Kyle Timmons joins Oneida County board, new human resources director hired

In a unanimous vote, the Oneida County Board of Supervisors confirmed Kyle Timmons as the new supervisor representing the town of Woodruff.

Oneida County board chairman Scott Holewinski made the appointment, which the full board ratified. Timmons takes the seat held by his late father, Mike Timmons, who passed away unexpectedly in March after many years of service.

In making the appointment, Holewinski said no one had applied for the seat for the first three months of its vacancy but that he had received three applications in the past month. In addition to the supervisory seat, Holewinski appointed Timmons to the land records committee to fill the vacancy there created by the elder Timmons’s death.

Timmons works on the town of Woodruff road crew and is also the town’s assistant fire chief.

In other matters during a short county board meeting, Maggie Cronin, a district staff member for U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin-07), addressed supervisors, urging them to pass a resolution to support Tiffany’s bill to re-designate the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore as a national park.

Cronin said appeals were being made to other county boards throughout the congressman’s district and she had forwarded a sample resolution of support to county clerk/administrator Tracy Hartman. Cronin said re-designating the area to national park status would benefit tourism and jobs.

“There are many benefits to that area of Bayfield County that would spark great economic growth up there that they desperately need,” Cronin said. “Elevating the national lakeshore would benefit that area as well as the entire state of Wisconsin. We’re fortunate it’s not right on the border of any state, and they’ll have to travel through all of our counties to get there and it will just be a great economic boost for tourism in the state of Wisconsin.”

The county also approved a resolution to use its unreserved general fund balance to pay $330,000 and $162,000 to Vilas and Forest counties respectively for Oneida County to take clear title and sole ownership of the Human Service Center property on Timber Drive and The Koinonia facility on Winnebago Street, as a “fair and equitable settlement of the fiscal issue surrounding the value of capital improvements made to Timber Drive and Winnebago Street” during the Human Service Center years.

The county will take ownership of not only the buildings and building improvements but their contents, furniture, and fixtures, as well as the land and land improvements.

The county also approved a resolution appointing Jennifer Lueneburg as human resources director to replace the retiring Lisa Charbarneau. After interviewing three candidates for the position, the county interview team unanimously selected Lueneburg at a hire rate of $95,600.

Long-time supervisor Ted Cushing, the chairman of the county’s labor relations and employee services committee, offered Charbarneau his thanks for her many years of professional service and friendship, as did supervisor Billy Fried, the chairman of the county’s executive committee.

“Lisa is a very special person,” Fried said. “She’ll be missed by the county. She’s obviously put in a lot of years of experience and worked her way up the ladder.”

When he first arrived on the board, Fried said, Charbarneau was in what he called a very “weird” position.

“I think we had lost our executive director or whatever title we had, and she wore two hats for many, many years until just recently when we appointed Tracy [Hartman] to be the administrative coordinator,” he said. “It was quite a challenge. I watched her over the years. I questioned and challenged her over the years.”

But Charbarneau was professional from start to finish, Fried said.

“My favorite thing was when I first got on the county board, and she still does this to this day, when I’d say something or ask something, her eyes would go big because I came from the private sector and she’s in the public so we kind of clashed a lot of times, but she always did it with a smile,” he said.

Fried said he witnessed Charbarneau going the extra mile for employees to try to get what they needed, especially when it came to health insurance needs.

“I’ve watched her go through many challenging situations, ones that you don’t want to be part of,” he said. “So a lot of challenges and thank you on behalf of the county for all your years of service and the foundation that you have started here in that department.”

Fried said the county was confident with its pick of Lueneburg.

“She has big shoes to fill, but she also brings her own personality and fresh ideas, so we’re proud to bring this resolution forward,” he said.

Supervisor Robb Jensen said he wanted to echo Fried’s words about Charbarneau.

“I got on the board in 2014 and, when working with Lisa, I can say that sometimes we agreed, sometimes we didn’t agree, but never was she not cordial and professional when we went in to talk to her,” Jensen said. “Human resources is a tough job. You deal with some positive things but you deal with some negative things, too. So she really did serve the county well and I really much appreciate it. I will miss her and wish her well.”

Finally, the board passed a resolution giving the county board chairman the authority to enter into settlement agreements with opioid defendants to distribute the proceeds of any settlement of all or part of litigation the county has been engaged in against certain manufacturers, distributors and retailers of opioid pharmaceuticals. 

Several of the defendants have agreed to settlements and it is expected there will be others proposed.

Corporation counsel Mike Fugle explained the significance of the resolution.

“What this does is, it delegates the authority for the county board chair to accept the settlement terms rather than having a resolution for each individual defendant that settles an opioid lawsuit,” Fugle said. “Ultimately with the opioid lawsuits, if you don’t accept the settlement, then you are agreeing to go on your own and fund separate litigation …. And so what this does is you’re just saying if there’s a settlement agreement to be signed, the county board chair can sign that settlement agreement rather than coming and getting approval for each individual one.” 

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.