by Dino Corvino on February 16th, 2010
District 1
Romey Wagner 46 Votes
Greg Foye 44 Votes
Jay J. Carlson 33 Votes
District 3
Jonathon Havel 33 Votes
Craig Gardner 26 Votes
Chuck Szalewski 36 Votes
Matthew Sann 18 Votes
District 10
David E. Nutting 64 Votes
Chuck Gering 27 Votes
Dan McMullen 31 Votes
District 11
Tom Wohlfahrt 26 votes
Debra Weiss 7 votes
Sherry L. Abitz 64 votes
DC Everest School Board
Rita A.Kasten 19 votes
Valerie A.Palarski 10 votes
Helen Ackermann 19 votes
Andrew E. Sutton 11 votes
Thomas N.Rosenberg 12 votes
Jim Foss 16 votes
Joshua Dickerson 13 votes
by Dino Corvino on September 29th, 2009
With one post on the WDH forum, it appears that Carl “gets more done by accident than you do on purpose, jack” Kluz is returning to behind the scenes work in local politics. His forum post clearly signaled a desire to work on council elections again.
This appears in an article about 400 Block Fundraising…
“Only 201 days until the next city council elections on April 6, 2010.
Anyone wanting to run for local office as a taxpayer advocate may contact me at carl.kluz@careerstep1.com and you will have all the help you need.”
I have met Carl one time, and we talked for hours. I learned a lot, there is no other way to say that. I learned a lot from my lunch with Carl. Carl is information packed, like a good soy stir fry is packed with dense nutrition. He gave me a lot of information, a lot of his perspective, and I was left swimming after he was done.
For those of you who do not know, Carl has been a part of the last few mayoral elections. He worked hand in hand with Linda Lawrence during her run, then he switched teams and helped current Mayor Jim Tipple get elected.
Carl was also allegedly responsible for a post on the WDH forum that led to increased security at City Council meetings.
Carl has told me, and others have confirmed, that he was very pivotal in getting both Mayors Tipple and Lawrence elected. His hard work and tireless support of the electoral process is what makes Carl one of the go to people for certain candidate types, and he responds by being very selective of the people he works for.
Rumors have it that both print newspapers have tried to contact Kluz to seek out what his plans are, and these same rumors have Kluz rebuffing all requests for interviews.
It appears that Kluz has come out of “retirement” and is getting back in the game of Wausau Council politics. I am not sure if this is a good thing either for Carl or for the council, but it appears he is back.
by Dino Corvino on May 26th, 2009
Yesterday I received a copy of a letter apparently sent to all of Wausau’s City Council members. It is attached, and I encourage each of you to download it, and the envelope it came in. It is my contention that this is about as divisive and deliberately intimidating a piece of mail one can get if elected.
The envelope has a return address that would indicate to some that this item came from the local VFW post. But, in a Monday morning phone conversation with local VFW Quartermaster Bernie Guaerke, he said that they did not send the letter. He was upset to be implicated in this, and said that when the VFW sends something they do it on their own letterhead and they sign their name.
One of the ideas espoused by Citizen Wausau is civility. It is an idea that appears all over the place, in many of our materials. This letter sent to each of our elected council members is depressingly uncivil. I wrote a post about a lack of civility at a CISM Committee meeting, and it was met with a few less than civil comments.
Now, the world has this letter. Sent anonymously (read chicken) from an address that was not theirs with the intent of intimidating the board into some action, and creating some further wedge for 2012. This is sad, and someone should be ashamed of themselves.
I spoke to one of my mentors today, and he reminded me that if one wants to take part in the council process, you simply sign up to speak, and you stand in front of the council and speak. He said you do not stand in the shadows, and send out anonymous letters from addresses that are not your own in the hopes of getting council members to vote out of fear rather than vision. I may not dig everything all of the council people do all the time, but I do like the idea of having a vision and acting on that rather than voting out of fear of being targeted for attacks like this.
I wrote a post a while back about the concept of WORTHY-ness. What we as citizens of Wausau are worthy of. Well, we are worthy of far more than this. I am saddened by the bullying tactics that seem to go on, and none of that comes from the council. I am worthy of more than that from our council, and the people who seek to move and shake behind the scenes. Our city is worthy of more than that.
I think that there is a cancer in the council, and that cancer is causing these voting blocks, causing this lack of transparency, causing this thought of conspiracy (and I am more than a little upset Rob gets to be in the conspiracy and I do not, as I like to join new groups, and I need friends). Whispering in peoples’ ears, telling them how to vote on this or that issue. Creating wedges about things like this statue, that some guy wants to raise the money for himself and donate to the city. Council people live in fear of being targeted like others in the past have been, and as such they get bullied into bad positions. It is bad politics.
