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 editor@wausaupilotandreview.com.
Reporting by Raymond Neupert
Wausau City Council, District 4
Doug Diny, Challenger
Age 56, works in sales
Question: Why are you running for office?
Answer: I’m running for District 4 City Council to provide leadership, particularly in economic development. Looking back, recent missteps were very likely avoidable. I’ve taken charge of struggling organizations and turned them around. I outlined the incumbent’s specific complicity in a February 21 letter to the WP&R: https://wausaupilotandreview.
As your councilman, I promise:
• I will do my homework and make sure I understand and know what I am voting on.
• When negotiating development agreements for the city, I will do everything in my power to ensure taxpayers get the very best deal.
• I’ll provide leadership with candor and welcome and expect it from city employees and citizens looking to make positive, responsible change for our city.
• I will always be open and forthright about answering your questions.
• I support citizens along the Thomas Street corridor to arbitrate conflicting contamination findings to mitigate risk and loss of their homes.
Q: What do you think should be the city council’s top priority this year?
A: Let’s create an economic development commission comprised of developers, bank experts and area business people to better vet our developments and help set course for the future. Add to the mix an effort to better work with Marathon County and cities in the Greater Wausau Metro Area. Neal said on the radio this morning that we need to spend to compete with the spending of other cities. Why are we fighting each other? The end result of TID wars is further depletion of property tax dollars for corporate enticements. Let’s begin to negotiate deals with the best interest of the taxpayers in mind.
Let’s reorganize committees to reduce overlap, redundancy and gaps. We have silos of information in our city hall that need to be shared. We can do a better job communicating staff work.
Q: Do you think our downtown is healthy and successful? If not, what would you do to change that?
A: In general yes, but there are a few things just hanging in there like a loose tooth. The mall is the elephant in the room. We need an aggressive re-purposing of the mall space. I’ve written several letters to the editor on the ideas from senior center to living space to attracting a corporate headquarters. The wildest and maybe most likely idea to create buzz and potential destination is the idea of extending 3rd street all the way to the post office. Build a translucent cover over the street similar to Fremont Street (think of how the umbrellas give that appearance. Imagine if the canopy was functional and allowed for traditional store front shopping in relative escape from the elements?
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: Again, a development commission similar to La Crosse could go a long way to vetting and properly seeking qualified developers and investors. The news has been pretty clear on this one. 11 of 14 candidates in contested races have identified economic development waste and debt as a top priority.
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: Clearly in the near downtown areas, our efforts should prioritize utilization of existing property.
Q: How do you feel about the transportation options currently available in our city? How would you improve upon them?
A: The transit system in Wausau needs a lot of help. For starters, and a good rule of thumb, 80% of our efforts need to focus on increasing ridership, while 20% of our efforts should look to servicing more areas. We’re almost exclusively focused on ridership by only running busses on the busiest routes and hauling school children. Many of our citizens, who need transit to get to work do not live near a route or the bus doesn’t travel to their jobs or operates at hours that service them.
The State of Wisconsin may have an initiative to strengthen and add funding to “regional transit authorities . A regional authority could help connect residents to other cities in the county and places like Central Wisconsin Airport. With the consolidation of UWMC and UWSP, many students may be serviced with a bus route between UW campuses; this could prove to be lower than our massive bus liners today.
And lastly, technology is such that more proactive door to door services should be available to service the elderly and those with needs. The costs for an Uber-like operation
Q: How do you plan to involve residents in decision-making in our city?
A: First, I will emulate a regular citizen engagement meeting and listening session similar to that of County Supervisor, Katie Rosenberg and Alderman, Pat Peckham in the 1st District.
I’m very accessible via phone 715-803-5040, anytime. I’m communicating now as a candidate via email, Facebook, newsprint, snail mail, Messenger, coffee klatches. It’s a multi-channel communications effort. Citizens should have the option to choose their personal preferred method of communicating with their representatives and not be told they must comply with an official email address only in order to be heard.
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: This seems like a question to find out a person’s soft spot for spending money. I will answer it in two ways, first pragmatically; the debt could crack $100 million soon. Is it our priority to discover new ways to spend? I’m in favor of spending catalysts for growth but I will call for every development package to contain a payback summary in the executive summary of every RFP packet. Let’s focus on the debt issue that 11 of 14 candidates voiced concern over in the City Pages this week.
Second answer is: if this were my personal money, what I would do with a charitable trust that I could spend on my favorite cause. I would have to find a way to put the money into education; like scholarships and training initiatives that reach our most vulnerable citizens. We have put initiative in place to clean up blight, but at times, that has the feel of a cosmetic fix. We need to find more ways to address the underlying issues that keep people in underserved and underrepresented situations.
Let’s empower people to succeed.
