Wausau City Hall. MWC file photo.
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Ben Nichols was a nut – yet he managed to get himself elected mayor of Ithaca, New York three times.
He was a socialist; not a Democrat, not a Republican, but a socialist. I covered him for the two years that I worked at WHCU radio.
Ithaca is a breathlessly liberal city – think of Madison in upstate New York. Mayor Nichols regularly proposed resolutions to the City Council praising Cuba for its universal health care and high literacy rates. These measures would pass unanimously. The mayor would, occasionally, organize medication drives for Cuba. Mayor Ben was eventually defeated by another candidate who suggested that there were needs in the city that weren’t being addressed – meat and potatoes things like patching potholes.
Earlier this month Wausau Mayor Doug Diny vetoed a non-binding city council resolution calling on Congress not to cut medicaid funding. The mayor says this is a national, not a local issue.
The premise of the resolution is wrong. During the COVID years, eligibility for medicaid was relaxed. The thinking was that if people were sick, we wanted to make it easier for them to see a doctor. People who wouldn’t have otherwise qualified were given health insurance for the poor. Five years later, the COVID crisis has passed. Yet, somehow, restoring the eligibility rules to what they used to be is spun as a “cut”. It isn’t.
One council member quipped back that 23% of Wausau residents get their health care through medicaid. That’s a breathtakingly high number – nearly 1 out of 4 people – who can’t stand on their own two feet and provide their own health insurance. Maybe that should be a starting point for the City Council. What can they do to improve the local economy so fewer people are on the dole? While they’re at it, where’s their plan for lowering our highest-in-the-state water bills? The Mayor proposed a payment in lieu of taxes for the water works. The city council blocked it. Where is the city council’s plan to lower property taxes? Many of us got slammed last year. These are the issues local residents care about. And they’re far more important than echoing democrat party talking points to congress.
Wausau is a city with growing problems. I ask the city council, when will you turn your attention to them?
Chris Conley
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