SHOREWOOD NEWS

Shorewood appoints first African-American to village board

Jeff Rumage
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
John Wesley Warren has been appointed to the Shorewood Village Board.

SHOREWOOD - The newest member of the Shorewood Village Board may now be a village insider, but he still remembers how he once saw Shorewood as an outsider.

John Wesley Warren was raised on the north side of Milwaukee by his Italian-American mother and his African-American father. When he was 6, his mom registered him in the Shorewood School District through the Chapter 220 program.

Warren said he thought of Shorewood as a "beacon," where he made great friends and participated in all of the school plays. In his junior year of high school, his mother bought a house in Shorewood.

After graduating from high school, Warren studied political science at Yale University. While at Yale, he interned in the White House under then-President Bill Clinton. 

After graduating from Yale, Warren earned his law degree from Harvard Law School. While in law school, he worked on Capitol Hill as an intern for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

After law school, Warren returned to Milwaukee, where he worked for nearly three years as a litigation associate for Michael Best & Friedrich. In 2005, he joined Northwestern Mutual as an assistant general counsel and assistant secretary.

Twelve years ago, Warren decided to move to Shorewood, which he calls his "forever community." Warren, now 40, lives with his wife and their dog in Shorewood — just two blocks from his mother.

When former Village Trustee Allison Rozek was elected village president in April, Warren was one of six Shorewood residents to apply for her vacated trustee seat. After interviewing all six applicants, the village board appointed Warren as trustee on May 22. His term expires in April 2019.

Warren is the first African-American to serve as trustee in the history of the Shorewood Village Board.

Warren said Shorewood is becoming more diverse, and his appointment will make the village board more closely resemble the community it represents.

"When I was growing up attending Shorewood schools, I always thought of it as very open and inclusive, but I don't know that there was a ton of diversity there," he said. "It seems that it's grown to be a much more diverse community over the years, and I think that's fantastic." 

Warren said his training as an attorney and his collaborative work style will benefit the village board.

Shorewood's strength comes from its "involved, passionate citizenry," Warren said, and he wants to make sure none of those citizens are priced out of the community.

"I don't want Shorewood to get to a place where only certain segments of the population can live here," he said. "I love living in a diverse, inclusive community, and I think we need to look very critically at taxes, budgeting and things of that nature to make sure that the diverse and passionate people that make this community what it is can still afford to live here."