Voters approve district referendum

The April 1, 2025, general election in Oneida County brought several changes. 

In Rhinelander, voters Tuesday approved a $20 million operational referendum for the school district and made a slight change in the make up of the board of education. 

District referendum

The school district was asking voters for approval to exceed its revenue limit by $3 million in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years; and by $7 million in the 2027-28 and 2028-29 school years.

The referendum question passed with 53% of voters in favor. There were 4,369 yes votes cast while 3,875 people voted against the measure. 

“We knew that this referendum coming down the heels of the capital project referendum was going to be a challenge but our community, once again, showed great support for our schools, for our staff and for what we’re doing here in the school district — doing all we can to support the needs of our students,” Rhinelander district superintendent Eric Burke said Wednesday. 

“We knew it was going to be a challenge. I was optimistic, based on you know feedback that we got from going to (listening sessions),” Burke added. “We went to I don’t even know how many groups, it was dozens of groups that we talked to — whether it be a group of four or five or 60 at the woman’s club — that people were supportive overall.”

Burke said people needed to “make their own choice” as far as “what they can afford.” “We understand that but we believe it was important to ask to be able to continue the program that we have in our school district,” he said. “The bigger issue — and hopefully in four years it’ll get figured out — is the state and what they’re doing for public schools. We will continue, as a school district, to advocate for especially the Northwoods schools because we don’t believe it’s fair to put districts continually on a referendum cycle to help support education.”

Burke said the district will “continue to be responsible” with its budgeting.

“We added staff supports for student needs whether it be in our college career counselors or special education, support or different supports at the elementary school to support academic and behavioral needs,” he said. “All those things were important to get us to where we feel we’re in the right direction so that the referendum passing allows us to keep that going. Because without a passing, it would’ve been some very difficult decisions.

Rhinelander school board

    Peterson
  

There were eight candidates for the four open seats on the Rhinelander school district’s board of education and three of the incumbents – Mary Peterson, Judy Conlin and Ronald  Lueneburg – were re-elected, Peterson with 4,267 votes, Conlin with 3,802 and  Lueneburg with 2,996. 

The change came with Rhinelander police officer Kurt Helke in fourth place with 2,800 votes, unseating the fourth incumbent who was seeking re-election, Doug Artus. 

He finished with 1,907 votes. 

Former Oneida County supervisor Bill Freudenberg finished in fifth place with 2,476 votes, Jacqueline Zivko had 2,054 votes and Robert Shelly was in last place with 1,890 votes. 

Contested town board races

There were several contested races in Oneida County town elections in the Northwoods River News coverage area in 2025.

Enterprise — In the town of Enterprise, there were three candidates for the two open town supervisor seats, the top vote-getters there were Scott Krueger with 135 and Arnold Schauer with 85. Jeff Griffey came in third with 59 votes.

Little Rice — Incumbent town chairman Steve Margitan narrowly withstood a challenge from Richard Bertram, 91 votes to 86. Incumbent town supervisor Ted Albright was the lone supervisor on the ballot and he received 147 votes. The other incumbent town supervisor, Larry Mathein, received the highest number of write-in votes with 37. There were eight other write-in candidates for town supervisor but none recorded more than six votes and that was Ronnie Scherer. 

Lynne — Incumbent town chairman Jeff Viegut was unopposed but in the town supervisor race, Jeff Brown and Tim Karau were top two vote-getters, Brown with 62 and Karau with 46. Darrell Rice, Jr. finished in third place with 36 votes. Dave Klemm, currently a town supervisor, ran unopposed for town treasurer. 

Monico —  Town chairman Robert Briggs was unopposed but there were three candidates for the two town supervisor seats. Ben Briggs finished with 97 votes, Nancy Fisher was in second place with 58 votes and Pierson Rawoens had 53. 

Stella — The only contest at the town level was that of town chair and Stella will have a new person in that seat. William Calvin Casey Crump defeated incumbent Kristen Hanneman by nearly 100 votes, 192 to 93.

Cassian — While there technically were no contested races for the three-member town board, there will be new town supervisors and a new town chair as incumbent town chair Patty Francouer and the two incumbent town supervisors, John Schaub and Dave Priegnitz, didn’t run for another term. Taking Francouer’s place will be Ed Phebus. The new town supervisors will be Rod Randolph who, like Phebus, was on the ballot, and Keith Gee, a write-in who garnered 24 votes. There were nine people who received write-in votes, including former town supervisor Dick Herman, who resigned from the town board last year, with six votes.  Francouer received two votes and former Oneida County supervisor Tony Rio was among six people who received one write-in vote. 

River News sports editor Jeremy Mayo contributed to this report.

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].