WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — There was no action taken Monday night on a pair of pending resolutions to reprimand Wausau mayor Jim Tipple.
Alderman Keene Winters pushed both of those resolutions through the city’s coordinating committee last week to come before the Committee of the Whole. The first measure would force the mayor to undo a June 2013 directive to require committees and council members to route extensive requests for information from department heads through his office. The second would be a direct reprimand against the mayor for issuing false and misleading information about the city’s 2014 pay raise plan.
The committee went into closed session to discuss both specific pay raises of employees and to discuss possible litigations against the city in regards to those requests for reprimands.
No formal action was taken after the committees came out of session, but Keene Winters did talk to reporters. He says that city attorney Anne Jacobson informed the council she could not participate in any action between itself and Mayor Tipple. “We took a look at maybe hiring an outside attorney, but I think we’re leaning more towards bringing in a process consultant to help us really talk about this information movement process in our organization before we start asking somebody if there are violations of statute or not.”
Winters says no action was taken because this was a discussion on litigation about his motions for a reprimand. “That really wasn’t agendized for tonight, so until we bring in a consultant and talk about the process and we arrive at a process, maybe we won’t have a reprimand for withholding information.”
City council president Romey Wagner says he thinks the mayor had nothing to do with the pay raises in the first place, since that implementation was squarely in the lap of the city’s human resources department. “I don’t believe the mayor did anything wrong in implementing this. I don’t think he pushed it forward, I don’t think he had any control in who got the pay raises.” Wagner also refused to comment on the discussions that took place in closed session.
A packet provided for the meeting documents some heated memo exchanges between Winters and Tipple, with the two arguing about the scope of the finance committee, the matter of communications between committees and staff, as well as Winter’s claim that Tipple lied to him and the council in regards to the pay raises.
Tipple was not available for comment after Monday night’s meeting.