We need men and women who have the strength of conviction to stand up to this sort of bad wedge garbage. Seeking to be divided by forces outside and with their own interest is a mistake. It is my understanding that all but two members of the council showed up to the goal setting meeting, and one was a long-time planned absence. So, other member, where were you?
But, back to this letter. It is my contention that this letter is intended to do one thing, to make it seem like the VFW is against the statue, to use the voting power of the VFW to intimidate councilmembers into voting against a free statue. I think that this is a wrongly directed impulse given the fact that the VFW did not send this letter, and when asked about the statue, they had no opinion.
To use this sort of deception to bully the members of council into not voting to support an item being DONATED to the city, well that seems bad. If you have an opinion, you should come to the council meeting tonight and state it, not send something inflammatory and anonymous to the members of the council.
Members of the council get enough input; they do not need anonymous intimidation. It leads to fear, and that fear leads to bad leadership. I hope the council can see beyond this, and vote for whatever they want to do. I also hope that council members will make a comment about the letter, so it can be discussed as the bad thing that it is. If you shine lights on cockroaches, they run away.
Letter
Envelope (Note the Return Address)
Sculpture
by Dino Corvino on April 10th, 2009
Once again Mayor Jim Tipple has sought to stop the transmission of open records that are legally supposed to be available for review. This is officially an “again,” as he did this not too long ago and apologized for his own mistake.
Now it has become a trend of a mayor refusing to give the media access to information that they are legally allowed to have. ONCE AGAIN. Let us understand this, he is literally doing the same thing, again. AGAIN. A SECOND TIME. RETURNING TO THE BEHAVIOR THAT WAS WRONG BEFORE. Again.
According to a piece in the Wausau Daily Herald by DJ Slater today, a request was made of the mayor, officially and through proper channels, of the mayor regarding the new Development Director candidates, and the mayor refused the request for public information. In the article experts are cited, the legal matters are discussed, and the mayor and his track record are mentioned.
The question is this then: Is this intentional stonewalling on the part of Mayor Tipple at this point? I think we all gave him the credit for the first mistake, which he apologized for, but this second time appears to be a trend. Is this mayor defying the media and the people for some other reason? What justification can there be for not giving the people something they are legally allowed to have?
I want to point out that one of the core values of this City Council is transparency. Where is your transparency, Mayor Tipple? Where are you? This is a legal request, made by a paper of record in this community. To refuse them is to show your disregard for the people and the legal obligations of your position as an elected official.
Being a mayor is not running a department or running a private company. The position of mayor is held to a different set of rules. A mayor must abide by them. To defy them is to defy the people and to demean the office.
When will someone stand up on the City Council and do the right and legal thing?
by John H. Fischer on February 9th, 2009
Dino and I appear to be on some kind of odd similar wavelength. Such similarity is not unusual for life long friends, but we only really casually know each other and although there is mutual respect, we really have nothing in common. Nothing except our thoughts on what we wanted to write about this week.
We weren’t in perfect sync: the 400 block was not my chosen topic. Instead, I wanted to give an outsider’s thoughts on the discussion as to the work needed on Third Street downtown.
Most of you would not consider me an outsider. However, I do not own or manage property in that area that most define as downtown. I also do not spend much of my time there. The closest I come to spending quality time downtown is the occasional weekend brunch at The Mint, catching a show at the Grand, or spending way too much time at the Courthouse (they seriously need to give me an office there). However downtown matters to me. It is a piece of the pie that is the Greater Wausau Metro Area. And all of those pieces need to work together and need to succeed together. So if one piece of this pie is missing or is in need of attention, it has a pull not only on the entire city, but the entire Metro. (For me, the City of Wausau is not the whole, it is only a part of the whole.)
In a nutshell, here is the current debate. The City has determined that Third Street from Jefferson to Grant needs work. The businesses along that three block stretch of street fear that closing that street for construction will negatively impact their ability to be profitable. Hence the discussion.
The businesses of downtown have already faced difficulty. My wife, the infamous “Mrs. Rent” who works downtown, jokes with her family back in Oklahoma that when they come to visit, it is okay if they don’t learn the streets of downtown because there are always one or two important ones closed for something, and every few months, the streets that are closed change places. Those from here just find a way. But for those new to the Wausau area or not used to urbanized downtowns, it can be a quite frustrating experience. Many of these businesses have had to do the best they could dealing with the construction when the pedestrian mall was re-opened to traffic, and most recently, when the construction of the Palladian made downtown navigation challenging for many. Many of these are niche businesses that will be the first to suffer from an economic downturn. They have somehow survived a couple of years of construction, and now when they can least afford it, one more season of closed streets in front of their storefronts is on the schedule.
