‘Don’t Want Your Kind Here’: Black Man Fights Legal Battle After Racist Neighbors, Town Leaders Tried to Block Family from Building Home in Wisconsin
An interracial couple who’ve been trying to build a house in the Village of Bristol, Wisconsin, for seven years while facing legal resistance from local officials and racial harassment from neighbors will have their day in state court next month. Christine Barassi-Jackson, who is white, and Quentin Jackson, who is Black, bought a 5-acre property in the small rural town west of Kenosha in 2018. They hoped to build a four-bedroom log home with a big backyard patio and a large pole barn to hold their two young sons’ four-wheelers and Jackson’s tools, vehicles and “other toys,” Barassi-Jackson told Atlanta Black Star. “It was going to be our place to decompress and relax, and for the boys to play and make new friends,” she said. Barassi-Jackson, 49, is a nurse and Jackson, 49, runs a business restoring and selling cars. Their sons were then 9 and 12 years old. Quentin Jackson posts often on social media about his legal fight with Village of Bristol, Wisconsin, officials to build a house on the property he and his wife purchased in 2018. (Photo: Quentin Van Jackson Facebook Profile) But the couple encountered strong pushback from local officials when they began to develop the land, which contained wetland areas that sometimes flooded. Despite obtaining a permit from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to fill in the wetlands with soil, on the day a crew they hired was moving mounds of dirt around, Randy Kerkman, the village administrator, showed up and told Jackson to halt the work, saying it was in violation of a local ordinance. After some testy back and forth, during which Jackson insisted that the state DNR permit trumped any local ordinances regarding wetlands development, Kerkman allegedly told him, “You’re in my town. I run Bristol. I won’t let you build anything in this town.” In the ensuing years, Kerkman has apparently kept his word, repeatedly denying the Jacksons building permits and issuing citations for alleged violations of local ordinances governing construction-related erosion and for having personal vehicles, including a small camper, stored on their property. The couple paid the fines, which totaled less than $500, and kept trying to build their dream house, they said. In September 2023, when the Jacksons held their ground and ignored the village board’s orders to dig out the wetland and to remove a drainage culvert they had installed under their driveway, the Village of Bristol filed a lawsuit against them in the Wisconsin Circuit Court of Kenosha County, claiming their “unauthorized filling” and culvert had caused flooding problems on a neighbor’s property. In their pleadings, the Village of Bristol cited the complaints of Felix and Tina Siordia, neighbors who own an adjoining property and claim the Jacksons’ upgrades have caused drainage problems on their land. The Jacksons contend the Siordias are motivated less by landscaping concerns than by sheer racism. When the Jacksons first began mowing their large lawn and improving their land, Barassi-Jackson says the elderly white couple next door was cordial because they mistook them for caretakers of the property. But when the Siordias learned the Jacksons owned the property, she says Martina Siordia seemed unsettled and told her, “You don’t belong here. We don’t want your kind here.” Felix Siordia allegedly told Jackson he should “take Black a-- someplace else.” The Siordias then began sending emails to Kerkman complaining about how the Jacksons were developing their property and demanding action from the village board, at one point in July 2023, prompting a visit from local deputy sheriffs. On police bodycam video obtained by Kenosha County Eye, Felix Siordia, then 81, while complaining about the Jacksons, told the deputies, “It’s the color of the goddamn skin. … I used to work for Commonwealth Edison and deal with a lot of Blacks — they come in as contractors and want to do their own crap.” After Felix Siordia trespassed on their property to conduct surveillance on the work in progress, allegedly at the behest of Kerkman, and also physically threatened Jackson by swinging a metal rake at the back of his head, the Jacksons secured a restraining order for harassment against Felix Siordia, which remains in effect.In their answer to the village’s complaint, the Jacksons denied allegations that their property upgrades had caused stormwater runoff problems for their neighbors, and asserted that the Village does not have legal standing to enforce local ordinances with regard to wetlands, which are “governed solely by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources,” and further claimed they had “all necessary engineering studies and other approvals” to obtain the state permit. “There were wetlands and water on both of the properties when we purchased it,” Barassi-Jackson told Atlanta Black Star, adding that landscaping engineers directed the placement of the drainage culvert and some berms, which “are still functioning well." In April 2024, the Jacksons filed a counterclaim against Village of Bristol, Kerkman, and Renee Bricker, the village clerk, claiming they had deprived the family of the full use and enjoyment of their property and of other rights without due process of law. Besides directing Siordia and another nearby property owner to trespass and spy on the Jacksons’ property, take photos and report back to him, the counterclaim contends that Kerkman singled out the Jacksons for enforcement of a purported ordinance that prohibited them from parking their licensed and titled vehicles and trailers on their property. When Jackson challenged the citation, pointing out that Kerkman, the Siordias, and many other Bristol residents had multiple vehicles, campers, and trailers on their properties and had not been cited, the Village Board voted to change its ordinance to bring it into compliance with its prior enforcement efforts against the Jacksons. The Jacksons’ counterclaim calls those actions by the Village Board selective and discriminatory enforcement and a violation of their