By Shereen Siewert
A move by city leaders to create an executive committee of the Wausau City Council continues to create a stir with some alders and members of the community who question whether the group will wield too much power without full representation.
The Council passed the measure, which replaces the former Legislative Committee and Coordinating Committee, on April 26. The chair of each standing committee and council president will be members, with the council president as chair. During the discussion, Mayor Katie Rosenberg, who proposed the new body, said that all issues taken up by the Executive Committee would eventually go through the Common Council.
“This isn’t a killer committee,” Rosenberg told council members.
But the language of the ordinance appears to give the Executive Committee broad standalone power. According to the municipal code, the Council could delegate to the Executive Board several duties including the authority to “hire, employ, contract or otherwise retain consultants in all disciplines, including but not limited to engineers, architects, lawyers, bond, financial or loan advisers, planners, psychologists, advertising or public relations persons, demographers, artists and relocation persons.”
In addition, the group could act as a liaison committee between local and state officials and coordinate staff efforts to lobby for legislation they feel would benefit the city.
During the April meeting, Dist. 3 Alder Tom Kilian said the lobbying provision sparked concern given that city officials in the past bypassed the council in such matters. Kilian was referring to City Finance Director MaryAnne Groat’s efforts to secure a legislative exemption that would have allowed Wausau to incorporate the mall property into a Tax Increment District. Groat approached lawmakers in December, but the bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly without input from council members or constituents. In February, City Council President Becky McElhaney said she had no knowledge a TID was being created in Wausau or that an Assembly bill was being circulated.
Dist. 4 Alder Doug Diny said he voted against the resolution because having seven of 11 members of the council represented excludes four others. “I didn’t feel there was anything the committee could do that a committee of the whole could not do, so it seems redundant,” Diny told Wausau Pilot & Review.
Lou Larson, who represents Dist. 10, said he is uncomfortable with a committee making decisions without full participation.
“I don’t like it, just as I don’t like an alder being able to chair more than one standing committee,” Larson said. “I have always been an advocate of evening out the responsibilities, not handing it to a select few.”
“What should be happening here is when a situation arises, hold a COW (the Committee of the Whole) meeting,” Larson said. “You will get the same results, only every Alder will have a chance to offer input to the situation from its inception. You will have the same results. No one will be left in the dark.”
Dist. 7 Alder Lisa Rasmussen told Wausau Pilot & Review that she is not concerned about the committee making commitments on behalf of the council, but said she is unsure why the Legislative Committee ended up as part of the mayor’s initiative.
“That committee, had it been meeting periodically, really could stay on top of things coming from other policy bodies that affect Wausau and react accordingly,” Rasmussen said. ” To date, we have had a little bit of a random approach to that, so hopefully if the Executive Committee discusses those matters, there might be a more consistent approach to offering feedback to our legislators.”
Keene Winters, a former Wausau City Council member, said he is concerned that the committee will be the source of chaos because of its built-in quorum of the council.
“The bottom line is that Wisconsin Statutes 19.89 forbids the exclusion of any duly elected member from meetings of the body,” Winters said. “If it were permissible for the majority to create an executive committee of itself, endow that committee with delegated powers and sideline members of the minority during committee meetings, then the statute’s clear prohibitions would be meaningless. I do not think there is any question that the council will have to walk-back the executive committee structure in its current form. It is embarrassing that eight members of the council would vote for such a half-baked idea.”
Diny said that while the arrangement might be allowed by Wausau’s rules, he doesn’t believe it is best practice. Executive Committees among Wausau municipalities are not unheard of, but are typically smaller. In La Crosse, the Executive Committee consists of only five members including the mayor, while the council has 13 members. Madison also has an Executive Committee, but one that appears limited in scope.
Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, told Wausau Pilot & Review he does not see an open meetings issue with such a group “as long as it abides by rules for notice and inclusion set in the open meetings law.”
But Kilian said his concerns continue.
“It appears that this would further concentrate and relegate power to a select few on many important policy matters, rather than to empower the democratic process of the body as a whole,” Kilian said. “In Wausau, we need to be going the exact opposite direction, as citizens have lamented the oligarchical nature of policy decision-making in town for decades — and that goes for the influences on policy that exist both inside of, and outside of, City Hall.”
Diny, Larson and Kilian voted against the committee after a lengthy discussion.