On the Wausau Daily Herald forum boards and article comments, people have questioned if the work is needed at all. They have questioned why the sidewalks and planters are included in the project. (This ties with Dino’s 400 block article because the south block of this project is one stretch of the 400 block, and the “final design” for that block could impact that part of this street construction project.) Someone commented about Third Street being so bad that you can use it to knock the frozen slush blocks off your car.
Being someone who doesn’t find myself downtown often, I didn’t remember what the problems with the sidewalks were, or what the planters even looked like. I drive a truck with a pretty stiff suspension. I get thrown around on 17th Avenue, but never Third Street. So, I took a walk downtown on Friday and took some pictures.
Third Street is in bad shape. Some of the worst areas are near intersections where manhole covers and storm water drains are. The sidewalks are in excellent shape, much better, in fact, than some of sidewalks I plow where if I am not paying attention, the blade on the tractor will hit the uneven surface and nearly throw me off. The planters are snow covered but are out of place with the great sidewalks. They are basically wood, made with 6×6 landscaping lumber, and are the things you would find used around a country home, not a city’s downtown with mostly stone construction.
While taking my walk, I stopped in the Main Street office and had a very brief discussion with Leah. I learned that the question isn’t if Third Street needs to be done, just does it have to be done in 2009, or can it be delayed one year, to 2010?
My thoughts: Yes it can. Although the street is in bad shape, for one more year, temporary patches can hold things together. Let us not forget the speeds that are driven on this street. The speed limit is 25, but I seldom do much more than 15, constantly stopping as people are pulling into and out of parking stalls. (As a matter of fact, a 15 mph speed limit on Third may not be a bad idea.) The sidewalks are just fine. No matter which year the street project is done, the sidewalks don’t need to be a part of it. However the planters have to go. With cosmetic fixes, they could make it one more year, but they do really look like crap.
Now as far as the improvements to the 400 Block, that is a whole other discussion, one that is far from being resolved. Maybe delaying the Third Street project one year will allow us to finally reach a consensus that, if we can’t all be happy with, we at least all can live with.
by Dino Corvino on September 29th, 2008
Ideas for a Green Wausau, for a sustainable future, sometimes seem far-fetched or too costly, but I assert that this doesn’t have to be true. By taking some first steps to sustainability, we can achieve a more environmentally healthy city and hopefully, less of a dependence on foreign oil. With a media focus on T. Boone Pickens’ plan, we can take this moment to talk about the first steps that Wausau can take, should take, since we are a community packed full of conscientious, brilliant people with determination and grit. (more…)
by Dino Corvino on August 14th, 2008
Today the State has dismissed the claims made by Wendy Jasurda against the City of Wausau. This claim has been the central issue that swirled around city hall for the better part of a year, and might or might not have led to the resignations of Mike Morrissey, Kristen Fish, and the retirement of City Attorney William Nagle.
All of those people were directly involved in the case, and while there is no clear causal connection, in a case like this there is always some damage from flying shrapnel.
You can see in the State Document, regarding the dismissal, where the State has concluded that there is no probable cause.
Jasurda Dismissal
by Dino Corvino on June 11th, 2008
The wait for the official Immel report is now over as Citizen Wausau has recently received a copy of the document. In case some of you forgot, Mike Morrissey retired, and Kristen Fish resigned from the Community Development Authority office in the past few months. Allegations were made by Wendy Jasurda, a former employee. An investigation happened and then was suddenly back page news.
This document is the report that Mr. Immel compiled and sent to the city. It is a fascinating document in many regards, and we hope you read it thoroughly. It sheds light on the relationship or non relationship alleged, or had, or maybe had or did not have, or might have had. It never speaks to the claimant, Jasurda, even though she has representation, and as such could have been interviewed. It also does not explain why the City Council was left out of the hiring of such an important consultant, in such a potentially explosive HR matter.
It further leaves out the accountability and follow through on any of these findings, though it is fair to say that this information might not have been new to anyone.
Further more, I find it significant that Mr. Immel has taken the time to explain the process in which he was brought on board as a consultant for the City of Wausau in regards to this matter. I have read several findings presented to governing bodies, and few read like this, in this manner. Instead I question whether or not this was writing with the express mandate to put it in the hands of the public and handle all of the questions brought forth by blogs and the Wausau Daily Herald Forum over the past few months.
It is my understanding that this document is not a finding of fact or a matter of official record as presented to the City Council. It seems to be a report from an internal investigation.
Immel
