COVER FEATURE

The News in Review

It’s our annual tradition: Taking stock of the most signi cant news of 2021

We used to take the week between Christmas and

New Year’s, since the week is typically slow for news and New Year’s, since the week is typically slow for news and events. It allowed us to bring you a big double holiday issue. But now we’re doing things a little diff erently.

So, instead, we make this intermediary issue a chance to refl ect on the year as it nears its end, and take a “30,000-foot view” of the news as it played out last year.

Here are the top stories we covered in 2021. Many of these are ongoing and might make next year’s list too. So enjoy this look back on the year, some with a few updates.

▲ Andy Grimm, school counselor, and Sarah Gardner, school psychologist, are two of Wausau School District’s pupil services team. A referendum in April expanded their numbers, which they said were badly needed to address mental health concerns in schools.

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The kids are not alright

Yes, it’s a play on a song called “Th e Kids Are Alright” by Th e Who. It was the title of a cover story City Pages ran last year, about the need for more mental health professionals in the community. We looked at the data, from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Children and adolescents each survey (they’re conducted every two years) reported increasing instances of suicidal thoughts, feeling unsafe, depression and just about everything else associated with poor mental health you can imagine.

So much so, that the Wausau School District last year in a referendum sought and obtained permission to spend $4 million annually to hire more mental health staff — counselors, social workers, psychologists — to address those growing needs of students.

One example, from School Counselor Andy Grimm: their G Suite (Gmail, Google docs, etc) has a feature that fl ags words like cut, kill, etc. In a fi ve-month period in 2019, there were 108 words fl agged. In 2020, that same period yielded 143 such fl ags.

Th at’s all before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Th e last Youth Risk Behavior Survey was 2019 — 2021’s was delayed because of COVID, but surveys went out and wrapped up Dec. 10. Th ey should be released soon. Who knows what it will say; but it would be a shock if the mental health situation amongst kids hadn’t gotten worse, even if it’s a shock we’d all hope for.

Wausau School Board elections/ referendum/COVID

It’s hard to wrap up this thread in a way that mostly encompasses 2021, because the start of this whole story went back to the start of the pandemic. Th ings kicked off when the Wausau School District didn’t open up as fast as some parents would have liked in fall 2020, which led to protests and to new, more conservative candidates running for school board.

Going on at the same time, seemingly unrelated but connected in the minds of many voters, was a referendum that would have closed Grant Elementary and merged Lincoln and Grant under a brand new school. And that was after the district very quickly abandoned a plan that closed and merged a number of schools.

Some didn’t like the idea of closing Grant — some thought renovations were a bad idea during a pandemic (interestingly an idea that seemed shared by left and right voters) — and a few folks seemed to still think the original proposal of major closings and mergings was still on the ballot in April. Th e district passed annual borrowing to pay for more mental health staff , but making major improvements failed in 2021, though by a much tighter margin than the fall 2020 referendum.

Voters in April will face yet another referendum, this time with no mergers or closings. Th e district will be asking for $182 million to fi x and update its facilities, improve security, improve the fi ne arts and sports facilities. It’s everything from ineffi cient windows and lights, to fancy synthetic sports fi elds. Th at came after surveys, input sessions, and plenty of feedback. District leaders are hopeful it will pass.

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Going on at the same time, seemingly unrelated but connected in the minds of many voters, was a referendum

A Community for All

When the county board took up a resolution to recognize Pride Month, this reporter admittedly didn’t see the resulting chaos coming. It’s a lesson I wouldn’t forget.

A Community for All repeated that drama with a 10x multiplier, including a New York Times story that ticked off people who lean left and right for its portrayal of the area. (Read the comments if you can stomach the cringe.)

For those who somehow missed it, a resolution inspired during the George Floyd incident from the county’s Diversity Aff airs Commission called No Room for Hate emerged, and was rejected by the county board. Th e board also rejected the new version of A Community for All.

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▲ Crowds filled two rooms in the Marathon County Courthouse earlier in the year as the county’s Executive Committtee took up the latest version of the A Community for All resolution. ▲ The main entrance to the Wausau Center Mall right after it was torn down.

Then a group from Diversity Affairs met with some more conservative members of the board and community and came up with a compromise resolution — only to have that rejected by the Diversity Affairs Committee. It gets complicated from there, but the long and short of it is that yet another version was rejected by the time it got to the board, this time by a pretty narrow margin.

The mall redevelopment: I found it super interesting that in our annual Best of Wausau reader survey, just about as many of you said it was the best development and the worst. Yep, this year we saw the Wausau Center mall come down. And the general sentiment was that it was probably about time, but also, many of us had fond memories of the place and so seeing it go down was bittersweet.

It wouldn’t be Wausau development if there weren’t controversy, of course. Wausau gave $1 million toward the $3 million purchase price, and many felt that too much was being decided about the mall’s development behind closed doors. And the revelation that WOZ talked a developer into holding off on the Riverlife project to work on the first mall development project didn’t sit well with some council members. Developer Terrence Wall, of T. Wall Enterprise, came up to tell city leaders that in fact the two projects would develop at the same time, but Riverlife would just take longer because of the more challenging nature of the project. (But also, he hinted at some drawn-out city development processes going on behind the scenes — negotiations over not only the development agreement but a site agreement so T. Wall could run some tests that were never resolved.)

Even something as simple as a pedestrian bridge drew controversy when it was learned that a grant sought for the bridge would draw from COVID relief funds. That didn’t sit well with some city leaders, though it did fit the criteria for projects that were eligible (they also had to be pretty much “shovel ready” to be approved).

A Tale of Two Resignations

Former Library Director Ralph Illick’s resignation came as a surprise to almost no one. Illick resigned before a meeting held in the county courthouse to discuss a report investigating a toxic work culture Illick presided over. The report was damning to Illick and his business manager; but it was also damning to the person who first blew the whistle. It turns out he was also harassing female employees, and during the investigation, those employees called him out.

Unbeknownst to most but City Pages that day, another area leader faced the possibility of resigning amidst scandal. Former North Central Health Care CEO Michael Loy, we later learned, had been caught in a political quagmire over compensation packages at NCHC. It’s murky. This reporter has discussed the story since with plenty with inside knowledge, and the more this reporter learns, the more complicated the situation seems.

Loy landed on his feet at a private firm, and both organizations are moving on. The library’s board after two tries finally hired the obvious choice, Leah Giordano, as its new director and the waters appear to be smooth. And NCHC CEO Jill Meschke is calmly leading NCHC, though there will be challenges ahead as it appears the organization is in financial trouble again.

Looking ahead

This year was different than 2020 in that while COVID dominated nearly every story in 2021, it only played a background role in some of the major stories. It will probaby continue to do so for some time.

But many of the above stories, such as the mall’s redevelopment and the school district’s referendum plans, will continue to play out into 2022. City Pages will be there to cover it.