Damakant Jayshi
With a referendum question deadline of Aug. 31, the question of whether Wausau should hire a city administrator won’t go to the voters in November. But some city leaders say a discussion on the issue is warranted, given the challenges Wausau faces.
An opinion piece on Wausau Pilot & Review that appeared two weeks earlier called for placing the “question on hiring a city administrator on the November ballot to maximize the number of voters who will weigh-in.” The deadline to submit a referendum question for consideration is Aug. 31, Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood said. Prior to that, the City Council would have to approve language, creating a tight and unrealistic timeline.
The discussion now shifts to the City Council, with at least two alders, Doug Diny and Lou Larson, expressing interest in having a discussion on the subject with their colleagues. Alders Becky McElhaney and Lisa Rasmussen have both rejected the idea, saying their constituents have not expressed support for such a change, while citing concerns over cost. Alder Tom Kilian has also opposed the idea.
Alder Diny, who represents Dist. 4, said he supports adding an administrator, a move he said would ultimately pay for itself and does not require changes to Wausau’s charter.
“I support keeping the Mayor-Council format and adding an administrator,” he told Wausau Pilot & Review. “It’s known as ‘Mayor-Council with Administrator; requires no changes to our charter under Chapter 62 in the Wisconsin State Statutes.”
Seven years ago, voters rejected a referendum that asked the administrator question. But critics point to a range of the city’s troubles since that time, from failures in development to skyrocketing taxpayer debt, increased use of Tax Increment Financing, missteps in the Thomas Street project and a failure to address environmental issues on a timely basis to protect residents, among others.
The non-binding referendum in 2015 posed this question, with an explanation: ‘Shall the City of Wausau establish the position of city administrator, reduce the Mayor’s position to part-time, and transfer administrative and operational responsibilities from the Mayor to the city administrator? The text added that the city would retain the Mayor-Council form of government. The referendum failed, with 3,540 votes against the proposal and 3,256 in favor, according to Wausau City Clerk’s office.
Diny said he envisioned a system in which the administrator would be subordinate to the city’s mayor and reporting to him or her. This structure does not match that of the referendum question of 2015.
Others say they want a part-time mayor with reduced authority.
The Dist. 4 alder said that “given the cantankerous nature of the 2015 referendum, I underestimated the holdover sensitivity on council to that effort and the potential for misunderstanding of my intention: to add capacity to the city staff.” He also said City Council members have had very recent discussion on a mayor’s executive assistant, communications director, and chief of staff, along with administrator formats. Mayor Rosenberg has said alternatives like the chief of staff or communications director could be explored.
Recommendations studied
Diny said the cost of a city administrator potentially would pay for itself through “added efficiencies and potential funding grants.”
Diny is working on a more detailed recommendation he will present to Mayor Katie Rosenberg and City Council President McElhaney. He suggested that an educational presentation at a Committee of the Whole, or COW, could be a way forward. The alder said he has done research on the subject and spoken with multiple people and organizations, including Gerald Whitburn, a retired businessman from the area with years of political experience.
Whitburn, who spent much of his career involved in Republican Party politics, is listed as the registered agent behind the organization that paid for a billboard situated on I-39 between Wausau and Mosinee that reads: ‘Wake Up Wausau: Time to hire a city administrator.’
Wausau Pilot & Review reached out to the rest of eight City Council members to weigh in on the subject.
“I do not support adding an administrator because, in my opinion, democracy and elections best ensure that the people itself can ‘hire and fire’ their representatives,” Alder Kilian said. Kilian added the city “has had its share of debacles under mayors over the years,” but those are not unique to Wausau.
“It is not so much about the particular roles of leadership, but the individuals who fill those roles,” he said. The Dist. 3 alder also pointed out that people already rejected the proposal in 2015.
Kilian, however, said it the people’s wishes on the matter are most important.
“I am not averse to another similar referendum in the future because ultimately it is the wish and desire of the people that matter most,” he said.
Alder Lou Larson, however, said he is open to exploring the idea. “I am neither for it or against it until all the facts can be gathered,” Larson said. But he added that the city needs a “fresh idea” to solve its problems. As an example, he said the city could only fix three streets a year and “have to borrow the money for that.” The Dist. 10 alder rejected outright any rushed process, like a November referendum, saying the city has been burned by acting hastily too many times in the past.
Concerns over department head accountability
Kimberly L. Nelson, Professor of Public Administration and Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told this newspaper that Wausau does not have to take the referendum route since the Wisconsin statute allows it to explore the idea at the City Council. “It makes sense to have the person report to the mayor since she already has the executive authority.”
Larson, meanwhile, said the idea deserves to be discussed but not by a select few members of Wausau’s Executive Committee, which has standing committee chairs as members. He, too, suggested discussing the matter at a COW meeting.
Though Larson agrees with Diny that city leaders should discuss the issue, he disagrees on the appropriate structure. Larson prefers the position to be independent of the mayor, and not subordinate to one. “Then again, this needs to be looked into and see what has/has not worked in other municipalities,” he said.
Larson said he is willing to explore the idea for several reasons, including his concerns over accountability for department heads, an issue that some other alders and residents have noted. He pointed to Finance Director MaryAnne Groat’s failed attempt to persuade state lawmakers to pass legislation that would relax state rules to form a new Tax Increment District, which council members said they were unaware of. Members of the public were also kept in the dark. Larson also slammed employees speaking to news media stating the city’s drinking water is safe after the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services said otherwise.
Prof. Nelson, who has done extensive research on the subject, said a majority of the cities in the United States have council-city manager system where the mayor is part-time and has less executive power, a structure that the 2015 referendum in Wausau had sought to implement. For cities whose population is between 25,000 and 50,000, about 52% have council-manager system and about 34% have mayor-council format, with the mayor wielding executive authority, she said. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Wausau’s population is around 40,000.
The professor cited her research, co-authored with Prof. Whitney B. Afonso, also from UNC, that shows that while trust in government at all levels is at “an all-time low, actual corruption at the municipal level has been declining.”
“One factor often credited with this decline in corruption is the reform of local government and the introduction of the council-manager form of municipal government in 1908,” the researchers wrote in the paper, ‘Ethics by Design: The Impact of Form of Government on Municipal Corruption’.
However, the authors also note this: “And yet no one has tested whether the use of the council-manager form has been able to influence corruption rates in local governments.” Nelson emphasized that she was not advocating one form of government over another.
Alders Carol Lukens, Michael Martens, Gary Gisselman, Sarah Watson, Dawn Herbst and Chad Henke did not respond to request for comments.
