LETTER: Vote yes to make town clerk, treasurer appointed positions

To Ozaukee Press:

To Town of Fredonia residents:

We have on the ballot in the Nov. 6  election a referendum—which is kind of unusual for us. It concerns whether to continue to elect the town clerk and treasurer, or to appoint or hire them.

We’re looking at this right now because the positions have grown to where the clerk and treasurer positions need a specific set of skills in order to do a good job.

When people are elected, it becomes a sort of “beauty contest”—who has the name recognition. Many times little is known about the background, education and skills they will bring to the job. That’s not really the best way to fill a position.         

Another good reason to change this is that keeping the offices as elected means that the people chosen by voters to fill them need to be residents of the town. This limits the pool of potential applicants.

We have been lucky to have qualified people holding these positions, but it’s not always easy to find someone qualified who is willing to run. And when you happen to get someone who is unable to do the job, the only recourse is to find someone to run against them in the next election.

If we go to the appointed positions, we can hire from surrounding communities. We can seek people with the skill set necessary to handle the positions. Additionally, if a hired or appointed clerk or treasurer is unable to do the job, action can be taken to remove them.

I’ve been the town chairman for 20 years, and we’ve been extremely fortunate to have some fine, dedicated people in these positions. Over the years, however, even I have noticed how much more complicated the jobs have become. There’s much more accounting to federal and state agencies that has to be done.

At the moment, we have two extremely qualified people—Bob Eichner as town clerk and Jean Wills as treasurer. The Town Board is 100% behind these two people, and should the referendum pass, they both would be appointed.

I highly encourage a yes vote on this referendum.

Rich Mueller
Fredonia town chairman