Police collective bargaining approved, demolition ordinance discussed at city council

New business filled much of the regular biweekly meeting of the Rhinelander Common Council last Monday, Jan. 26.

After hearing a presentation proposing the installation of a Safe Haven Baby Box at the Rhinelander Fire Department (detailed in the Northwoods River News Jan. 30 edition), the council turned to new business, which included a collective bargaining agreement between the city of Rhinelander and the Rhinelander Professional Police Association, Local 38 of Wisconsin Professional Police Association/Law Enforcement Employee Relations.

“We appreciate chief (Josh) Chiamulera and chief (Lloyd) Gauthier for working really hard on this, and the fine men and women in uniform too for their work on this,” said city administrator Patrick Reagan. “It’s a four-year contract; came to pretty good terms, and I think we did a good job. It took a long time, but we got it.”

The council unanimously approved the agreement. 

A major portion of the meeting was devoted to discussing city ordinance 5.01.10, the building code’s section of rules regarding the demolition of buildings. The discussion was a follow-up to concerns voiced during public comment in the council’s Jan. 12 meeting by citizen Jesse Schneider about site safety after a demolition is carried out.

City attorney Steven Sorenson said that under the ordinance, “the minute someone takes out the permit, they assume the responsibility, then they have to follow all the rules and regulations … if there was an error, a mistake, or an incomplete project, the person who took out the permit is going to be liable for any and all damages that may occur. Not the city.”

However, the statue doesn’t require the city to go visually inspect the site once the demolition is complete, he noted.

“Obviously if there was a complaint or there was a question, did it get done correctly, we’d go look … it’s like any other ordinance violation,” said Sorenson. 

Tom Roeser, who was appointed the city’s new director of public works in January, told the council, “If we take a deposit in, they should have to have an inspection done prior to backfilling, because for water and sewer it puts us in a really bad spot if they don’t cap the sewer or cap the water (as required by the ordinance).”

Sorenson recommended making the ordinance’s requirements more clear by adding a policy and procedure to the application process. 

“Here’s the thing you’ve got to watch out for: You start taking the responsibility of doing the supervision, then you’ve taken the role of the demolition company, and then when something goes wrong, you suddenly are liable to the property owner,” he cautioned. 

“I don’t think you want to take the role of the demolition company. In other words, you want them to do all the work. You just want a checklist to say ‘you got this done, you got this done, you got this done.’ We can put that on the application.”

“ ... If somebody were to come and ask us ‘why was this done?’ we can say look, here’s the permit, like this person did all of the things, per our ordinances, per our procedure — how much more can we do?” said alderperson Steven Jopek, who had requested the discussion. “But we are responsible for the safety of our constituents, and so like in this case, that is a safety issue. This is just one extra way to make sure, even though we’re not the ones doing it.”

Schneider was on hand and allowed to speak. 

“There should be someone from the city going in and kind of running past these sites to make sure the ordinances are being followed,” he said. “Because with the demolition it should be fenced off and whatnot to begin with, during the demolition process and whatnot too, and I have photographs to show that these ordinances aren’t being followed in that manner and that as of right now I have about 18 sites where they haven’t been and confirmation on a few other ones where utilities were never cut off prior to the demolition.”

“ ... We certainly can put more teeth into the application,” said Sorenson. “But there are going to be people that are going to violate, and if we find they violate, the department finds it, we’re going after them. So if there’s 18 places right now that are violating, I’m sure the department will go after them. So if you want to give the list of 18 to the fire department, I’m sure they can look into it.

“I think that answers the question. You can’t legislate every simple thing. You’ve got to do the best job you can, and I think this ordinance does that.”

“I think it gets back to … community awareness,” said Jopek. “If you see an issue, something like live wires, something like that, report it so then our inspection team can go find that, because they will follow up on those things. And so I think putting some teeth into our application, trying to add some things that emphasize the things they need to do … we’ll see how that goes.” 

“(Rhinelander fire) chief (Adam) Johnson and I will work together to beef up the application … that’s not a problem at all,” said Reagan. 

Other matters

The city council also at its Jan. 26 meeting:

• Approved a motion, after a closed session, to direct administration to finalize the compensation package for the new police chief in accordance with the directives of the council.

• Approved a resolution allowing septic truck discharge by Dick Wilson Septic Service.

• Approved setting a July 1 deadline for the fee waiver subcommittee to submit its final findings to the council.

The next regular bi-weekly meeting of the Rhinelander common council will be on Monday, Feb. 9, at 6 p.m. in the common council chambers at Rhinelander City Hall.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].