Contested races for mayor, school board to highlight spring ballot in Rhinelander

Things will be pretty straightforward for the Rhinelander area where the April 7 election is concerned. 

On the city council, there are a total of five seats up for election but only one of those, for the office of mayor, is a contested race.

Incumbent Kris Hanus will be challenged by Thomas Barnett. 

There will be a change in one of the other four city council seats as Linnaea Newman, running unopposed for re-election to one of four Rhinelander seats on the Oneida County board, is also unopposed for the sixth district city council seat. David Holt, currently in that seat, isn’t running for re-election. 

The other three council members running unopposed are LeAnn Felton, Bob Lueder and Steven Jopek. 

School board

There are five candidates for three seats on the Rhinelander school board.

Incumbents in three seats up for election this year — Mike Roberts, Duane Frey and Merlin Van Buren — are being challenged by Bill Freudenberg and Doug Artus. 

Oneida county board

There are a total of 21 county supervisor seats in Oneida County but only three will be contested this spring. 

One of them is the District 11 seat which is wards one and three in the town of Crescent. 

The incumbent is Robb Jensen and he’s challenged by Crescent fire chief Kevin Mahner. 

In District 9, composed of wards one and four in the town of Pine Lake, current county supervisor Dianna Harris is not running for re-election. 

Mary Roth Burns and Wayne Kulhanek will be on the ballot for that seat. 

The third contested race is for the District 12 seat, which includes the town of Woodboro and the second wards of Cassian, Crescent and Lake Tomahawk.

The incumbent Mitchell Ives is running for re-election and he’ll be challenged by Kyle Kilbourn.  

The district two seat, one of four representing the city of Rhinelander, is open. 

Rhinelander mayor Kris Hanus, who is the incumbent, is not running for re-election to the county board. 

In town races, Newbold also has a five member town board with two seats up for election this spring and there, incumbents Michael McKenzie and Bradley White are unopposed.