WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) -- Wausau’s City Council members met behind closed doors to get updated on one of the two internal investigations underway at City Hall. City Council President Romy Wagner could not speak yet about specific details, but explained that the meeting was to inform the council of information that legally could only be disclosed to the Council President and the Mayor until just recently.
The issue is the Highway 52 bird sculpture project in the median near Highway 51, and that it was not properly placed for bids and the contract procedures were incorrect.
Wagner says he knows there are many questions surrounding the controversial sculptures and the events that led to the resignation of Brad Marquardt 13 days ago. He says the documents surrounding the investigation and the legal agreements between the city and Mr. Marquardt will be made public as soon as legally possible. “Anything that can be made public at a certain time period, the records will be released. As I committed when I got the Council Presidency job, that when records can be released, that’s one way to show transparency by releasing them.” He says, "I think we all know that we’re talking about Brad Marquardt’s resignation, and what the terms were that Brad agreed to, and those documents will all be released.”
Former City Human Resources Director Michael Loy and Attorney James Macy from the Davis & Kuelthau law firm in Oshkosh conducted the investigations into both the bird sculpture incident and the harassment allegations made by City Attorney Anne Jacobson against another city employee over the legal opinions for the Thomas Street project.
Wagner says the Jacobson investigation is nearly complete, and the Marquardt resignation ended that investigation. “The investigation was completed and the resignation stopped any and all legal procedures and things, so now it’s just the time frame to release the documents.”
Wagner expects the documents related to the birds project and Mr. Marquardt’s resignation will be released to the public in about 5 to 7 days. He says the most important thing is to fix the procedure, so something like this cannot happen again. “Something in our system broke down, and we’re going to commit to go through and put checks and balances in place to make sure that the right people approve contracts, the right contracts are bid, everything, that the stuff is bid, and when the payments are authorized, that it’s for a contract that was signed, so we have some work to do on cleaning that up.”
The loss of a key city of Wausau employee isn’t hampering the two internal investigations that have been underway for several months.
The City of Wausau is searching for a new Human Resources Director after Michael Loy resigned to take a new opportunity as the Senior Executive of Human Resources for North Central Health Care.
Council President Romey Wagner says the city was able to make short-term arrangements with Marathon County to allow Loy to finish what he started. “It was important that Michael was so involved with these two investigations that we have going, that we decided that he should stay involved instead of slowing the process down, and his boss now at the health care center agreed that we could hire Michael on an hourly basis to complete these investigations.” He says, “Michael (Loy) is on a short term contract to follow these two issues to the end.”
One investigation centered around the Highway 52 bird sculptures, how the project was improperly bid, and how the contracting process was performed.
Wagner says the other investigation is the harassment charge by City Attorney Anne Jacobson against another city employee, and much of that will remain confidential as a personnel issue. “The other investigation brought on by Anne Jacobson’s allegations, that’s going to report back to the Human Resources Committee. That’s an internal investigation that Michael and Mr. (Attorney James) Macy were investigating, and that’s getting wrapped up. It’s going to be brought back to the HR Committee.”
President Wagner expects the information on the harassment allegations to be presented to committee by mid July, once the investigation is wrapped up.