Milton, Wisconsin and moved to Milwauke in the late 1990s. She lives in Franklin with her husband and children.

Kenney was nominated to the City of Franklin Board of Review in 2023 and previously served on the board of the Franklin Educational Foundation from 2017 to 2019.

This is Kenney’s first run for political office, but it’s not her first experience with politics. She volunteered for the campaigns of State Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz and current Franklin Mayor John Nelson.

Nelson, like the previous mayor Steve Olson, has found himself in hot water with residents for failing to take action on the longstanding complaints of nuisance noise coming from the Rock Sports Complex.

The facility has long been a hot-button issue in Franklin and for the county board. A recent sound study commissioned by the board confirmed something neighbors have said for years, that the Rock organization has pointed speakers away from ballpark and directly at residential neighborhoods. In September, a handful of supervisors indicated they were prepared to sue the Rock.

Sup. Logsdon has been a strong critic of the Rock organization over the ongoing noise problems. She won her seat on the board in 2018 by defeating then-incumbent Sup. Steve Taylor, who was a champion of the Rock development while serving on the county board and as a Franklin alderman. Taylor is now the executive director of the ROC Foundation, the nonprofit arm of ROC Ventures.

Taylor won re-election to the board in 2022 after the board redrew their supervisory districts in 2021, and has abstained from issues related to the Rock when they come before the board to avoid a conflict of interest.

Kenney and Taylor both worked on Mayor Nelson’s campaign and Kenney told Urban Milwaukee that she has already been tagged by some as a pro-Rock candidate for her ties to Sup. Taylor. “That’s not my main reason for running,” she said.

“I think there has to be changes made that the developer knows needs to be made. I think he is working on it. I think he could do more,” she said. “That being said, I do support them and I do think they bring a lot to the community.”

Kenney said she would approach issues related to the Rock with a spirit of cooperation and look for a “win-win” resolution for everyone.

If elected to the county board, Kenney told Urban Milwaukee that she’s interested in working on issues and policy related to the county’s park system.

“The biggest feedback that I’ve gotten from constituents, while knocking for signatures, is everybody is worried about the parks and making sure that we keep what we have and that we don’t lose more functionality of what we have in our park system,” Kenney said.

Unless a third candidate enters the race, there will not be a primary. The election will appear on District 9 ballots during the spring election in April.

Update: A previous version of the story said Kenney was a resident of Greenfield. She lives in Franklin.