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Rhinelander City Council Chastises Mayor, City Adm.

An angry Rhinelander city council last night reprimanded both the City Administrator and Mayor for withholding  key information that impacted the council budget process.

Expera Specialty Solutions asked the state Department of Revenue last year to have it's paper mills  in Mosinee and Rhinelander reassessed. The new numbers had a 4.6% impact on the city's revenues. But that information was withheld by Mayor Dick Johns and City Administrator Blaine Oborn until just days before the council was to vote on this year's budget.

An angry city council  told Johns and Oborn their actions would no longer be tolerated by the council.

Alderman Alex Young...

"...at the end of the day, we don't work for Expera, we work for the taxpayers of the city. Whoever made the decision to keep that information from the city council made a pretty poor judgment as far as I'm concerned..."

Johns had met with company officials in April. He admitted asking Oborn to keep Expera's report about the steep drop in revenues quiet. Young says  city administrators knew by June that at least $8 million  in assessment were gone, which ended up being $12 million. Young says the council was not fully informed until 48 hours before a budget vote. Young says the council could have taken a much more thoughtful look at the budget, instead having to hack $200,000 at the last minute.

Young offered a motion which passed unanimously that the Finance committee begin looking at all city policies regarding open records and closed sessions. He doubted some recent closed sessions should have been closed.

Both Johns and Oborn offered apologies for the problem.

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