Business
La Crosse’s City Council again postpones City Administrator decision
The idea was proposed over a year ago by former Mayor Mitch Reynolds, and the council voted last October to delay a vote until this month so there could be more study and public comment. On Thursday, by an 11-2 vote, the council postponed action again until early 2026.
Mackenzie Mindel of the council supported the idea of referral, while still saying she was ready to vote now on the proposal. “February (of 2026) just sounds agonizingly far away,” Mindel told the council, “but I see many of my council members are not ready. I am not willing to have this fail.”
City staffers say that if the administrator job is created, it would still take at least six months to hire a person for the position.
Jennifer Trost was among the council members who feels prepared to vote on the idea now. “But, I also would like us to approve this unanimously,” said Trost, “and I don’t believe that will happen tonight, but I do believe it will happen later.”
The city has held few public discussions of the administrator concept. However, some members of the council who were elected in April believe they have already heard plenty of comments from voters about the proposal.
Sam
May 9, 2025 at 9:35 am
The idea of an administrator was voted down by referendum some years ago. It’s going to raise taxes. Administrators are harder to remove than a mayor. We might not like how they govern.
walden
May 9, 2025 at 7:52 pm
My guess is the vote has been deferred only because the Council doesn’t want to be viewed as having pulled the rug out from under our first black mayor so soon after his election. Gotta give it some time.
I like the statement that “some members of the Council elected in April believe they have already heard plenty of comments from voters.” These dim-wits are on the job for 60 days and are already experts. Good grief. Good luck La Crosse.
Libertarian Guy
May 10, 2025 at 5:45 pm
I beg to differ Walden. These dim wits have been on the job 3 weeks, not 60 days. They were not sworn in until 4/15/25 and this was their 1st council meeting. The biggest dim wits were Northwood and Weston who think knocking on “100s” (an over statement) of doors was a representative, random sample for the entire city. They both acted as if the topic came up at every door and that all households were in favor of it with no dissent. They clearly joined the council with their own opinions and are not interested in representing their respective district residents. I say this because neither of them made mention of anyone being against or unsure about the city administrator position. It is very disconcerting the other members of the council nodded or stated they are already in agreement with creating the position prior to it being presented to the public and without benefit of a referendum. By the way council members, knocking on doors to win votes is not a proper way to assess the the mood of the residents on a single issue, especially when the resident did not know the candidate was assessing opinion on this 1 topic when they were unprepared for the question and that it was going to determine how the candidate was going to vote if elected to the council.
The city administrator position is estimated to cost between $248,000.00-$257,000.00 in salary and benefits. There are additional costs not yet determined for support staff, office space, cost of creating or remodeling existing space to move offices, buy technology/computers, etc. The idea of an administrator was proposed to “save money”. Yeah right, the old spend money to save money appeal we have heard time and again at all levels of government. Just prior to the administrator discussion, the council unanimously approved large and sometimes unnecessary spending projects. Its not that hard vote NO to spending, but none of them offered that. I guess they need a city administrator to say No for them.
Libertarian Guy
May 11, 2025 at 2:49 pm
I have to add: The council has not identified how approval of a city administrator will impact the mayor’s position or whether cost will be partially offset by a reduction of pay for the mayor. There has been no referendum for the people to weigh in on the matter. We have not heard the results of the study group, and none of them are mentioning considerations like: What if the position is not effective at “saving money” as hyped? Why can’t we as an elected body stop ourselves from wasting money on non essential services? Why do we not pay down or pay off debt to save money? Why is the La Crosse Center losing money even though we blew $41 million and took the city into even greater debt with an expansion and re-model that did not become profitable as promised? Why is it necessary to pay an administrator 25% more than the highest paid city employee instead of basing salary on criteria that make sense? Nope, none of them are asking these questions. They just want to approve it because it feels good to them and some of them are clearly feeling impatient and ready to go full steam ahead.
walden
May 10, 2025 at 9:55 pm
Libertarian Guy, I think you have it figured out.
I would add I see it as no coincidence that some of the Council members are ready to vote for the Administrator position only a week or so after WIZM ran an editorial that no further discussion on the matter is necessary. Methinks there is some coordination going on between council members eager to separate the voters from accountability for city leadership and WIZM.
Lets also not foreget that councilman Padesky stated during his WIZM interview before his re-election to the Council that whoever the administrator is, that person will NOT have a contract. Stay tuned.