federal rights to due process and equal protection. The village and Kerkman also violated Jackson’s Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, his attorneys claim, when Kerkman directed local deputies to arrest Jackson for an outstanding traffic citation when he was on his way to a Village Board meeting. Jackson had promoted the meeting on social media and invited many of his supporters to attend and hear him speak out against the board’s ongoing obstruction of his property development. He was arrested and searched in front of the Village Hall as he got out of his car just before the meeting, which he was not allowed to attend, publicly humiliating him. The counterclaim says the village had no probable cause to arrest him, as his scheduled court hearing for the traffic ticket was not until the following day. The Jacksons are seeking a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages and to enjoin the village and its officials from further harassment and interference as they attempt to construct their home. “It’s a simple fix,” said Mark Sostarich, the Jacksons' attorney. “Let this man go over his plans and blueprints. If there’s a problem, they can fix it. He just wants to build his house and he wants to comply with the requirements, but the village and DNR are at odds. He did everything the DNR wanted him to do. State laws pre-empt the village from demanding compliance like this.” Meanwhile, he said, “The village has looked hard for other violations that common sense tells you just should not be major problems, and hired two large law firms in Milwaukee to pursue those ordinance violations. This case is extremely troublesome. There should be a lot more cooperation and a lot less interference from a local government.”The Village of Bristol has so far spent $216,000 on legal fees in pursuit of enforcing several local ordinances against the Jacksons, Quentin Jackson said, based on village billing records that he and a private detective obtained through open records requests. He has broadcast that fact on live Facebook posts and at public meetings. The Jacksons have spent $240,000 of their own funds to develop the property and to comply with the village’s legal demands, he said.“I’m too far into it to pull out now,” said Jackson. “Besides, if we stopped, walked away and left, they win. And then they’ll continue to do it to other people and get away with it. I’m not going to let any a--hole dictate to me how I want to live my life.” The Jackson Family on their Bristol, Wisconsin, property in 2018 (left) and Quentin Jackson and his son Camron Jackson (right) on the still-vacant land in 2025. (Photos: Jackson Family) The Jacksons’ sons are now seven years older and somewhat jaded about their parents’ ongoing efforts to build on the property, Barassi-Jackson said. Camron, now 15, “is proud of his father for standing up for it,” she says, “but he also asks, ‘Why can’t we just go back to Illinois? I want to have a yard and ride my bike and play with friends and not go through all this.’” Their elder son Emmett, 19, is now a freshman at a college in Massachusetts with a diverse student population and “thrilled to be away from here,” she said. While many of their neighbors are friendly and supportive, “there’s an underlying current here of ‘you’re an outsider and you’re Black and you’re not really welcome,’” she said, which her sons have felt, both in the town and on sports teams they participated in. The Village of Bristol has a population of 5,192 that is 95 percent white and 1 percent Black, according to the 2020 Census. “So many times I’ve wanted to say, ‘Enough. I’m done with this. We’re never gonna build this house. Let’s just stop and sell it and forget this place,’” Barassi-Jackson said. “But then I think, what am I saying to my children? When things get tough and people aren’t fair to you and violate your rights, and put obstacles in front of you because of your race, it’s just better to turn around and walk away? That’s not how I was raised and my family would be appalled. So we’re here, and we’re going to see it through.”A hearing on the Village of Bristol’s motion for summary judgment is scheduled for Nov. 25 at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Kenosha before Circuit Court Judge Gerad T. Dougvillo. Their motion cites Wisconsin law that states that a city or village like Bristol has authority over permitting, including that related to construction site erosion and storm water management, and may enact zoning ordinances that are applicable to all of its incorporated area.The 52-page pleading delineates multiple ways that the Jacksons violated its ordinances and permits — including pouring 6,000 cubic yards of dirt into wetland areas, when only 500 cubic yards was approved by the Village — which, along with the placement of a culvert under a newly constructed, long driveway extending to the southwest end of their property resulted in increased stormwater runoff to and ponding on the neighboring property to the west. A photo of an adjoining property to the Jackson family property, taken after a rain in February 2023, according to a legal pleading filed by the Village of Bristol in Wisconsin. (Photo: Village of Bristol, Motion For Summary Judgement) The motion includes photos of the Siordias' flooded property after a rain in February 2023, and claims the Jacksons' longstanding refusal to comply with remedial measures recommended by their civil engineer, including removing one of the berms, relocating the driveway to the east, or modifying the culvert, has exacerbated the drainage problems. The plaintiffs ask the court to dismiss the Jacksons’ counterclaim and to order them to cease all construction activity, to restore their property to its previous condition, to pay the village’s legal costs, and to pay steep fines for violating Bristol ordinances of $100 to $500 per day since Aug. 31, 2023, (which would amount to between $80,000 and $400,000).“There's no other way forward other than to continue our legal fight at this point,” said Barassi-Jackson. “The Village Board wants us to take a big loss on this. But we bought the land fairly, and we’re going to build a home on it."