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: The errors on Thomas Street are too many to list. The gig lessons are that we need to follow the law and be good stewards of our resources and respect our citizens. The no-appraisal purchases cost us millions of dollars in grant funding. The plan needs to be vetted and understood with the proper vision rather than rushing along in fits and starts because time is running out on TID development money. Neal supported using TIF money for an infrastructure project that has no discernible payback.
Most importantly, how do we move forward as good stewards? Let’s slow down a bit, the road is currently serviceable as is, there’s not a pressing need to forge ahead until the environmental issues are addressed. This story is unfolding as we write, the data is on file for a decade, and we owe it to the residents to reconcile the risks with the needs for infrastructure improvement.
Q: Anything else you’d like voters to know?
A: See more of my qualifications: http://www.dougdiny.com/
I have been a frequent Wausau Daily Herald commentator, and I work to provide candid feedback to local issues. I have been ruthless on people in the past and I think I have mellowed as I age. I strive to think about the person on the other end of the reply. How are they interpreting the writing? Is the context right? Have I been too strong in my opinion or too weak? Is the hill worth dying on?
I will provide leadership with candor and welcome and expect it from all city employees and citizens looking to make positive and responsible change for our city. We’re stewards of this gem called Wausau; our unique and positive blend of cultures, industry, and natural resources will sustain us if we are wise stewards.
Tom Neal, Incumbent
Age 55, Marketing and advertising sales director at The City Pages
Question: Why are you running for office?
Answer: I wish to follow through with ongoing projects and proposals I’ve been involved with, and to explore new opportunities that are on the horizon. Also, I want to continue serving as an advocate for individual citizens who have concerns or problems.
Q: What do you think should be the city council’s top priority this year?
A: Without question, economic growth. We need to broaden our tax base and grow revenues to keep up with the escalating costs of running a city. Slow growth has contributed to our less than competitive tax rate, and placed undue burden on taxpayers. Wausau must be aggressive and effective in attracting new business investment and new residents.
Q: Do you think our downtown is healthy and successful? If not, what would you do to change that?
A: A downtown is truly a city’s heart. If it’s in decay, a city will decline with it. If it’s dynamic and vibrant, a city will thrive. Compared to many similar-sized communities in our state, Wausau’s downtown is undergoing a continual, dramatic transformation that has drawn statewide attention and recognition. I only hope to keep our momentum going. I want to see creative ideas on the part of the mall owners and mall management to evolve and sustain that important part of downtown. I remain hopeful that a cinema facility can be developed.
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: First, I want to stress that the city’s position in developer agreements for the riverfront and anywhere else is contractually secure through built-in protections, based on strict, verifiable obligations for all parties. Recent “controversy” has been an overblown reaction based on misunderstanding and/or wrong-minded political agendas. That being said, the city and council are sensitive to the negative public trust-related “optics” associated with surprise revelations about project partners, and we are looking at ways to bring more clarity and assurance to the front end.
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 don’t see a need for an either/or choice. In fact, we need to be cooking on all four of those burners, and there are programs in place to address upgrading aging housing stock and filling or upgrading commercial space opportunities.
Q: How do you feel about the transportation options currently available in our city? How would you improve upon them?
A: We need to widen the reach of public transportation; surrounding communities that have been reluctant to invest and add routes are seriously harming our ability to get people around the greater metro area … people for whom driving is not an option. We have a civic duty to fix this lack of service to our citizens … getting people to health care facilities, shopping, recreation and jobs.
Q: How do you plan to involve residents in decision-making in our city?
A: Like the federal and state levels, we operate as a representative government, with elected officials tasked to review and act on policies. As such, we have to continue to do so openly, with consistent public engagement. In the current term, the city has instituted video coverage and online-accessible archiving of all committee and council meetings to help our citizens know what’s going on.
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: I would look at important budget requests that didn’t make the cut, and see what items might be raised above the “red line”. State-induced revenue restrictions have seriously diminished municipalities’ capacity to sustain themselves. That million dollar grant would be welcome indeed!
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 have consistently opposed and voted against designs for the project that have endangered the viability of established neighborhoods, and negatively impacted residents. I believe the city could have and should have been more creative and sensitive in designing both phases.
Q: Anything else you’d like voters to know?
A: I’m grateful to have been entrusted in the two past elections to serve the city and its residents. It’s a duty that I very much enjoy and take seriously. I believe Wausau is on the verge of some great new developments in our ongoing efforts to grow economically and as a wonderful place to live and work. We have garnered quite a bit of recent attention nationally as a great place to live and do business. There are some who seem almost opposed to progress, and a handful who frequently deride their officials and representatives in the rudest fashion. They can actually degrade Wausau’s positive brand image in the process. I don’t play that game; that’s not how we’ll get things done. We need to be a team, with a shared goal: keeping Wausau moving forward.
I really liked the hypothetical $1 million dollar question. I think Dennis Smith gave the best answer, to fill in some pot holes, hard to argue that. The mental exercise was helpful, rather than instinctively looking for ways to spend more money in new ways, it’s important to figure out what we already have for priorities and focus.