Damakant Jayshi
After a heated discussion Tuesday the lame duck Wausau City Council ultimately approved hiring two new officers to tackle issues with homeless residents, with one change.
Funding for the first six months, just under $118K, will come through reserve funding and not through American Rescue Plan Act dollars. Police Chief Matt Barnes had proposed using ARPA funding for the first year of the pilot program.
The amendment to shift to reserve funding, proposed by Alder Sarah Watson, followed a discussion at the Finance Committee earlier on Tuesday. At the Finance Committee, Finance Director Maryanne Groat said the city’s reserves were “healthy.”
As for 2025, the department has secured funding of about $236K from the Alexander Foundation. The pilot proposal has a sunset provision of Dec. 31, 2025. If the council does not approve an extension, the positions will either expire or be absorbed into the police departments through retirements or attrition.
Despite past assurances from Barnes and some alders, the main focus of the new officers will be enforcing laws and ordinances with respect to homeless residents in the downtown area. Police say criminal and lewd behavior has increased downtown, alarming business owners and residents.
“Specifically, the employee must partner with the Wausau business community and work to build trust with the unhoused population while ensuring accountability regarding our statutes and ordinances,” the job description states. Barnes said the job description is similar to that of a patrol officer with a couple of tweaks that were finalized with HR Director James Henderson.
The vote to approve the amended proposal passed 9-2, with Alders Tom Kilian and Gary Gisselman voting against it. Watson again suggested holding a meeting of the Committee of the Whole to discuss long-term strategies to combat homelessness in the community. Her compromise suggestion at the HR Committee where she spoke during public comments – to hire one officer and one homeless outreach specialist – was not voted upon.
At least five members have been in favor of having a COW meeting, based on their comments at various recent meetings: Watson, Kilian, Gisselman, mayor-elect Doug Diny and Lou Larson. Kilian and Gisselman suggested taking up the matter of additional officers only after the COW devises a policy and strategy on addressing homelessness in Wausau, but those suggestions were ignored.
Like discussions in at least the three committees since March when Barnes asked for the additional officers, strong opinions on the merits and efficacy of hiring two additional police officers and the proposal’s actual intent were robustly debated by council members and commented upon by residents during public comments.
Alder Becky McElhaney criticized again what she termed as deliberate attempts at misleading the purpose behind the proposal and repeated that it was not an attempt to criminalize homelessness. She said she and her colleagues were asked by her office managers – she works in the downtown area – not to go venture out alone even during the day. She asked if it was an unhoused problem or a criminal issue. “I don’t see this as…demonizing or criminalizing poor people,” adding it will target crimes, not unhoused people.
Alder Larson too said it was not an unhoused issue. If people break the law, they should be held accountable for it, he said. He referred to video provided by police collected through bodycam and ramp camera footage that convinced him the officers are necessary.
Kilian said hiring officers is not for connecting homeless residents with services but instead to target people in poverty. He also took exception to McElhaney’s remarks that the proposal is not a rich vs. poor people matter. He also shared how poverty is being talked about, adding it was unfortunate and for the community a disgrace because it tells them to fear poor people.
“Poor people are criminals, not middle-class people, not the wealthy, the poor we are talking about,” he said. “We have made this indivisible connection between the poor and criminal behavior and that is ridiculous,” Kilian said. He pointed out the optics of paying salaries of police officers through a moneyed foundation, saying it would look like turning community policing into a private security service for some businesses in the downtown.
Alder Gisselman said the discussion showed that the city is recognizing that homelessness needs to be addressed, but added that the solution offered will not be effective. “Do we have the will to tackle the issue of homelessness? Poverty? Lack of food?”
The proposal was approved one week before the new mayor and three new alders will be sworn in.
