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UPDATE: Council reacts to Tipple's shakeup plan

Alison Dirr

WAUSAU Mayor Jim Tipple's Wednesday announcement that he wants to hire consultants to analyze the roles and responsibilities of the legislative and executive branches of Wausau government drew mixed reactions from City Council members.

Some said they understood Tipple's motives and methods while others, such as frequent Tipple critic Keene Winters, voiced frustration and even anger at the mayor's plan.

"With the mayor's press conference, there is now universal recognition that Wausau has a problem," Winters wrote in an email to Daily Herald Media. "This is not the time for brainstorming or facilitators to lead us through long, drawn-out processes."

Winters said in the email the city needs a "workable solution now."

But other council members, including City Council President Romey Wagner, supported Tipple's proposal.

"I personally think it's about time that this kind of action, these action steps, came out to look into the future of the city," Wagner told reporters after the news conference. "We're spending too much time both at City Council and out in public looking back at things that are done wrong and trying to get to the bottom of why things are done wrong or why they're not understood."

Tipple called Wednesday for the city to review whether it needs to change the role of the executive branch and for studies of City Hall functions and City Council roles.

"All too often, councils drift from their policy-making duties," Tipple said, adding that he thought some in the legislative branch "believe they have executive branch authority."

The news conference came on the heels of a Tuesday Finance Committee meeting in which City Council members voted on whether to eliminate funding for the public works director position left open after the embattled director — a Tipple appointee — resigned last month as council members were preparing to fire him.

Tipple pointed to the Finance Committee meeting as an example of council members overstepping. By bringing up funding for that position, council members were meddling in issues that are under the mayor's authority, Tipple said. He recommended that when council members disagree with executive actions that they go through the "proper channels."

"I think when policymakers dabble into operational issues, they either don't know that that's not appropriate or they are purposely doing that. ... People need to know where their lanes are," he said.

Lisa Rasmussen, who previously served as City Council president, said she thought the mayor was on the "right path" with his proposals. Member Robert Mielke said that in his opinion, the city hires too many consultants but that he was open to exploring the mayor's suggestions.

Wagner agreed that council members need clarity on what their role in government is and where lines are drawn.

Mielke, though, said he did not think the council had overstepped.

Tipple also recommended that Wausau establish an outside advisory committee of five to seven community members, in addition to Tipple and Wagner, led by a hired consultant, to study three different forms of city government: a full-time administrator with a part-time mayor, a city administrator with no mayor, and the current structure of a full-time "strong mayor" with no unelected administrator.

He said people have been talking since he took office about whether the city needed to evolve into a form of government in which a professional administrator rather than an elected mayor leads day-to-day government functions and it was among the things "community partners" told him they thought were important. He declined to name any of the people he consulted before making the recommendations in his "government action plan" Wednesday but described them as friends, successful business owners and community leaders.

Alison Dirr can be reached at 715-845-0658. Follow her on Twitter as @AlisonDirr.