By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review
A Mayoral Town Hall held Tuesday in Wausau allowed residents to hear directly from both candidates for the city’s top spot, less than one month prior to the spring election.
The Greater Wausau Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Wisconsin Institute of Public Policy and Service hosted the event. Click here to jump directly to the video.
Each candidate was questioned separately on stage on a range of issues, with questions from the audience and moderator.
Diny speaks first
Alder Doug Diny, who is challenging Mayor Katie Rosenberg for the seat, said the mission at City Hall is not complex.
“We’re looking to provide core services in the most effective and efficient manner while providing sound financial practices,” he said.
Diny said he wants to put Wausau “back on the map” through strategy and vision. He pointed to the city’s strategic plan, which was completed two years ago – but has not been acted upon.
“From strategy come tactics,” he said. “What we’re missing right now… the gap that I see is conflicts playing out publicly between directors, confusion on who’s doing what… The mayor needs to be a leader but also a referee who fairly and objectively resolves conflict… on behalf of the city.”
He also had strong words for some of the city’s failures, including the loss of some housing developments and the departure of Footlocker from Wausau’s business community. Despite promises over the past four years, he said, we have seen little movement.
“It’s a real scandal that Footlocker got away from us, left town without a fight,” Diny said. “The mayor was formerly employed there. One would have think she would have been in the best position to fight for Wausau, to go to bat for Wausau.”
He also criticized the city’s willingness to select project partners based on no bids or a single bid, specifically pointing to Wausau’s selection of partner for the lead line replacement project.
One member of the audience spoke to the need to retain the city’s workforce and said some young professionals are looking at leaving Wausau because there is a sense that the city is not open and welcoming to all.
“I work with some doctors from the medical college and the first thing they say is that we can’t wait to get out of here,” the audience member said.”
Diny’s responded by suggesting that companies, not governments, are better poised to make change in this area since businesses define their culture.
LaTanya Campbell, a licensed professional counselor in Wausau, asked Diny how he would reach out to the public to better understand what the community wants. Diny responded by criticizing the City Council’s frequent practice of violating its own “six-day” rule. Packets for a Tuesday meeting often are not published until late in the day Friday, he said, which especially problematic when it comes to ensuring the public has enough information to participate in meetings or offer feedback to their alders. He also called for more listening sessions, especially with respect to key issues, to allow for more public input.
He also pointed to the city’s long backlog of open records requests as problematic. Such requests by the public and media can take weeks or even months to fulfill. Diny pledged to track all open records requests and find out why information is not being provided in a timely manner.
“You deserve to know in a timely fashion and that’s just one piece of it,” he said.
Another member of the audience talked about Wausau’s high water and tax bills and asked Diny what he would do to address those issues.
“I don’t want see taxes continue to be bumped up to the levy limit every year,” he said. “Can we flatten them? Can we lower them?”
He went on to say that his administration would flatten taxes by coming in with a budget that is under the levy limit each year. Growth, he said, is another contributing factor.
Rosenberg’s turn
Rosenberg said during her tenure the top issues she’s been talking with residents about are the city’s water, housing issues and what she called “welcoming,” or making sure that people feel as though they belong here. She challenged the people she grew up with to return to Wausau and be a part of the community.
They mayor noted that she was elected at the start of the pandemic, when the city was largely shut down. That presented Wausau with opportunities to participate in listening sessions to hear about the community’s priorities and accept federal funding to help bounce back, Rosenberg said.
She defended the work done on the former Wausau Center mall redevelopment project and said the amendment she negotiated saved the city more than $2 million as the plan moved forward. Rosenberg also pointed to recent news that Kolbe & Kolbe is planning a significant housing project to help their employees and others secure affordable living arrangements in the city. Wausau’s only participation in the project was to approve a zoning change.
She said it’s important to attract large employers, but that starts with attracting employees for those businesses.
“We need to work on that demographic shift,” she said. “Making sure that people want to be here, but also that we treat each other both personally and also systemically the right way so that we’re able to have those good interactions with each other.”
Regarding public-private partnerships, she gave the lead service line replacement example as one that shows the willingness of the city to work with businesses to benefit the entire region.
“We need that public part to be the public,” she said. “The people who are engaged in this room.” She said the city is working with partners like the Medical College of Wisconsin to learn how to make Wausau lead-free and a healthier community.
The mall redevelopment, she said, has had challenges but she said she feels confident that soon people will be both working and living downtown.
Rosenberg said the city is also talking to educational partners about potential apprenticeship programs to help fill open positions in a range of areas, such as firefighters and other open jobs.
Acknowledging recent battles regarding to zoning changes – particularly an ask by the Woodson YMCA to rezone a former church property to make way for parking and said she has had continuing conversations to resolve the impasse. The city’s zoning code doesn’t allow for that use and some community members were strongly opposed to razing the church. That prompted her to meet with the YMCA and The Landing, as well as funders involved, to come up with potential solutions.
“I think we’re going to end up in a good spot where they get what they need,” she said, adding that this discussion is but one example of the difficulties of bureaucratic processes.
When asked about transparency in budgeting, she said the city has had 60 finance committee meetings in the past two years alone and additional budget planning meetings for people to attend.
“I think there is a lot of offering we do in the budgeting process,” she said, while adding that residents are encouraged to reach out to her office with their concerns.
“If there are questions about transparency, we have definitely a lot of processes for opening up for folks,” she said.
One audience member asked Rosenberg to state why she was better able to grow the city, given her background.
Rosenberg responded by saying that Wausau needs people, but also needs more housing. At that point, she said, Wausau could bring in more business. When businesses are interested in locating here, they see 10,000 jobs that are open and unfilled in the county, which can be a difficult statistic to overcome. She also mentioned the importance of improving transit and said the new transit director, who started this week, could be instrumental in bringing more transit to outlying areas and workplaces.
Another audience member asked point blank whether Wausau is preparing to become a sanctuary city, a municipality that limits or denies its cooperation with the national government in enforcing immigration law. That rumor has been circulating on some social media sites in recent weeks.
Rosenberg said such cities are not permitted in Wisconsin.
“It’s not something we are looking into,” she said. “Preventing it is not something we need to do because we can’t even do it.”
Regarding her personal strengths, Rosenberg said she is not interested in her ego being the center of attention. She said she wants policymakers to make policy and wants people to speak to their representatives about their wants and needs. She also said she isn’t afraid to grab a “megaphone” and reach out for help when challenges arise.
“I don’t know everything and nobody can but we’re surrounded by great people,” she said.
The spring election is April 2.
