Editor’s note: Wausau Pilot & Review will publish a series of Q&As in the days leading up to the April 3 spring election for contested seats in the Wausau metro area. For a sample ballot and general election information, visit the Marathon County election information page. Watch for more election coverage and be sure to bookmark our elections page here. Candidates, listed in alphabetical order, were given the opportunity to answer identical questions in the interest of fairness. Their unedited answers are listed below.
Letters to the editor are encouraged through Monday, April 2. Email [email protected].
Reporting by Raymond Neupert
Wausau City Council, District 2
Michael Martens, Challenger
Age 48; owner of Wausau interactive, a website design and digital marketing firm
Question: Why are you running for office?
Answer: I’ve got a definite purpose and need for public service, the timing’s right. I see some issues facing the city of Wausau and i feel I can offer solutions.
Q: What do you think should be the city council’s top priority this year?
A: Our top priorities are fiscal responsibility and transparency in government, safe and affordable housing for our citizens, and downtown economic development.
Q: Do you think our downtown is healthy and successful? If not, what would you do to change that?
A: I think it’s a good mix of opportunity in our downtown districts. The Wausau River District does a tremendous job at promoting the individual, locally run businesses that you find along Third Street and across the river. I see the key issues in downtown development is the big elephant in the room: the Wausau the Center Mall. That’s going to be a big pain point for the next two years on how we can either help the developers repurpose the mall or create a strategy for downtown development that can bring more people to downtown shopping
Q: There has been some controversy about the riverfront development and how the city handles the RFP process. Do you think the city has handled this issue appropriately in the past? What, if anything, would you change for future projects?
A: I’ve looked at the issues facing the Riverfront request for proposal. Looking at the overall timeline of when everything went down, initially in 2015 and 2016, there were no apparent issues that would stand out. And it was well after the groundbreaking that we started to see things go sideways. I think our proposal process should have stronger reference checks to ensure that they can meet their financial requirements and to ensure they have the resources to complete the project.
Q: What’s more important for our city right now: building new homes and commercial space or better utilizing our existing homes and storefronts?
A: I advocate for a smart growth plan and model, which really works with existing resources and creates incremental improvements in our community. I’d like to see us redevelop our housing stocks so that we have more affordable housing. There’s plenty of housing in the midline but there’s shortages in the lower end of the housing market. There’s just a lack of good, affordable housing. I would like to see more work done to improve those opportunities.
Q: How do you feel about the transportation options currently available in our city? How would you improve upon them?
A: I’m an advocate for walkable and rideable communities. There’s a lot of groundwork laid in to make our community easy to bike and easy to walk. There’s still more work we can do: better bike lanes, better markings, better education. Our mass transportation system really needs to be supported, but unfortunately at the state level, we’re hindered because we can’t create a regional transit authority. That would help increase our transit options into the other communities like Weston and Rib Mountain.
Q: How do you plan to involve residents in decision-making in our city?
A: That’s where we kind of get into the transparency issue. Being a person who works in online and digital marketing, I see there’s a lot of ways in which we can create a community or communications system that allows for a better dissemination of information to our residents. We see more listening sessions, more neighborhood meetings, that’s all good in getting residents engaged.
Q: If you received a $1 million grant to use for the city any way you wanted, what would you do with it and why?
A: That’s a great question. If I had that opportunity, I think what I would like to do is just create better neighborhoods by working to embrace cultural diversity, using the money to help clean up areas of the city to make them more desirable for our citizens.
Q: Do you believe the city council’s decisions and actions along Thomas Street were appropriate? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
A: I think what I would do differently is to certainly take a step back and do the additional testing that’s necessary so we get a better picture of what’s going on in the soil. I think doing that will also help us create an appropriate strategy for remediation which is bound to happen. Although construction of a road is not considered remediation of a neighborhood, I think it’s going to open up a can of worms if we don’t really have an accurate picture of what needs to be done to keep that process safe for our residents.
Q: Anything else you’d like voters to know?
A: My commitment is to make Wausau a better place to live and work. I believe in smart growth that puts people first to help our communities become more economically prosperous, socially equitable and an environmentally sustainable place to life.
Romey Wagner, Incumbent
Age 65; Facility manager for Wausau Entrepreneurial Center
Question: Why are you running for office?
Answer: Having served 6 years already and making some changes I see the need for me to stay on the council to push for issues that are still lacking.
Q: What do you think should be the city council’s top priority this year?
A: Development outside the TIF districts and reduction of taxes.
Q: Do you think our downtown is healthy and successful? If not, what would you do to change that?
A: The down town continues to evolve as more private interest pulls together to decide what is needed and pull together to do something. The River District and the Arts District all make it grow in value and excitement. It is the center of our hub of a city no longer the Mall.
Q: There has been some controversy about the riverfront development and how the city handles the RFP process. Do you think the city has handled this issue appropriately in the past? What, if anything, would you change for future projects?
A: In my opinion if we had a strong City Administrator we would not have had the controversies on the project. This position would have been a professional level that would have helped the department heads sift through the potential and bring the council a clear plan.
Q: What’s more important for our city right now: building new homes and commercial space or better utilizing our existing homes and storefronts?
A: The private sector has to accept the responsibility to refurbish the existing properties. They own them and want to reap the benefits of occupancy. The City however can and should help develop new business attractions like our Business Campus. I would have liked to stay out of the riverfront development altogether by making it attractive enough to have multiple developers take it on for themselves.
Q: How do you feel about the transportation options currently available in our city? How would you improve upon them.
A: I have always felt the need for better bus transportation, earlier and later and at least six days a week. It is a service that is needed and can’t be expected to pay for itself.
Q: How do you plan to involve residents in decision-making in our city?
A: I would like to see members of the public sit on our standing committees. Two council member and CFOs or CPAs on finance, maybe someone from the visitors bureau on Parks & Rec, some large and small industry folks on Economic Development, corporate HR people represented on HR, etc. People that understand the situations and discussions verses just the Council members that basically get it explained by the staff and agree. If each committee had two council members and three at large members (people that apply and are chosen by the council), there could me more understanding and definitely more transparency.
Q: If you received a $1 million grant to use for the city any way you wanted, what would you do with it and why?
A: Something that touched every neighborhood and citizen, probably mental health care or drug prevention in the schools
Q: Do you believe the city council’s decisions and actions along Thomas Street were appropriate? What, if anything, would you have done differently?
A: Thomas St should have been completed twelve years ago so it is hard for me to say if it was now completed in the best way possible! I believe we took care of the people that needed to be relocated, once we got to that stage. We could never satisfy everyone so there is no good answer to whether it was done right. I do support the outcome of the project.
Q: Anything else you’d like voters to know?
A: As a member of Public Health and Safety we have made amazing progress in helping the Police and Fire make this a better place to live and raise our families, of this I am most proud. We made inroads to holding landlords accountable through our Rent Abatement Program and had in excess of 1000 building permits to clean up properties when the thought of an inspection loomed over the landlords.
