When Tess Serrano resigned from the Shawano County Board last month, she acknowledged that finding a replacement in her district would be difficult.
Board Chairman Tom Kautza told the executive committee June 17 he still doesn’t have a resident to fill the seat.
“One individual did ask me if he could take her place, and I told him no,” he said, referring to Tim Steffen. “There’s been nothing but issues and problems, and that individual’s been involved in it.”
Over the last several months, Steffen and others have been critical of Kautza when it comes to ethics complaints against former Supervisor Lowel Hammett, a request for a forensic audit of the county’s books to determine if $1 million was indeed missing as asserted by Hammett, the search for an alternative location for a new courthouse and government complex, and his overall leadership of the county board.
Steffen is the chairman of the Shawano County Republican Party, another reason cited by Kautza to not appoint him to the remainder of Serrano’s term.
“So then what happens next? Next time around somebody goes off of the board, then I have to find somebody from the Democratic Party to put on there? It’s endless,” Kautza said. “Counties are supposed to be nonpartisan.”
As the meeting adjourned, Steffen asked to be able to respond to Kautza’s comments.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you in the process of the agenda, and you did not ask for comment,” Steffen said to Kautza, as he was getting up to leave. “You didn’t tell the executive board the entire story. You never asked for public comment.”
Kautza told Steffen he could talk all day, but he was leaving.
“That’s one of the reasons not to appoint you,” he said. “You don’t understand the rules. We can’t go back and make up what’s on the agenda.”
Steffen also alluded to a phone conversation between the two, which ended when he said Kautza hung up on him.
Serrano represented District 27, which includes all of the towns of Hutchins and Almon, Mattoon and Ward 2 in Bowler.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
