Editor’s note: Wausau Pilot & Review gladly publishes commentary from readers, residents and candidates for local offices. The views of readers and columnists are independent of this newspaper and do not necessarily reflect the views of Wausau Pilot & Review. To submit, email [email protected] or mail to 500 N. Third St., Suite 208-8, Wausau, Wis. 54403.

Dear editor and people of Wausau, 

I do not live in Wausau and have a dairy farm in eastern Marathon county. Normally I would care less about who your Mayor is but recent events have spurred me to write this opinion. I have many friends that live in Wausau and patronize many businesses in the city as well. Your Mayoral race is supposed to be nonpartisan but after seeing those atrocious adds produced and paid for by the DNC to help your present Mayor get re-elected while smearing Doug Diny in the process is down right despicable! 

To be fair, I know Doug personally and the claim that he is somehow a career politician is downright false. I, and others, had to prod the heck out of him to run for this position as he is a very soft spoken, mild mannered, and private individual. For him to do this is completely outside of his comfort zone and should be commended at the highest level. Also, he is just one of many in the city, so what is he supposed to personally get done when it takes a majority to pass anything? He has personally spent countless hours knocking doors and thousands of his own dollars to promote his campaign. He has held fundraisers, with the help of others, to raise other dollars as well. To my knowledge most of that money has come from private individuals with most of that from people that live in Wausau. 

That is in stark contrast to Katie who was only able to raise a small amount so, I am sure of this, she reached out to her friend Governor Evers and the DNC for help and they did, to the tune of $200,000! Now people of Wausau, if she were to get re-elected, who do you suppose she is going to listen to when it comes to running your city? You, or the outside people that funded her campaign? I am guessing the latter. The city debt has ballooned to $236 MILLION , she is pushing for your tax dollars to spend $80 MILLION on lead line replacement with the money going to a firm from the east coast to do and is trying to scare you to death with this PFAS stuff that was never a problem until some bureaucrats at the DNR in Madison that all of a sudden decided to lower the acceptable standards with NO scientific data to back it up and is causing your water rates to skyrocket with them projected to go even higher! 

Katie has done all of you no favors and will continue to take her cues from those outside of Wausau as she will owe them. Whereas Doug owes no one and will put Wausau first! Vote for Doug on Tuesday, and take your city back! 

James Juedes, Ringle