Stating their case

Village Board hopefuls use candidates forum to spar over dispatch decision, transparency in government
By 
JOE POIRIER
Ozaukee Press Staff

Candidates vying for three trustee seats on the Grafton Village Board stated their cases Tuesday night at the Rose-Harms American Legion Hall in a forum moderated by the Ozaukee County League of Women Voters.

Newcomers John Meinecke and AnneMarie Wenten are challenging incumbents Tom Krueger, John Gassert and Dave Antoine in the April 2 election. 

Village President Jim Brunnquell is running unopposed.

During the forum, candidates discussed a number of issues related to Grafton’s future growth, but the hot topics involved the transition of dispatching services, adding more full-time staff to the fire department and the village’s transparency with open records.

Gassert, Krueger and Antoine said they support the controversial decision to consolidate all emergency-dispatching services to the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office in December. The transfer occurred because the village didn’t achieve accreditation for an emergency medical dispatch program, which resulted in the village losing its medical direction with the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton leaving the village liable for handling calls.

Krueger said the move will save the village about $360,000 annually.

Meinecke disagreed, saying the transfer has led to a 2% increase in county taxes for residents. Meinecke, whose wife Sue Meinecke is a village trustee, said the board didn’t do its due diligence to support the police department by retaining police support specialists who know the village better than the county’s dispatching center.

Wenten, who is the wife of Grafton Police Chief Charles Wenten, was not in attendance at the forum, but in a letter she stated that one the reasons she’s running is because of the consolidation of services.

“The actions of many board members and finance committee members have created the atmosphere that caused many of our police support specialists to leave Grafton, and in turn has necessitated the closing of our (police department) lobby many evenings and overnight,” she wrote.   

When discussing adding more full-time firefighters-paramedics to the fire department, Meinecke said the village should outsource firefighters through a contracting service and do away with the department’s three full-time employees.

“Honestly, we should eliminate all the full-time positions that are there,” he said.

Antoine, Krueger and Gassert disagreed. 

“Since 2010, the volume of calls has increased 34%. Obviously, we do need help,” Antoine said. 

Gassert said contractual services are typically more expensive than in-house employees and the quality of service would decline if village firefighters are outsourced.

Candidates also discussed the village’s transparency and open-records policy, which is currently under review after a spate of inquiries. 

According to village documents, the vast majority of open-records requests between July 2 and Jan. 22 were related to the transition of dispatch services. More than 60 requests were made by AnneMarie Wenten, who was seeking correspondences between village officials mostly involving the Grafton Fire Department, emergency medical dispatch and written directives given to her husband regarding dispatch services.

Krueger said he supports a transparent village government and said the board will soon be video recording its meetings. He also said anonymous social media posts have spread misinformation to the public.

“It’s better to take ownership of ones words and defend them,” he said.

Gassert and Antoine agreed. 

“Clearly it’s not transparent. You can’t counter an argument against an anonymous post,” Gassert said.

Meinecke said anonymous posts happen all the time and the voters “will decide where the truth is.”

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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